Five years into his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI marked a new papal first — celebrating a beatification.

This beatification occurred in the homeland of the one raised to the altars, as has been the Vatican’s trend. But the papal voyage for a beatification was unique. Then again, 19th-century former Anglican and Catholic convert John Henry Cardinal Newman is no ordinary beatus.

Pope Benedict stated on the flight on the way to the United Kingdom that Newman is a man of “exceptional stature for our time” and a “bridge” to unity between Anglicans and Catholics. He even stated that he is “like a Doctor of the Church for us and for all.”

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The former Anglican bishop of the Murray, Ross Davies, has failed to stop a hearing into church disciplinary charges against him.

The charges were laid because he quit his post and tried to give up his holy orders.

Dr Davies failed to attend a special tribunal in Adelaide yesterday convened to hear nine charges alleging disgraceful conduct, wilful violation of church ordinances and wilful and habitual disregard of consecrational vows.

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If there is one area where the Obama administration and the American people seem in fundamental agreement, it is in their contempt for Washington.

Not, presumably, for the actual place of schools and neighborhoods and monuments but for the conceptual Washington, the symbolic city. Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, with typical delicacy, calls it “[expletive]-nutsville,” a judgment that earthier Tea Party activists might share. Senior adviser David Axelrod has announced his spring departure. “I think he’s not having fun,” says a White House colleague. A recent profile claims that Axelrod’s idealism was disappointed by “a ferociously stubborn, possibly irredeemable system.” And Barack Obama himself constantly complains about the “politicking” and obstructionism of the capital city, where they “talk about me like a dog.” Much of the White House senior staff seems to long for a purer, simpler, more wholesome kind of politics . . . in Chicago.

The tension here is obvious. Even while depicting Washington as a flawed, fractured, hopeless mess, the Obama administration has sought to increase the influence of Washington over America’s economy and health-care system. In the Obama era, Washington helps run auto companies, oversees some corporate salaries, imposes an individual mandate to purchase health insurance, and seeks to rationalize the health-care system with a profusion of new boards, offices, agencies and commissions — estimates vary from 47 to 159 new bureaucratic entities.

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Article 8 of the Constitution of the General Synod provides that certain kinds of legislation may not receive the final approval of the General Synod unless they have first been approved by the majority of diocesan synods . Legislation to enable women to become bishops falls within the scope of Article 8, hence this reference of the draft Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of Women) Measure and draft Amending Canon No 30 to dioceses.

Follow the link to all four documents and read them all.

You can find information on St Paul’s Theological School here and the classes offered there.

i would appreciate your prayers–KSH.

If you want to know about God, you might want to talk to an atheist.

Heresy? Perhaps. But a survey that measured Americans’ knowledge of religion found that atheists and agnostics knew more, on average, than followers of most major faiths. In fact, the gaps in knowledge among some of the faithful may give new meaning to the term “blind faith.”

A majority of Protestants, for instance, couldn’t identify Martin Luther as the driving force behind the Protestant Reformation, according to the survey, released Tuesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Four in 10 Catholics misunderstood the meaning of their church’s central ritual, incorrectly saying that the bread and wine used in Holy Communion are intended to merely symbolize the body and blood of Christ, not actually become them.

Atheists and agnostics — those who believe there is no God or who aren’t sure — were more likely to answer the survey’s questions correctly. Jews and Mormons ranked just below them in the survey’s measurement of religious knowledge — so close as to be statistically tied.

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For those who have just witnessed Pope Benedict’s beatification of John Henry Newman, a relevant, and heretofore largely neglected, story is that of Levi and Rebecca Ives. Today married Anglican and Episcopal clergy converting to Rome frequently are admitted to the Roman Catholic priesthood. This did not happen in the 19th century. Today departures of clergy from Canterbury to Rome are taken graciously by the Anglican side. In 1853, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church denounced Levi Ives as an “absconding and apostate delinquent.”

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At the close of the American Anglican Council’s remarkable conference in Dallas on October 9, as 2,700 Episcopalians prepared to return to their churches and dioceses, I went back to my room and wept. I was not unhappy with the conference. It was an astounding show of support for a biblically orthodox witness within our Church.

Coming when it did – shortly before the crucial meeting of Anglican Primates at Lambeth and the subsequent consecration of V. Gene Robinson in New Hampshire – it sent a message. Eight hundred clergy and more than twice that number of laity were prepared to stand firm and joyfully witness to our historic faith and values. So in some ways I was elated. But along with the elation there was something else.
I struggled with the undeniable sense that, while we are strong and vital, we had lost. We lost a thirty-year struggle to prevent the Episcopal Church from going over the cliff.

Now the deed is done. Same-sex blessings will become commonplace throughout the Church, supported by majority vote of General Convention. And a divorced man [who is now subsequently] living in a homosexual relationship is now a consecrated bishop in the Church – by majority vote.

No one can open a newspaper or turn on the TV without being confronted with the stark reality that a major Protestant denomination has done the unthinkable. Will other denominations, with our encouragement, follow?

And so I wept, alone in my room, on my knees, with my bags packed. I am not given to outward displays of emotion, but in the privacy of my room, I realized that something precious had been lost and would never be regained.

