The room has a computer with music software on it, but Rivers still composes most of his tunes by hand. And at 85, he still practices two hours a day. He says that in central Florida, he’s experiencing the most creative time in his life.

“I’m getting more ideas now ”” I think I’m far more mentally inspired creatively than I was when I was like 50 or maybe even 40,” Rivers insists. “I have so many more ideas. I have so much more knowledge. It’s great, it’s sort of like the universe: The more you see out there, the more there is. I don’t expect to ever reach my full achievement. I don’t expect to ever have that. Until I pass there’s gonna be, like there’s always more, you know?”

Sam Rivers is happy to spend most of his time in Florida. But he wants to squeeze in one last international tour. And Rivers is also looking for some institution to give a home to his life’s work of more than 300 compositions ”” before they overwhelm the shelves and filing cabinets that have begun to spread beyond his music room.

I caught this one this morning on the way to worship. What a great attitude–the man is an inspiration. Read or listen to it all.

When the Rev. Ruth Strang gives her last sermon next Sunday, she’ll do so knowing she finally answered God’s calling.

Strang, who started as a pastor with St. John’s Episcopal Church in Howell in 1994, will step down officially Oct. 1 after 15 years of what she called a “fantastic spiritual journey.”

More than any single memory or feeling at the church, Strang said she’d remember the journey ”” of her and her congregation ”” the most.

“I think it’s been a journey in which there were so many moments we’ve developed as a caring family,” Strang said. “God called me to do this, and I took a long time to answer. Now, it’s time for me to do something else.”

Read it all.

ABERNETHY: She is deeply worried about the degradation of the earth’s environment, especially its oceans, and she is scathing on popular, commercial culture.

ROBINSON: The idea that everything always has to push some extreme, you know, be more violent, be more sort of disrespectful of human life, and so on””there’s a cynicism about it, things that have to do with mayhem, that make it look like it would be a lot of fun, you know, to wipe out your adversaries or something like that, that really treat people like dispensable, you know, items.

ABERNETHY: Do you see it as a barrier to religious life?

ROBINSON: I think it is a serious distraction. We have to think that people are sacred. Human beings have to be considered sacred. That’s the beginning.

ABERNETHY: And the political climate?

ROBINSON: It’s a little shocking when you hear people say, like about this health thing we’re going through now, what’s in it for me, you know? That’s a huge change in the basic values of the culture. I got sort of tired when I was a kid of hearing people say you have to leave the world better than you found it. But now I think I would burst into tears if somebody said that to me””just, what a lovely thought, you know?

Read it all and if you have time follow the link to the extended interview

Leaders from the world’s 19 largest economies plus the European Union will be in Pittsburgh on September 24th and 25th. When the White House press corps heard the G20 was to be hosted by Pittsburgh, many sniggered. Usually such meetings are held in capitals like Beijing or London, not rustbelt cities. But, as Barack Obama said on September 8th, Pittsburgh has “transformed itself from the city of steel to a centre for high-tech innovation””including green technology, education and training, and research and development.”

Today, its main industries, health care and education, are thriving. Pittsburgh’s health-services business has almost tripled in size since 1979, creating more than 100,000 jobs. More than 70,000 work in research and development in the metro area’s 35 universities (Jonas Salk produced the polio vaccine at the University of Pittsburgh in 1955) and 100 corporate research centres, such as that of Bayer usa, a pharmaceuticals company. Greg Babe, its head, says six jobs rely on one Bayer job.

Pittsburgh has changed itself physically too. The waterfront, once lined with factories, has been given over to parks. The building hosting the G20 is the world’s first and largest LEED-certified (meaning green) convention centre and sits on the city’s former red-light district. Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse, which provides investment and advice to the region’s bioscience firms, is housed on a redeveloped brownfield, the former site of a strip-mill. SouthSide Works is a 123-acre (50-hectare) development made up of shops, offices, hotels and apartments that sits on the former site of an LTV Steel plant. Manufacturing continues to employ 8% of the workforce and the city is still home to US Steel. It is also a centre for innovation in robotics, electronics and nanotechnology.

Read the whole thing.

I remember standing at Meeting and Broad streets, the famous Four Corners of Law, thinking this was a historic moment. As a reporter, I felt lucky to be there. As a citizen, however, it was devastating.

A few hours later, I waded onto the barrier islands and witnessed firsthand what looked like a war zone. The power of such a storm made houses on the island look like they had been inside a blender.

