press reports on the new PB
There has been a lot of press coverage of Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. Here is a selection:
Christian Science Monitor Jane Lampman In turbulent times, a new Episcopal leader
Church Times Rachel Harden Jefferts Schori prepares for office in a visit to Lambeth
Associated Press Rachel Zoll via the Corvallis Gazette-Times Jefferts Schori: ‘Transparency’ on views vital
Reuters Michael Conlon New Episcopal Church head says dissent limited
Update Saturday
Associated Press Rachel Zoll Episcopalians to Install Female Leader and sidebar A Look at Katharine Jefferts Schori
Chicago Tribune New era in Episcopal Church
San Diego Union-Tribune New U.S. Episcopal leader seeks peace
13 CommentsWelsh ASBO furore
Ruth Gledhill, who published a report in The Times this morning headlined Cathedral bans Carey as a ‘divisive force’, later published a blog article Asbo on Lord Carey which contains a wealth of additional detail and links to other comments on this matter.
The first story provoked Dave Walker to draw a cartoon published under Lord Carey banned from Cathedral.
Additional further links on the Bangor affair
64 CommentsAPO: more about Pittsburgh
As previously noted,the Diocese of Pittsburgh will consider the issue of APO this weekend at its annual convention. But, as Lionel Deimel has noted on his blog, What Does the Diocese of Pittsburgh Really Want?
…The bigger problem is that the resolution that the diocesan convention will rubber stamp this Friday asks for alternative primatial oversight. (The actual resolution to be voted on incorporates the earlier resolution. Whoever put this together has read Robert’s Rules rather too often.) Alternative primatial oversight is what the leadership of the Pittsburgh and several other dioceses requested as an immediate reaction to the 75th General Convention. The Archbishop of Canterbury was apparently not pleased with receiving multiple requests from Network bishops — one must suspect that he was not pleased with receiving any requests at all — so he asked that the requests be consolidated. Because not all dioceses had asked for the same thing, the replacement combined request did not correspond exactly to what was asked for previously. In particular, although Pittsburgh had asked for “alternative Primatial oversight,” the combined request asked for the appointment of a “Communion Commissary.” (The Bishop of London sent representatives called commissaries to the Colonies in pre-revolutionary times. The colonists actually wanted bishops, however.) That request was dated July 20, well in advance of this week’s convention.
So, what does Pittsburgh actually want? Why is the convention being asked to endorse a request that essentially has been withdrawn, rather that supporting a request that is actually on the table? Is the Bishop of Pittsburgh just trying to confuse matters? Did no one have the energy to draw up a new resolution? Are we asking for two things, in hopes that we will get one or the other? Who knows?
One thing is clear: the militant traditionalists who are disrupting The Episcopal Church have consistently made outrageous requests, so that they can claim to be persecuted when those requests are not granted. Aren’t two outrageous requests better than one?
Other PEP briefing papers here.
7 Commentsnew presiding bishop at work
ENS reports that the new ECUSA Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori wrote on 1 November, her first day in office, to the four Global South primates who are offering to meet those dioceses seeking APO inviting them to meet her also, while they are in the USA.
The Living Church has also reported this with the headline Presiding Bishop Offers to Meet Global South Visitors.
The letter is addressed to The Most Rev. Peter Akinola, Primate of Nigeria, The Most Rev. Drexel Gomez, Primate of the West Indies, The Most Rev. Benjamin Nzimbi, Primate of Kenya, and The Most Rev. Justice Akrofi, Primate of West Africa. The text reads:
To my esteemed brothers in Christ:
While I have not yet had the privilege and honor to meet all of you, I very much look forward to working with you in the coming years as we endeavor to lead the Body of Christ in this portion called the Anglican Communion. I deeply value the possibilities we have in the Anglican Communion for addressing the mission God has given us to reconcile the world he has created. In the spirit of Lambeth 1998, the Episcopal Church has identified the Millennium Development Goals as the framework for our missional work in the coming years. I would hope we might see the common interest we all have for seeing those Goals met, as they provide a concrete image of the Reign of God in our own day, where the hungry are fed, the thirsty watered, and the prisoners of disease and oppression set free.
I understand that you will be in the United States in mid-November for a gathering at Falls Church, Virginia. Considering the difficulty and expense of such a journey, I hope that during your visit you might be willing to pay a call on me, so that we might begin to build toward such a missional relationship. If that is a possibility, I hope you will contact this office as soon as possible. I would be more than happy to alter my schedule to accommodate you.
I look forward to hearing from you, and meeting you. May God bless your ministries and your travels.
Her web pages include the following statement, dated 23 OCtober, which is curiously hidden in a PDF file:
33 Comments“What do you consider the most important priorities for the Presiding Bishop?”
From the Desk of The Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Bishop of NevadaThe Presiding Bishop keeps us focused on the Reign of God, through unceasing attention to mission in the context of baptismal ministry. Christians and their communities are meant to be transformative elements in this world, laboring to create something much more like God’s Reign. The church’s work is to recognize where we have not yet attained God’s dream, speak gospel to that reality, and equip and empower all the baptized to do the work of transforming those places of not-yet. There are two obvious foci for our ministry: moving our sanctuaries into the streets to encounter and transform the bad news of this world; and implementing the Millennium Development Goals, which provide a signal opportunity in this age to realize the dream of God for all creation.
This church must embrace and celebrate all the diverse cultures, languages, and origins of the many parts of the Episcopal Church – Haiti, Taiwan, Province IX, the Churches in Europe, Virgin Islands, as well as the many cultures within the U.S. – First Nations, African-American, Spanishspeaking, Asian, and all Anglo varieties. None is more important than another; all are essential to the transforming work of the Body of Christ.
Ultimately, the Presiding Bishop’s role is one of bridge-building and boundary crossing. If we are to reconcile the world, we must be bold enough to enter unfamiliar territory and partner wherever necessary to build toward the Reign of God. The Body is strengthened as all parts are honored, whatever their color or language, or liturgical, theological, or political stripe. God is to be found in that wilderness of difference, and reconciliation requires the crossing.
APO: the David Beers letter
The Living Church published a news report on Monday 30 October which was headlined Presiding Bishop’s Chancellor Threatens Fort Worth, Quincy Dioceses.
This contained only two selected short quotes from the letter itself, but substantial comments from the Bishop of Fort Worth including the phrase: “The timing of this letter is shocking,”
Later, on the Stand Firm website, Bishop Iker wrote that:
The Beers letter is dated Oct. 19th and came by regular mail to my chancellor’s law office. When a copy was faxed to me from his office on the 27th, I then faxed it to Lambeth Palace, so the Archbishop would know what was in the works. Alas, Katharine had been there for her visit with the ABC that very day but had already departed. +JLI
[Comment: isn’t it weird that such communications are sent by ordinary mail and not electronically? I didn’t realise facsimile technology was still in common use.]
Huge dialogue ensued on the usual blogs: Jim Naughton provides all the links here, and adds some comments of his own. None of the blog commenters had of course read the full text of the letter,but nevertheless many people denounced this action in very strong terms, and generally blaming the new Presiding Bishop, whose term of office begins today, for behaving outrageously in sanctioning such a letter.
Today, a senior priest in Bishop Iker’s diocese, Chris Cantrell, has published just that. It turns out to be a piece of milk toast.
[Salutation omitted]
Several persons have told me recently that they believe that your diocese, within the past few or several years, has amended its Constitution in some way that can be read as cutting against an “unqualified accession” to the Constitution and canons of the Episcopal Church. First of all, could you please send me a copy of your Constitution so that I can have first-hand knowledge on this score.Second, if your diocese has indeed adopted such an amendment, then, on behalf of the Presiding Bishop, I want to express the hope that your diocese will promptly begin the process of amending its Constitution to declare clearly an “unqualified accession” as Article V of the Church’s Constitution plainly requires. If your diocese should decline to take that step, the Presiding Bishop will have to consider what sort of action she must take in order to bring your diocese into compliance.
With warm regards,
David Booth Beers
I shall be pleasantly surprised if anyone now apologises for their earlier remarks.
16 CommentsJohn Humphrys interviews Rowan Williams
Updated Sunday
Humphrys in Search of God is a series of three half-hour radio programmes being broadcast on BBC Radio 4 over the next three weeks. The BBC blurb reads:
John Humphrys as you’ve never heard him before – talking with religious leaders about his unfulfilled desire to believe in God.
How is faith possible in a world of suffering, much of it arguably caused by religion or religious extremism and to which God seems to turn a blind eye? Is there a place for religion in an age dominated by science?
His guests are the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams; Professor Tariq Ramadan, Muslim academic and author; and Sir Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi.
The first interview, with Rowan Williams, was broadcast today. The 29 minute programme as broadcast can be heard here (Real audio).
The BBC website also has an extended 54 minute version of it, which you can listen to here.
Readers from outside the UK who may not be familiar with John Humphrys will find his biography here.
Update here is a transcript of the shorter version.
