News Brief
Episcopal News Service. June 7, 1979 [79190]
An informal staff group at the Episcopal Church Center is working to help the Church develop ways to respond to the rapidly changing relations between the United States and China. The Task group has been meeting periodically since February to chart the changing picture and begin planning. If any Episcopalians have information about China, particularly in regard to Christians or the Christian community there, the China Task Group would like to know about it. If there are Episcopalians who will be in China for an extended period, the group would like to be in touch with them. Please write the Rev. Page Bigelow, National and World Mission, The Episcopal Church Center, 815 Second Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10017.
The Rev. George L. Werner, Rector of Grace Church, Manchester, N.H., since 1968, has accepted a call to serve as Dean of Trinity Cathedral here. Fr. Werner, 41, a native New Yorker, is a graduate of Brooklyn Tech, Lafayette College, Easton, Pa. and Berkeley Divinity School at Yale. He has been very active in the Manchester community. In the National Episcopal Church, he serves as a Trustee of the Church Pension Fund and as one of four vice chairmen of the Venture in Mission. He has been a member of the Council of Province I (New England) since 1971. In New Hampshire he is a member of the Diocesan Council, a trustee of the Diocesan Advance Fund, a deputy to General Convention since 1970, chairman of the diocesan convention four times, and formerly was the Liaison Officer for the Bishop and charter member of the Commission on Ministry.
An outpouring of greetings -- including messages from the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Presiding Bishop and the President of the United States -- marked the 100th birthday of the Rev. Gibson Bell, D. D., the oldest living Episcopal clergyman in the United States. The commemoration took place on the Feast of Pentecost at the parish Mr. Bell served as rector for 37 years, All Saints. At the service, the current rector, the Rev. John Albert said: "Let us also celebrate and give thanks to God for the life of this servant whose life span is one-twentieth of the total life of the Church since the day when the Holy Spirit came upon the Apostles."
The Council of the Associated Parishes for Liturgy and Mission has issued a three-part call to the Church to: adopt the Proposed Book of Common Prayer as the Standard Book; renew the order of deacon as a full ministry in the Church and engage in work to recover and revitalize the role of the preacher. The Council -- a 25 year old force for liturgical study -- made the statement at its annual meeting in mid-May.
The Rt. Rev. Charles T. Gaskell, Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Milwaukee and president of the corporation and board of Nashotah House seminary, boycotted that school's 1979 commencement exercises "as a matter of conscience" because the preacher had permitted a women priest to participate in his consecration eucharist. The preacher, the Rt. Rev. Robert M. Anderson, Bishop of Minnesota, said that he had not been aware that Bishop Gaskell's absence was deliberate. A woman priest on the diocesan staff in Minnesota had been a concelebrant when Bishop Anderson was consecrated in 1978. At that time, a number of bishops, including Bishop Gaskell, had asked Bishop Anderson not to undertake that move.