The exact cause of the 11-hour riot that broke out Aug. 8 at the California Institution for Men in Chino, Calif., won’t be known until an official investigation by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is completed. However, to some criminal-justice experts the violence that erupted at the facility, located about 40 miles east of Los Angeles, was an inevitable consequence of a state prison system long hobbled by massive overcrowding, program cuts and understaffed facilities. And given the state’s ongoing budget woes ”” with $1.2 billion in cuts mandated to the prison budget ”” the situation is likely to only get worse.

“The overcrowding is the first issue,” says Barry Krisberg, president of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency in Oakland, Calif. “You’re talking about hundreds of men moved into triple bunks in what used to be gyms and cafeterias. They’re not even cells. They’re just empty places where we’re shoving people.” According to the most recent statistics from the CDCR, California’s 33 state prisons house 154,649 prisoners in facilities designed to hold just 84,271 prisoners. The Chino prison is among the worst, with 5,877 prisoners in a facility designed to hold 2,976.

Read it all.

But even if we discard these absurdities, and tune out the raucous scenes at town-hall meetings, one big distraction remains: the question of whether a “public option” should be part of the health care solution. To me, the issue is a red herring, and is getting in the way of genuine reform.

In debating the public option ”” that is, an insurance option run by the government ”” the politicians themselves are making exaggerated claims about its pros and cons. We hear from the right that an insurance plan run by the government will drive all private-sector insurers out of business and be the first step toward socialism, if not communism. The left claims that only a public option can give evil insurers the competition they need to create much-needed reform.

To evaluate these contentions, we need to know some details about how a public option would work in practice. And those details have been missing.

Read it all.

It’s been a week full of bad hair days for Anglican liberals. Their worst nightmare came to pass. Not one but two of Anglicanism’s world-renowned theologians made statements that had liberals fulminating, frothing and spitting in rage.

Firstly, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s surprisingly strong reaction to The Episcopal Church’s General Convention dealt a final blow to the bizarre pretence by the American leadership that their controversial resolutions were merely descriptive. Dr Williams realized that ”˜pastoral generosity’ amounted to a green light for same-sex blessings, and that the reference to ”˜no’ extra-canonical restraints on Episcopal elections was a turning away from an already very weak moratorium on the consecration of practising homosexuals.

Furthermore, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s clear recognition that the Episcopal Church was walking even further apart from the Anglican Communion was followed by strong language of a twin-track communion ”” with the Episcopal Church on the outside track.
Many liberals can scarcely conceal their sense of betrayal at the Archbishop of Canterbury’s defence of the ecumenical, traditional and biblical consensus on human sexuality. They thought he was one of them when he was appointed. After seeing off Carey, they were certain that good old Rowan would support a gradual overturning of Christian teaching on marriage and sexuality. Instead, he has supported Lambeth Resolution 1.10 as the ”˜mind of the Communion’ at every stage. Perhaps he is now more aware than ever that the novel, liberal teaching on homosexuality would represent a massive departure from universal Christian norms and our ecumenical partners?

And then the worst nightmare came, the New Testament theologian, NT Wright, added his voice to the Archbishop’s censure of The Episcopal Church. Let’s not forget that this is a theologian who demolishes weak, tendentious and dishonest theologies for breakfast while the rest of us are blearily chewing our Weetabix. The Bishop of Durham both supported the Archbishop of Canterbury’s analysis but also called for immediate action to twin-track the Communion now. Don’t wait for the Covenant and the endless delaying tactics of The Episcopal Church, he warned, the Communion can be restructured tomorrow allowing a substantial and faithful remnant within The Episcopal Church to rally around the Anaheim statement with its declaration of loyalty to the Communion.

He was described as ”˜megalomaniacal’ by Colin Coward of Changing Attitude for this contribution to the debate. But an even clearer sign that the archiepiscopal broadside had rattled the liberals was the knee-jerk statement by 13 liberal organizations, including Inclusive Church.

