Diocesan Digest
Episcopal News Service. April 7, 2005 [040705-4-A]
NATION: Presiding Bishop joins Bono, Brad Pitt in TV ad set to air Sunday
CENTRAL FLORIDA -- Prison Ministry Conference to meet in Orlando April 8-9
CHICAGO -- Hale sentenced in Lefkow murders
EUROPE (Convocation of Churches) -- U.S. Episcopalians among Anglicans sharing in observances of Pope's death
MINNESOTA -- Hmong community ministry grows in congregation, diocese
NEWARK -- Bishop John Croneberger announces retirement plans
NEW YORK -- Diocese to hold April 23 convocation on slavery-related reparations
NORTH CAROLINA -- Prison Ministry Conference: 'Congregations Inside Create Hope,'
SAN FRANCISCO (Diocese of California) -- Grace Cathedral's media ministry recipient of four telly bronze awards
SOUTH CAROLINA -- Diocese begins process for election of new bishop
SOUTHERN OHIO -- Bishop's election postponed until 2006
DIOCESE OF TEXAS -- Assistant bishop released from duties
NATION: Presiding Bishop joins Bono, Pitt in TV ad set to air Sunday
Fighting global AIDS and poverty is the focus of a ONE Campaign television ad set to air Sunday, April 10, featuring entertainment and national leaders including the Episcopal Church's Presiding Bishop, Frank T. Griswold.
The ONE Campaign announced April 6 that it has enlisted ABC and MTV Networks in the fight against global AIDS and extreme poverty. The networks will support ONE's efforts by donating air time for the world premiere of a new public service announcement starring some of the biggest names in music, movies, politics, and religion.
The ONE video features an all-star cast including U2's Bono, Brad Pitt, Tom Hanks, Jamie Foxx, Cameron Diaz, Al Pacino, Penelope Cruz, Benicio del Toro, Alfre Woodard, Rita Wilson and George Clooney.
Full story: http://www.one.org/PressReleases.aspx?id=21
CENTRAL FLORIDA -- Prison Ministry Conference to meet in Orlando April 8-9
By Joe Thoma
Prisons are big business in Florida, with $2 billion in annual revenue and state Department of Corrections plans to increase capacity to more than 91,000 prisoners in 2005.
The department also proposes to build a new 2,000-bed prison in Suwannee County, at a cost of $82.9 million, and to increase capacity at prisons in Columbia, Marion, Taylor, Wakulla and Union counties. The Suwannee facility would leave only four of Florida's 67 counties without a state prison.
"That's unbelievable," said the Rev. Jackie Means, the Episcopal Church's director for prison ministries. "We're just warehousing people by the thousands."
Means hopes a statewide gathering of prison ministry workers from all five Florida Episcopal dioceses in early April will help people serve those "invisible" prisoners in their own back yards.
Full story: http://www.cfdiocese.org/prison/conf2005.htm
CHICAGO -- Hale sentenced in Lefkow murder
White supremacist Matthew Hale has been sentenced to the maximum 40 years in prison for soliciting an undercover F.B.I. informant to murder federal judge and Episcopalian Joan Lefkow, and for obstruction of justice. Hale was convicted last year of soliciting the murder of Joan Lefkow,
The sentencing came more than a month after Michael F. Lefkow, secretary of the Diocese of Chicago's Standing Committee and member of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Evanston, Illinois, was found shot to death with his mother-in-law. Judge Lefkow discovered the bodies in the basement study of the couple's home on Chicago's North Side on February 28 when she returned home from work. According to the Cook County medical examiners office, Lefkow, 64, and his mother-in-law, Donna Grace Humphrey, 89, both died from multiple gunshot wounds.
Bart Ross, linked by DNA to the murders, may have been stalking federal judges in Milwaukee before he shot himself to death in a van in a suburb of Chicago on March 9. The van contained a note saying that he had killed Lefkow and Humphrey because the judge ruled against him in a civil rights lawsuit against a Chicago hospital over treatment of cancer to his mouth.
Judge Lefkow had been under the protection of the Marshals Service last year because of death threats following her rulings against Hale in a 2003 civil suit.
Michael and Joan Lefkow were active members of St. Luke's, having joined the parish in 1987. Michael Lefkow served on the vestry from 1992 to 1995 and had been active in other ministries there, including service as an usher and lector, a member of the summer choir and men's group, and a member of the Stewardship Committee. During the 1970s and 1980s the couple attended St. James Cathedral and St. Chrysostom, Chicago.
EUROPE (Convocation of Churches) -- U.S. Episcopalians among Anglicans sharing in observances of Pope's death
Episcopalians across the Convocation of American Churches in Europe are among Anglicans sharing in observances marking the death of Pope John Paul II. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams will attend Friday's funeral at the Vatican, and Paris-based Bishop Suffragan Pierre Whalon, leader of the Convocation of American Churches, has been invited to represent Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold in Vatican City. Former U.S. President George H. W. Bush, an Episcopalian, joins his son, President George W. Bush, in the official U. S. delegation. England's Bishop John Flack, director of the Anglican Centre in Rome, is recording observations for further reporting by ENS in the near future.
MINNESOTA -- Hmong community ministry grows in congregation, diocese
Church of the Holy Apostles in St. Paul, Minnesota, has grown from a small congregation to a situation where the church is almost full capacity on Sunday mornings since it welcomed a large community of Hmong refugees into its fold.
Full story by Joe Bjordal: http://www.episcopalmn.org/News_033005_HolyApostles.htm
NEWARK -- Bishop John Croneberger announces retirement plans
Bishop Croneberger of Newark issued the following letter to his diocese:
"Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
"As I find myself completing my seventh year as the Bishop of Newark, I continue to give thanks for the privilege of serving as your Bishop. So it is with profound gratitude, sadness, and great reluctance that I take this opportunity to tell you that I have this day properly notified the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Newark concerning my intention to call for the election of the tenth Bishop of Newark...."
Full letter: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_60976_ENG_HTM.htm
NEW YORK -- Diocese to hold April 23 convocation on slavery-related reparations
The Task Force on Reparations for the Diocese of New York is sponsoring a diocesan convocation on reparations at the Church of the Intercession from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, April 23. Participants can register on-line at www.dioceseny.org. Cost is $12 to cover lunch. Bishop Sisk of New York will be the celebrant and will deliver the Bishop's Charge.
In a bold move the Diocesan Convention of 2003 called for the creation of a Task Force to study the issue of reparation and to provide opportunities for the larger diocesan community to participate in discussion prior to presenting a proposal for moving forward to the Convention of 2005. The Bishop appointed a Task Force to study reparations and to define its meaning to: repairing the damage done to the people of African descent during slavery and its aftermath; provide adequate financial compensation for descendants of slaves; recognize the injustice or damage done and develop effective protocols for empowering members of the African American community in a modern society.
Full details: http://www.dioceseny.org/index.cfm?Action=Events.ViewEvents&y=2005&m=4&d=23
NORTH CAROLINA -- Prison Ministry Conference: 'Congregations Inside Create Hope,'
by Jane Merritt and Val Hymes
"All of us have a prison of our own," said Bishop J. Gary Gloster at a Prison Ministry Conference and Workshop in North Carolina in March. "One of the things we all share is our brokenness."
The retired suffragan and now assisting bishop to the Diocese of North Carolina addressed 65 lay and clerical prison ministers or seekers from two dioceses -- North Carolina and East Carolina -- at Christ Episcopal Church in New Bern March 4 and 5.
"There is not that much difference between those inside and those out," he added. "We are all of one blood – part of God's kingdom. We can't allow Christians to build up walls of self-righteousness ... and create a vast separation and isolation between us and ` our sisters and brothers in prisons, jails and compounds ... We are all God's children."
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_60981_ENG_HTM.htm
SAN FRANCISCO (Diocese of California) -- Grace Cathedral's media ministry recipient of four telly bronze awards
GraceCom, Grace Cathedral's media ministry, has been awarded four Telly Bronze Awards for its holiday special Songs of the Season and for LightWorks, the long-standing monthly topical interview program broadcast locally on KRON 4. The Telly is one of the most sought-after awards by industry leaders, from large international firms to local production companies and ad agencies. The Telly Awards, founded in 1978, is a national competition to honor excellence in local, regional and national television programming. GraceCom previously earned three Telly Awards in 2002 for its television ad Campaign, "The Episcopal Church Welcomes You." Other recent Telly Award recipients have included ABC News, Detroit Public Television, the March of Dimes, Nike, and Oprah.
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_60437_ENG_HTM.htm
SOUTH CAROLINA -- Diocese begins process for election of new bishop
The Rev. M. Dow Sanderson, chairman of the Standing Committee of the Diocese of South Carolina, announced that the diocese began the process to select a new bishop with a scheduled retreat of the Nominating and Standing Committees as planned on March 29-30.
The election will be scheduled for a "date certain" to be decided by Bishop Edward Salmon and the Standing Committee. "We wish, as in all things, to take the high moral ground, and will take into serious consideration, the House of Bishops 'request' to delay the actual election," said Sanderson, who refuted earlier reports that the diocese would time its election to have the consents coincide with General Convention.
Bishop Salmon will be 72, the retirement age for bishops, in January of 2006.
In his address to the diocesan convention on March 4, Salmon said that a Special Convention would be called for the election of a bishop co-adjutor, with delegates elected for that purpose only by a congregational meeting by majority vote. Salmon said he would remain as diocesan bishop "as long as the Canons allow in order to provide a short overlap" to give the diocese an opportunity to make an orderly transition.
SOUTHERN OHIO -- Bishop's election postponed until 2006
Following the release of the "Covenant Statement" by the House of Bishops in mid-March, with its pledge "to withhold consent to the consecration of any person elected to the episcopate … until the General Convention of 2006," the Diocese of Southern Ohio announced it will put plans for a bishop election on hold until after the 2006 General Convention.
Bishop Herbert Thompson Jr. had called for the election of the ninth bishop of Southern Ohio in June, 2005, with consecration of a new bishop in November. The 17-member search committee had already chosen three nominees from a field of 96:
* The Very Rev. Stephen H. Bancroft, dean of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Detroit, Michigan
* The Rev. Anne B. Bonnyman, rector of Trinity Episcopal Parish, Wilmington, Delaware
* The Rev. Stephen Hoff Wendfeldt, rector of St. Peter's Church, Del Mar, California
According to the Columbus Dispatch, the three candidates were "surprised but not discouraged" by news of the postponement.
The Diocese of Southern Ohio represents nearly 30,000 people in 40 counties. In 2006, the diocese hosts the national Episcopal Church's 75th General Convention, one of the largest conventions in the country, in Columbus.
TEXAS: Assistant bishop released from duties
The Rt. Rev. Ted Daniels has been released from duties as assistant bishop in the Diocese of Texas, Diocesan Bishop Don Wimberly wrote in a letter mailed March 21 to local clergy. Wimberly wrote that the action occurred for "a number of reasons which I believe should remain confidential." In accordance with normal procedures, the matter is currently under review in the Office of the Presiding Bishop, said Bishop Clay Matthews, executive director of the Office of Pastoral Development.