Updated again Thursday morning
The Press Association reports:
The Government has suffered a defeat over its welfare reform proposals as peers supported a move to exempt child benefit from the £26,000 benefits cap.
Peers voted by 252 to 237, majority 15, in favour of an amendment introduced by the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, the Rt Rev John Packer, which received Labour backing.
He said: “It cannot be right for the cap to be the same for a childless couple as for a couple with children. Child benefit is the most appropriate way to right this unfairness.”
He argued that, in effect, the cap denied child benefit payments to people whose other benefits had reached £500 a week.“This cap is not simply targeted at wealthy families living in large houses,” he said. “It will damage those who have to pay high rents because often that rent has increased substantially in the course of their occupancy of that house.”
The defeat was the fifth the Government has received on the Bill, including three on one day earlier this month…
Or, as Channel 4 News reported:
An amendment tabled by the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, the Rt Rev John Packer, calling for child benefit to be excluded from the cap, was passed by 252 votes to 237, a majority of 15.
A Labour amendment to exempt families threatened by homelessness from the cap was rejected by 250 votes to 222, a majority of 28. But 17 Liberal Democrats, coalition partners with the Conservatives, supported it.
The Lords was debating the government’s plans to ensure that a workless household cannot claim more than £26,000 a year in benefits – the average income after tax of a working family. The cap is equivalent to £500 a week for people with children.
Labour backed Bishop Packer’s amendment, despite being in favour of a cap in principle.
Bishop Packer said the cap “failed to differentiate between households with children and those without”, adding: “This cap is not simply targeted at wealthy families living in large houses. It will damage those who have to pay high rents because often that rent has increased substantially in the course of their occupancy of that house.”
The record of the debate on this amendment starts here.
The voting record on this amendment can be found here.
Five bishops voted in favour of the amendment: Chichester, Ripon & Leeds, Leicester, Lichfield, Manchester.
Speeches:
On an earlier amendment: Ripon and Leeds; Chichester
On this amendment: Ripon and Leeds; Chichester
Andrew Brown wrote at Cif Belief that This welfare bill has united bishops like never before.
The Children’s Society issued this Statement in response to the Government’s defeat in the House of Lords with regard to the proposed benefit cap set out in Welfare Reform Bill:
“The Lords have stood up to the Government and sent a clear message in support of children up and down the country.
“The Children’s Society is delighted that the Lords have seen sense today and excluded child benefit when calculating the benefit cap. Children should not be held responsible and penalised for the employment circumstances of their parents.
“Child benefit is a non-means tested benefit paid to working and non-working families. It’s a benefit all households with children are entitled to and is there to help with the cost of having children.
“If the intention of the benefit cap is to promote fairness, it is totally unfair that a small family with a household income of £80,000 a year receive it, yet a large family with a benefit income of £26,000 are excluded.
“The Government must not ignore the fact that the Lords have spoken out to defend the plight of some of the country’s most disadvantaged children”.
The Guardian has a review of media reactions to all this here.
The BBC has an interesting analysis: What is the role of bishops in UK politics?
George Carey My fellow bishops are wrong. Fuelling the culture of welfare dependency is immoral.
The Bishop of Leicester writes in the Telegraph ‘Lord Carey was wrong to defend government’s welfare reforms’.
The Independent has a leading article: Bishops and benefits don’t mix.
35 CommentsUpdated again Saturday evening
GS Misc 1011 has been published: The Church of England and the Anglican Church in North America (PDF).
The document is published over the signatures of the two archbishops.
The final sections read as follows:
15. Where then do matters currently stand concerning ACNA on each of these
three issues, namely relations with the Church of England, relations with the
Anglican Communion and the ability of ACNA clergy to be authorised to
minister in the Church of England?16. The Synod motion rightly began by referring to “the distress caused by recent
divisions within the Anglican churches of the United States of America and
Canada.” That distress, in which we share, is a continuing element in the
present situation and is likely to remain so for some considerable time.17. Wounds are still fresh. Those who follow developments in North America
from some distance have a responsibility not to say or do anything which will
inflame an already difficult situation and make it harder for those directly
involved to manage the various challenges with which they are still grappling.18. We would, therefore, encourage an open-ended engagement with ACNA on
the part of the Church of England and the Communion, while recognising that
the outcome is unlikely to be clear for some time yet, especially given the
strong feelings on all sides of the debate in North America.19. The Church of England remains fully committed to the Anglican Communion
and to being in communion both with the Anglican Church of Canada and the
Episcopal Church (TEC). In addition, the Synod motion has given Church of
England affirmation to the desire of ACNA to remain in some sense within the
Anglican family.20. Among issues that will need to be explored in direct discussions between the
Church of England and ACNA are the canonical situation of the latter, its
relationship to other Churches of the Communion outside North America and
its attitude towards existing Anglican ecumenical agreements.21. Where clergy from ACNA wish to come to England the position in relation to
their orders and their personal suitability for ministry here will be considered
by us on a case by case basis under the Overseas and Other Clergy (Ministry
and Ordination) Measure 1967.
Updates
Episcopal News Service reports this development with the headline Archbishops suggest ‘open-ended engagement’ with breakaway Anglicans.
The American Anglican Council comments on it in its weekly update (scroll down for the article by Phil Ashey).
ACNA itself has now published this statement: Anglican Church Embraces Working Relationship with Church of England and the bulk of it is quoted below the fold.
57 CommentsThe Church Times has today published an electronic copy of the Osborne Report on homosexuality. This should have been published in 1989.
In an accompanying article, the Very Revd Dr Jane Shaw explains the background to its suppression at the time.
When the CofE wanted to talk
A new (all-male) group is rethinking Issues in Human Sexuality, the 1991 report that remains the Bishops’ line on homosexuality…
The increasing acceptance of gay men and lesbians in the wider society in the 1970s and ’80s meant that the Church of England had to address the subject. In 1979, a church report, Homosexual Relationships: A contribution to discussion, was published, but was considered too liberal by many in the Church.