The statement’s muttering about strengthening bonds of affection “with those ”¦ who share our commitment to the full inclusion of all of God’s faithful”, together with their criticism of a “two-track communion” amounted to a declaration of guerrilla warfare in the Church of England.

The initial thinking is not just to strengthen ties with liberals in North America, but to encourage the creation of an Episcopal chaplaincy in England along the lines of the Convocation of American Churches in Europe.

But they are also intent on planting more facts on the ground. It has worked in North America, so why not here? The first initiative is a survey of gay and lesbian clergy in the Church of England in an attempt to demonstrate that far from being anomalous these relationships and civil partnerships are widely accepted. This might amount to a massive exercise in ”˜outing’ clergy, but it could, in fact, be groups like Inclusive Church who are exaggerating the numbers of practising homosexuals
in ministry. The other declaration in the statement is that they will “continue to work towards liturgical and sacramental recognition of the God-given love which enables many LGBT couples to thrive”. This is another aspect of planting facts on the ground, with the stepping up of same-sex blessings despite the fact that these are not permitted in the Church of England.

In other words, lawlessness on the part of those who claim to uphold the law of the Church of England and who have criticized evangelicals and others for undermining canon law.

Why the liberals are less of a threat than they think

So should we be concerned about this new ”˜militancy’ on the part of liberal Anglicans? Not really. Firstly, the numbers involved are very small. Many of these 13 organizations amount to little more than a man and his dog. There are also duplicated memberships. Furthermore, for a campaign to come to anything it has to be a genuine cause and you have to be principled in support of your cause.

Liberals have been a victim of their own success, they are ensconced comfortably in the Church of England, they’ve dominated the hierarchy for decades and they’ve had it too comfortable. Furthermore, they now preside over mostly moribund churches and they don’t believe anything terribly much. If you’re really going to make a difference you have to believe in it as though it’s a matter of life and death, even eternal life and death.

–This article appears in the Church of England Newspaper, August 14, 2009 edition, on page 15

[Elsa] Worth didn’t have the resources for the long-term studies required in the medical field, so it was on to massage therapy.

“When I was a massage therapist I was interested in holistic health,” she said. But gradually she realized that’s not what she wanted to focus on either. “Rather than start with physical health first, I was more interested in spiritual health,” she said.

And that led her to Andover Newton Theological School, where she finally felt that she had found her path. She was ordained in 1996 as a Unitarian Universalist minister, part of the church that she started attending in her 20s.

But somewhere along the way, Worth felt drawn to the Episcopal church. She said she was attracted to its traditional approach, which includes communion every week, and the church’s liturgy.

The Diocese of Massachusetts wasn’t taking new postulants, but she had the opportunity to transfer in 2000 when she moved back to New Hampshire. She worked as a hospital chaplain while otherwise staying home to care for her sons. Worth was ordained in 2007 by Bishop Gene Robinson, who made headlines as the first openly gay man in the Episcopalian hierarchy.

Despite what may seem to be a disjointed career path, Worth sees a commonality among her diverse callings. “It seems my whole life has been about healing and feeding, in one way or another,” she said. She also is a take-charge person. “I’m very entrepreneurial,” she said.

Read it all.

Looking back, a key domestic moment in this presidency occurred only eight days after his inauguration, when Mr. Obama won House passage of his stimulus bill. It was a bad bill””off point, porky and philosophically incoherent. He won 244-188, a rousing victory for a new president. But he won without a single Republican vote. That was the moment the new division took hold. The Democrats of the House pushed it through, and not one Republican, even those from swing districts, even those eager to work with the administration, could support it.

This, of course, was politics as usual. But in 2008 people voted against politics as usual.