In the days to come, the sound of chain saws would dominate our senses as we all witnessed the aftermath of a nightmare.

I remember walking through the rubble of people’s homes and wondering how long it would take for us to recover from such a disaster.

Turns out, some of us never will.

Read it all.

An old city, like anyone who has lived a bold life, will have many scars. Over its lifetime, Charleston has weathered plagues, wars, fires, storms and earthquakes ”” events that left the city in ruins and terrified its residents.

Some scars from these traumatic times are still visible today; others healed outwardly but remain part of the city’s collective memory and are as real as the morning light.

Twenty years ago, Hurricane Hugo, a dark mass of spinning winds and vapor as big as the state itself, tore into South Carolina.

Those who went through the storm will never forget the rising waters, the freight-train wail of the winds, the Ben Sawyer Bridge tilting in the marsh, the pines snapped halfway up their trunks, the pink insulation everywhere, the convoys of people coming to help, the exhaustion at the end of a day trying to make things normal again.

Hard to believe it has been two decades. I remember a lot of things, but most of all the sound the wind made. It is a sound I never want to hear again. Read it all–KSH.

According to the energy economist Phil Verleger, a $1 tax on gasoline and diesel fuel would raise about $140 billion a year. If I had that money, I’d devote 45 cents of each dollar to pay down the deficit and satisfy the debt hawks, 45 cents to pay for new health care and 10 cents to cushion the burden of such a tax on the poor and on those who need to drive long distances.

Such a tax would make our economy healthier by reducing the deficit, by stimulating the renewable energy industry, by strengthening the dollar through shrinking oil imports and by helping to shift the burden of health care away from business to government so our companies can compete better globally. Such a tax would make our population healthier by expanding health care and reducing emissions. Such a tax would make our national-security healthier by shrinking our dependence on oil from countries that have drawn a bull’s-eye on our backs and by increasing our leverage over petro-dictators, like those in Iran, Russia and Venezuela, through shrinking their oil incomes.

In sum, we would be physically healthier, economically healthier and strategically healthier. And yet, amazingly, even talking about such a tax is “off the table” in Washington. You can’t mention it. But sending your neighbor’s son or daughter to risk their lives in Afghanistan? No problem. Talk away. Pound your chest.

I am not sure what the right troop number is for Afghanistan; I need to hear more. But I sure know this: There is something wrong when our country is willing to consider spending more lives and treasure in Afghanistan, where winning is highly uncertain, but can’t even talk about a gasoline tax, which is win, win, win, win, win ”” with no uncertainty at all.

Read it all.

The principal of Millburn High, New Jersey’s top-ranked high school, says it has gone on for a decade: annual hazing by senior girls who create a “slut list” of incoming freshmen for the first day of school. A dozen or more names are written on a piece of notebook paper, with crass descriptions, and copies are passed around ”” hundreds this year, some say.

“We’ve had girls ”” which is one of the bad things ”” obsessed that their names are on it, and girls who were upset that they didn’t make the list,” said the principal, William Miron. “It’s basically vulgar.”

And that is not the only type of hazing that goes on, some girls say. Seniors blow whistles in some girls’ faces and jostle or push them into lockers, leaving them afraid to come to school the next day.

Read it all.

The October talks will draw controversy over whether they help legitimize the Iranian regime. Obama’s GOP critics, stepping up their overall critique of his foreign policy as too soft, will accuse him of making concessions to Iran, just as they accused him of making concessions to Russia on missile defense. Obama aides say these aren’t concessions, they’re decisions based on the U.S. national interest. The legitimacy of Iran’s regime, they add, will be determined on the streets of Tehran, not in a European conference room.

Those are defensible positions. But there’s nothing wrong with concessions if they lead to greater results in return. The confrontation with Iran is moving into a critical period. To Iran’s nuclear technology clock, and Israel’s existential threat clock, add a third clock: Obama’s promised results clock. The clocks are running.

Read it all.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has recently published “reflections” proposing major changes in the way the Anglican Communion is organised. Because of growing willingness in the Episcopal Church (TEC) both to consider it possible that lesbians and gays, including those who are partnered, may be called to any kind of ministry within the church, and also to respond positively to requests to bless same-sex unions, he has suggested a “two-track” approach. Provinces such as TEC in North America would not be able to carry out certain functions such as representing the Anglican Communion in ecumenical circles, while those which signed up to a Covenant would have a more central position.