28 CommentsCanadian bishops move on St Michael report
The following is excerpted from a Report from the House of Bishops, Oct. 23 – 26 by Vianney (Sam) Carriere
St. Michael Report
Bishop Victoria Matthews reviewed the work of the Primate’s Theological Commission leading up to the St. Michael Report that concluded that same-sex blessings is a matter of doctrine, but not of core doctrine. She also described the process whereby dioceses of the church were encouraged to consider the report and to comment on it. The question she asked bishops to consider in small groups was whether or not they “buy” the report’s central conclusion. All of the table groups reported back that they agreed with the report’s finding that the issue is doctrinal, but not one of core doctrine. “I won’t guess where that takes us,” Bishop Matthews concluded, “but I think it is important that we know this about ourselves.”
2 Commentsmore on what RW said about veils
Last Saturday’s opinions linked here included Rowan Williams writing in The Times that A society that does not allow crosses or veils in public is a dangerous one.
On Sunday, he was interviewed by Roger Bolton on the radio. You can listen here (7m 21s Real Audio).
When Dr Rowan Williams returned to the UK after his visit to China, he said he felt he had stepped into the middle of what felt like a general panic about the role of religion in society. He wrote in the Times that “The proverbial visitor from Mars might have imagined that the greatest immediate threat to British society was religious war, fomented by “faith schools”, cheered on by thousands of veiled women and the Bishops benches in the House of Lords”. …Roger asked him whether it really felt like that.
Yesterday, Andrew Brown wrote about the article on Commentisfree. Read Respect underwritten by fear.
Ruth Gledhill wrote about this also, see Loving religion, til China and Europe meet.
1 CommentZimbabwe: church leaders speak out
There is no mention of explicit Anglican involvement in any of the following news reports from Zimbabwe. Nevertheless the event described seems worth reporting.
Reuters Mugabe rejects church calls for a new constitution
Voice of America Zimbabwe Churchmen Present ‘National Vision’ To President Mugabe
The Herald Harare via _AllAfrica.com Zimbabwe: Churches Present Draft Document to President
Associated Press via the International Herald-Tribune Church leaders ask for forgiveness, call for reconciliation to heal Zimbabwe
Hat Tip Magic Statistics.
Nigerian news
First, a report on the Nigerian provincial website, about plans for growth and how these depend in part on finance. Read OVER 20 NEW DIOCESES TO BE INAUGURATED IN 2007.
Second, a report from Changing Attitude on Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) plans for Lambeth Conference. This suggests that quite a lot of money is available.
Update Tuesday
Mark Harris notes some editorial problems with the Nigerian provincial constitution in Revisiting The Church of Nigeria’s Constitution: An exercise in (mild) frustration.
Pittsburgh and APO
Updated Tuesday
While Dallas has withdrawn its request, the Diocese of Pittsburgh is proceeding full speed ahead in this matter of primatial oversight. The diocesan convention will be held next weekend (while the installation of the new PB takes place in Washington DC) and will be asked to vote on this resolution. The key paragraph reads:
RESOLVED, that the Bishop and Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh in good faith hereby join with the other dioceses of the Episcopal Church who are appealing to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primates of the Anglican Communion, and the Panel of Reference for immediate alternative Primatial oversight and pastoral care so that a unifying solution might be found to preserve an authentic Anglican community of witness within the United States of America and provide pastoral and apostolic care to biblically orthodox Anglicans in this country regardless of geographical location; and
The diocesan website has, incidentally, amended its notice concerning the text of the appeal:
…It explains why the dioceses involved believe that a different form of oversight is necessary (see editor’s note) and what that oversight might look like…
…Editor’s Note: Mary Francis Schjonberg of ENS helpfully pointed out here that “APO” was not used to describe the appeal by all those who ultimately signed the combined request that is linked above. I replaced “APO” with “A different form of oversight” in the text above to allow for the various terms used by bishops and diocesan bodies in their initial individual appeals. – Peter Frank, director of communications.
To get the full flavour of what the leadership of the Pittsburgh diocese thinks, you really need to read in full the address delivered by Bishop Duncan when he received an honorary doctorate from Nashotah House.
Update Tuesday
Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh has published briefing papers in response to this resolution, you can read them here, here, and here.
Lords reform and the Bishops
The Sunday Times reported in Life peers face axe in Lords overhaul on a draft document which is available in full here. The section dealing specifically with religious representation is reproduced here below the fold.
Today, in the Church Times Bill Bowder reports on this with Lords plan would keep bishops out of their dioceses.
4 Commentsopinions at the weekend
Rowan Williams wrote in The Times earlier this week that A society that does not allow crosses or veils in public is a dangerous one.
Charles Moore writing in the Telegraph today, disagrees with him: Church schools kerfuffle is just the veil wagging the dog.