It was a real lost opportunity. It marked the moment congressional Republicans felt free to be in full opposition. It gave congressional Democrats the impression that they were in full control, that no one could stop their train. And it was the moment the president, looking at the lay of the land, seemed to reveal he would not govern in a vaguely center-left way, as a unifying figure even if a beset one being beaten ’round the head by the left, but in a left way, without the modifying “center.” Or at least as one who happily cedes to the left in Congress each day.

Things got all too vividly divided. It was a harbinger of the health-care debate.

I always now think of a good president as sitting at the big desk and reaching out with his long arms and holding on to the left, and holding on to the right, and trying mightily to hold it together, letting neither spin out of control, holding on for dear life. I wish we were seeing that. I don’t think we are.

Read it all

They came in their thousands, queuing through the night to secure one of the coveted wristbands offering entry into a strange parallel universe where medical care is a free and basic right and not an expensive luxury. Some of these Americans had walked miles simply to have their blood pressure checked, some had slept in their cars in the hope of getting an eye-test or a mammogram, others had brought their children for immunisations that could end up saving their life.

In the week that Britain’s National Health Service was held aloft by Republicans as an “evil and Orwellian” example of everything that is wrong with free healthcare, these extraordinary scenes in Inglewood, California yesterday provided a sobering reminder of exactly why President Barack Obama is trying to reform the US system.

The LA Forum, the arena that once hosted sell-out Madonna concerts, has been transformed ”“ for eight days only ”“ into a vast field hospital. In America, the offer of free healthcare is so rare, that news of the magical medical kingdom spread rapidly and long lines of prospective patients snaked around the venue for the chance of getting everyday treatments that many British people take for granted.

Read it all.

My hope and prayer is that those orthodox Anglicans within TEC and those orthodox Anglicans who have departed to the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) will be able to work charitably together for the good of the global communion. The orthodoxy of the entire Anglican Communion is now at stake. TEC is pressing its false gospel overseas, and trying to keep the Archbishop of Canterbury in a state of paralysis. It is time for all the orthodox Anglicans in North America, Canadians and Americans together, to work with the orthodox Anglicans represented by the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA) Primates’ Council, and with Dr. Williams if he is willing, to build a stronger, more cohesive, orthodox Anglican Communion that will be able to challenge the culture, the religion-of-the-day, and indeed Islam itself with the pure and convincing Gospel of Jesus Christ. May the Lord help us to discover our fellowship in that common goal.

Read it all.

“I think the questions he asked showed the complexities of this case are not lost on him,” said Neil Creasy, an attorney for Christ Church. “I think it went pretty well.”

Diocesean bishop, the Right Rev. Henry I. Louttit, said Karpf asked “penetrating questions” of both sides, according to spokesman the Rev. James Parker.

Read it all.

Episcopal church officials on Friday gave the bar-hopping, big-spending Rev. Gregory Malia six months to straighten up and fly right or face the consequences – defrocking. The Diocese of Bethlehem, Pa., also barred Malia, 43, from using ecclesiastical titles or holding himself out as a priest until his case is settled.

Read it all.

You may find it here.

There’s a lot at stake for one Savannah congregation. Nearly two years ago many members of Christ Church pulled away from the Episcopal Church.

Ever since there’s been a fight over who the actual church building belongs to, the congregation or the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia.

Today both sides headed to court where a judge will now decide. The hearing was held in Chatham County Superior Court Judge Michael Karpf’s courtroom. Close to 100 people packed the room, all very passionate about this issue.

Judge Karpf made it very clear from the start of court Friday afternoon that this is a very complex issue and it will take time for him to make his ruling.

Read it all.

Without going into every detail, today’s hearing was on a motion for summary judgment by plaintiffs (TEC and the Diocese) asking for immediate possession of all real and personal property of Christ Church and an accounting. The arguments centered on the disposition of church property cases by “neutral principles of law” as decided by the United States Supreme Court in Jones v. Wolf. TEC and the Diocese interpret Jones v. Wolf to read that in such a “neutral principles” case, where the governing documents of a hierarchical church are clear, they are decisive. Hence the 1979 Dennis Canon-which unilaterally imposed a trust interest in favor of TEC in the property of each local church-trumps all other principles and the property belongs to the Diocese and/or TEC.

