As people filed into the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception yesterday, Mark Lewis was wearing a layman’s tie rather than the clerical collar he had worn for years.

Accompanied by his wife, daughter and grandson, Lewis was preparing to lead his flock at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in suburban Maryland into full communion with the Catholic Church.

Lewis is the former rector of St. Luke’s, the first Episcopal church in the Washington metropolitan area and the second in Maryland to come into the Church under provisions created for Episcopalians and Anglicans by Pope Benedict XVI.

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Clergy of the Diocese of South Carolina are meeting [today] to discuss an Episcopal Church investigation of allegations against the local bishop.

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Please pray for our meeting today–thanks; KSH.

Update: I see Saint Michael’s, Charleston, has called for a special parish meeting on all these matters this coming Sunday

The delegates of the 14th Ordinary Synod have elected The Most Revd. Dr. Philip P. Marandih, Bishop of the Diocese of Patna, as the Moderator and The Rt. Rev. Pradeep Kumar Samantaroy, Bishop of the Diocese of Amritsar, as the Deputy Moderator of the Church of North India for the next triennium.

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Holy God, no one is excluded from thy love; and thy truth transformeth the minds of all who seek thee: As thy servant Philip was led to embrace the fullness of thy salvation and to bring the stranger to Baptism, so grant unto us all the grace to be heralds of the Gospel, proclaiming thy love in Jesus Christ our Savior, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Give unto us, O Lord our God, the spirit of courage. Let no shadow oppress our spirit, lest our gloom should darken the light by which others have to live. Remove from our inmost souls all fear and distrust, and fill us daily more completely with thy love and power; through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

“Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of men; for they will deliver you up to councils, and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear testimony before them and the Gentiles. When they deliver you up, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

–Matthew 10:16-20

Like their secular counterparts, many clergy who devoted their attention to less temporal matters than financial planning now find themselves amid shrinking church budgets and a poor economy being forced to work beyond traditional retirement ages.

It is an especially critical issue in smaller churches that still do not set aside money for clergy retirement. In a 2008 study of Church of Christ clergy in Texas, just a quarter of respondents said they had plans to fully retire.

But it is also a burden for larger, mainline Protestant denominations. As memberships shrink and many older clergy find it financially untenable to retire, even fewer younger clergy are able to find work.

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Statement by the Archbishops of Canterbury, Central Africa, and Southern Africa and the President of the All Africa Conference of Churches the Archbishop of Tanzania….

Since 2007 Anglican congregations in Zimbabwe have suffered serious persecution at the hands of the police. They have been intimidated. Their churches have been closed. Properties, including schools and clinics, have been seized.

As representatives of the Anglican Communion, and with the support of ecumenical friends worldwide, we strongly and unequivocally support the efforts of ordinary Anglicans to worship in peace and to minister to the spiritual and material needs of their communities.

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So began my business trip to the United States, where I found other Americans to be much friendlier ”“ but extremely worried. The first thing my airport driver said was: “Are things as bad in Canada as down here? Do you think we’re headed for a depression?” A front-page headline in USA Today underlined the reason behind his question: “The new faces of poverty: A record 46 million of us ”¦ are now considered poor, as job losses hit the middle class.” Another headline, “Federal benefits, pensions explode,” summed up the financial chasm facing the government.

Federal, civil and military public-service payments and liabilities for 2010 snowballed to $780-billion (U.S.), higher than the $690-billion cost of Social Security. The TV in my hotel room carried an ad from the American Association of Retired People: “Stop Congress from cutting our benefits ”“ that wasn’t the deal.” Clearly, Americans are very worried about their future, and that of their country.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury on Monday visited Anglicans booted from their Zimbabwe cathedral by a renegade bishop, before meeting President Robert Mugabe about the “godless” assault on his followers.

Rowan Williams, the spiritual leader of Anglicans worldwide, had for weeks sought a meeting with the 87-year-old president about the politically charged Church split led by excommunicated bishop and vocal Mugabe ally, Nolbert Kunonga.
An audience was finally granted, and Mugabe received the archbishop on Monday afternoon, an Anglican spokesman said.

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…the savagery we offer children today is more unforgiving than it once was, and the shadows are rarely banished by comic relief. Instead of stories about children who will not grow up, we have stories about children who struggle to survive.

In 2009, Neil Gaiman won the Newbery Medal, the most distinguished award in the field of children’s literature, for “The Graveyard Book,” a work that makes no bones about its subject matter. Here is what children read on Page 1: “There was a hand in the darkness and it held a knife.” A few paragraphs later, the wielder of the knife has finished off three family members and is on his way to the nursery to slash the throat of the fourth. It is up to the hero, Bod ”” short for Nobody ”” to find the killer.

