Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday took control of the Legionaries of Christ, a powerful and wealthy Roman Catholic religious order whose founder, a close friend of Pope John Paul II, was found to have molested seminarians and fathered several children.

The moves constituted the most direct action on sexual abuse since the most recent scandals have engulfed the church and prompted criticisms of the pope’s own handling of such cases as an archbishop in Munich and as a cardinal who led the body reviewing many sexual abuse charges.

In a statement on Saturday, the Vatican said that Benedict would appoint a special delegate to govern the Legionaries, an influential worldwide order that has been an important source of new ordinations in a church that has struggled with a shrinking priesthood in much of the developed world. It was founded in 1941 by a Mexican priest, the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado. Pope Benedict also said he would appoint a special commission to examine the Legionaries’ constitution and open an investigation into the its lay affiliate, Regnum Christi.

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Criticism of BP is mounting in the US over its handling of the huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano urged BP to commit more resources to tackling the catastrophe.

Critics of the British oil giant also include President Barack Obama, who is due to travel to the region on Sunday to assess efforts to contain the spill.

The sprawling oil slick has begun washing up on the Louisiana coast and is threatening three other states.

Up to 5,000 barrels of oil a day are gushing into the sea after the BP-operated Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank last week.

BP’s chief executive Tony Hayward is flying to Louisiana later to personally oversee the emergency mop-up operation.

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General Synod 2010 will consider the Covenant. The question is whether or not the Anglican Church of Canada should approve or adopt the Covenant. We suggest that the church, given its present practice with regard to same-sex blessings, cannot in good faith adopt or approve the Covenant.

Indeed, the Covenant offers the Anglican Church of Canada an opportunity to be honest before the world about its commitment to same-sex blessings and its willingness, in the name of its own standards of justice, to walk apart from the universal church.ӬWhy can the church not adopt the Covenant? It cannot because the Covenant insists on a primary commitment to the universal and apostolic church, a commitment that the movement for same-sex blessings rejects as opposing its standards of justice.

To approve the Covenant is to approve its insistence on the wider voice of the church in our own deliberations about same-sex blessings in Canada. It is to take seriously the inherited teaching of the church on scripture, in this case with regard to marriage. To approve the Covenant is therefore to refuse to proceed unilaterally with same-sex blessings.

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In England an Evangelical Christian who works as a counsellor declines the opportunity to offer marriage counseling to a homosexual couple. He’s fired. He sues for unfair dismissal due to religious discrimination. He loses his appeal and the judge speaks out against religious freedom. Read about it here.

What is remarkable is that a judge–who is supposed to be not just a fair man, but an educated and knowledgeable person– can be so appallingly ignorant about the true nature of religion. His basic argument is that religion has no basis in factual evidence. It is simply a subjective experience and therefore it has no rights in the courts of law.

There is one major problem here and one interesting observation. The major problem is that the judge regards religion as not having any basis in historical or factual evidence….

The second point is an observation about Protestantism generally. In the sixteenth century they did away with the historical fact of the authority of the Catholic Church. What did they put in it’s place? Personal interpretation of Sacred Scripture….

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“We are all called to ministry,” affirms Rt. Rev. David Irving, “some to lay ministry, some to ordained ministry.”

The recently installed 12th bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Saskatoon felt that call early in life. “I knew from the time I was a young teen that I was being called to ordained ministry.”

Born in Carlisle, Cumbria, Irving completed his senior education and theological training in England, where he worked for a number of years before emigrating to Canada.

His father, an Anglican priest, was by this time working in the Diocese of Edmonton, and Irving and his wife Joan paid their first visit to Canada to visit his parents and go skiing.

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Britons go to the polls on Thursday in what is expected to be the closest election since 1992. Following are some possible outcomes in terms of seats for the 650-member parliament and their impact.

Say what you want–it sure isn’t boring. Read it all.