Not so fast, said the Judge. Is this Dennis Canon “severable” from the rest of the TEC canons-including matters of doctrine into which the courts cannot inquire? Does the Dennis Canon trump Diocesan canons that cut in favor of Christ Church? In response to TEC’s argument that the Dennis Canon is merely a codification of a “common understanding and practice” that the property of the local church is held in trust for the denomination, Judge Karpf asked if a “mere understanding” not expressly within the governing documents is a neutral principle? What if the rules of procedure governing the passage of a canon by General Convention were violated? What about the unilateral nature of the Dennis Canon and the lack of notice to the local congregation?

Now it was Christ Church’s turn to argue against plaintiffs motion for summary judgment and in support of their cross motion for summary judgment against TEC and the Diocese. Counsel for Christ Church argued that the plaintiff’s interpretation of “neutral principles” in Jones v Wolf was seriously flawed, and that their arguments ignored both Georgia law and the unique nature of the 1789 Georgia legislature’s grant of property to Christ Church prior to the very existence of the Diocese of Georgia.

Read it all.

Jonathan Myrick Daniels, Priest, Martyr
August 14, 2009

A Pastoral Word

My Sisters and Brothers:

As you may know, yesterday the Rt. Rev. Mark Lawrence, Bishop of our neighboring Diocese of South Carolina, called a meeting of his clergy to discuss the future of the diocese in the light of resolutions D025 and C056, passed at General Convention 2009. [D025, affirming, in accord with the canons, the openness of the ordination process, and C056, calling for collection, over the next triennium, of resources for blessing same-sex unions and for “generous pastoral response to meet the needs of members of this Church,” “particularly in dioceses within civil jurisdictions where same-gender marriage, civil unions, or domestic partnerships are legal.”]

Because of the historical and social ties between our two dioceses, what happens in one diocese affects the life of the other; and because recent secular news reporting on the Episcopal Church has been filled with inaccuracies and misleading phrases, I want to provide for your firsthand information Bishop Lawrence’s complete statement to his clergy. I also refer once more to my website comments on General Convention as a reminder of my own position on these issues.

Follow this link for my comments, and this one for Bishop Lawrence’s statement.

In closing, let me say that my most immediate concern about all this is for you, my clergy, and what you may face this coming Sunday morning. Holding a faithfully comprehensive middle ground on such intense issues is difficult and costly; yet, it is the ground that I believe must be tended and done so with great care. I am grateful to you, the clergy of Upper South Carolina, for being such good partners in tending this ground with me; and I am mindful that a number of you may be confronted next Sunday morning by the legitimately confused and/or the highly agitated. My concern is that I do not want you to feel as if you are on your own.

So, even though I am away from the Diocese at this time, I nonetheless send you my deepest care and affection and a blessing, hoping that this message is a tangible reminder that we are in this together and that our God is the God of deliverance and new life. Please join me, as I know you do, in praying that we may use our firmly rooted trust in God to be courageously open to receiving the Holy One’s gracious life and will.

–(The Rt. Rev.) Dorsey Henderson is Bishop of Upper South Carolina

Read it all.

The Episcopal Church’s protestation that it has not ended the ban on gay bishops or blessings has not found support outside its borders.

After strong international reaction against the decisions of the recent General Convention, US Church leaders moved quickly to claim that the Church had not changed its position.

But critics said that this was the inevitable outcome when the Episcopal Church opened the discernment process for new bishops to gay clergy and permitted dioceses to compile and develop rites for the blessings of same-sex unions None of the American church’s allies among the 38 provinces of the Anglican Communion have publicly spoken up in support of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s claims that nothing has changed, while several sharp statements have been released by overseas provinces and dioceses charging that the Episcopal Church had walked away from the Anglican Communion.

