A Narragansett man has gone to federal court to silence church bells sounded by a neighboring Catholic church.
The Providence Journal reports that John Devaney says in his lawsuit that the bells of St. Thomas More Catholic Parish disrupt his life and contributed to the end of his marriage.
He is asking the court to order the church to reduce the number of bell claps and gongs so he can peacefully enjoy his property.
Eternal Light, shine into our hearts;
Eternal Goodness, deliver us from evil;
Eternal Power, be our support;
Eternal Wisdom, scatter the darkness of our ignorance;
Eternal Pity, have mercy upon us;
that with all our heart and mind and soul and strength we may seek thy face and be brought by thine infinite mercy to thy holy presence; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
–Saint Alcuin
Now King Solomon loved many foreign women: the daughter of Pharaoh, and Moabite, Ammonite, E”²domite, Sido”²nian, and Hittite women, from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods”; Solomon clung to these in love. He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart. For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods; and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ash”²toreth the goddess of the Sido”²nians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. And so he did for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods.
And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods; but he did not keep what the Lord commanded. Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this has been your mind and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant. Yet for the sake of David your father I will not do it in your days, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son. However I will not tear away all the kingdom; but I will give one tribe to your son, for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen.”
–1 Kings 11:1-13
Doctors who agreed to arrange illegal abortions based on the sex of an unborn baby have been told they will not face criminal charges, despite prosecutors admitting that there is enough evidence to take them to court, it emerged on Wednesday night.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) was accused of failing to uphold the law after it ruled that it would not be in the “public interest” to prosecute the two doctors exposed in an undercover Daily Telegraph investigation.
Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, on Wednesday night raised the case with the Attorney General. The two doctors were filmed agreeing to arrange terminations for women who requested them purely because they said they did not want to have a baby girl.
he Vatican is ramping up its opposition to threatened military strikes against Syria as it draws attention to Pope Francis’ plans to host a day of fasting and prayer for peace this weekend.
The Vatican has invited all ambassadors accredited to the Holy See to attend a briefing Thursday on the pope’s agenda for the four-hour vigil Saturday night in St. Peter’s Square, and bishops’ conferences from around the world have announced plans to host local versions of the vigil as well.
Even the Vatican’s often dysfunctional bureaucracy seems to be on message with the initiative, Francis’ first major foray into international diplomacy since being elected in March.
The Senate resolution would limit hostilities to 60 or 90 days, narrow the conflict to Syria’s borders and prohibit U.S. troops on Syrian soil. McCain’s amendments didn’t change that scope, but made clear that the end goal should be “a negotiated settlement that ends the conflict and leads to a democratic government in Syria.”
The vote was 10-7. Five Republicans and two Democrats voted against it.
Realism is used to dismiss pacifism and to underwrite some version of just war. But it is not at all clear that the conditions for the possibility of just war are compatible with realism. At least, it is not clear that just war considerations can be constitutive of the decision-making processes of governments that must assume that might makes right. Attempts to justify wars begun and fought on realist grounds in the name of just war only serve to hide the reality of war.
Yet war remains a reality. War not only remains a reality, war remains for Americans our most determinative moral reality. How do you get people who are taught they are free to follow their own interests to sacrifice themselves and their children in war? Democracies by their very nature seem to require that wars be fought in the name of ideals that make war self-justifying. Realists in the State Department and Pentagon may have no illusions about why American self-interest requires a war be fought, but Americans cannot fight a war as cynics. It may be that those who actually have to fight a war will – precisely because they have faced the reality of war – have no illusions about the reality of war. But those who would have them fight justify war using categories that require there be a “next war.”
Pacifists are realists. Indeed, we have no reason to deny that the “realism” associated with Augustine, Luther and Niebuhr has much to teach us about how the world works. But that is why we do not trust those who would have us make sacrifices in the name of preserving a world at war. We believe a sacrifice has been made that has brought an end to the sacrifice of war.