These books frequently offer expansive meditations on mortality, with heroes on crusades against death. J. K. Rowling described the Harry Potter books as “largely about death.” The drama of the series begins with the murder of Harry’s parents and turns on an emphatically humorless villain who seeks immortality at any price. Philip Pullman’s trilogy, “His Dark Materials,” takes on similar themes. It rewrites the Fall of Man ”” instead of being expelled from Paradise, the disobedient, curious heroine seeks redemption by journeying to the desolate Land of the Dead.

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October 5, 2011

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

On Thursday, September 29, 2011, the Bishop received communication from the President of the Disciplinary Board for Bishops that “serious charges” have been made under Title IV of the Canons of The Episcopal Church. These are allegations that he has abandoned The Episcopal Church. Since several of these allegations also include actions taken by the Convention of the Diocese of South Carolina, after sustained prayer and discernment, it has seemed appropriate to both the Bishop and the Standing Committee to make these allegations available to the members of the Diocese. These allegations may be found on the Diocesan website”¦here.

Subsequently, the President of our Standing Committee, the Very Reverend Paul C. Fuener, received a letter from the Church Attorney assisting the Disciplinary Board seeking “Records maintained by the Standing Committee of the Diocese of South Carolina.” This letter may be found on our diocesan website”¦here.
In order to understand the possible implications and to engage in corporate prayer for the diocese, I, as Bishop, have called a meeting of all our active and canonically resident clergy for this coming Tuesday, October 11, 2011 from 10 a.m. ””12:00 noon at the Ministry Center of St. James Episcopal Church, James Island.

Rest assured we will do all in our power to defend gospel truth and catholic order. We and the members of our Standing Committee ask your prayers for God’s guidance and wisdom.

Yours in Christ,

The Right Reverend Mark J. Lawrence
XIV Bishop of South Carolina

The Very Reverend Paul C. Fuener
President of the Standing Committee

Readers are asked to please note there are two documents to read in the links provided, the first of which is a 63 page pdf–KSH.

In the last year, two pastors have caused sufficient international concern that the White House has spoken about them. But only one has been mentioned in the Australian media.

Both pastors profess to lead Bible-believing churches. Both have come into conflict with Islam. Both have been criticised by their own governments.

Yet, in many respects, they are very different. One operates freely in an open society, while the other is imprisoned by an Islamic regime. One is proud of the actions he is accused of, while the other suffers from trumped up accusations. One is an embarrassment to the Christian cause; the other is a hero whose stand for the gospel gladdens the heart of all who love the truth.

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In a grim sign of the enduring nature of the economic slump, household income declined more in the two years after the recession ended than it did during the recession itself, new research has found.

Between June 2009, when the recession officially ended, and June 2011, inflation-adjusted median household income fell 6.7 percent, to $49,909, according to a study by two former Census Bureau officials. During the recession ”” from December 2007 to June 2009 ”” household income fell 3.2 percent.

The finding helps explain why Americans’ attitudes toward the economy, the country’s direction and its political leaders have continued to sour even as the economy has been growing. Unhappiness and anger have come to dominate the political scene, including the early stages of the 2012 presidential campaign.

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Dr. Frank MacMaster wants people to rethink mental illness in children.

“The knee-jerk reactions are, ”˜They must be terrible parents, or ”˜The kid’s just faking, stop it.’ How do you tell a kid with obsessive compulsive disorder to just stop it? Or, worse, ”˜Don’t tell anyone, keep it a secret,’” says MacMaster, a pediatric neurobiologist and researcher recruited from Detroit a year ago to work at Alberta Children’s Hospital.

He points to a 2008 poll that found 46% of Canadians think people use the term mental illness as an excuse for bad behaviour.

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KIM LAWTON, correspondent: The case involves Cheryl Perich, a fourth-grade teacher at a Lutheran Church Missouri-Synod school in Michigan who mainly taught secular subjects, but also taught religion and led prayers. She took a leave of absence to get treatment for a sleep disorder. When the school was reluctant to let her return, she threatened to sue for violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act.

CHERYL PERICH: I can’t fathom how the Constitution would be interpreted in such a way as to deny me my civil rights as an elementary school teacher. I sure hope the Court agrees.

LAWTON: Lawyers for the school said Perich was considered a commissioned minister, and therefore she was covered by a legal doctrine known as the ministerial exception. That exception says religious groups don’t have to follow anti-discrimination laws in employment decisions about their leaders.

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The Vatican is calling particular attention to the dire circumstances of the peoples of the Horn of Africa, in particular Somalia, who have been facing a severe drought and food crisis since July.

The press office published an informative noted on the “Efforts and Commitment of the Catholic Church in the Horn of Africa,” which is issued in conjunction with a press conference held today by the Pontifical Council Cor Unum on the plight of several East African countries.

Presented in a question-and-answer format, the note summarized the situation in countries such as Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia: “A severe drought, conflict and lack of governments have led to massive numbers of people going hungry.

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The push to recognise sharia law in Australia has entered an ambitious new phase that draws on the tactics that have handed success to Islamists in Britain.