On July 18 Bishop Jefferts Schori stated that “in 2009” there are “more and deeper relationships with parts of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion than five or 10 years ago.”

Read it all.

Last month in Anaheim, Calif., the Episcopal General Convention declared gays and lesbians in committed relationships eligible for “any ordained ministry.” The move came despite Anglican world leaders’ calls for a clear moratorium on consecrating another gay bishop.

The divide in the Episcopal Church in the last few years has led to the formation of the more conservative Anglican Church in North America, which claims 100,000 members.

Headed into next week’s convention, ELCA leaders on both sides of the issue wonder if a similar split could be in store for them.

“I’m not going to predict that,” said Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson, the national leader of the Chicago-based denomination. “I’m also not going to deny that I have concerns about the implications about whatever we do, for our life together coming out of it.”

Read it all.

Click here to listen to audio clip (Hat tip: JB).

What he says at the beginning, because the audio is not entirely clear, is that he promised his wife Martha that he would not say anything at the clergy day. That is followed by a lot of laughter when he explains he is now breaking that promise.

Last week, thanks to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal government took a giant leap toward encroaching on the religious liberty of Catholics. Reuben Daniels Jr., director of the EEOC District Office in Charlotte, N.C, ruled that a small Catholic college discriminated against female employees by refusing to cover prescription contraceptives in its health insurance plan. With health-care reform looming before the country, this ruling is a bad omen for people of faith.

In 2007, eight faculty members filed a complaint against Belmont Abbey College in Belmont, N.C., claiming that the school’s decision to exclude prescription contraceptives from its health-care plan was discriminatory against women. “As a Roman Catholic institution, Belmont Abbey College is not able to and will not offer nor subsidize medical services that contradict the clear teaching of the Catholic Church,” said the college’s president, William Thierfelder, at the time.

In March the commission informed the college that the investigation of its employee health insurance plan had been closed with no finding of wrongdoing. Inexplicably, the case was reopened, and now the college is charged with violating federal law. If Belmont Abbey doesn’t back down, the EEOC will recommend court remedies.

Read it all.

The General Convention met in the home of Mickey Mouse and some have come back trying to take the rest of us spinning on the Mad Hatter’s Tea Ride. It strains credulity that there are Bishops and Deputies returning from GC 2009 acting as if or outright saying or naively hoping that nothing changed in Anaheim. Life for the Anglican Communion as we knew it changed here:

That the 76th General Convention affirm that God has called and may call such individuals, to any ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church, and that God’s call to the ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church is a mystery which the Church attempts to discern for all people through our discernment processes acting in accordance with the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church. (2009 GC Res. D025)

No General Convention did not overturn B033; it passed a resolution which superseded it. It superseded B033 in that resolve just referenced. Up until that point the resolution could have been characterized as simply descriptive. The aforementioned resolve is not descriptive of a conversation but states a settled theological position, “God has called and may call.”

It is ironic that the resolution refers to the discernment process. No person gay or otherwise would be recommended for ordination if a Vestry, Rector, Standing Committee, and Commission of Ministry all said that they didn’t sense a calling. And yet here we are passing a resolution which as we all painfully know [because it is referring to someone in a non-celibate partnership] that the Communion, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Orthodox Churches as well as most of the Protestant denominations don’t agree and will never agree.

Read it all.

Richard Poncher’s eternal sleep will soon be disrupted.

The onetime Beverly Hills resident, who died 23 years ago at the age of 81, will be moving out of the crypt above Marilyn Monroe’s resting spot at the Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park cemetery. Poncher’s wife intends to sell the crypt, said to have once been owned by Monroe’s former husband, Yankee great Joe DiMaggio.

So although the plaque on Poncher’s crypt reads: “To the man who gave us everything and more,” his wife, Elsie, is hoping that he has just a little more to give. She wants to use the money to help pay off the $1.6-million mortgage on her 1 3/4 acre Beverly Hills home.