2. To do well on Twitter (and in social media in general), you need a plan.
Tony Morgan taught me that. He wrote that he would focus on leadership and strategy, and he did. On my blog, I focus on church, culture, and leadership””and my tweets reflect the blog focus.
You need a plan that includes what you will focus on, how often you will tweet, etc.
If you are a pastor, you can’t just say, “I will focus on my church.” You need more than that. What is your church’s passion? Focus on that. Then tweet about it.
3. Social media needs personality….
The United States’ competitiveness among global economies is rising again after four years of decline, though northern European countries continue to dominate the rankings published annually by the World Economic Forum.
In its latest survey, released Wednesday, the Forum ranked the U.S. ”” the world’s largest economy ”” in fifth place for overall competitiveness, up from seventh last year. The U.S. turnaround reflects “a perceived improvement in the country’s financial market as well as greater confidence in its public institutions,” the report concluded….
Six European countries dominated the top 10: Switzerland, Finland, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The remaining three slots were Asian: Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan.
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said in July that Wonga took advantage of poor households struggling to get by in austerity conditions, and pledged to drive the “morally wrong” company out of existence by launching the church’s own not-for-profit credit unions as an alternative for Wonga’s customers.
On Tuesday Errol Damelin, chief executive and founder of Wonga, described the challenge as “complimentary” and said he doubted it would have an impact on Wonga’s business.
“In the UK on the consumer side, we reject about two thirds of applicants we get. The market that the Church would be looking at, we think, is mostly the market for people who don’t get accepted for Wonga loans,” Damelin said.
…at some time during the 19th century, it disappeared. Officially listed as lost by a “Miss Shepherd”, and recorded in a hand that dates the disappearance to the early 19th century, mystery surrounds the book’s disappearance ”“ as no corroborating record of such a person working at the cathedral has ever been found.
While those working at St Paul’s would never say it publicly, there is a belief it may have left the cathedral premises under the cassock of a light-fingered priest.
Imagine their surprise, then, when the ancient tome was suddenly advertised for sale by the Law Society, as part of a wider summer sell-off of its Mendham collection ”“ a treasure trove of rare Reformation-era bibles and religious tracts amassed by the family of a 19th-century clergyman. It is unclear how the work came to be owned by the family.
One of the highlights of the Rosh Hashanah service for me is the thanksgiving song of Hannah, which speaks of God’s power to change, to give all that is needed and more. It is with this song as inspiration that I wish you every blessing. May we be able to say with Hannah, ”˜There is no Holy One like the LORD, no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God!’
Church of England representative David Shreeve joined others today from the Community Energy Coalition to hand in a nearly 60,000 signature petition to the Department of Energy and Climate Change. It calls on the Government to provide greater support for co-operative and community-owned energy projects.
Ed Davey MP, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change received the petition which is one of the highlights of Community Energy Fortnight. The campaign aims to engage and inspire people about the wide-ranging benefits of community energy.
St. Stanislaus Kostka Church is in discussions to join the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri, according to a letter by Bishop George Wayne Smith.
Smith sent the letter to the Episcopal Diocese’s clergy last week ”” and posted it online over the weekend ”” informing them that discussions with the former Catholic parish “could lead to the church coming into union with the Diocese, should both parties agree that this is in their best interests and in best service to Christ.”
In February, the Archdiocese of St. Louis dismissed its appeal of a 2012 St. Louis Circuit Court decision handing over control of St. Stanislaus Kostka, at 1413 North 20th Street, to its own lay board, and ending a decade-long legal battle between the church and the archdiocese.
Read it all and follow the link to read the letter from Bishop Smith.
The Syrian civil conflict is both a proxy war and a combustion point for spreading waves of violence. This didn’t start out as a religious war. But both Sunni and Shiite power players are seizing on religious symbols and sowing sectarian passions that are rippling across the region. The Saudi and Iranian powers hover in the background fueling each side.
