Actions Focus on Haitians, Namibia And Liberia
Episcopal News Service. November 24, 1981 [81308]
GREENWICH, Conn. -- In a wide ranging session the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church raised the plight of Haitian refugees, endorsed a House of Bishops resolution on Namibia and launched a diocese into a new venture.
The actions were all part of the report of the Council's standing committee on world mission during the second day of its Nov. 18-20 meeting at the Seabury House conference center here.
The resolution about Haitian refugees reflects the Church's continuing concern over federal refusal to classify fleeing Haitians as political refugees or even to allow routine social services for them. Past efforts have concentrated on getting the people reclassified but recently, attention has shifted to the conditions in the camps, the denial of services or interim sponsorship and questions of due process protection.
The Council resolution, addressed primarily to the Immigration and Naturalization Service of the Justice Department and to the State Department, asks redress of these factors as well as protection from reprisal if they are repatriated.
The Namibia resolution was an endorsement of a House of Bishops action calling for Church assistance to rebuild an Anglican seminary, support for Nambian Bishop James Kauluma and intensified efforts toward a peaceful, negotiated settlement in Namibia.
Sometime in 1982, the Episcopal Church will become one diocese smaller and the Church of the Province of West Africa will be one diocese larger since Council completed the mechanism to allow the transfer of the Diocese of Liberia.
The move will conclude a process that began when the General Convention authorized Liberia to become an associate member of the neighboring province; a move that Liberian Episcopalians took the following year. That associate status was agreed to for five years while Liberia worked out its plans.
The 1979 Convention approved a covenant plan between the Episcopal Church and Liberia which developed a framework for consultation and planning for all facets of the Liberian Church's life, structure and financial support.
Among other matters, the Council also gave approval to a unique three-way companion relationship by accepting companion pacts between the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia and the Diocese of Bradford, England and the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia with the Episcopal Church in Sudan -- with which Bradford also maintains a relationship.