So, in 1986, a standing committee of the House of Bishops asked the Board for Social Responsibility to set up a working party to advise the bishops. This resulted in the Osborne report of 1989 (chaired by the Revd June Osborne, a member of the Board), which drew on the direct testimony of gay and lesbian Christians…
The full text of the report is available as an 8Mb PDF file.
7 CommentsThe Press Association reports:
The City of London Corporation has won its high court bid to evict anti-capitalist protesters from outside St Paul’s Cathedral.
In a judgment that followed a five-day hearing held before Christmas, Mr Justice Lindblom granted orders for possession and injunctions against Occupy London.
He said that the proposed action was “entirely lawful and justified” as well as necessary and proportionate and refused permission to appeal although the protesters have seven working days to renew their applications directly to the Court of Appeal.
The corporation agreed not to enforce the orders until 4pm on 27 January pending such a move, which is to be launched on Friday…
The full judgment can be found via the UK Human Rights Blog at Occupy London to be evicted – full judgment.
St Paul’s Cathedral issued this statement:
“We have always said that a permanent camp is an unsustainable forum, but would reiterate to the protestors that we have offered a number of alternative platforms for the important issues they raise to be voiced. We are, through those platforms, committed to engage in the continued debate on these issues and believe St Paul’s can be an effective forum for such debate.”
David Shariatmadari reports for the Guardian that Occupy London protesters greet news of eviction ruling with quiet dismay.
6 CommentsUpdated again on 1 February
There were two news reports in Sunday newspapers concerning the Dean of St Albans.
One was in the Mail on Sunday and written by Jonathan Petre, see ‘I’ll sue Church of England if it bars me from being bishop,’ says gay dean. (A later version with a quite different headline appears here.)
The other was in the Sunday Times by Kate Mansey but is hidden behind a paywall. However, I can say that it included a long quote from the memorandum written by Colin Slee and published some time ago in connection with a Guardian news story.
Several other newspapers have followed up these reports. The most thoughtful is the Independent which has today published the following items:
Updates
Andrew Brown has this analysis: Why is this gay cleric considering suing the church if he won’t win?
…Look at the small print of its legal opinion on civil partnerships, transparently designed to prevent John from being able to sue for discrimination. No selection committee would ask straight candidates for a job whether they had ever had pre-marital sex, and, if they had, whether they were jolly sorry for it. Yet the Church of England believes that it is legally and morally OK to ask the equivalent questions of gay men: “Whether the candidate had always complied with the church’s teachings on sexual activity being solely within matrimony; whether he had expressed repentance for any previous pre-marital sexual activity.”
That is offensive enough, but the real point is found in the apparently balanced statements of disagreement. “It is clear that a significant number of Anglicans, on grounds of strongly held religious conviction, believe that a Christian leader should not entire into a civil partnership, even if celibate … it is equally clear that many other Anglicans believe it is appropriate that clergy who are gay by orientation entire into civil partnerships.” This formulation gives the game away. It is only conservative evangelical opinion which is described as “strongly held religious conviction”. The liberals merely “believe it is appropriate”, with the implication that their beliefs on this are not religious at all. This kind of nonsense was dealt with decades ago where women priests were concerned. What needs saying, loud and clear, is that the case for liberalism here is every bit as religious, and as theologically informed, as the case for the conservatives…
Two further analyses:
New Statesman Nelson Jones Bishop sacrifice
When it was announced that the Church of England had established an advisory group on human sexuality, consisting of four bishops and a retired civil servant, there was some criticism of the fact that all its members were (ahem) male. But that was only to be expected, and not just because it happens to be a group of bishops, which remains, for the time being at least, an exclusively male club. In Anglican parlance, “human sexuality” is code for, “What do we do about the gays?”
…In the case of the Church of England, there are currently two major sticking points, which may or may not be linked: the question of whether civil partnership ceremonies should be allowed to take place in church, and the question of whether openly gay men, even if celibate, should be allowed to become bishops. In both cases the present situation is one of studied hypocrisy…
Episcopal Café Jim Naughton Misleading media coverage: the latest in the Jeffrey John saga
There is a full report in the Church Times see C of E policy on appointing bishops may face legal test
And the Press column by Andrew Brown is now also available to non-subscribers: An enemy hath spun this
81 Comments…Right at the bottom of the Mail’s story was the line that “one source said Dr John suggested he would drop his legal threat if he felt he would not be ruled out for future posts.”
Of course, a huge amount turns on whether this source was a friend or enemy of Dr John, because the Sunday Times story and the Mail on Sunday’s headline both invite the riposte that they got from George Pitcher on the Mail’s website.
He wasted no time on the ball, and went straight for the man: “We’re forced to ask how seriously we’re likely to take him as a bishop if we harbour the suspicion that he won his post, even by suggestion, because he’d declared that if he wasn’t delivered such-and-such a bishopric then he’d sue.”
But is that really why Dr John was discussing legal action? It is clearly true that Alison Downie has been corresponding with church legal authorities on his behalf. But friends — real friends — of his, and allies, too, suggest that what he was trying to do instead was to ensure that civil partnerships are not in themselves a bar to promotion. That is just as upsetting to conservative Evangelicals as if he were actuated by personal ambition.
It is actually much more difficult for the Archbishop of Canterbury to handle, and much more appealing to public opinion. One begins to see why the story might have emerged from his enemies with the spin that it had.
From the Diocese of Virginia: Court Rules in Favor of Diocese
1/10/2012
Tonight, the Fairfax Circuit Court issued its ruling in favor of the Diocese of Virginia and the Episcopal Church in litigation seeking to recover Episcopal church property. “Our goal throughout this litigation has been to return faithful Episcopalians to their church homes and Episcopal properties to the mission of the Church,” said the Rt. Rev. Shannon S. Johnston, bishop of Virginia.
