News Briefs
Episcopal News Service. January 17, 2001 [2001-7]
Good Friday Offering 2001 for the Holy Land
(ENS) In his annual Epiphany letter to all congregations, Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold asked that Episcopalians continue to pray for their sisters and brothers in the Holy Land. His letter also asked for support for the Good Friday Offering and that it should be viewed as an opportunity to demonstrate solidarity with Anglicans and all Christians in that troubled region of the world.
For the past 77 years the Episcopal Church has taken up a Good Friday Offering to be sent to the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East, symbolizing unity with and passionate concern for those who witness to Christ throughout that region.
The Province of the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East covers the whole southern Mediterranean coast from Gibraltar to Lebanon and Syria and down to the Persian Gulf and the Horn of Africa. The Diocese of Jerusalem includes Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
Support received through the Good Friday Offering translates into operating hospitals, schools, orphanages and many other programs.
To order Good Friday Offering materials call Episcopal Parish Services at 800/903-5544.
People
Brian Sellers-Petersen was appointed director of Episcopal Relief and Development's (ERD) West Coast office on September 1, 2000.
Prior to joining ERD, Sellers-Petersen was an executive with World Vision, Inc., an international Christian humanitarian organization serving the world's poor and displaced.
The American Anglican Council (AAC) announced the appointment of Canon David Anderson as president and chief executive officer at its December 11-13, 2000, board meeting.
Anderson has served as rector of St. James Church, in the Diocese of Los Angeles, for the past 14 years. He is a founding member of the AAC/LA chapter and a member of its national board. Anderson is the presiding judge of the Ecclesiastical Court of the Diocese of Los Angeles and the Dean of South Orange County.
The Global Episcopal Mission Network, an association of dioceses committed to the principal that every Episcopalian is a missionary, elected the Rev. Mark Harris and Dr. Devon Miller Duggan as their executive director and assistant to the director respectively.
Harris, who has been a priest in the Episcopal Church for 33 years, has served the past six years as rector of St. James' Episcopal Church, Mill Creek Hundred, in Delaware.
Duggan, an author of a wide range of articles, essays and poems, has taught at the University of Delaware and Washington College.
On December 2, 2000 the University of Bern in Switzerland conferred its highest honor, the degree of "Ehrendoktor" or "Doctor honoris causa" upon Professor J. Robert Wright, of the General Theological Seminary.
Wright is historiographer of the Episcopal Church, and was instrumental in writing the proposal for full communion with the Lutherans. He was cited as "a theologian and historian who knows how to combine scholarly research with churchly engagement in a way that produces favorable outcome."
Wright is the third Anglican and the first American to be nominated at Bern for this honor.
Avis E. Harvey, who over the years had come to exemplify the highest standard of dedicated lay ministry in the Episcopal Church, died at Amsterdam House in New York City on January 11. She would have been 100 in July.
Harvey earned degrees from the New York Training School for Deaconesses, a BA from Columbia College and an MA from Teachers College, Columbia University. She worked in many positions at the Episcopal Church Center from 1941 until her retirement in 1969 but continued to serve as the Resource and Information Officer at the Sherrill Resource Center until 1996.
Services honoring her life and ministry will be announced.
Diocese of New Westminster to host stewardship conference
(ENS) The Episcopal Network for Stewardship (TENS) will sponsor its fifth International Leadership Development Conference for lay leaders, clergy, and diocesan staff May 3-5, in British Columbia, Canada.
Conference participants will hear from more than 15 presenters whose goal it is to inspire, instruct, focus and fine tune ideas about the direction of stewardship programs at the diocesan/synod and parish levels.
Participants will also receive concepts, personal motivation and opportunities for valuable networking with many peers who serve in the ministries of annual giving, planned giving and capital campaigns.
Tom Gossen, executive director of TENS, said, "It is important to broaden our teaching so that people understand stewardship as both a result of our relationship with God and an enhancement of it."
For more information email TENS@TENS.org or call 800/699-2669 or 316/686-0470.
Bishop fears that kneeling has become a thing of the past
(ENS) Church of England's Bishop Stephen Pedley of Lancaster has attacked parishioners for not doing enough kneeling in church.
In See, the Blackburn diocesan magazine, Pedley said, "I have noticed the death of kneeling. People crouch, they stand, they sit, in extremis they appear to lie down, but hardly anyone kneels."
Parishioners claim there is no longer enough legroom to do so in comfort, and that having chairs instead of pews makes the operation hazardous.
Pedley said the church's latest liturgy, Common Worship, introduced before Christmas, scarcely mentioned the practice of kneeling except for a note on page 330 saying kneeling was "appropriate" for certain prayers.
"Why is it only appropriate? When is it inappropriate? Why on one occasion rather than another?" he asked.
Ian Wells, of Preston, said in the Church Times, "As a reader in my parish church, I have a stall with plenty of legroom, but when I am in the congregational seats in many other churches I find there is simply no room to kneel."
