World Church - In Brief
Diocesan Press Service. August 8, 1969 [78-6]
Overseas
Robert Beloe, secretary to both the Archbishop of Canterbury and his predecessor, Lord Fisher of Lambeth, has been appointed liaison officer with the World Council of Churches headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. His job will be to establish closer links between the worldwide Anglican Communion and the World Council.
The Most Rev. George Simms, Archbishop of Dublin, was elected unanimously the new Primate of the Church of Ireland by the Bench of Bishops meeting in Dublin. He succeeds Archbishop James McCann and will transfer to the Archbishopric of Armagh, the primatial see of the Church.
The Rev. Canon Robert Jeffery, warden of Zonnebloem College, Capetown, South Africa, has been appointed deputy to the Anglican executive officer, the Rt. Rev. John Howe.
Three former Anglican priests have been ordained to the Roman Catholic diaconate by Archbishop John Goody of Perth, Australia. They will be the first married deacons in Western Australia.
The Confederation of Evangelical Churches in Colombia, South America, has asked Pope Paul VI to add his voice to those who are asking for the abolition of the Concordat and the Agreement of Missions which exist between Colombia and the Vatican. These agreements discriminate against non-Roman Catholic churches.
The Roman Catholic Bishops Conference of the Pacific, whose jurisdictions include the Fiji and Gilbert Islands, have given permission for Anglicans to receive the Eucharist at Roman Catholic worship. Three conditions were placed upon the permission, however. The request must be spontaneous; the Anglican must express faith in the Eucharist in accord with the Roman Catholic Church, and an Anglican priest must be unavailable for long periods of time.
Mrs. Mary Reifsnider, widow of the Rt. Rev. Charles S. Reifsnider, Suffragan Bishop of Tokyo, died July 23. The couple served in Japan from 1904 to 1941.
Mrs. Mary Townsend, wife of the Rev. John H. Townsend, died in Texas June 29. The couple had served as missionaries in Cuba from 1924 to 1947 and in the Panama Canal Zone, from 1947 to 1962. Funeral services were held at St. Paul's Church, Glen Cove, Long Island.
At Home
The Rt. Rev. John M. Burgess, Suffragan Bishop of Massachusetts, was elected Bishop Coadjutor of the Diocese with right to succeed the Rt. Rev. Anson Phelps Stokes on his retirement. Bishop Burgess would become the first black Bishop to head an Episcopal Diocese in the United States.
Christopher Columbus Kraft, Jr., director of flight operations at the Mission Control Center, Houston, Tex., has become a familiar voice to the millions who watched America's astronauts on television. It was he who had to make the final decision on whether Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin would land on the moon. He also helps make decisions for the Episcopal Diocese of Texas as a member of the Diocese's Executive Board. He and his family attend the Church of the Good Shepherd, Friendswood, Texas, and are active in parish affairs.
The Rev. Malcolm Boyd recently said he has no intention of severing his connection with the institutional church. The best-selling author said he had a "Virginia Woolf kind of marriage to the Church. It's violent, it's lusty, it's organic. A divorce would be out of the question. We would always be in one another's fantasies."
The American Jewish Committee has withdrawn from membership in the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO). The critical factor: in the decision was IFCO's "refusal to take a clear stand as to where IFCO stood on the matter of the ideology of the Black Manifesto with its call to guerilla warfare and resort to arms to bring down the government, " according to Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum, director of interreligious affairs for the American Jewish Committee.
The Rt. Rev. Earl Honeman, Suffragan Bishop of Harrisburg, will retire September 30.
The Rev. Granville C. Woods, Jr., rector of Otey Parish and chaplain of the School of Theology of the University of the South, Sewanee, Tenn., has been appointed Dean of the Virginia Theological Seminary at Alexandria, Va.
The Rt. Rev. Beverley Dandridge Tucker, who served as Bishop of the Diocese of Ohio from 1938 to 1952, died at his home in Cleveland Heights July 4 at the age of 87. Funeral services, held at Trinity Cathedral, Cleveland, were conducted by his two successors, the Rt. Rev. Nelson M. Burroughs and the Rt. Rev. John H. Burt, present head of the Diocese. Bishop Tucker's father was Bishop of Southern Virginia.
The Rt. Rev. Charles C.J. Carpenter, who served as head of the Diocese of Alabama for 30 years, died at his home June 29 at the age of 69. Although he disavowed all civil disobedience, Bishop Carpenter was active in civic affairs and in 1963 served as chairman of a 25-member committee which sought to bring peace to race-torn Birmingham. He retired at the beginning of 1969 and was succeeded by the Rt. Rev. George M. Murray.
Dr. Lee Hastings Bristol, Jr., who recently retired as president of Westminster Choir College, Princeton, N.J., has been elected the first executive secretary of the Episcopal Church's Joint Commission on Church Music. He will serve in the position without salary.
The Rev. William Teska was ordained to the Episcopal priesthood in Minneapolis's Riverside Park. Conducting the service was the Rt. Rev. Philip F. McNairy, Bishop Coadjutor of Minnesota. The Bishop and the new priest were escorted to the service by a motorcade which included 20 motorcyclists, one of whom wore a tuxedo. The new priest ministers to hippies and other residents of the West Bank area of Minneapolis. Music for the service was provided by a "rock" band and by the Yale Russian Choir which Father Teska once directed.
The Rt. Rev. Edward R. Welles, Bishop of West Missouri, officiated at the marriage of his son, Edward R. Welles, III to Miss Anne Elizabeth LaHines in the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady Star of the Sea, Islesford, Little Cranberry Island, Maine. A dispensation, which had been arranged by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Bridgeport, Conn., was granted from Rome, allowing the couple to be married according to the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer.