News Brief
Episcopal News Service. December 3, 1981 [81320]
Archdeacon Bernard Clinton Pawley, who was canon of Canterbury Cathedral from 1972 until his retirement in 1981, died at Canterbury on Nov. 17. He was 70 years old. He was one of a group of Anglican churchmen who made a historic visit in 1956 to Archbishop Giovanni Battista Montini of Milan, Italy, the future Pope Paul VI. The visit marked a beginning of a thaw in Anglican-Roman Catholic relations. With his wife, Margaret, he wrote a definitive study of Anglican-Roman Catholic relations, "Rome and Canterbury through the Centuries." He was an Anglican observer at the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Survivors include his wife, a son and a daughter.
The General Synod of the Church of England has approved the ordination of women to the diaconate, beginning in 1983. The new women deacons will be called "reverend" and will be able to officiate at certain liturgical celebrations, including marriage, but not the Eucharist. Since 1962 the Church has had women serving as deaconesses but they had not been ordained. According to a recent poll, a majority of the members of the Church of England favor the ordination of women to the priesthood. About one third of the 320 deaconesses now serving in the Church of England were said to be interested in being ordained to the priesthood if that step should be taken as several members of the Anglican Communion -- including the U.S. Episcopal Church -- have done.
The Rev. Brian Prindeaux, a bilingual Anglican priest who was raised in the United Church and was for two years a member of the Ecumenical Commission of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Valleyfield in Quebec, has been appointed Ecumenical Officer of the Anglican Church of Canada. Prideaux, 38, a native of London, England, will be responsible for national Anglican participation in inter-church bodies and activities as well as for initiating and encouraging inter-faith dialogue.
At a recent meeting here, the National Center for the Diaconate initiated plans for the continued concentration on advocacy of the distinctive diaconate, for serving as a resource brokerage, and for providing a small amount of programming. In 1982 the agency plans to put special efforts into servicing regional meetings of diocesan commissions on ministry in cooperation with the Council for the Development of Ministry. The emphasis in 1983 will be to serve provincial networks of deacons and in 1984 a third national conference on the diaconate is planned at Notre Dame. There are now more than 800 permanent deacons in the Episcopal Church, the Center reports. A seed money fund was set up for the use of diocesan and provincial deacon networks and persons interested in applying for those funds, should contact the National Center for the Diaconate, 14 Beacon St., Room 715, Boston, MA 02108, telephone 617/742-1460.
Do clergy who are 50 years of age or older ever receive calls, or do vestries and calling committees invariably pass them over for younger men and women? This was a question the Diocese of Washington asked the national Church Deployment Office to answer. After analyzing its records, the Deployment Office's director, the Rev. Roddy Reid, reported that the answer is gratifying: 48 percent of the clergy 50 years of age or older and who are registered with that office began work in their present position after they reached the age of 50. Reid commented: "It is clear that older clergy who are competent and alert are very often given serious consideration and have an almost even chance of being called to new positions."
The Archbishops of Canterbury and Utrecht and 16 bishops, both Anglican and Old Catholic, from England, Holland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland and the United States took part in a service on Nov. 7, the Feast of St. Willibrord, in St. Gertrude's Cathedral here to mark the closing event of the 50th anniversary of the Bonn Agreement, which in 1931 established full communion between the Old Catholics and the Anglican Communion. Addresses were given by both Archbishop Marinus Kok of Utrecht and Archbishop Robert Runcie of Canterbury. The representative of the U.S. Episcopal Church was Bishop John M. Krumm of the Convocation of American Churches in Europe. Nearly 500 persons filled the cathedral, and most of them received Holy Communion, which was concelebrated by the two archbishops.
The Rev. Leonard Freeman, director of communications for Trinity Parish here, has announced that the Church's weekly television programs, "Searching" and the "Trinity Church Service" will soon be available for nationwide distribution through the Episcopal Radio-TV Foundation in Atlanta. "Searching," a "weekly forum for growing in the Christian faith," is a half-hour documentarystyle program hosted by Freeman. The "Trinity Church Service" is an edited halfhour version of Sunday's Eucharist with a different preacher weekly. The new syndication, Freeman said, makes the programs available at nominal cost for use on cable and satellite systems as a regular weekly series.