This research paper describes the background, examines the evidence on which the Archbishop’s main points are based and discusses the implications. It is suggested that some of his claims about the nature of change in the church are historically incorrect, and that TEC has made greater efforts to abide by decisions made at international Anglican gatherings, and the overall ethos of the Communion, than many provinces which might sign up to the Covenant. Important aspects of the Anglican heritage have been rejected in recent years by some of TEC’s most vigorous critics, at a cost to the vulnerable in society and church mission and ministry.

While the intention of the Archbishop’s proposal is to promote Christian unity and spiritual growth, there is a strong possibility that the results will be the opposite. A different approach, less focused on institutional structures, might be more effective in addressing divisions and ultimately enabling Anglicans to move towards a deeper unity.

Read it all.

While you were posting vacation photos and messaging your friends, Facebook just became the world’s fourth largest “nation.”

Pause for a moment to consider that fact. In the last year, Facebook, the social networking site to which you likely already belong, has seen its membership rolls triple in the last year . . .to a total of 300 million members. And, if those trends are continuing, Facebook today will add another 3 million members ”“ that is, the population of a city the size of Berlin, Madrid or Buenos Aires ”“ today.

Three hundred million members is a mind-boggling number. In terms of population, it would put Facebook on the list only behind China, India and the United States ”“ and just above Indonesia, Brazil and Pakistan. It is almost as big as the entire population of the European Union, of sub-Saharan Africa, or South America. And, incredibly, it is equal to the entire population of the world in 1000 A.D..

Read it all.

President Barack Obama said tougher financial regulations are needed worldwide to protect consumers, provide economic stability and prevent future crises.

With the leaders from the Group of 20 nations set to meet next week in Pittsburgh, Obama said in his weekly address on the radio and Internet that international cooperation has “stopped our economic freefall.”

“We know we still have a lot to do, in conjunction with nations around the world, to strengthen the rules governing financial markets and ensure that we never again find ourselves in the precarious situation we found ourselves in just one year ago,” Obama said.

Read the whole article.

“Eye-opening.” “Shocking.” “A wild scramble.”

Those are some of the sentiments expressed Wednesday by participants in East Cooper Community Outreach’s poverty simulation exercise.

The event was designed to expose people with stable incomes to the daily anxieties and challenges experienced by the poor.

Participants were assembled into family groups, assigned roles (mother, father, child) and provided with a set of circumstances. The goal was simple: to survive.

One “family” was comprised of a single mom, her boyfriend and a 1-year-old baby. Another included an out-of-work dad and rambunctious children. Another featured a dependent senior.

Read it all from the Faith and Values section of the local paper.

I have now to affirm once again my opposition to schism as a method of affording protection to those whose beliefs and ideals were normal in the recent past. The unwillingness of our church to adopt unusual methods to afford safe haven to a disenfranchised and impotent minority, because TEC is governed by a “winner take all” form of governance is in itself a scandal. A simple expedient of the English “flying bishops” idea, adopted by a church which has a real claim to historic and unique territorial diocesan integrity, a system adopted to preserve unity, in that it was rejected by our “denominational” church, only underlines the stubborn and “conservative” policy of our majoritarian leadership. The simple adoption of protective measures to afford a safe haven for those who cannot in conscience submit to current TEC policies would have trumped schismatic schemes which have led to our present divisions. Our church would be lauded for its tolerance and comprehension while free to pursue the ideals of the majority. What would have emerged would have been “comprehension” tailored to years of conflict.

Instead TEC has asked the secular State by its courts to adjudicate not only property disputes but explicitly in is pleadings the doctrinal and structural ethos of what it means to be an Anglican in America.

Read it all.

It was supposed to be the week President Barack Obama saved the world. More than 100 heads of state are preparing to descend on New York for talks on halting climate change, promoting nuclear disarmament, defeating terrorism in Pakistan and tackling poverty in sub-Saharan Africa ”” all before a G20 meeting in Pittsburgh on Friday aimed at reaching agreements on global financial regulation and curbing bankers’ bonuses.

The headline-grabber was expected to be the relaunch of the stalled Middle East peace process, to be followed a week later by America’s first direct talks with Iran since the Islamic revolution in 1979.

Instead, attempts to revive talks between Israelis and Palestinians, the cornerstone of the administration’s foreign policy, have failed so far. Western diplomats say it will take all the president’s considerable charisma to revive them.

Read it all.

