Yesterday Bishop James said: “The Archbishop of Canterbury has served the Church of England, the nation and the Anglican Communion tirelessly, courageously and beyond the call of duty.
“His visits to the diocese of Liverpool showed his pastoral sensitivity and his exceptional ability to engage a wide range of people in the debate about the Christian faith.
…the Church of England ”“ and the Anglican Communion ”“ needs someone with a pastoral touch. It needs a man ”“ and it will be a man, because the Church of England is years away from appointing a female bishop let alone a lady archbishop ”“ who can be fair to all points of view rather than imposing absolutes on difficult issues, and someone who can put their personal beliefs aside for the greater good.
Sentamu has come out fighting on the issue of gay marriage and has become the darling of conservatives inside and outside the Church of England. But his views alienate and polarise: there are clergy and parishioners who would love to see same-sex relationships registered in places of worship. An archbishop is not a spokesman or a pundit to be wheeled out to comment on the hot topics of the day. His job, in fact, is an impossible one: to accept that some Anglicans will never agree on the issues of gender or homosexuality while at the same time holding everyone together on common issues such as the Millennium Development Goals and the persecution of minority Christian communities around the world.
Rowan Williams has been, in my view, an outstanding Archbishop of Canterbury, patiently holding together the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion with courage and wisdom.
At a time of speedy cultural change in church and society that has been a complex and thankless task.
I don’t know of anybody who could have done it better.
Welcoming different viewpoints and beliefs is said to be one of the crowning glories of the modern university. Unless of course, your viewpoints and beliefs happen to be Christian.
Sadly, back in 2010, the Supreme Court laid the groundwork for a disturbing trend that is spreading to campuses nationwide. In the case Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, little noted at the time, the high court ruled that a public college may refuse to recognize a student organization if it restricts membership or leadership to students who share the group’s core beliefs.
In other words, campus student organizations like InterVarsity or Campus Crusade now run the risk of being kicked off campus if they say that only Christian students may hold leadership positions. The Court ruling says, in effect, that Christian groups must allow people who hold non-Christian beliefs into leadership ranks.
President Obama’s 2013 budget would add $3.5 trillion to annual deficits through 2022, according to a new estimate from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
It also would raise the deficit next year by $365 billion, according to the nonpartisan office.
The CBO estimate is in sharp contrast to White House claims last month that the Obama budget would reduce deficits by $3.2 trillion over the next decade.Ӭ
Sunrise seen from inside Old St Paul’s must have been astonishing. Before Wren rebuilt it, the cathedral had been amplified at the East end by the so-called New Work, begun in the 1250s. The whole of the eastern wall, 93ft high, was glass: a rose window above, with seven lancet windows filling the wall beneath it.
That was the Lady chapel, and beneath it was St Faith’s chapel, in the crypt, used as a parish church for local people. Booksellers stowed their goods there, confident of its blocked windows, as the Fire of London took hold in 1666, till the lead ran molten from above, and broken timbers smashed through the crypt vaulting, sending charred pages into the air, to be carried, so the schoolboy William Taswell reported, as far as Eton.
[Cardinal Timothy Dolan]…was asked to contrast the restoration of the great cathedral in mid-Manhattan with the archdiocesan policy of closing neighborhood churches ”” no matter how beloved or beautiful ”” whose membership has fallen significantly. These have included St. Thomas the Apostle in West Harlem, Our Lady Queen of Angels in East Harlem, and Our Lady of Vilnius in Lower Manhattan.
If we have a church that demographically is now ”” the people are gone ”” we have to make a decision. Are we going to utilize our money serving souls and serving people, and expanding the church in areas where the growth is? Or are we going to maintain buildings for ”” however laudably it might be ”” artistic and cultural and historic purposes? Sometimes we do. But most of the times we say: ”˜Sorry, we’re not in the business of solely museums. We’re a living, dynamic, growing, expanding church and we have to keep up with it.’ So the case can be made that St. Patrick’s is, indeed, living, dynamic and growing. It’s jammed. Every day it’s jammed.
‘That was the most bitter and painful experience of my life,” observes Tom McMillen. “What happened in Munich was the most controversial and tragic sports competition in modern times.”
Mr. McMillen is a former college and NBA basketball star, Rhodes scholar, three-term Democratic member of Congress, and now successful businessman. We’re in his Northern Virginia office reminiscing about the continuing impact of the 1972 Olympic Games, held 40 years ago this summer. Overshadowing it all is the tragedy of what TV announcer Jim McKay called “the worst day in the history of sports.”
That was the hostage crisis in the Olympic Village, which culminated in the murder of 11 Israeli athletes and coaches by Palestinian terrorists (linked to the Fatah group that we now know enjoyed Soviet funding and training for many years). Four days later was the disputed basketball game between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, in which Mr. McMillen played a pivotal role.
Almighty God, who in thy providence didst choose thy servant Patrick to be the apostle of the Irish people, to bring those who were wandering in darkness and error to the true light and knowledge of thee: Grant us so to walk in that light, that we may come at last to the light of everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and ever.
Almighty God, whose we are and whom we serve: Keep us ever in thy faith and fear, and in obedience to thy commandments; confident that, being thine, none can pluck us out of thine hand; and, fearing thee, none can make us afraid; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
On the holy mount stands the city he founded; the LORD loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwelling places of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God.
–Psalm 87:1-3