The schedule is here. The featured keynote speaker is the 2009 Dougherty Fellow Dr. Allen Guelzo, the Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era and a professor of history at Gettysburg College. Dr. Guelzo and I have corresponded but it was great to get a chance to meet him face to face this morning. His “Why Study History?” talk was very enjoyable indeed.

Tonight two music groups in which our youngest daughter Selimah is involved are part of a concert this evening to which we are looking forward–KSH.

(Please note that this is in Sunday’s paper but it appeared on the website today–KSH).

We want many pairs of eyes watching for signs of abuse. We want everyone to know how to report suspected abuse of children and abuse of the pastoral relationship between clergy members and parishioners. We want to keep the issue before our church — clergy and laity alike — and to keep the conversation going.

But the thing victims most want to hear from the church, especially its leadership, is: “I am so sorry. This should never have happened to you, especially here. We are going to do everything in our power to see that nothing like this happens again.” Victims live with their horrific experiences and know that their abuse can never be undone. And so they seek assurance that the church will change the system that allows abuse to go undetected and take action to hold perpetrators accountable. Child abusers do not deserve protection; they must be reported immediately to civil authorities and prosecuted.

The Christian church — like any institution — is as capable of sin as any individual. We have been wrong before, from the Inquisition and the Crusades down to our defense of slavery (using scripture) and our denigration of women. Over time, the church has repented for these sins and sought to change its ways. The discovery of sexual abuse by clergy is another situation that calls for the church’s repentance and reform.

I would not presume to instruct you. That would be arrogant. Nor would I impose upon you advice you’ve not sought. But I do offer you the benefit of my experience as you seek to deal responsibly with these challenges to the integrity of your church. Your letter to the faithful in Ireland and your meeting in Malta with victims were a good start. I hope the future will bring more truth-telling, which will make your church a better, safer place.

However, I believe it is misguided and wrong for gay men to be scapegoated in this scandal….

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I will take comments on this submitted by email only to at KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

The governor of the commonwealth of Virginia has decided, “in the interest of religious freedom,” to grant state chaplains the freedom to pray in the name of Jesus at public events.

“I just didn’t think it was right, the change that was made a couple years ago, to have an official state policy to tell chaplains of any faith how to pray, whether Muslim or Jew or Catholic or Christian,” Gov. Bob McDonnell told reporters Thursday.

If you reverse an official state policy on prayer with another state policy on prayer, it’s still a state policy on prayer, right?

The conservative Christian Family Foundation of Virginia doesn’t seem to mind….

Oddly enough, the ACLU of Virginia agrees with the Family Foundation, at least on the need for the state of Virginia to have the right policy on prayer.

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Stanford scientist Steve Quake was only the fifth person in the world to have his entire genetic code -”“ his genome ”” spelled out last summer. Now he claims to be the first to use it to find out just what diseases he’s at risk for, and what he should do about it.

It’s been an instructive exercise. He and his colleagues say it holds many lessons for how to handle the flood of genomic information that’s on the horizon.

“I think the information can help people live better, but it won’t do it all by itself,” says Hank Greely, a Stanford ethicist involved with the project. “Just dumping data on people will not lead to better results.”

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As oil edged toward the Louisiana coast and fears continued to grow that the leak from a seabed oil well could spiral out of control, officials in the Obama administration publicly chastised BP America for its handling of the spreading oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico, where Obama is expected to travel this weekend.

Yet a review of the response suggests it may be too simplistic to place all the blame for the unfolding environmental catastrophe on the oil company. The federal government also had opportunities to move more quickly, but did not do so while it waited for a resolution to the spreading spill from BP.

The Department of Homeland Security waited until Thursday to declare that the incident was “a spill of national significance,” and then set up a second command center in Mobile, Ala. The actions came only after the estimate of the size of the spill was increased fivefold to 5,000 barrels a day.

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As the sexual abuse crisis continues to unfold in the Roman Catholic Church, with more victims coming forward worldwide and three bishops resigning last week alone, it is clear the issue is more than a passing storm or a problem of papal communications.