The court ruled that the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia have “a contractual and proprietary interest” in each of the properties subject to the litigation. The court ordered that all property subject to its ruling be turned over to the Diocese.
“We hope that this ruling will lead to our congregations returning to worship in their church homes in the near future, while finding a way to support the CANA congregations as they plan their transition,” said Henry D.W. Burt, secretary of the Diocese and chief of staff.
Bishop Johnston added, “While we are grateful for the decision in our favor, we remain mindful of the toll this litigation has taken on all parties involved, and we continue to pray for all affected by the litigation.”
The ruling can be found here (PDF).
From the CANA website: Statement by the ACNA Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic
(January 10, 2012) – Seven Anglican congregations in Virginia that are parties to the church property case brought by The Episcopal Church and the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia are reviewing today’s ruling by the Fairfax County Circuit Court that the property should be turned over to the Episcopal Diocese.
The Circuit Court heard the case last spring after the Virginia Supreme Court remanded it in June 2010. The congregations previously had succeeded in their efforts on the Circuit Court level to defend the property that they bought and paid for.
“Although we are profoundly disappointed by today’s decision, we offer our gratitude to Judge Bellows for his review of this case. As we prayerfully consider our legal options, we above all remain steadfast in our effort to defend the historic Christian faith. Regardless of today’s ruling, we are confident that God is in control, and that He will continue to guide our path,” said Jim Oakes, spokesperson for the seven Anglican congregations.
The Rev. John Yates, rector of The Falls Church, a historic property involved in the case, stated, “The core issue for us is not physical property, but theological and moral truth and the intellectual integrity of faith in the modern world. Wherever we worship, we remain Anglicans because we cannot compromise our historic faith. Like our spiritual forebears in the Reformation, ‘Here we stand. So help us God. We can do no other.’”
The seven Anglican congregations are members of the newly established Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic, a member diocese within the Anglican Church in North America. Bishop John Guernsey of the Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic has expressed to leaders of the seven congregations, “Our trust is in the Lord who is ever faithful. He is in control and He will enable you to carry forward your mission for the glory of Jesus Christ and the extension of His Kingdom. Know that your brothers and sisters in Christ continue to stand with you and pray for you.”
The Anglican Curmudgeon has his analysis of the judgment here.
18 CommentsA group which styles itself as The Commission on Assisted Dying issued a report last week.
The official Church of England response was this: Statement on the report of the Commission for Assisted Dying.
The ‘Commission on Assisted Dying’ is a self-appointed group that excluded from its membership anyone with a known objection to assisted suicide. In contrast, the majority of commissioners, appointed personally by Lord Falconer, were already in favour of changing the law to legitimise assisted suicide. Lord Falconer has, himself, been a leading proponent for legitimising assisted suicide, for some years.
The commission undertook a quest to find effective safeguards that could be put in place to avoid abuse of any new law legitimising assisted suicide. Unsurprisingly, given the commission’s composition, it has claimed to have found such safeguards.
Unlike the commissioners, we are unconvinced that the commission has been successful in its quest. It has singularly failed to demonstrate that vulnerable people are not placed at greater risk under its proposals than is currently the case under present legislation. In spite of the findings of research that it commissioned, it has failed adequately to take into account the fact that in all jurisdictions where assisted suicide or euthanasia is permitted, there are breaches of safeguards as well as notable failures in monitoring and reporting.
The present law strikes an excellent balance between safeguarding hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people and treating with fairness and compassion those few people who, acting out of selfless motives, have assisted a loved one to die.
Put simply, the most effective safeguard against abuse is to leave the law as it is. What Lord Falconer has done is to argue that it is morally acceptable to put many vulnerable people at increased risk so that the aspirations of a small number of individuals, to control the time, place and means of their deaths, might be met. Such a calculus of risk is unnecessary and wholly unacceptable.
The Church Times reported this in a news article by Ed Thornton Assisted dying ‘unwise’, warns Canon
CANON James Woodward, a member of the Falconer Commission on Assisted Dying, this week declined to support its conclusion that there is “a strong case for providing the choice of assisted dying for terminally ill people”.
The Commission, chaired by the former Lord Chancellor, was established in September 2010 “to consider whether the current legal and policy approach to assisted dying in England and Wales is fit for purpose”.
Its report, published yesterday, argues that the law should be changed to allow terminally ill people in the last year of their lives who are mentally sound to ask a doctor to prescribe a lethal dose. A second doctor would have to assess the candidate independently, and alternative treatments would have to be presented. Candidates would have to administer the lethal dose themselves.
The Revd Dr Woodward, a Canon of Windsor, was the sole dissenting voice on the Commission. He said last week that a visit to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland had been his Damascus-road experience. Writing in today’s Church Times, he says: “Fundamentally, we cannot demand freedom to choose at any cost. I understand that there are significant difficulties with the current law. Yet my visit to Switzerland . . . raised many more questions about the way a culture views life, death, and the freedom to choose…
The full text of Canon Woodward’s article is available at Why I dissented from Falconer.
…It has been a privilege to travel alongside my fellow commissioners, but we have not ended up in the same place. In the end, mine was the single dissenting voice from the conclusions. My fellow commissioners have accommodated my divergence with generosity. I support the coherence, rigour, and quality of this work, and hope that it will be read and used as a basis for further research, work, and public debate…
The Church Times also carried this leader article: Assisting the dying to find dignity.