–The Rev. Dr. Peter Moore, at the time Dean of Trinity School for Ministry, and now actively retired in the diocese of South Carolina

Although there are, strictly speaking, no prophets or apostles today, I fear there are false prophets and false apostles. They speak their own words instead of God’s Word. Their message originates in their own mind. These are men who like to ventilate their own opinions on religion, ethics, theology or politics. They may be conventional enough to introduce their sermon with a Scripture text, but the text bears little or no relation to the sermon which follows, nor is any attempt made to interpret the text in its context. It has been truly said that such a text without a context is a pretext.

–John R.W. Stott, The Preacher’s Portrait (London: Tyndale Press, 1961), p. 13.

Gracious God, we offer thanks for the lives and work of Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton, and Margery Kempe, hermits and mystics, who, passing through the cloud of unknowing, beheld thy glory. Help us, after their examples, to see thee more clearly and love thee more dearly, in the Name of Jesus Christ our Savior; who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

O God, the glory of thy saints, who being above all, and through all, and in all, dost yet accept the prayer of the contrite: Grant that we, being hallowed in mind, fervent in spirit, and chaste in body, may offer to thee the pure sacrifice of hearts uplifted in thy praise, and lives devoted to thy service; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Hear the word of the LORD, O people of Israel; for the LORD has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or kindness, and no knowledge of God in the land.there is swearing, lying, killing, stealing, and committing adultery; they break all bounds and murder follows murder. Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it languish, and also the beasts of the field, and the birds of the air; and even the fish of the sea are taken away. Yet let no one contend, and let none accuse, for with you is my contention, O priest. You shall stumble by day, the prophet also shall stumble with you by night; and I will destroy your mother. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.

–Hosea 4:1-6

Although he serves as Vice-Chancellor of the Diocese of Nashville and also assists at the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Fr. [Prentice] Dean has been given permission by his bishop to form an Anglican Use group, which he has done. Our Lady of Martyrs Anglican Use Society is hosting its first event ”“ Solemn Evensong and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. This will take place on Thursday, October 7, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. at The Church of the Assumption, 1227 7th Avenue, North, Nashville, Tennessee.

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The US says it is “disappointed” by Israel’s decision not to extend a ban on West Bank settlement building.

US Middle East envoy George Mitchell has been sent to the region in an attempt to salvage direct peace talks that were restarted earlier this month.

The 10-month moratorium came to an end at midnight (2200 GMT on Sunday).

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My thanks to Randall Foster for these terrific pictures–read it all.

The revisions to the disciplinary section of the Canons (“Title IV”) proposed at Anaheim in 2009 lived up to Bishop Jefferts Schori’s prediction: with very little time to consider their sweeping nature, and with no line-by-line comparison of what was being changed made available to them (contrary to what the Canons themselves require), the deputies enacted changes the full scope of which no one — not even those who had labored for years to draft them — grasped. The extent of the disciplinary powers over other bishops alone which the new Canons give to the Presiding Bishop transform her — in contrast to what tradition and ECUSA’s Constitution say — into a full-fledged metropolitan. Consider just these points (see this paper for the full details):

* Currently, if the Presiding Bishop wants to bring charges against another bishop, she has to send a written presentation of just the facts, without any editorializing, to an independent “Title IV Review Committee” consisting of bishops, clergy and laity. Under the new Canons, the Presiding Bishop is empowered to refer, “in any form”, information about any offense she thinks “may” have been committed to an “Intake Officer”, whom she alone appoints.
* Currently, the Title IV Review Committee screens and evaluates each potential charge against a bishop. Under the new Title IV, the Presiding Bishop, along with her appointed “Intake Officer”, have two out of the three votes on the “Review Committee” which now screens the charges.
* Currently, the Presiding Bishop may inhibit a bishop only if the Title IV Review Committee decides to present charges, and only if a majority of all the members of the affected diocesan Standing Committee consent. Under the new Title IV, the Presiding Bishop may act alone, and out of the blue, to inhibit a fellow bishop (the word “inhibit” has been replaced by the term “place restrictions on the exercise of the ministry” of a bishop).
* Currently, any inhibition is “temporary”, and is “an extraordinary remedy, to be used sparingly and limited to preventing immediate and irreparable harm to individuals or to the good order of the Church.” Under the new Title IV there are no such limitations on its use — restrictions may be imposed for any duration, and for any reason(s) the Presiding Bishop, in her sole judgment, thinks are sufficient.

Please read it carefully, follow all the links, and read it all.

The bill, which the Obama administration plans to submit to lawmakers next year, raises fresh questions about how to balance security needs with protecting privacy and fostering innovation. And because security services around the world face the same problem, it could set an example that is copied globally.

James X. Dempsey, vice president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, an Internet policy group, said the proposal had “huge implications” and challenged “fundamental elements of the Internet revolution” ”” including its decentralized design.

“They are really asking for the authority to redesign services that take advantage of the unique, and now pervasive, architecture of the Internet,” he said. “They basically want to turn back the clock and make Internet services function the way that the telephone system used to function.”

But law enforcement officials contend that imposing such a mandate is reasonable and necessary to prevent the erosion of their investigative powers.

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