Instead, the church is undergoing nothing less than an epochal shift: It pits those who hold fast to a more traditional idea of protecting bishops and priests above all against those who call for more openness and accountability. The battle lines are drawn between the church and society at large, which clearly clamors for accountability, and also inside the church itself.

Uncomfortably, the crisis also pits the moral legacies of two popes against each other: the towering and modernizing John Paul II, who nonetheless did little about sexual abuse; and his successor, Benedict XVI, who in recent years, at least, has taken the issue of pedophile priests more seriously.

He has had little choice, given the depth of the scandal and the anger it has unleashed. But when supporters defend Benedict, they are implicitly condemning John Paul and how an entire generation of bishops and the Vatican hierarchy acted in response to criminal behavior.

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I want to extend my deep appreciation to Bishop Love and to Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori for their kindness and pastoral solicitude. Carol and I are grateful for the continuing opportunity to serve our Lord and His church in the Diocese of Albany. My only plan is to assist in any way Bishop Bill directs. We are honored to resume a fuller place among the clergy and laity of the diocese.

In February 2007, the Rt. Rev. Daniel W. Herzog retired as the eighth Bishop of Albany and subsequently resigned his Holy Orders. His resignation was accepted by the Presiding Bishop, the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, in September of that year. Bishop Herzog rescinded his renunciation earlier this spring, and the Presiding Bishop with the advice and consent of her Advisory Council, accepted and restored Bishop Herzog effective April 28, 2010.

Though he has never really been absent from our common life, I want to formally welcome Bishop Dan and Carol back to the full communion of the diocese and the wider church. During the past three years, they have continued to support the work of the diocese and to participate in a non-ordained capacity. His restored role will be of help in carrying out the work of the church, and I will be asking him to assist in this diocese under my direction as is true of any retired bishop.

All baptized Christians, both laity and clergy, have a share in the apostolic mission the Lord holds out for the Church and I am delighted that Bishop Dan and Carol can officially take their place among us again in the Diocese of Albany. I ask your prayers for all who labor for Christ and his kingdom across these nineteen counties.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has issued an order for Restoration of Ordained Ministry for retired Bishop of Albany Daniel W. Herzog, who left the Episcopal Church in March 2007 to join the Roman Catholic Church.

“I am delighted at his return to ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church,” said Jefferts Schori.

The presiding bishop issued the order after “full consultation and on the recommendation of Diocese of Albany Bishop William H. Love,” according to a news release from the church’s Office of Public Affairs due to be posted…. [soon].

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And not only do we need a big picture, we need a ”˜long’ picture. In today’s world, it is an ”˜instant’ world. Yes, you be able to get something done now, but it may cause damages in the long run. So we need have the big and long picture.

It is not going to be easy. When the first Prime Minister of China was asked about his evaluation of the French Revolution, which happened two hundred years ago. He was well-educated and serving in the very difficult cold war years of the 50’s and 60’s. And he said, gently and quietly, “It is too short to tell.” And many of those in the West and us are living under the shadow of 1789. The world has changed but it is “too soon to tell.” Taking the big and long perspective of things will help us to see things clearer. It may be slower but it will help us to see clearer and hopefully, in the end, do things in a more constructive way. Yet it is not an excuse for procrastinating.

This “both-and” thing is always difficult. That is why I put on this bi-focal spectacles. You see near and you see far. Sometimes it is blur in the middle, but if you know how to adjust yourselves….and today, it is not a uni-polar world anymore. The powers-that-be have come to learn that they cannot call the shots any more, It is a multi-polar world. But for us, the tremendous thing is we have a call that holds us united together in spite of our different cultural context. It is because of the pillar of the centrality of the cross of Jesus Christ, we have the same thing and yet can see our different context in the light of a common call.

This is very precious, something which the world does not have. They have either this or that. Now our challenges is how to strengthen ourselves, both within and without. We must be focus in the journey ahead.

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