As the death toll in Syria rises to Rwanda-like proportions, images of mass killings draw holy warriors from countries near and far. The radical groups are the most effective fighters and control the tempo of events. The Syrian opposition groups are themselves split violently along sectarian lines so that the country seems to face a choice between anarchy and atrocity.
Meanwhile, the strife appears to be spreading. Sunni-Shiite violence in Iraq is spiking upward. Reports in The New York Times and elsewhere have said that many Iraqis fear their country is sliding back to the worst of the chaos experienced in the past decade. Even Turkey, Pakistan, Bahrain and Kuwait could be infected.
Help us this day, O God, to serve thee devoutly, and the world busily. May we do our work wisely, give succour secretly, go to our meat appetitely, sit thereat discreetly, arise temperately, please our friend duly, go to our bed merrily, and sleep surely; for the joy of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
–The Pastor’s Prayerbook
And as soon as it was morning the chief priests, with the elders and scribes, and the whole council held a consultation; and they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him to Pilate. And Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” And he answered him, “You have said so.” And the chief priests accused him of many things. And Pilate again asked him, “Have you no answer to make? See how many charges they bring against you.” But Jesus made no further answer, so that Pilate wondered.
–Mark 15:1-5
“Unfortunately, we seem to be entering another of those periods of elevated risk,” economists at Bank of America Merrill Lynch wrote last week. Researchers at RBC Capital Markets sounded even more bleak. “Just when you thought the U.S. economy was ready to break out of its lackluster 2 percent growth pace that has dominated the recovery,” they wrote, “reality hits.”
More economic turbulence would be particularly tough for poor and middle-class American workers, who are still struggling amid the historically weak growth following the recession. The typical worker’s income has fallen since the recession ended more than four years ago, and the economy, still far from full employment, is creating far more low-paying jobs than good-paying ones. Polls show that workers remain discouraged by the economic picture, with more than half believing the United States is still in recession.
The Anglican Church of Southern Africa (ACSA) has launched a free cell phone application or ‘app’ to aid communication between parishes and parishioners in the Province.
The Dean of Christ Church Cathedral in the Polokwane area of South Africa, the Very Revd Luke Pretorius, is also a member of ACSA Media Committee.
“I am excited at what may be a world first from Africa,” he told ACNS, “and [also] for how this app will improve the communication between churches and people by using cell phone technology, an essential and already popular tool in Africa.”
Many have mourned theology’s separation from the Church, but in the last 30 years we have witnessed resurgent efforts to reconnect academic theology to its ecclesial roots. The Scholar-Priest Initiative stands in this vein, endeavoring to be the servant in the background of Rembrandt’s picture: to do everything in our power to reintegrate theology back into the life of the parish; to rekindle theological vocation and imagination; in short, to welcome theology home.
The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada face three intractable and seemingly unrelated problems: the double bind of ordained parochial leadership, the diminishment of theological discourse in parish life, and the overall decline of North American theological education.
First, while debates rage on whether and to what extent North American Anglicanism is in decline (and what to do about it), we suffer from an undeniable and debilitating double bind in our parochial leadership. In the Episcopal Church nearly 40 percent of congregations operate without full-time, permanent ordained ministers. Our churches ”” ever increasingly, it seems ”” simply cannot afford full-time clergy. Many dioceses have accordingly found themselves with a glut of ordained ministers. Several have suspended their discernment processes because they already have too many unemployed and underemployed priests. We have an overabundance of well-trained, capable priests. We have too many congregations in need of priests. We need to somehow connect the dots.
Second, there is a disconnect between theological discourse and parish life….
Massachusetts’ highest court on Wednesday (Sept. 4) will consider whether the daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance is a violation of students’ rights.
Since the addition of the phrase “under God” in 1954, the pledge has been challenged repeatedly as a violation of the separation of church and state. In 2004, one case reached the Supreme Court, but ultimately failed, as have all previous challenges.