He continues, "Not kneeling is not necessarily a sign of lack of reverence. It is often simple prudence…[It] also lets you hold an order of service without the risk of using the back of the person in front of you as a prop."
Science and spirituality explored at New York conference
(ENS) Scientists from the fields of astrophysics, neurobiology and biology reflected on the changing face of the human person as seen from their scientific and spiritual perspectives at a week-long gathering in New York City entitled "Science and the Spiritual Quest II (SSQII)."
SSQII, a four-year, international program designed to bring scientists into dialogue at the intersection of science and spiritually, opened its most recent conference on December 6, 2000 at the General Theological Seminary in New York.
Piet Hut, an astrophysicist from the Institute for Advance Studies at Princeton University, spoke to the gathering on "One Reality, in the Light of Science and Other Ways of Knowing." Based on his discussions with the Dalai Lama, Hut suggested that the place for scientists and theologians to enter into discussion with each other should be at the "roots, not fruits" of their respective work--at the process of science and the process of religion, rather than on arguments about the Big Bang theory versus the Genesis creation accounts.
"At the dawn of a new millennium, the relationship between science and religion is in flux throughout the world," said associate professor W. Mark Richardson of GTS, co-investigator for the SSQII program in California. "Authentic dialogue and thoughtful reflection are critical in meeting the challenging questions that currently face us."
SSQII was presented by the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences and sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation. For more information, visit their web site at http://www.ssq.net or call 510/848-2355.
Vatican leaders ignore protesters for gay rights
(ENI) Representatives from two American faith-based gay rights organizations held a protest in Rome on January 6 against Vatican teaching that states that homosexual acts are "objectively disordered," but they were rebuffed when they requested a meeting with Vatican officials.
The request by 24 members of Dignity/USA, a Roman Catholic lesbian and gay affinity group, and Soulforce for a meeting with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican's main doctrinal watchdog, and other Catholic leaders, to demand that gays and lesbians be recognized within the Roman Catholic Church was denied.
The group was stopped by Italian police from presenting Ratzinger with "an open letter to John Paul II" at his residence. The letter reportedly read, "We are here to protest [against] Roman Catholic teachings and actions against homosexuality and homosexuals. We respectfully submit that these teachings and actions have tragic consequences in the lives of millions of people around the globe, Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
"Our demand is simple. We ask you, Holy Father, to sit down with gay people. Hear their stories. Share their suffering. Consider seriously the evidence we bring that current church teachings about sexual orientation are based on ancient prejudice, superstition and fear."
Mary Louise Cervone, president of Dignity, said, "We are sorry that Vatican leaders did not agree to meet us. But we shall continue our fight, as Catholics and without fear, until the day the Vatican opens the door to us…."
Mel White, executive director of Soulforce, added, "The Holy Father is not our enemy. He is our brother in Christ. But the Holy Father is a victim of ancient misinformation and biblical misunderstanding about God's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender children."
Carey says stop plundering, start caring in the next millennium
(ENS) Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey made a personal New Year's appeal to the wealthy people of the world to stop acting like "predators plundering the Earth."
In a speech on January 1, Carey called for more understanding of God and caring for the environment in the next millennium. He referred to his three-month-old grandson Linus, declaring that "our energy-burning lifestyles are pushing our planet to the point of no return. Little Linus, harmless though he looks, has the potential-like the rest of us-to become a dangerous predator plundering the Earth. We who have plenty dare not demand more for ourselves if in the process we impoverish the planet for all." He also spoke of the stillbirth of his first child Stephen, more than 40 years ago likening the vulnerability of a child to that of the Earth.
He spoke of a great hope leading into the third millennium of Christianity for a further understanding of God. "I pray that when Linus reaches my age, he and his generation will have done more than we have to heal our suffering world…more to ensure that its resources are shared fairly. That would be a fitting tribute to that magnificent person, Jesus Christ, who said 'Let the little children come to me, for theirs is the Kingdom of God'."
Church of England clergy petition for employment rights
(ENS) Church of England clergy may petition the British government to change their legal status to protect them from unfair dismissal by bishops. Currently clergy are considered to be employed by God, not by the church. Clergy representatives claim the concept has been used to deny them fair employment rights.
The move is under consideration by MSF, a professional union which represents about 10% of Anglican clergy, together with some Roman Catholic priests, as part of a claim for pay raises of up to 50%.
Clergy are currently paid stipends that are considered to be allowances rather than salaries. They do not have negotiating rights.
The Rev. Bill Ward, executive committee member for MSF's clergy and church workers' section, said, "We can be summarily dismissed, and there is no legal protection. We may have a vocation, but so do many other groups like doctors and nurses and they are classed as employees. The government could change this by declaring us employees too and change the law through an order in council."
The union is currently appealing to the clergy stipends review group of the archbishops' council, which is expected to report soon. Any settlement would apply only to Anglican clergy, but other religious groups may follow suit.