Presiding bishop featured in wide-ranging live webcast
Episcopal News Service. July 28, 2010 [072810-01]
Lynette Wilson
Domestic poverty, immigration, Anglican Communion relations, Haiti and Sudan were among the diverse topics discussed July 28 during a 45-minute conversation with Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori broadcast over the internet live from the Episcopal Church Center in New York.
The presiding bishop took questions submitted via Facebook, Twitter and e-mail. The full conversation, sponsored by the church's Office of Communication and moderated by Public Affairs Officer Neva Rae Fox, will be made available on the Episcopal Church homepage. The conversation is also archived tweet-by-tweet on Twitter here.
In the opening segment, Jefferts Schori talked about the recent meeting of the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, of which she is a member. She said the Standing Committee is moving toward "transparency and a willingness toward productive work," including the mission that draws members of the Anglican Communion together.
In response to an e-mailed question, "Has the Anglican Communion abandoned us, have we abandoned them?" Jefferts Schori said, "No one has abandoned anyone."
In addition to her trip to London for the Standing Committee meeting, Jefferts Schori talked about her recent travels to Canada, where she addressed the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada, and to Australia, New Zealand, and Scotland.
Her travels, she said, were about building relationships and learning more about other churches in their own context.
In a response to a question from Fox about the Episcopal Church's commitment to addressing domestic poverty, Jefferts Schori said that the commitment is rooted in Jesus' vision of healing the world. And she talked about conditions on Native American reservations and in places like the Mississippi Delta where she said the situation is "as bad as anywhere in the third world."
From Facebook, a question came in asking the presiding bishop to offer advice to struggling, small congregations that need new members. Rather than recruit new members, Jefferts Schori advised such congregations to look to the needs of the community and find ways to address those needs. The presiding bishop suggested that members of the wider community will see the congregation in action and be attracted its mission.
On the topic of immigration, the presiding bishop described the issue, as it is currently being debated across America, as both a national and international issue. And to the question, "what can individual church members do," Jefferts Schori suggested becoming educated on what causes people to migrate, using the example of a Peruvian woman migrating to Rome to become a domestic worker, a job that takes her away from her children, but allows her to provide for them. She also suggested reading what the Bible says about caring for the sojourner, and once one's "heart is converted," she suggested having a conversation with a legislator.
On the environment, Jefferts Schori talked about the Gulf oil spill and about the uncertainty around its long-term impact on the region and the ecosystem.
Regarding Haiti, the presiding bishop described how the Diocese of Haiti – with 150,000 members, the largest diocese in the Episcopal Church – had, before the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake, stepped up to provide education and health services that the government there could not provide.
Before the earthquake, she said, the diocese operated 250 schools, from which tuition and fees accounted for half of the diocesan budget. Most of the schools were destroyed in the quake. At its recent meeting, the church's Executive Council put up $246,000 in seed money as a challenge to the wider church to raise money to help rebuild the diocese.
The Episcopal Church in Sudan, one of the largest non-government organizations in southern Sudan, like the Diocese of Haiti, has stepped up to help the people of Southern Sudan, who have been witness to civil war and other atrocities for more than two decades.
In the coming months, the presiding bishop said, the church will study, pray and act on behalf of Sudan, where an election is scheduled on Jan. 11 to determine the fate of Africa's largest country.
The July 28 webcast was the first in a series planned by the Office of Communication; dates for additional webcasts focusing on the environment and immigration will be announced later.