World Church - In Brief
Diocesan Press Service. February 27, 1970 [84-12]
Overseas
St. Francis Episcopal Church and the Union Church, Managua, Nicaragua, which have shared the same building for the past four years, now share the same pastor, the Rev. John M. Keith. Mr. Keith is a Baptist minister and an Episcopal priest.
A national conference, sponsored by the Australian Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic Church, has called upon the government to establish an office of foreign aid, increase government aid to poorer countries, change trading policies toward such countries and allow greater immigration of non-Europeans.
The World Council of Churches Executive Committee has launched a new appeal of $4 million to assist the Nigerian Christian Council in programs of relief and rehabilitation in the post-war period.
Jan Cardinal Willebrands, president of the Vatican Secretariat for Christian Unity, told an audience at the Anglican Center in Rome that Anglicans and Roman Catholics may be talking about "concrete ways of uniting the two Churches" within five years.
The Most Rev. Howard H. Clark, Anglican Primate of Canada, has retired from his office because of ill health. Acting Primate will be the Most Rev. W. L. Wright, Archbishop of Algoma.
A proposed plan of union between the national Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) and the Congregational Union of Scotland has been rejected in a close vote by both Churches.
A well-known expert on Islam, Canon Albert Kenneth Cragg, has been consecrated assistant Bishop in the Anglican archbishopric of Jerusalem.
Father Henry Wace, Roman Catholic parish priest in Peterborough, England, has warned his congregation he will take a factory job to help maintain the church unless contributions increase. Weekly collections have averaged less than 24 cents per person.
A theological commission of the Church of South India has reported that it finds "nothing Biblically against" the ordination of women.
A drastic cut in the number of Church of England seminaries is considered likely following approval by the Church Assembly of a proposal that theological colleges be reorganized because of the diminishing number of students.
The inauguration of the Church of North India will be held in Nagpur November 27, 1970, according to an announcement by the negotiating team for the new Church. All seven Churches involved in the merger talks, including the Church of India, Pakistan, Burma and Ceylon (Anglican) have now approved of the plan of union.
Geoffrey Murray, former London journalist who had served as Information Officer of the Division of Inter-Church Aid, Refugee and World Service of the World Council of Churches, died of a heart attack in Montreux, Switzerland.
At Home
National Guardsmen and highway patrolmen occupied the campus of Voorhees College, Denmark, 8. C., following an administrative order that all students leave the campus. The order followed a student boycott in a campaign to replace the white chairman of the school's board of trustees and to obtain the reinstatement of four black teachers.
Church membership in the United States registered a 1.60 percent gain for 1968, reaching a total of 128,469,636, according to the 1970 edition of the Yearbook of American Churches. Church attendance, however, continued to drop.
New Mexico clergymen are liable for payment of sales tax on fees for performing such services as a marriage ceremony, according to the New Mexico state bureau of revenue. If a donation is made to the church, no sales tax is due.
The Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee voted at its annual convention in Nashville to reduce its 1970 budget by 8 percent but defeated attempts to cancel contributions to some national Church programs.
The Unitarian-Universalist Black Affairs Council has announced plans for a $5 million bond issue to raise funds for loans and investments in black enterprises.
If present trends toward intermarriage continue, American Jews may become a vanishing group by the year 2000, according to Dr. Ernest Van den Haag, Jewish psychoanalyst.
Episcopalians in the Diocese of Southern Ohio have contributed more than $12,000 in cash and pledges to the special funds established by the Special General Convention to aid black, Indian and Eskimo community development, exceeding the $10,000 pledged by Diocesan representatives.
Delegates to the Arkansas Constitutional Convention eliminated the name "God" from a freedom to worship amendment.
To alleviate a clergy shortage Archbishop lakovos, Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church of North and South America, will ordain laymen to a part-time ministry.
The annual convention of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina has adopted a deficit-spending budget. Diocesan programs were out by $20,500, and support for the North Carolina Council of Churches, world missions and summer camps eliminated. Funds to go to the national Church's program were set at $70, 000, below the level of 1989. A motion to fund Diocesan programs fully and give only what remained to the national Church program was defeated.
Dr. Nathan Pusey will retire as president of Harvard University in 1971, two years earlier than originally planned.
The annual convention of the Diocese of Mississippi voted its support of a "unified public school system, opposing private schools based on racial segregation and urging that no congregation . . . allow its property or buildings to be used for racially segregated private schools. "
The annual convention of the Diocese of Western New York defeated a resolution authorizing a Diocesan drive for voluntary contributions to the special funds approved for black, Indian, and Eskimo development by the Special General Convention.
The United States Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from a decision of the high court of California, holding that state's abortion law unconstitutionally vague,
Agencies of the United Church of Christ and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People have entered into a joint operation aimed at breaking down the barriers to fair employment in broadcasting industries and seeking program balance on minority issues.
The convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota defeated two resolutions aimed at discouraging grants to activist minority groups.
Contempt of court charges have been dropped against 105 Young Lords seized by police in the First Spanish Methodist Church in Harlem when they refused to end an "occupation" of the Church building. A mutual agreement between the Young Lords and the Church provides for a day-care center and a narcotics rehabilitation program at the Church.
Classes at Asbury College, Wilmore, Ky., were closed for several days because of a "marathon revival. " The revival started spontaneously during a morning chapel service and grew to include most of the student body and many townspeople.
The annual convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York called on Congress to enact legislation "to end the draft at the earliest possible moment. " At the same time a resolution which would have called for amnesty for those who have left the United States because of opposition to the war in Vietnam was defeated.
With the Bishops
The Rt. Rev. Gerald F. Burrill, Bishop of Chicago, has announced he will retire Oct. 1, 1971. He will be succeeded automatically by the Rt. Rev. James W. Montgomery, Bishop Coadjutor.
The necessary consents to the resignations of three Bishops of the Episcopal Church have been received. The Bishops are the Rt. Rev. Henry I. Louttit, Bishop of Central Florida, whose resignation is effective retroactively to Jan. 1; the Rt. Rev. Lauriston L. Scaife, Bishop of Western New York, whose resignation will be effective June 1; and the Rt. Rev. Robert R. Brown, Bishop of Arkansas, whose resignation will be effective Nov. 1.