Stephen Plant writes in The Times today about The political race between the Evangelical God and the ‘ordinary one’.
Theo Hobson writes in the Guardian’s Face to faith column that Secular Christianity can reconnect religion to our world.
Christopher Howse uses his Telegraph column to write about Michael Mayne in A song that went on to the end.
13 CommentsAPO developments
First, the Living Church reported that four Global South primates were expecting to meet with Network dioceses requesting APO, see Four Primates Offer to Meet With Dioceses Requesting APO.
Second, ENS reported that Dallas really has withdrawn its request for APO. Or claims it never made one. Whatever, see Dallas Bishop clarifies request for ‘alternative primatial oversight‘.The full statement from Bishop Stanton is now added below the fold here. (hat tip SDB). Update Saturday morning: the statement is now also on the front page of the Dallas diocesan website, but you have to scroll down to find it.
Third, the Living Church reported that
The dioceses which appealed to the Archbishop of Canterbury for alternate primatial oversight (APO) last summer have modified their petition and no longer seek an “alternative primate” to exercise metropolitan oversight. Instead they have asked Archbishop Rowan Williams for a “commissary” from Canterbury…
See Dioceses’ Appeal for APO Modified.
8 CommentsBishop Katharine visits Rowan Williams
Updated Monday morning
As previously reported by the Living Church, today the Presiding Bishop-elect of The Episcopal Church visited Archbishop Rowan Williams at Lambeth.
Episcopal News Service and the Anglican Communion News Service both carry reports and photographs.
Archbishop welcomes Presiding Bishop, Presiding Bishop-elect to Lambeth Palace
The Presiding Bishop elect meets with the Archbishop of Canterbury
Update The Living Church has a further report, Archbishop Williams Meets With Presiding Bishop-elect Jefferts Schori
Her installation as Presiding Bishop will take place at the Washington Cathedral on Saturday 4 November. Details of the arrangements are described here.
For an earlier video interview with CBS News, go here.
For two videos from the General Convention go here.
Her remarks at a recent conference for ordained women are summarised here.
Update Monday
In his sermon at St John’s Notting Hill yesterday, Frank Griswold said:
25 CommentsMy reason for being here in London has been to introduce Bishop Katharine to his Grace, the Archbishop of Canterbury. While I have known Archbishop Rowan for many years – our friendship dating back to his days as a professor at Oxford – my successor had yet to meet him. It was an immensely positive and fruitful exchange. During our meeting we were able to share mutual concerns and hopes for the future of our Communion and its ministry of service to our broken and needy world.
The Anglican Communion, through its international consultative council, has committed itself to gender equity in all of its representative and consultative bodies. The election of Bishop Katharine to serve as 26th Presiding Bishop, and therefore Primate, is a first step toward bringing gender balance to what until now has been an all male preserve.
There are those who have indicated that they will not sit at the same table with her. I do hope that once they meet her as a person, rather than as a fabrication of the Internet, they will be able to sense the depth and authenticity of her faith, and to recognize her as a sister in Christ and a fellow bishop.
Is Dallas seeking any other primatial oversight?
Updated again Friday evening
Dallas Bishop clarifies request for ‘alternative primatial oversight’
The Diocese of Dallas has apparently withdrawn its application for alternative primatial oversight. That is what it says on the Diocese of Pittsburgh website. Confused? I am, but read it yourself here:
…the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh has released the full text of the appeal for Alternate Primatial Oversight (APO). The appeal, which lays out the request of the dioceses of Pittsburgh, Central Florida, Dallas, Fort Worth, San Joaquin, South Carolina and Springfield, was sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury on July 20. It explains why the dioceses involved believe that APO is necessary and what that oversight might look like. Since July, Dallas has withdrawn its request, but Quincy has joined the other appellants.
On the Dallas diocesan website, you find still present the following, dated 3 July:
To this end, we call upon the bishop to appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury for a direct primatial relationship with him for the purpose of mission, pastoral support, and accountability.
The Diocese of Dallas just completed its annual convention. All kinds of details about this meeting can be found on the website of the Bishop of Dallas and now on the diocesan site also. But there is no mention there of this matter that I could see. And I am told that the topic was never mentioned during the convention proceedings. This in itself seems very strange.
According to ENS in Convention refuses to sever relationship with the Episcopal Church:
The Diocese of Dallas’s 111th diocesan convention, meeting October 20-21 at the Southfork Ranch Event and Conference Center, refused proposals to remove all reference to the Episcopal Church and General Convention from its constitution, place the diocese specifically in relationship with the Anglican Communion, allow a parish to break from the diocese “upon concurrence of its Rector and at least two-thirds of its Vestry” and allow breakaway parishes to retain title to their property.