39 CommentsTHE Commission on Assisted Dying assembled by Lord Falconer knew that it had a large stone to push uphill. Parliamentary debates too numerable to recall have considered various schemes for euthanasia and found all wanting. A certain level of help with the stone-pushing has been gained by presenting this as a libertarian issue: those nasty, conservative Churches preventing people from doing what they wish. But, in general, the difficulties of regulation and the lack of safeguards have left a large body of opinion unconvinced that a change in the law can be made securely, even before any slippery-slope arguments are deployed…
Jim Naughton wrote at Episcopal Café about the year ahead for The Episcopal Church.
A number of comments related to this article were made in an earlier thread here, which was about an English subject: Same-sex Marriage and Disestablishment.
In order to stop the discussion on the latter topic being dominated by Americans discussing something quite different, I have created this article.
6 CommentsChurch of England press release:
47 CommentsThe membership of a group to advise the House of Bishops on the Church of England’s approach to human sexuality has been announced. The Group will be chaired by Sir Joseph Pilling. Sir Joseph, a former Permanent Secretary of the Northern Ireland Office, chaired the group that produced the report on senior church appointments, Talent and Calling, published in 2007.
The other members of the Group are the Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt Rev Michael Perham, the Bishop of Birkenhead, the Rt Rev Keith Sinclair, the Bishop of Ebbsfleet, the Rt Rev Jonathan Baker and the Bishop of Warwick, the Rt Rev John Stroyan.
The House of Bishops announced on 1 July that it intended to draw together material from the listening process undertaken within the Church of England over recent years in the light of the 1998 Lambeth Conference resolution on human sexuality. It also committed itself to offering proposals on how the continuing discussion within the Church of England about these matters might best be shaped in the light of the listening process. The task of the new group is to help the House discharge its commitment to produce a consultation document in 2013. The membership of another group, advising the House on its review of the 2005 civil partnership statement, was announced on 1 December.
The full text of the 1 July statement.
Iain McLean has written at OurKingdom about Same-sex marriage and the Church of England: an argument for disestablishment.
He starts this way:
The UK government has promised to launch a consultation on ‘how to make civil marriage available to same-sex couples’ in England and Wales. Note: HOW, not WHETHER. This reflects the astonishing social change in the last two decades in the UK and other liberal democracies. Surveys such as British Social Attitudes show that moral opposition to gay relationships has gone from a substantial majority to a minority in only 20 years. The Coalition is going with the flow, although not as fast as the devolved Scottish government, whose consultation on the same subject has already taken place.
This is a very difficult subject for faith communities, many of which have been left stranded; and many of which have a principled opposition to recognising same-sex relationships in their churches, synagogues, or temples. That opposition must be honoured, if religious freedom is to mean anything; but equally, so must the principles of those who do want to recognise same-sex commitments in their places of worship.
And he concludes:
29 Comments… If Parliament makes same-sex marriage possible, will the obligation not then extend to offering same-sex marriage to any parishioner?
No. it cannot and it must not. As the Quakers, Unitarians, and Liberal Jews told the Lords last month, religious freedom must mean the freedom to say no as well as the freedom to say yes. Article 9 of the European Convention of Human Rights says the same thing. In England, although not in Scotland, the current proposal is to exclude religious communities entirely from the arrangements for same-sex marriage. This will predictably come under pressure if the Government’s intention to legislate for civil same-sex marriage in England and Wales by 2015 comes to pass, and/or if Scotland allows religious celebrants to officiate at same-sex marriages. But, in any such extension of permission to religious communities, there must at an absolute minimum be a conscience clause modelled on the existing ones relating to divorced or transgender people. To force unwilling religious celebrants to celebrate same-sex marriage would be deeply illiberal, and plain stupid.
But this blows English-style establishment out of the water. The courts have already ruled that a Church of England parish is not a “public authority”. This ruling was necessary to protect religious freedom. If parishes were public authorities, they would be subject to the public-sector equality duty laid down in the Equality Act 2010. They could not then refuse to marry an otherwise-qualified same-sex couple. In the interests of religious freedom, it is appropriate to insist that the Church of England is no more a public authority than is any other faith community. But then, it is imperative that it be treated in the same way, and subject to the same law, as all the others. True religious freedom does not only permit, but requires, the full disestablishment of the Church of England and the removal of its bishops from the UK’s legislature. The Church of England could remain a “national” church like the Church of Scotland, but without the entanglements that have led it astray. Each faith community must then decide its attitude to same-sex marriage on its own principles and according to its own rules. There must be no bullying of either side by the other; but nor should there be any claims for special treatment.
A year after the Ordinariate was established in England and Wales, the corresponding announcements have been made in the USA.
Rocco Palmo Upon This “Rock,” An Ordinariate Is Born
In an unprecedented Sunday announcement — a significant sign of Rome’s degree of seriousness about the effort — the Vatican’s press bulletin gave official word of the erection of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter, encompassing the territory of the United States. The national quasi-diocese for the entering groups is the second of its kind, following England’s Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, which was launched a year ago this month.
Fr Jeffrey Steenson, 59, the former Episcopal bishop of Rio Grande ordained a priest of the archdiocese of Santa Fe in 2009, has been named the founding Ordinary. A married father of three and Oxford-trained patristics scholar who’s been serving until now as a professor at Houston’s St Mary’s Seminary and University of St Thomas, Steenson’s appointment is effective immediately…
George Conger Jeffrey Steenson to lead the Anglican Ordinariate in the U.S.
The Vatican has appointed the former bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande to head up the American branch of the Anglican Ordinariate.
On 1 Jan 2012 the Vatican announced that Fr. Jeffrey Steenson had been named the Ordinary for the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter. The American branch of the ordinariate will be based in Houston, Texas and is the second national jurisdiction for former Anglicans established under the provisions of Pope Benedict’s 2009 apostolic constitution “Anglicanorum coetibus”.