The latest move, under the guise of helping Muslim women, would give sharia law priority over Australian divorce law.

If enacted, this plan would prevent Muslims from obtaining a civil divorce unless they first divorce under Islamic law.

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On Sunday morning, October 9, almost 80 parishioners of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Bladensburg, Maryland were received into full communion with the Catholic Church by Donald Cardinal Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington during Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

St. Luke’s parish is a small, tight-knit congregation with a majority of their members from Africa and the Caribbean. While enjoying a rich cultural diversity, the church has been unified in it’s one dream – becoming a part of the new Anglican Ordinariate as Catholics in full-communion with the Church.

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The true wisdom of man is piety. You find this in the book of holy Job. For we read there what wisdom itself has said to man: “Behold, the fear of the Lord [pietas], that is wisdom.” [Job xxviii. 28] If you ask further what is meant in that place by pietas, the Greek calls it more definitely θεοσέβεια, that is, the worship of God. The Greeks sometimes call piety εὐσέβεια, which signifies right worship, though this, of course, refers specially to the worship of God. But when we are defining in what man’s true wisdom consists, the most convenient word to use is that which distinctly expresses the fear of God. And can you, who are anxious that I should treat of great matters in few words, wish for a briefer form of expression?

–Saint Augustine, Enchiridion, Chapter 2

Lord, who hast warned us that without thee we can do nothing; and by thy holy apostle hast taught us that in thy strength we can do all things: So take and possess us, that our weakness may be transformed by thy power; that we be no longer our own, but thine; that it be not we who live, but thou who livest in us; who now reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, world without end.

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

–Psalm 1

(Via email–KSH).

Dear Friends,

Greetings in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ!

I do request your urgent prayers as the situation here in Cairo is very inflamed. Many Christians demonstrated after the incident of the burning of a church building in Mari Nab near Aswan (Egypt). The demonstrations started peacefully as the people were requesting that investigations for the incidents of burning and demolishing churches would be completed and the new law for building churches, that was promised four months ago, would be passed.

This evening it turned to be very violent between demonstrators and the military. More than 20 people were killed and more than 100 were injured.
Tomorrow there will be a large meeting for the House of Bishops of the Coptic Orthodox Church and political leaders will have a separate meeting to discuss a way out of this very difficult situation. I would appreciate your prayers for our beloved country.

We will hold prayer meetings tomorrow and I hope that I can meet with Muslim religious leaders in order to discuss a way forward for the situation.

Thank you for your prayers.

–The Most Rev. Dr. Mouneer Hanna Anis

Bishop of the Episcopal / Anglican Diocese of Egypt

with North Africa and the Horn of Africa

President Bishop of the Episcopal / Anglican

Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East

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HMany foreign investors are not reassured by the increasingly explicit US government guarantee, and are wary of the debt that the two housing agencies issue. The political fallout over the US debt ceiling this summer and the consequent Standard & Poor’s downgrade of US sovereign debt intensified fears that politics might derail the US government promise to guarantee the debt.

“We have become hostage to the irresponsible behaviour of politicians,” said Bader al-Saad, head of the KIA, in a New York speech last month. “What happened during the debt negotiations will make many countries think twice about the investment environment of the US.”

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In his hospital room he suggested that an awareness of mortality was useful for a writer but ideally it should remain latent. “I try not to dwell on it,” he said, “except that once in a while I say, O.K., I’m not going to make that joke, I’m not going to go for that chortle. Or if I have to choose between two subjects, I won’t choose the boring one.”

He added, talking about an essay on Philip Larkin that made it into “Arguably”: “I knew the collection was going to come out even if I did not, and I was very pleased when I finished that one, because of the way it ends: ”˜Our almost-instinct almost true:/ What will survive of us is love.’ I remember thinking, if that’s the last piece I write, that will do me.” After a moment he went on: “The influence of Larkin is much greater than I thought. He’s perfect for people who are thinking about death. You’ve got that old-line Calvinist pessimism and modern, acid cynicism ”” a very good combo. He’s not liking what he sees, and not pretending to.”

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U.S. officials have scrambled this past week to redraw a 2012 military training plan after Iraqi leaders announced they would not grant immunity to troops who remain past the Dec. 31 deadline for withdrawal.

Since Tuesday, when Iraqi leaders formally requested that U.S. military training continue into next year, military and diplomatic officials in Washington and Baghdad have been sketching alternative proposals that could place training in the hands of private security contractors or NATO, entities that can be legally covered some other way.

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Church of Ireland bishops have urged their members to refrain from actions or language which could deepen the controversy of same-sex relationships within the Church.

In their Pastoral letter issued yesterday, the 12 bishops from all over Ireland also confirmed that there will be a major conference next spring on the issue, and also committed themselves to additional meetings, including a retreat where they will study and pray together.

They ask people of all shades of opinion within the Church of Ireland to refrain from any actions or the use of emotive or careless language which may further exacerbate the situation.

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