“Separation is never a strategy,” Dallas Bishop James Stanton said in a convention speech, according to an October 22 report in the Dallas Morning News.
“Those who depart the church are not, I think, fulfilling Christ’s call but are fulfilling the expectations the world has about the church, that we cannot really get along,” he said. The diocese’s website does not yet have a copy of Stanton’s address.
After the convention, Stanton told the Dallas newspaper that his call for church unity would apply to the denomination only if it follows “the teachings of the apostles.”
The Dallas Morning News reported Diocese says no, for now, to Episcopal split.
Update Thursday evening
This page from the Church of the Ascension in Dallas may shed some further light on the issue:
…At the end of the meeting Bishop Stanton stated that he, and in his opinion 80% of those he has met with, disapproved of the way Convention was run and/or disagreed with some of the outcomes. He then stated that, despite reports in the press to the contrary, he has not rejected the authority of the Presiding Bishop or anyone else. He shared with us his concerns that he feels we will loose some parishes maybe even prior to the convention. The uncertainty many of us felt about the role our Bishop would play in the ‘disassociation movement’ was diminished by his announcement that he was not going to leave the Episcopal Church whatever the outcome of the Diocesan convention in October, and that he was bound by our Canons and Constitution. Bishop Stanton further said that he acknowledges and accepts that Bishop Katharine Jefferts-Schori is the duly elected Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. Further, he has not and will not ask the Archbishop of Canterbury for oversight from an Anglican leader instead of being under the umbrella of the American church.
Jim Naughton has also said he is confused about this, see Significant or merely curious?
Update Friday morning
The footnote 2 to this speech by Bishop Robert Duncan reads:
2 Central Florida, Dallas, Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, Quincy, San Joaquin, South Carolina, and Springfield have appealed for Alternative Primatial Oversight or Relationship. The Bishop of Dallas has withdrawn from the request, but the Bishops of Albany are considering joining the request.
The addition of Quincy was reported earlier. The possible addition of Albany is news. It is interesting that the references are to bishops rather than to dioceses.
Further research reminds me that what Bishop Stanton said (scroll down for his pastoral letter) on 5 July was this:
2. They [Standing Committee] ask me to “appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury for a direct primatial relationship …” Several dioceses have called for “alternative primatial oversight,” as you well know through news reports. I will discuss a direct relationship with the archbishop. This will be for the pastoral support of our mission, and assurance of our place in the Communion. I must emphasize that this relationship will be consistent with our constitution and canons, both of the diocese and of the General Church.
And yet, according to the Living Church:
7 CommentsOverseen by the Bishop of Dallas, the Rt. Rev. James M. Stanton, the 14-page petition for relief was sent to Lambeth Palace last month after Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams requested the dioceses to consolidate their requests for assistance.
South Carolina election consents
The episcopal election in South Carolina of Mark Lawrence has to be approved by a majority of the bishops with jurisdiction and a majority of the diocesan standing committees of ECUSA. (This was the election where one of the losing candidates announced shortly thereafter that he was going to work instead for the Anglican Mission in America, a separate ecclesial body, not part of the Anglican Communion, though with ties to the Province of Rwanda.)
Episcopal News Service reported: Via Media group asks bishops, standing committees to refuse consent to South Carolina bishop-elect.
The Via Media letters can be read here:
To Bishops
To Standing Committees
There is also a major article by Lionel Deimel here: No Consents.
And another article by Wake Up is here: There Is An Impediment. For more about this group, see here.
2 CommentsBurundi update
Earlier, I mentioned a report from Burundi. Another report from Burundi was released after that: STATEMENT from the ANGLICAN CHURCH OF BURUNDI on the Anglican Communion.
1 CommentCohabitation: the CofE statement
Two weeks ago, the Archbishops’ Council issued a response to the Law Commission’s consultation Cohabitation: the Financial Consequences of Relationship Breakdown. The consultation closed on 30 September, but the documents are still available here. Main PDF document (warning: is 2.6 Mbytes).
The CofE press release about it is here. The full text of the Church of England response is here (PDF).
33 Commentschurch attendance
As we reported recently the latest annual official CofE attendance (and other) statistics were published on 15 September.
The 22 September issue of the Church Times carried some major articles related to this and some separate national research. Here are the links to those articles:
Faint signs of hope in church census results
The ‘regulars’ who come only once a year by Peter Brierley
Jesus and the 5000-ish by David Thomas
Breaking free from parish bounds by Sue Johns
67 Comments