Almighty God, who didst call thy servant Theodore of Tarsus from Rome to the see of Canterbury, and didst give him gifts of grace and wisdom to establish unity where there had been division, and order where there had been chaos: Create in thy Church, we pray, by the operation of the Holy Spirit, such godly union and concord that it may proclaim, both by word and example, the Gospel of the Prince of Peace; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Nearly 2,000 social and political conservatives have assembled in Washington this weekend for the “Values Voter Summit.” It’s an annual event, organized by groups like the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family.

This year, many of the participants are feeling under siege, with Democrats in control of both Congress and the White House. But they’re promising a religious and political revival in 2010.

Rep. Mike Pence, a Republican from Indiana, was one of the first speakers at the summit, which runs through Sunday, offering such workshops as “Global Warming Hysteria” and “Countering the Homosexual Agenda in Public Schools.”

The participants’ own agendas vary, but they’re united in their suspicion of just about everything that’s happening in Washington, from propping up the auto industry to remaking health care.

Read or listen to it all.

In response to the criticism directed at her General Convention Opening Address, Katharine Jefferts Schori has published an explanation of what she said. “Apparently I wasn’t clear”. Whether her explanation clarifies what she originally said, or obsfuscates it, is a question that different people will answer in different ways. Some will think that this what she meant all along. Others will wonder whether she has not snatched up the fig leaf of orthodoxy to cover up her heterodox teaching.

What she meant to say, she now says, is that “we give evidence of our relationship with God in how we treat our neighbors, nearby and far away. Salvation is a gift from God, not something we can earn by our works, but neither is salvation assured by words alone.” That’s unexceptionable so far as it goes. Doubts, however, remain, and not inconsequential ones. Classical Anglican doctrine could not have talked about good works as she does (at length) without clarifying their relationship with individual faith (see the Articles of Religion XI-XIV). It insisted that there is no right relationship (justification) of the individual with God without faith, and that there are no good works of neighbourly love without individual faith either. Without faith, our good works turn into Pelagian works-righteousness – which do not restore us to right relationship with our neighbour, or to God. Yet Jefferts Schori can only repeat her negative account of individualism, and on the relation of faith to justification and good works she is strikingly silent. She disclaims Pelagian works-righteousness ”“ “salvation is a gift of God” ”“ but given that she cannot say how that grace operates through the faith of the individual, there is nothing in her theology to prevent a collapse into it. She can issue a further clarification, if she wishes, explaining that she is in favour of justifying faith too (though this would involve backtracking on her “individualism is heresy” theme): but the lacuna is troubling. If you are striving to assure critics of your doctrinal orthodoxy, how do you ”˜overlook’ faith?

Moreover, classical Anglicanism would also have said that faith has a doctrinal content. Schori seems unable to speak of doctrine in positive terms ”“ only the comment about the insufficiency of “words alone”. Even her doctrinal affirmations have an oddly tentative ring. “We anticipate the restoration of all creation to right relationship, and we proclaim that Jesus’ life, death and resurrection made that possible in a new way.” Does this mean that restoration was possible in another way? Or that it is only a possibility? And just how does “Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection” make this possible? We can read a classical account of the atonement into that phrase, but we have no reason to do so. Many do not. Perhaps she is once more being “unclear”? She concludes with another unimpeachable platitude, that salvation “is a mystery. It’s hard to pin down or talk about.” That’s a cheap exit. The Biblical concept of “mystery” does not mean “vague” or “ambiguous”.

As an effort to set to rest the doctrinal anxieties of her critics, Ms. Jefferts Schori’s response is remarkably ineffective. It leaves us with a choice of conclusions: either she is not capable of the requisite theological clarity, or she really does not want to be clear. Given a bishop’s role as teacher of the faith and focus of unity, neither conclusion is re-assuring.

–The Rev. Gavin Dunbar is rector, Saint John’s, Savannah, Georgia

Here is one:

4. Title: Task Force on Reunion

Resolved: that this 144th Annual Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church direct the Standing Committee (or Ecclesiastical Authority) of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh to form a broadly based task force, including at least three clergy and three lay persons, to study the possibility of the reunion of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh and the Episcopal Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania under the provisions of Title I, canon 10, section 6 of the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church, 2006 [see below], and to prepare a report on the results of that study and any recommendations to the 145th Annual Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, in the fall of 2010. The Task Force shall consider specifically the potential long-term impact of such reunion on the financial and administrative resources of the two dioceses, and shall invite the Bishop and Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania to participate in the study.