But the current case before the state’s Supreme Judicial Court, Doe v. Acton-Boxborough Regional School District, is different because lawyers for the plaintiffs, an anonymous atheist couple, won’t be arguing about federal law but rather that the compulsory recitation of the pledge violates the state’s equal rights laws. They argue that the daily recitation of the pledge is a violation of their guarantee of equal protection under those laws.
Listen to it all if you so desire.
Fresh video has emerged from Egypt showing the storming of a Coptic church, apparently proving claims that supporters of former President Mohammed Morsi have been laying waste to Christian churches.
The shocking footage shows a Muslim mob storming the church in the southern Egyptian city of Sohag, smashing furniture and walls and torching cars as they go.
In retirement, …[Juanita O’Neal] bought some acreage in the flatlands 60 miles south of Chicago and plunged her hands back into the soil. On a recent Saturday morning, like all the Saturday mornings of the summer, she had driven with a contingent of black farmers to sell their bounty at a market sponsored by one of Chicago’s most formidable black churches, Trinity United Church of Christ.
“I can’t correct the past,” said Ms. O’Neal, 68. “I can’t blame anyone for the past. I have to take the accountability. But if my grandparents are looking down on me, they’re saying, ”˜Good job.’ ”
The collaboration with Ms. O’Neal and a half-dozen other black farmers from an area known as Pembroke Township fulfills two missions for Trinity’s leaders.
The Joint Implementation Commission (JIC) of the Church of England and Methodist Church in Britain has called for “Church leaders and decision-making bodies to make the Covenant a priority in order to bring our Churches closer together in mission and holiness.”
In a major Report published this week the JIC calls on both Churches to consider the impact that the 10-year-old Anglican Methodist Covenant has made on their relationship; to rejoice in the progress that has been made; and to face together the challenges of mission.
Ever wanted to live in a landmark gothic mansion? Now’s your chance … if you have a spare $25 million.
Home to seven Anglican archbishops over more than a century, one of the city’s largest private estates – it’s a nifty 6216sq m – is up for grabs.
The historic Bishopscourt at 11 Greenoaks Ave, Darling Point, would be a nice piece of business for the Anglican Church Diocese of Sydney, which paid just 6750 pounds for the propery in 1910.
After decades of speculation both inside and outside the church, the Synod of the Anglican Diocese finally authorised the sale in 2012 with a five-year “sale window” option.
THE Anglican Church of the Province of Central Africa (CPCA), which inherited a huge debt and dilapidated infrastructure from excommunicated Bishop Nolbert Kunonga, has embarked on a massive rebuilding exercise.
The church’s infrastructure collapsed after it was forcibly occupied by Kunonga until last year when the wrangle ended.
CPCA Bishop Chad Gandiya said the church had started a massive reconstruction exercise to repair the damage that was caused by five years of total neglect.
LIMITED RESOURCES: A printed one-volume annotated Bible and a printed 1979 Book of
Common Prayer but no electronic or Internet resources.Throughout history, communities have maintained their identity by passing on their traditions (stories, laws, songs, prayers, etc.) from one generation to the next. One of the tasks of a priest specified in the ordination rite is to be a teacher, an educator who passes on and interprets the tradition. The following texts are from the propers for education in the BCP (931):
Deuteronomy 6:4-9, 20-25 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5In no more than 750 words, taking into account the historical, literary, and theological background of each passage, briefly identify the important highlights of the tradition ”“ the
community’s “story” — to be passed on to the following generations of the community to which the passage is addressed. (NOTE: Your answer should demonstrate an understanding of the historical, literary and theological contexts of these passages. It should not include a detailed exegesis of the texts.)In no more than 750 words, briefly summarize at least two biblical traditions that you consider most important to be passed on to the next generation in The Episcopal Church, drawing on the material you have presented in Part 1 and any other relevant biblical texts. Provide a rationale for each of your choices, including an example of a situation in the contemporary church where this tradition would be especially pertinent and useful.