Diocesan Digest
Episcopal News Service. September 29, 2005 [092905-1-A]
* NEW YORK: Desmond Tutu, Sam Waterston and friends celebrate at GTS
* NORTHERN INDIANA: Retired bishop William C.R. Sheridan dies
* WESTERN KANSAS: Saint Francis Academy Celebrates 60 Years
NEW YORK: Desmond Tutu, Sam Waterston and friends celebrate at GTS
[SOURCE: General Theological Seminary] Beneath a tent covering nearly the entire eastern quad of the General Theological Seminary, 400 visitors joined Archbishop Desmond Tutu and actor Sam Waterston on September 13 to celebrate the planned construction of the Desmond Tutu Education Center.
The complex of buildings is scheduled to open in 2007 on the seminary's historic campus in the heart of the Chelsea neighborhood in New York City.
The seminary plans to house a Center for Peace and Reconciliation in the new facility bearing Archbishop Tutu's name. Deliverance from oppression and a passion for justice have characterized God's action in the world, dean and president Ward B. Ewing told the gathering, drawing examples from Moses and continuing to the time of Desmond Tutu's role in freeing the people of South Africa.
Sam Waterston, honorary capital campaign chairman, spoke to the gathering as did the Bishop of Southern Ohio, Herbert Thompson Jr., in whose name a new professorship, integral to the plans for the Tutu Center, has been created. The first Herbert Thompson Professor of Church and Society will also serve as the director of the new center.
Thompson attended GTS in the 1960's and his son recently graduated from General. Thompson, who has been friends with Archbishop Tutu for years, recalled Nelson Mandela's characterization of Tutu as "Sometimes strident, often tender; never afraid, seldom without humor; and always the voice of the voiceless."
Tutu thanked the Seminary for naming the new education center in his honor. He recalled that on October 16, 1984 when, as a visiting professor at GTS, he received the news that he had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. "We met with a phalanx of the media at the end of the lawn," he said. The Archbishop drew a parallel between that event and his hopes for the center: that, as the awarding of a prize from the "secular sphere" was announced within the confines of a seminary, so must the new center represent an opening of the academy to a world too often compartmentalized into the secular and the religious.
"We hope the center is one that will energize us and fill us with a passion that comes from realizing we have a God that sits and weeps knowing the things we do to one another," Tutu said. "May the center be one that inspires us, and wipes the tears from God's eyes, so a smile may break over God's face, as when the sun shines when it is raining."
The seminary's "Leaders for the Church" capital campaign, with which Waterston is involved, is a major effort to preserve and transform the GTS campus. The $23 million Tutu Center is now being created within three historic buildings along the Tenth Avenue side of the campus.
The Tutu Center will provide new facilities for programs of peace and reconciliation, Jewish-Christian studies and relations, continuing education, and Christian spirituality. The Center will also provide a major resource to other not-for-profit institutions-offering two large, fully wired conference rooms (accommodating 70 and 100 persons), five smaller break-out rooms, and 59 guest rooms with modern amenities.
NORTHERN INDIANA: Retired bishop William C.R. Sheridan dies
[SOURCE: Diocese of Northern Indiana] The Rt. Rev. William C.R. Sheridan, 88, the retired bishop of Northern Indiana, died in his home in Culver at 6:15 a.m. September 24 with many of his family members at his side.
A funeral mass was held September 28 in St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Plymouth, Indiana.
Sheridan and Rudith ("Trudy"), his wife of 61 years, moved to Plymouth in 1947 where he served St. Thomas Episcopal Church as its rector for 25 years. Over the years he served as a volunteer chaplain at the Marshall County Jail, Plymouth Hospital and Culver Academies.
In 1972, he was elected the fifth Episcopal bishop of the Diocese of Northern Indiana and served for 15 years. Sheridan was invited by the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, then president of the University Notre Dame, to be consecrated in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. In an interview with the South Bend Tribune, Sheridan said, "At that time, by my not being a Roman Catholic, it was an earthshaking decision." Sheridan believed that he was the first non-Catholic to have been so honored, making it possible for his two successors to be consecrated there also.
In 1997 Sheridan published a book, "A Gathering of Homilies," that outlined his life of service with a collection of his favorite sermons. In June 2003, Sheridan celebrated the 60th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorial gifts be made to St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Plymouth, St. Elizabeth's Episcopal Church, Culver, or to the Bishop of Northern Indiana's Discretionary Fund, 117 N. Lafayette Blvd., South Bend, IN 46601.
WESTERN KANSAS: Saint Francis Academy Celebrates 60 Years
[SOURCE: Diocese of Kansas] The Saint Francis Academy ministry to children and families marked its 60th anniversary with a celebration at Christ Episcopal Cathedral in Salina. The work of this donor-supported child-welfare ministry has been a part of the Episcopal tradition of service since September 1945.
Saint Francis had its beginnings, and is still located, in western Kansas. The original work of Saint Francis founder, the Rt. Rev. Robert H. Mize, affectionately known to all as "Father Bob," has expanded over the past sixty years to become the largest social service organization of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America.
The foundation of the Saint Francis outreach to families and children in distress is what Father Bob called "Therapy in Christ."
Therapy in Christ incorporates the most effective and most up-to-date therapeutic methods, knowledge, and skill into an environment of starting and ending each day with God through prayer, unconditional love, honesty and frankness in accepting the consequences of one's actions, and forgiveness as the greatest instrument of transformation. Its basic premise is that new life in Christ means healing is a possibility for every child and every family.
Saint Francis' community-outreach programs served several thousand children, youths, and adult family members over the past year.
For more information about any of the Saint Francis programs, or to make a donation to these ministries, please call 800-898-4896, ext. 19 or visit The Saint Francis Web site at http://www.st-francis.org/.