Read them all

Here are some of the highlights found within its pages:

♦ The diocese has grown. A section on parish statistics shows that total membership among our 28 parishes now stands at 9833, a five-percent increase over what those same parishes reported a year ago.

♦ The proposed $847,000 budget would lower what most parishes pay in diocesan assessments. On the expense side, the diocese would allocate more funds to support congregations and special outreach initiatives, especially for youth.
♦ More than a dozen resolutions have been offered. They range from courtesy recognitions to addressing the diocese’s relationships within the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion. One resolution not yet included – but soon to be added – asks the Convention to approve the Standing Committee’s recommendation to transfer ecclesiastical authority to a provisional bishop, namely Bishop Kenneth Price.

♦ The document contains the names and biographical sketches of those nominated to fill elected leadership positions and the annual reports and activities of twenty diocesan governing groups, offices, and organizations.

Read it all.

Applied Materials is one of the most important U.S. companies you’ve probably never heard of. It makes the machines that make the microchips that go inside your computer. The chip business, though, is volatile, so in 2004 Mike Splinter, Applied Materials’ CEO, decided to add a new business line to take advantage of the company’s nanotechnology capabilities ”” making the machines that make solar panels. The other day, Splinter gave me a tour of the company’s Silicon Valley facility, culminating with a visit to its “war room,” where Applied maintains a real-time global interaction with all 14 solar panel factories it’s built around the world in the past two years. I could only laugh because crying would have been too embarrassing.

Not a single one is in America.

Let’s see: Five are in Germany, four are in China, one is in Spain, one is in India, one is in Italy, one is in Taiwan, and one is even in Abu Dhabi. I suggested a new company motto for Applied Materials’ solar business: “Invented here, sold there.”

The reason that all these other countries are building solar-panel industries today is because most of their governments have put in place the three perquisites for growing a renewable energy industry: 1) Any business or homeowner can generate solar energy; 2) if they decide to do so, the power utility has to connect them to the grid; and 3) the utility has to buy the power for a predictable period at a price that is a no-brainer good deal for the family or business putting the solar panels on their rooftop.

Read the whole piece.

Jewish leaders are calling on U.S. rabbis to emphasize the faith’s ethical requirements in their sermons during Rosh Hashana in response to recent financial scandals involving its members, including Bernard Madoff.

Jews have been embarrassed the past year by the arrest of former Wall Street tycoon Madoff, who is serving a 150-year prison sentence for defrauding investors out of billions of dollars, and several rabbis who were arrested in July on money laundering charges, said Richard Joel, president of Yeshiva University in New York.

Widely distributed images showed them being led into the FBI building in Newark in rabbinical garb and handcuffs didn’t help.

Read it all.

Three ugly developments in Africa have weakened its case on the eve of a G-20 summit at which the continent will seek attention from the world’s economic and financial leaders.

What Africa will want is financial help to soften the blow from the recession. Africa is perhaps the part of the world least able to sustain the setback. Its countries are feeling the effects of the downturn and their governments have few, if any, resources to put into economic stimulus packages.

Their case will be appealing but Africa is hard to help, to some extent because of what it does to itself or, more precisely, what its leaders do. Three recent cases are examples….

Read it all.

They play an important role–watch it all.

To many people Christianity seems to be a religion that fears the body, containing it and its appetites. From teaching on sexual continence to the exhortations to the faithful on fasting and abstinence, Christianity is connected in the sceptic’s mind with denial.

Yet Christianity is a very “fleshy” religion. At its heart is not just God or the supernatural but the body, with all its bones, blood and skin. The Incarnation ”” the miracle that means that God became man ”” is so familiar to Christians that it is easy to overlook what this means. But there it is in the first chapter of St John’s Gospel ”” “the word became flesh, and dwelt among us”.

Read it all.

The leader of a newly formed Anglican denomination said mainline Protestant churches are failing because they have gotten off track from the Gospel.

The Most Rev. Robert Duncan, archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America, said his new denomination won’t join those who have faltered.

During a Sept. 13 visit to Oklahoma City, Duncan said he and other leaders are aiming to plant 1,000 churches in the U.S. and Canada.

Duncan, 61, presided over services at St. James Anglican Church, 204 SW 104. He was elected leader at the denomination’s inaugural assembly in June at Bedford, Texas.

Read it all.