Read it all.

One of the many contentions of this blog over the years is that The Episcopal Church is in significant trouble as an institution. While I believe this is primarily because of theological factors, no monocausal explanation is sufficient to describe what is occurring. What remains disturbing, however, is the degree of denial by the National Episcopal leadership about the scale of this problem.

I think a lot of TEC statistics overstate the strength of TEC on the ground. For example, people in parish ministry know well that the real membership of a parish is roughly twice the Average Sunday Attendance.

So you know something is fishy when TEC claims some 2.2 million members, and average Sunday attendance is now under 800,000 (768,476 according to the national church office).

One goldmine for this data is the research and statistics page kept by Kirk Hadaway’s office at the national church.

As an example of the scale of the problem this morning, consider one diocese, Lexington. If you look at baptized membership, Lexington shrank from 8949 in 1997 to 8002 in 2007. That is a decline of 10.6%. Now, however, consider the more meaningful number, Average Sunday Attendance. In this category, Lexington fell from 3905 to 2973 in the period from 1997-2007. That is a decline of 24%.

It is part of a significant national trend, and it is a major issue–KSH.

They are still married–how wonderful.

Kenya’s coalition government has lost the confidence of its people and must go, the National Council of Churches of Kenya said on July 31 after the government reneged on its pledge to bring to justice those responsible for the 2007 post-election violence that led to the deaths of 1,500 people and the displacement of 300,000 others.

In a statement published on its website and distributed to the media by the group’s chairman, the Rev Canon Peter Karanja, the NCCK said the government’s decision to drop a special tribunal to “try the suspected perpetrators of the post-election violence is the greatest betrayal of the people of Kenya.”

President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga had “failed to protect justice” and “in the face of such betrayal, Kenyans must resoundingly put across a strong message that the moral authority of the grand coalition government to govern has been grossly undermined.”

Read it all.

“Today we’re in a very different place and today is a day of opportunity,” Bishop MacDonald told First Nations, Metis and Inuit Anglicans gathered at the 6th Indigenous Sacred Circle here.

While some might predict the collapse of the church in indigenous communities across Canada, said Bishop MacDonald, “I would like to predict that we’re going to see great things happen.”

History has shown that the greatest revival of the church in other parts of the world took place when missionaries left and native congregations took up the responsibilities of being church, Bishop MacDonald said in his keynote speech. He noted that American and European missionaries predicted the “total collapse” of churches in Asia and Africa when they left in the 70s due to lack of funds. What took place instead, he said, was “the greatest revival and greatest turning to Christ in any period since the time of the apostles.”

Read it all.

The bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, increasingly disenchanted with the direction of the national Episcopal Church, on Thursday called a convention to discuss the future of the conservative diocese.

“Frankly, I don’t know how to say this in any other way but to tell you that this is a call to action; of mobilization of clergy, parishes and laity,” the…[Rt.] Rev. Mark Lawrence said in a speech released after he delivered it to clergy representing 75 parishes in the lower and eastern part of the state. He made the address at St. James Church on James Island.

Read it all.

In a post last Sunday, I offered a “Modest Proposal” for orthodox dioceses to go forward within the Episcopal Church (USA). The gist of my proposal was that the orthodox plow ahead, keeping true to their own traditional path, and simply ignore the bureaucracy at 815 and elsewhere — because the bottom line is that they can do nothing to a diocese that stays in the Church. Neither 815 nor General Convention nor the Presiding Bishop has any power to compel a Diocese within the Church to do anything. And if enough orthodox dioceses were to come together in a mutual protection plan, even threatened depositions could be effectively countered to the point where ECUSA would sink in a morass of litigation.

Now it appears that the Diocese of South Carolina might be embarking on the first steps toward such a brave strategy. Bishop Mark Lawrence addressed his assembled clergy today, and included the following statement of intention:

The Standing Committee and bishop will be proposing a resolution to come before the special convention that this diocese begin withdrawing from all bodies of governance of TEC that have assented to actions contrary to Holy Scripture; the doctrine, discipline and worship of Christ as this church has received them; the resolutions of Lambeth which have expressed the mind of the Communion; the Book of Common Prayer (p.422-423) and the Constitution & Canons of TEC (Canon 18:1.2.b) until such bodies show a willingness to repent of such actions. Let no one think this is a denial of the vows a priest or bishop makes to participate in the councils of governance. This is not a flight into isolation; nor is it an abandonment of duty, but the protest of conscience. . . .

Some have already questioned whether this means that the Diocese of South Carolina will be following the path of the Dioceses of San Joaquin, Pittsburgh, Fort Worth and Quincy. After all, one of the bodies that has given its assent to actions contrary to Holy Scripture is General Convention itself, and would not a withdrawal from General Convention be a withdrawal from the Episcopal Church (USA)?

Not necessarily. I do not claim to be privy to South Carolina’s intentions and strategies, but like the next Episcopalian, I can read Bishop Lawrence’s statement in context. Had he meant to propose a resolution to withdraw from ECUSA, he could have said so; but he did not. He spoke of beginning to withdraw….

Read it all.

The Secretary General, Canon Kenneth Kearon, has announced the appointment of Canon Dr Alyson Barnett-Cowan as Director for Unity, Faith and Order at the Anglican Communion Office. The post is a new one in the Communion, and arose after some restructuring following the election of Canon Gregory Cameron, formally Director of Ecumenical Affairs and Deputy Secretary General, as Bishop of St Asaph in the Church in Wales.

Canon Barnett-Cowan is currently Director of Faith, Worship and Ministry of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada, a post she has held since 1995. She has wide experience of the life of the Anglican Communion, having been a member of the Lambeth Commission on Communion (2003-4) and of the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations (2000-2008). She is currently a consultant to the Anglican-Lutheran International Commission, and has been a member of the Plenary Commission, Faith and Order at the World Council of Churches.

Read it all.

The Anglican Church of Canada’s top aboriginal bishop says formally renouncing the Doctrine of Discovery ”” the historic legal claim underlying the conquest of the New World by Anglo-Italian sailor John Cabot and other early European explorers ”” “is a matter of basic justice” for the First Nations dispossessed by the arbitrary regal pronouncement.

National Indigenous Bishop Mark MacDonald, a U.S.-born cleric who was trained in Canada before becoming the Anglican Church’s principal voice on native issues in 2007, was responding to news the U.S. arm of the church has renounced the doctrine and asked Queen Elizabeth ”” the titular head of the global Anglican community ”” to “disavow and repudiate” it publicly.

Read it all.

The Diocese of South Carolina needs to distance itself from the governing bodies of The Episcopal Church, its bishop said Thursday in an address to clergy meeting at St. James’ Church, James Island, Charleston, S.C.

The Rt. Rev. Mark Lawrence, bishop since January 2008, did not urge the diocese to break all ties with The Episcopal Church.

Bishop Lawrence and the standing committee have called for a special convention on Oct. 24 to vote on proposals that Bishop Lawrence presented during the meeting. He and the standing committee discussed these proposals during a marathon meeting on July 28.

Read it all.

The bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, increasingly disenchanted with the direction of the national Episcopal Church, on Thursday called a convention to discuss the future of the conservative diocese.

“Frankly, I don’t know how to say this in any other way but to tell you that this is a call to action; of mobilization of clergy, parishes and laity,” the Very Rev. Mark Lawrence said in a speech released after he delivered it to clergy representing 75 parishes in the lower and eastern part of the state.

Last month, the national church, during its California convention, authorized bishops to bless same-sex unions. The Episcopal Church consecrated its first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, in 2003.

Read it all.