A second former Episcopal clergyman, Fr. Scott Hurd, who was received into the Catholic Church in 1996 and is presently a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington, has been appointed vicar-general of the ordinariate for a three-year term, the Vatican announcement said…
The website of the American Ordinariate is here.
Update
The situation with respect to Canada is discussed here by Rocco Palmo On Day One, The Ordinariate Spreads North.
49 CommentsUpdated Friday
The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church of Sudan has issued a statement, and also sent a letter to the Presiding Bishop of TEC.
See the news report by George Conger in the Church of England Newspaper Sudan breaks with the Episcopal Church.
The American Episcopal Church’s support for gay bishops and blessings has led the Episcopal Church of the Sudan (ECS) to ban Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori from visiting the church. The dis-invitation to Bishop Jefferts Schori follows a vote by the ECS House of Bishops last month to swap its recognition of the Episcopal Church for the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) as the legitimate expression of Anglicanism in the United States…
The letter reads as follows:
“The Most Rev Katharine Jefferts Schori Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church United States of America
Thursday 15th December 2011Dear Bishop Katharine,
Advent greetings to you in the name of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
It is with a heavy heart that I write you informing you of our decision as a House of Bishops to withdraw your invitation to the Episcopal Church of the Sudan (ECS). We acknowledge your personal efforts to spearhead prayer and support campaigns on behalf of the ECS and remain very grateful for this attention you and your church have paid to Sudan and South Sudan. However, it remains difficult for us to invite you when elements of your church continue to flagrantly disregard biblical teaching on human sexuality.
Find attached a statement further explaining our position as a province.
(Signed)
—(The Most Rev.) Dr. Daniel Deng Bul Yak, Archbishop Primate and Metropolitan of the Province of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan and Bishop of the Diocese of Juba “
The statement, which has appeared on various blog websites reads as follows:
STATEMENT OF HOUSE OF BISHOPS OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF SUDAN ON HUMAN SEXUALITY
The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan in its meeting held in Juba from 14-16, November 2011 in the context of General Synod has reaffirmed the statement of the Sudanese Bishops at the Lambeth Conference in 2008 as quoted below:
“We reject homosexual practice as contrary to Biblical teaching and can accept no place for it within ECS. We strongly oppose developments within the Anglican Church in USA and Canada in consecrating a practicing homosexual as bishop and in approving a rite for the blessing of same-sex relationships.”
We are deeply disappointed by The Episcopal Church’s refusal to abide by Biblical teaching on human sexuality and their refusal to listen to fellow Anglicans. For example, TEC Diocese of Los Angles, California in 2010 elected and consecrated Mary Douglas Glasspool as their first lesbian assistant Bishop. We are not happy with their acts of continuing ordaining homosexuals and lesbians as priests and bishops as well as blessing same sex relations in the church by some dioceses in TEC; it has pushed itself away from God’s Word and from Anglican Communion. TEC is not concerned for the unity of the Communion.
The Episcopal Church of Sudan is recognizing the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) fully as true faithful Orthodox Church and we will work with them to expand the Kingdom of God in the world. Also we will work with those Parishes and Dioceses in TEC who are Evangelical Orthodox Churches and faithful to God.
We will not compromise our faith on this and we will not give TEC advice anymore, because TEC ignored and has refused our advices.
(The Most Rev.) Dr. Daniel Deng Bul, Archbishop and Primate of Episcopal Church of Sudan, Juba, 12th December 2011
Responses from American dioceses are recorded by Episcopal Café in Dioceses respond cautiously to latest letter from Church of Sudan.
Update
The report on this from last week’s Church Times is now available, see Sudan chides US and backs ACNA.
The previous report on this: AMiA will negotiate with ACNA was updated with a link to one additional letter last Thursday.
Other correspondence has now emerged, and can be found here: Communique from House of Bishops of Rwanda. The original letter is dated 9 December, but was issued with a covering letter from two AMiA bishops, only on 16 December.
From the covering letter:
7 CommentsWe also have delayed sending these letters because we needed to clarify with the Rwandan HoB the second bullet point in the letter to clergy and churches. While AMiA affiliated congregations are under the pastoral oversight of Archbishop Rwaje, they are also affiliated with the U.S. non-profit corporation, The Anglican Mission in the Americas. As a result, churches have had a type of “dual citizenship” with Rwanda and the AMiA. Unfortunately, while many of us had been led to think differently, the churches in the AMiA have never been canonically resident in the Anglican Province of Rwanda or anywhere else in the Anglican Communion. We are currently working with the Rwandan HoB to discern ways to rectify this for those congregations that desire a true membership in the Anglican Communion. At the same time, the canonical status of the clergy is clear. If you are clergy in the AMiA, (other than the 8 active bishops who resigned*) you are canonically resident in PEAR.
Updated Saturday morning
Lambeth Palace has issued this “press advisory”:
The Archbishop of Canterbury today set up an enquiry into the operation of the diocesan child protection policies in the Diocese of Chichester.
He has appointed Bishop John Gladwin and Chancellor Rupert Bursell QC to carry out the enquiry. They will advise the Archbishop on any steps that need to be taken to ensure the highest possible standards of safeguarding in the diocese. This will involve examining current child protection arrangements as well as making recommendations for the future. They will make a preliminary report to the Archbishop by the end of February 2012.
The Bishop of Chichester, the Rt Revd John Hind, has given his full support to the enquiry.
The step which the Archbishop has taken is an Archiepiscopal Visitation under Canon C 17. Bishop John Gladwin and Chancellor Rupert Bursell QC have been appointed as the Archbishop’s commissaries under Canon C 17.
The Diocese of Chichester has issued Archbishop’s Child Protection Enquiry:
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, today set up a visitation of the operation of the Church of England’s Child Protection policies in the Diocese of Chichester.
