Episcopal Press and News
Church News Briefs
Diocesan Press Service. April 4, 1974 [74102]
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Ann Douglas has been elected director of the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO), a coalition of Protestant agencies and community groups working for the empowerment of minorities. Miss Douglas, the daughter of a black United Presbyterian minister, joined IFCO in 1968. She succeeds the Rev. Lucius Walker, Jr., who has become director of the Division of Church and Society of the National Council of Churches. To date, IFCO has allocated about $4 million in grants to U.S. and overseas groups.
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- A recent survey by the Harris Poll indicates that by a slim margin -- 45 to 43 percent -- Americans favor amnesty for men who left the U.S. to avoid military service during the Vietnam War, provided the men are required to serve two years in some form of national service. Without that condition, the survey found, Americans oppose amnesty by 56 to 30 percent. In 1973 a similar poll opposed any form of amnesty by 49 to 43 percent.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul (Washington National Cathedral) has been informed that it will receive a piece of "moon rock" for its new stained glass window. The rock, part of the collection brought back by Apollo 11 astronauts from the Sea of Tranquility on the moon, will be embedded in the center of the new stained glass window depicting the creation. The stained glass window, now installed in the not-yet-completed nave of the Episcopal cathedral, was donated by Dr. Thomas O. Paine and cost $22,500.
DENVER, Colo. -- Mrs. Elizabeth Mitchell, widow of the Rt. Rev. Walter Mitchell, Bishop of Arizona from 1926 to 1945, died here on March 28, where she had been confined to a nursing home for some time. A memorial service for Mrs. Mitchell was held at St. Peter's Church, Del Mar, Calif., on April 3, and burial was in Portland, Ore. She is survived by a daughter, Mrs. Alexander Lukens, and a grandson, David Lukes, who serves as a missionary in Liberia.
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Lutheran and Roman Catholic theologians have issued a 5,000-word Common Statement which affirms that the primacy of the Pope, "renewed in the light of the Gospel, need not be a barrier to reconciliation" between their churches. The statement, the result of seven sessions of the Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue which began in 1965, includes sections on historical and Biblical background, current areas of disagreement, the " New Testament question " of primacy and the role of Peter, historical and theological questions, and a set of conclusions. Among the conclusions, the most significant are:
* "Christ wills for His church a unity which is not only spiritual but must be manifest in the world.
* Promotion of this unity is incumbent on all believers, especially those who are engaged in the ministry of word and sacrament (the clergy).
* "A special responsibility for this (promotion of unity) may be entrusted to one individual Minister, under the Gospel.
* "Such a responsibility for the universal Church cannot be ruled out on the basis of Biblical evidence.
* "The Bishop of Rome, whom Catholics regard as entrusted by the will of Christ with this responsibility, and who has exercised his Ministry in forms that have changed significantly over the centuries, can in the future function in ways which are better adapted to meet both the universal and regional needs of the Church in the complex environment of modern times. "
WISE, Va. -- A panel of national church leaders urged the passage of strong federal legislation which would equalize the cost of strip mining with deep mining and provide reclamation of surface-mined land through strong enforcement provisions.
A 15-member panel, representing 13 church communions -- including the Episcopal Church -- issued a preliminary statement on proposed legislation in the U.S. Congress at the conclusion of a three-day hearing on strip mining and the energy crisis. The church panel came together in response to requests by Wise, Va., area residents and was organized by the ecumenical Commission on Religion in Appalachia (CORA) and the New York-based Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility.
Some persons testifying in the hearings felt that it is already too late to save much of the surface-mined land of parts of Appalachia, especially West Virginia. Others felt that while the area around Wise was "horrible," the land could be restored with strict laws. The U.S. Congress is currently considering strip-mining legislation.
CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Father Herbert J. Ryan, S.J., of Woodstock College, New York City, told the 12th annual National Workshop on Christian Unity that the ecumenical movement in the U.S. faces two major threats: "the temptation to construct a civil religion" and the inclination to forsake "the social outreach of the 1960's." He told the 400 specialists in ecumenism who attended the workshop: "We must admit that ecumenism is not regarded as a top priority by the membership of our respective Churches. There is interest in ecumenism but this interest in no way compares with the intensity of feeling in the Churches to remain separate from one another." He added that "it is this will to remain apart, this desire for institutional preservation, that operates against raising the priority for ecumenism when the Churches are deciding policy."
Another speaker at the workshop, Dr. Paul A. Crow, Jr., outgoing general secretary of the nine-denomination Consultation on Church Union (COCU), said that racism may be more of a barrier to unity than denominational differences. He said that "we can deal with historic denominational differences, but that which continues to be a barrier is racism. "
Father Avery Dulles, S.J., of Woodstock College, New York City, told a Roman Catholic group of ecumenical leaders attending the workshop that the ecumenical theologian "cannot help but rejoice at the signs that many of the faithful sense that there is something wrong about existing denominational barriers. " He added, "This discontent rests upon the valid theological insight: There is, and can be, only one church of Christ and this one church is not adequately identical with any one of the ecclesiastical organizations " now in existence.
MAFIKENG, South Africa -- Archbishop Robert Selby Taylor, who retired as Archbishop of Capetown on March 11, will begin a two-month stay as minister to a multi-racial congregation in MAFIKENG, South Africa, after Easter. As parish priest, he will serve under Bishop Wheeldon of the Diocese of Kimberly and Kuruman. Some of the parishioners in the 120-family congregation were "slightly overawed" at the thought of having a retired archbishop as their local clergyman.
TORONTO, Ontario -- The Rt. Rev. Hugh Stiff, 56, Bishop of the Diocese of Keewatin for the past four years, has been appointed the new dean of the Diocese of Toronto and rector of the Cathedral Church of St. James. The appointment -- the first in Canadian church history -- is effective April 15. While remaining a bishop of the Anglican Church of Canada, the new dean will have no official episcopal functions in the Diocese of Toronto. In Keewatin, Bishop Stiff has been an enthusiastic supporter of the aircraft ministry and with the use of two aircraft he has visited extensively in his 255, 000-square-mile diocese. While he is the first bishop to serve as a Canadian dean, the practice is not unheard of in England. Other bishops have served as parish clergy upon their retirement.
GUATEMALA CITY -- Five Roman Catholic missionary priests were recently expelled from Guatemala for allegedly engaging in illegal political activities during a recent national election, Guatemala Radio reported. Three American Maryknoll fathers were among those arrested and accused of illegally campaigning in behalf of the left-leaning National Opposition Front. In the fall of 1971, the Rt. Rev. William C. Frey, then bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Guatemala, and his family were expelled from Guatemala, when he, along with other religious leaders, protested the killing of innocent civilians in that country.
SEWANEE, Tenn. -- Dr. Charles Winters, professor of dogmatic theology at the School of Theology at the University of the South, has been appointed a member of the Joint Commission on Anglican-Roman Catholic Relations in the United States, by Bishop John H. Burt of Ohio, chairman of the Episcopal Church's Joint Commission on Ecumenical Relations. An international commission on relations between Anglicans and Roman Catholics has issued agreed statements on the Eucharist and on the Ministry and is now working on the subject of Authority.