News Brief
Episcopal News Service. October 20, 1977 [77341]
An interreligious delegation from the Republic of China on Taiwan -- including Episcopal Bishop James T. M. Pong -- arrived here in mid-October to assure the American public that their people enjoy religious freedom and oppose any move to unite Taiwan with mainland China. Cardinal Paul Yu-Pin, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Nanking, who headed the delegation, said, "We wish the American people to know that if Taiwan would be united to the mainland, the 16 million Chinese of Taiwan would lose their freedom of belief." A statement from the delegation said that they wished to "congratulate President Carter for his efforts to protect human rights for all the people of the world."
President Carter has signed two United Nations covenants on human rights which were passed by the General Assembly in 1966 and have been signed by more than 50 nations, including the USSR. Previous administrations had refused to sign the documents, saying that the rights mentioned were already protected in the U. S. and that signing them would cause interference in other countries. The two documents were the "International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights" and the "International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights," both of which went into effect in 1976. The U. S. Senate must ratify the covenants.
By a vote of 185 to 14, with four abstentions, members of the Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit here voted on Oct. 2 to end affiliation with the Diocese of Southeast Florida over the issue of ordination of women to the priesthood and other issues. Later the group decided to affiliate with the non-geographic Diocese of the Holy Trinity which was recently formed.
The Very Rev. Merritt Francis Williams, a canon at the Washington Cathedral from 1941 until 1949, was interred in the cathedral following a memorial service in Bethlehem Chapel in mid-October. He died in June in Massachusetts where he lived. He was dean of Christ Church Cathedral, Springfield, from 1949 to 1967. A graduate of General Theological Seminary, he served in the U.S. Naval Reserve, in Fort Yukon, Alaska, as chaplain of students at the University of Florida, and as rector at St. Philip's Church, Charleston, S.C.
Three churches in Barrington, R.I. -- including St. Matthew's Episcopal Church -- have failed to pay property taxes that came due at the end of September and have filed appeals for tax abatements. They hold that churches should not have to pay taxes despite a previously unenforced state law that permits taxation of church property beyond certain exemptions. The three churches hope the Rhode Island legislature will change the law in 1978. Under state law, tax exemptions are granted on all buildings used for religious purposes, up to one acre of land on which such buildings stand, and all church buildings used for educational purposes. Also exempt is the first $10,000 valuation on rectories and parsonages. In addition to the Episcopal parish, the United Methodist and the Baptist churches have filed the appeals.
Members of Columbia's second oldest Episcopal Church - Good Shepherd Church -- voted Oct. 16 to sever ties with the Diocese of Upper South Carolina over the issue of ordination of women to the priesthood. By a vote of 104 to 48 the majority decided to leave the Episcopal Church and form the Good Shepherd Anglo-Catholic Church. The week before a majority of the congregation approved the St. Louis Affirmation which had been adopted by dissidents at a Church Congress in mid-September.
The Rev. Mary Michael Simpson, OSH, 51, has become the first woman to be installed as a canon residentiary at an Episcopal cathedral in the U. S. She was made a canon residentiary at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine here, along with two others and six honorary canons, including a Roman Catholic priest. Last January she became the first nun to be ordained a priest in the Anglican Communion.
Sister Mary Ursula, a native of St. Thomas, V.I., has been elected Reverend Mother of the Poor Clares of Reparation, a cloistered contemplative religious order of the Episcopal Church. She entered the order in 1965 and made her life profession in March, 1969. The Poor Clares of Reparation is the only contemplative order in the Episcopal Church where the nuns have contact with the outside world only through the Reverend Mother. They maintain 24 hour intercessions before the Blessed Sacrament and offer conducted and private retreats.