He has appointed Bishop John Gladwin and Chancellor Rupert Bursell QC to carry out the enquiry. They will advise the Archbishop on any steps that need to be taken to ensure the highest possible standards of safeguarding in the diocese. This will involve examining current child protection arrangements as well as making recommendations for the future. They will make a preliminary report to the Archbishop by the end of February 2012.
The Bishop of Chichester, the Rt Revd John Hind, has given his full support to the enquiry. He said: “Our diocesan staff have been in constant touch with Lambeth Palace over the last year and this is now the outcome of those discussions. We welcome this Visitation as an opportunity to resolve a number of issues in the implementation of best safeguarding practice in the Diocese and more widely, and should also contribute to the response of the Church to the pain victims have experienced as a result of abuse. We trust that it will add to the progress the Diocese has already made and will help to continue to establish robust safeguarding practices.
I expect full cooperation with the Archbishop’s Commissaries. I hope that after my retirement at the end of April 2012, the Diocese will have firm foundations on which the new bishop will be able to build in leading the Diocese in the future.”
Neither of these press releases refer to any earlier events, which were last reported here in this article: BBC challenges accuracy of Chichester sex abuse report which includes a link to this diocesan page responding to the earlier reports from Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss.
And most recently by the BBC in this: Bishop of Lewes, the Rt Rev Wallace Benn may face misconduct probe.
Today’s announcement is reported by the BBC as: Lambeth Palace launches diocese child protection inquiry.
Canon C 17 can be found here (PDF).
Further press reports:
Press Association Church child policies probe set up
AFP Church of England orders child abuse inquiry
3 CommentsReports from ACNS
Papua New Guinea approves Covenant and says it is “proud to belong to the Anglican Communion”
The Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea has announced that its Provincial Council last week approved and accepted the Anglican Covenant.
Writing to the Secretary General of the decision on behalf of the House of Bishops, the Bishop of Port Moresby, the Rt Revd Peter Ramsden, said the decision was based on their understanding of the name Anglican Communion.
“Anglican” was one of the styles of Christianity brought to this land and people near the end of the nineteenth century”, he wrote. “It never pretended to be the only form of Christianity, but it did reflect how one part of the Christian family had developed, built on the importance of scripture, creeds, sacraments and episcopal order. Today we try to combine our Anglo-Catholic theological heritage and personal discipleship to the Lord Jesus in the way we witness to the five marks of mission with our ecumenical partners in PNG and our Anglican partners overseas…
If you aren’t sure where Papua New Guinea is, here’s a map.
Southern Cone approves Anglican Communion Covenant
At its recent November (3 to 11) meeting in Asunción, Paraguay, the Executive Committee of the Province of the Southern Cone of America, together with its Bishops, voted to approve the Anglican Covenant. The Province views the covenant as a way forward given the difficult circumstance of watching certain Provinces of the Anglican Communion propose novel ways of Christian living in rejection of Biblical norms.
In response to these novel practices the Southern Cone had held churches in North America under its wing for some time while the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) was formed. However, the Province has not maintained jurisdiction over any local churches there for over a year. As a result, all so called ‘border crossings’ by any provincial members ceased (as of October, 2010) even though the Southern Cone still remains in impaired communion with US and Canadian Provinces. It is hoped that the Covenant can now provide Communion stability.
One of the Bishops commented, “We believe that life in the Communion must be maintained by a basic level of accountability if, in fact, we are a family of interdependent churches. The Covenant helps fulfill this role. Naturally, house rules should be kept to a minimum. But being a member of a family has responsibilities that must be ‘lived into’. Right now, a small faction in the Communion continues to do ‘its own thing’ enjoying many privileges and few responsibilities of family.”
There is commentary on this:
Preludium Province of the Southern Cone adopts Covenant, give or take a clause or two.
…The Province of the Southern Cone has adopted the Anglican Covenant, but with its fingers crossed. Apparently the PSC hopes that no one will notice that it still has the deposed bishop of Recife under its wings, along with a sizable number of congregants constituted as a diocese.
The PSC claims that it is no longer doing those things it ought not to have done in Canada and the United States, but makes no apology for having done so.
I suppose this counts as a “yes” in the score card on the acceptance of the Anglican Covenant, but there will not be much joy in Anglican-Land over this one.
The No Anglican Covenant scorecard on provincial voting is over here.
4 CommentsJonathan Clatworthy has published an article at Modern Church entitled Instead of the Anglican Covenant.
20 CommentsProponents of the Anglican Covenant sometimes challenge opponents to suggest alternatives. Thus the Archbishop of Canterbury, in his 2011 Advent Letter to the Primates, wrote:
I continue to ask what alternatives there are if we want to agree on ways of limiting damage, managing conflict and facing with honesty the actual effects of greater disunity. In the absence of such alternatives, I must continue to commend the Covenant as strongly as I can to all who are considering its future.
This article seeks to respond to the challenge. It can only be a partial response because unlike the Covenant’s proponents, who are supported by the resources of the Anglican Communion Office, opponents work on a voluntary basis and none has the right to speak on behalf of all. The matter is complicated by the marked reluctance of proponents (with honourable exceptions like the Bishop of St Asaph) to communicate directly with opponents at all. This means that nobody in particular has been asked to offer an alternative. This one expresses the views of Modern Church and the No Anglican Covenant Coalition.
Normally, opponents of a suggested change are under no obligation to present an alternative change. In this instance we understand the challenge to stem from a sense of crisis and a concern to do something to resolve it. The question, as we understand it, is: if the Anglican Covenant will not be the solution to our current problems, what will?
Updated again Thursday evening
We reported recently on the upheaval in the Anglican Mission in the Americas: AMiA withdraws from Anglican Church of Rwanda.