Ryssdal: You have taken centuries of human economic interaction and boiled it down to 250, 300 pages but let me ask you to take it a step further. And give me the 30-second version of what the layman, the person who functions in a capitalist economy really needs to know about capitalism and how it works?

MORGENSON: Capitalism is a system that can benefit the greatest array of people, but it is a system that requires an ethical backdrop, a moral compass. And so I think what we’re seeing now is that that ethical drive really took a backseat during the credit boom and the mortgage mania that we witnessed during the early part of the century. And so what people have to understand is why that happened. And also capitalism has these kinds of booms and bust cycles. And while this one was tremendously perilous, I do believe that if you look back in time you will see and conclude that capitalism can survive this if certain changes are made.

Ryssdal: Why do you think that happened, that ethics became so much of an issue?

MORGENSON: I think we had a two-pronged failure. First was the failure of people in positions of power to remember that they have a social contract. As you rise in an organization, you have a greater responsibility to do the right thing, to rein in practices, identify practices that are imperiling others. That almost got lost. But the other prong of this failure was the failure of the regulators. These entities, institutions from the highest level down to the very lowest really failed dismally at their jobs. And so you had a combination of failures here that really contributed to this disaster.

Read or listen to it all.

This is important, first, because it marks the public rolling out of an agenda by the Communion Partner bishops, hopefully with the Archbishop of Canterbury’s full and forthcoming public support, aimed at preserving some remnant of constituent membership in the Communion for covenanting Episcopalians.

Second, and more profoundly, this step effectively serves as a petition to God for the preservation of Anglicanism, to a larger end of reconciliation and communion. “The divisions before us,” after all, have to do with much more than “differences of opinion on matters of human sexuality,” as the bishops note. They finally touch upon ecclesiology ”” the nature of the Church, as a global communion, committed to “discerning the mind of Christ together.” And this point, like the text of the Anglican covenant itself, drops us into a rich field of ecumenical discernment and decision, since communion in Christ is always larger than the particularities of any one divided church or family of churches….

For this reason especially: that the Catholic Church precedes and follows, comprehends and judges, our feints at autonomy, independence, and party spirit, as well as our flirtations with one or another false unity, we applaud the movement forward to covenant by the Communion Partner bishops, and pledge our support.

Read the whole thing.

Claiming that the opposition is “bearing false witness” by spreading misinformation about his health-care plan, President Barack Obama has asked religious leaders to become the latest conscripts in the battle over health-care reform. And although each version of the proposed health-care bill so far has explicitly authorized the government plan to cover the cost of abortion, many Catholic leaders and organizations have joined up, pledging their support.

For faithful Catholics, it is discouraging to see that Catholic Charities USA and the Catholic Health Association have both embraced the plan. And it is even more discouraging to learn that some parish priests and bishops are leading the fight for it. While Cardinal Justin Rigali, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee for Pro-Life Activities, has urged lawmakers to block the current House legislation unless it can be amended to prohibit public financing for abortion, his is a lonely voice. In a commentary posted on the Web site of the San Bernardino Diocese in California, Bishop Gerald Barnes denigrated those who have participated in what he called the “anger-fueled conduct” at town meetings and directed followers to the Bishops’ Web site to learn about Catholics’ moral obligation to help others gain access to quality health care.

The Web site advises Catholics to “join the efforts of local groups funded by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.” As it happens, the Catholic Campaign has been involved in funding left-leaning organizations and activities from its earliest years….

Read it all.

The Supreme Court of South Carolina has just delivered a unanimous decision in the oldest still-pending court dispute involving the application of ECUSA’s Dennis Canon to a parish’s property: All Saints Parish Church Waccamaw v. the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of South Carolina (No. 29724, September 18, 2009). (For some background on the origins of the case, see the discussion toward the bottom of this post.) The opinion presents a clear and thoroughly common-sense refutation of ECUSA’s outlandish claims: that as a hierarchical Church, it has the power (1) to decide which congregation/vestry is the “true” congregation/vestry in a given parish; and (2) to override State law by imposing a trust on all parish property everywhere in its Dioceses without its being the owner of any of that property.

The opinion is so clear and well-written, in fact, that there is scarcely any need to translate the greater part of it for a lay person. So I shall present here, for the edification and benefit of those visitors to this blog who have been following with me the vicissitudes of ECUSA’s Dennis Canon in the various State courts, a lightly annotated version.

Please be sure to read it all and do follow the link to his post on the background to the current case.