Since then, there have been two developments:
First, a meeting was held in London:
Archbishops Emmanuel Kolini, Moses Tay and Yong Ping Chung, founding archbishops of the Anglican Mission, met with Bishop Chuck Murphy December 12-14, 2011, in London, England, and were joined by Cynthia Tay, Julia Yong, Susan Grayson, Canon Mike Murphy, and Canon Kevin Donlon.
They issued this Anglican Mission in the Americas Communiqué from the London Meeting (PDF).
In the midst of what must be recognized as a challenging transition, we believe God is showing us His direction for the future of the Anglican Mission. Our current situation necessitates a clear response based on what we have heard from the Lord, and therefore we commit to the creation of a missionary society as a cherished and honored model recognized within the wider Eastern and Western traditions of the Church. We look forward to the opportunity to give specific form and shape to this normative structure of a missionary society, seeking the input of our bishops, clergy, network leaders and laity. We are encouraged to be still before the Lord and to discern His leading to a new canonical provincial relationship. In addition, we pledge our commitment to the eight-member Council of Bishops and all of the Anglican Mission leadership and congregations. Living out this model within our Anglican context allows us to be a mission…nothing more, nothing less in North America and beyond. Finally, we recognize and affirm the development of a Pastoral Declaration designed to provide the necessary order for developing a constitution.
Second, the Anglican Church of North America has published this Pastoral Letter from Archbishop Duncan.
Recent events within the Anglican Mission in the Americas have challenged us all. This letter is a brief report to you all about those events and about our efforts to find a path forward. The present reality is brokenness. The vision, however, that governs our fledgling Province remains unchanged: a Biblical, missionary and united Anglicanism in North America.
The resignation of nine Anglican Mission bishops, including the Bishop Chairman, from the House of Bishops of Rwanda, changed relationships with Rwanda, with fellow bishops and with the Anglican Church in North America. The resigned bishops lost their status in our College of Bishops as a result of their resignation from Rwanda. The Anglican Mission also lost its status as a Ministry Partner, since that status had been predicated on AMiA’s relationship with Rwanda. In addition, confusion and hurt has been created in Rwanda and in North America, and there is much serious work ahead of us.
Representatives of the Anglican Church in North America and of the Pawleys Island leadership met today in Pittsburgh. For the Anglican Church in North America the starting point was the importance of our Provincial relationship with the Province of Rwanda (a sister GAFCON Province) and with His Grace Archbishop Onesphore Rwaje, of our relationship with the North American Bishops Terrell Glenn and Thad Barnum and all the clergy licensed in Rwanda, and of our relationship to those represented by the Pawleys Island group with whom we were meeting. We, as the Anglican Church in North America, have been deeply connected to all three, and we can only move forward when issues and relationships have been adequately addressed and necessary transitions are in progress…
Updates
Mark Harris at Preludium has commentary on all this: So who do ACNA bishops go for jurisdictional connection?
He quotes the latest statement from the Southern Cone:
In response to these novel practices the Southern Cone had held churches in North America under its wing for some time while the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) was formed. However, the Province has not maintained jurisdiction over any local churches there for over a year…
And then asks:
…Now it would appear that Archbishop Duncan et al believe that “jurisdictional participation in a way that is fully Anglican” involves being part of a Province of the Anglican Communion as currently constituted. So the AMiA bishops “belong” to Rwanda. The Bishops of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) “belong” to Nigeria. The Bishops of ACNA “belong”…where?
And there is a further letter to AMiA members from some bishops: A Letter from some (formerly Rwandan) Bishops to the AMiA.
4 CommentsUpdated again Wednesday morning
The Church Times reports today: Paintings at risk as Bishop Auckland deal falters
CHURCH officials are working desperately to revive a £15-million deal to safeguard the future of the 12 Zurbarán paintings at Auckland Castle, Co. Durham.
Jonathan Ruffer, who offered to pay £15 million to the Church Commissioners to keep the paintings in the north-east (News, 1 April), announced last week that he was withdrawing his offer.
Mr Ruffer, an investment manager in the City of London, who grew up in Stokesley, near Middlesbrough, blamed “insurmountable” conditions that had been placed on the deal by the Church Commissioners.
Writing in the Church Times, Mr Ruffer describes the First Church Estates Commissioner, Andreas Whittam Smith, and the Commissioners’ Secretary, Andrew Brown, as “decent men who have gone wrong”.
The Church Commissioners have declined to comment in detail on Mr Ruffer’s charges. However, in a letter to Mr Ruffer, sent on Wednesday and seen by the Church Times, the Second Church Estates Commissioner, Tony Baldry MP, writes: “We all hope that the matter is not irretrievable, and that we can press on as planned. . .
“I believe all are committed to achieve the end result that is desired, and I know the Church Commissioners are continuing to work to resolve the outstanding issues. They cannot, however, wave a ‘magic wand’ and bring it all together.”
And scroll down for a sidebar which provides a detailed chronology of how this saga developed.
The full text of Mr Ruffer’s article is, unfortunately, not available this week, except to Church Times subscribers. I will link it here when it is available.
Update
The full text of the article by Jonathan Ruffer is now available here: Why I pulled out of Zurbarán deal.
However, you can get some further idea of its content from another report:
Northern Echo Chris Lloyd Financier says Church commissioners ‘torpedoed’ Zurbarans deal
But today, the Church Times – the leading weekly Anglican magazine – carries a remarkable article by Mr Ruffer in which he says the two leading commissioners, Andreas Whittam Smith and Andrew Brown, are “decent men who have gone wrong” who have “torpedoed” the deals for the Zurbarans and the castle and so have delivered “two slaps in the face for County Durham”.
He says: “Andreas Whittam Smith is by nature a buccaneer: quick to offer the hand of friendship, decisive and brave. He generously accepted an apology for a remark I made which had hurt him.
“Andrew Brown is a very different character, the antithesis of the smutty joke: he is wholesome, serious, and dutiful.
He would make an excellent minor royal.
“Yet these men have managed to torpedo two deals, to the detriment of one of the neediest regions of the UK.”
Mr Ruffer paints a colourful picture of Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, becoming involved in the debate. He writes: “I witnessed last month the Primate of All England pleading for the future of the castle.
The Archbishop pleading; Andreas untouchable, untouched.”
Update In the Guardian Riazat Butt writes Would-be saviour of £15 million paintings hits back at Church Commissioners.
4 CommentsUpdated again Friday morning
The House of Lords today debated the Marriages and Civil Partnerships (Approved Premises) (Amendment) Regulations 2011. See earlier reports, starting here.
No vote was taken, as Baroness O’Cathain eventually withdrew her motion:
That a Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the regulations, laid before the House on 8 November, be annulled on the grounds that they do not fulfil the Government’s pledge to protect properly faith groups from being compelled to register civil partnerships where it is against their beliefs.
Links to Hansard:
The permanent record of this debate now starts here. See below the fold for links to the speeches made by the Bishop of Oxford, and the Bishop of Blackburn (twice).
Meanwhile, media reports:
And press releases:
This morning, the Guardian had published this editorial comment: Civil partnerships: questions for the church
…Today’s motion should be opposed. Opposing it would be more straightforward if the Church of England were to come off the fence on the issue of gay and lesbian equality. Britain has taken great strides towards wider tolerance and equality in recent years. Yet on civil partnerships, as on women bishops and gay priests, the church has recognised the moral wrongness of discrimination while failing to embrace the moral rightness of equality. Everyone can see where this journey is leading. But leading is the one thing the church is reluctant to do. It could make a start by throwing its weight clearly against the conservatives in the Lords today.
And earlier, the Cutting Edge Consortium had published this briefing note for peers.
The leaders of the religious bodies who had originally sought this legislation wrote a letter to parliamentary leaders, which is reproduced in this Ekklesia article: Faith bodies urge Lords to support civil partnerships.
12 CommentsTobias Haller draws our attention to Recommendation 1 from the 1878 Lambeth Conference. (The full set of them can be found in this PDF file.)
Union Among the Churches of the Anglican Communion – Encyclical Letter 1.5
There are certain principles of church order which, your Committee consider, ought to be distinctly recognised and set forth, as of great importance for the maintenance of union among the Churches of our Communion.
- First, that the duly certified action of every national or particular Church, and of each ecclesiastical province (or diocese not included in a province), in the exercise of its own discipline, should be respected by all the other Churches, and by their individual members.
- Secondly, that when a diocese, or territorial sphere of administration, has been constituted by the authority of any Church or province of this Communion within its own limits, no bishop or other clergyman of any other Church should exercise his functions within that diocese without the consent of the bishop thereof.
- Thirdly, that no bishop should authorise to officiate in his diocese a clergyman coming from another Church or province, unless such clergyman present letters testimonial, countersigned by the bishop of the diocese from which he comes; such letters to be, as nearly as possible, in the form adopted by such Church or province in the case of the transfer of a clergyman from one diocese to another.
- This does not refer to questions respecting missionary bishops and foreign chaplaincies, which have been entrusted to other Committees.
Tobias notes in Those Were the Days (Lambeth 1878) that:
It appears to me that most of the troubles in the present Anglican Communion stem from the failure of some provinces to observe and abide by point 1. Some of those same provinces have gone on to violate point 2, and the recent trouble in AMiA seems to reflect a bit of the mess one gets into by not observing point 3.
But point 1, in one sentence, is the key to any real Anglican unity. No further “covenant” is needed. And the one currently on offer provides a mechanism to frustrate point 1, by shifting from respecting the actions of the provinces to placating those offended by them. The proposed Covenant is government by discontent and disrespect.
This view is clearly not shared by IASCUFO members, who have issued this Communiqué following a recent meeting in Korea. They say this:
…Aware of our mandate to promote the deepening of communion between the churches of the Anglican Communion, we emphasised the importance of being a fully representative group, and we greatly regret that some of our members were not present. We re-affirmed the significance of the Anglican Communion Covenant for strengthening our common life. …
Jim Naughton has written a severe criticism of this at Episcopal Café in The InterAnglican Standing Committee and the illusion of consultation:
…One feels both gratified and alarmed, then, to learn that at is meetings last week, IASCUFO (the InterAnglican Standing Committee on Unity, Faith and Order) recognized the importance of “being a fully representative group” and “re-affirm[ed] the significance of the Anglican Communion Covenant for strengthening our common life.” Gratified, because, well, it is nice to have your opponents make your points for you. Alarmed because the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Anglican Communion Office continue to behave as though the more centralized church they hope to create already exists.
Whatever its claims, IASCUFO is in no way representative. Its members are not elected to represent their provinces, but are cherry-picked by the communion office to ensure the outcome that the Archbishop of Canterbury desires, while creating the illusion of consultation. (In this way it is similar to the Covenant Design team and the Windsor Continuation Group.) Of the 19 individuals named in the release, no more than three hail from churches that have adopted the covenant. (Precise numbers are hard to come by, as many churches don’t actually care enough about the covenant to have made a public statement indicating their attitude toward it.) Yet the group asserts its representative nature, and then affirms what the churches its members allegedly represent have not: that the covenant is essential in strengthening our common life.
IASCUFO employs collegial rhetoric, but it behaves like a pressure group. What sets it apart from other pressure groups is that it uses financial resources contributed by member churches to lobby on behalf of a covenant that many of those churches will not sign—a covenant that would assure that essential decisions in the communion would continue to be made by purportedly representative bodies that are in no way accountable to the communion’s member churches.
As for some members being absent, here is a full list of its membership, dated July 2009, and here are some annotations provided in October 2010 by John Chilton. Readers may care to work out for themselves who was missing from the Korean jaunt.
9 Comments