News Brief
Episcopal News Service. [81051]
The Bishops Academy - - an Annual event for bishops and their spouses and for diocesan staff persons and their spouses -- was held here Jan. 26-30, with 31 participants. The purposes of the event are to provide an opportunity for new learning, both theoretical and practical, to provide the occasion for creative reflection and establishing the relevance of the new learning to the participant's back-home situation, and to provide a time for rest, refreshment and stress reduction. Seminars were conducted on management and conflict and on theology. The Academy is sponsored by the Committee on Pastoral Development of the House of Bishops. Bishop David E. Richards is director of that office.
The General Theological Seminary has announced receipt of a pledge of $2.7 million toward its $12 million goal of its current capital funds drive. The pledge is from the Protestant Episcopal Society for Promoting Religion and Learning in the State of New York and is designated for instructional endowment. This pledge brings the total committed to the campaign to $7 million. This is the largest pledge or gift ever received by this 163-year-old Episcopal Church seminary.
At a retreat here in late January the Episcopal Society for Ministry on Aging adopted achievable five-year goals in areas such as clergy and lay education to the problems and needs of older persons, the development of service models in congregations and dioceses, the involvement of older persons in their congregational programs, and ways to avoid age discrimination in society through the Church.
At a recent meeting here of the national board of the Order of St. Vincent -- an order for acolytes and altar servers in the Episcopal Church -- Bishop William Sheridan of Northern Indiana and the Rev. Charles C. Lynch of Milwaukee were re-elected chaplain-general and director-general respectively. Founded on St. Vincent's Day in 1915, the national society is associated with the Church of England's Guild of the Servants of the Sanctuary and the Scottish Guild of Servers.
The national council of the Catholic Clerical Union met here recently and elected the Rev. Gregory Norris of Chicago as its president and the Very Rev. Ralph Walker of Denver as its vice president. The Rev. Edward Garrigan of Doylestown, Pa., was re-elected secretary-treasurer. Founded in 1887 to promote catholic principles and practice in the Episcopal Church, the council voted to resume the alternative use of its original name -- The Clerical Union for the Maintenance and Defense of Catholic Principles. A revised Constitution was also approved. The Rev. Donald Garfield of Baltimore is the retiring president.
Mary Parkman Peabody, a leading civil rights and anti-war activist in the 1960s and the widow of Bishop Malcolm Peabody of the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York, died in a hospital here in early February of heart failure. She was 89 years old and was the mother of former Gov. Endicott Peabody of Massachusetts. She attracted national attention in 1964 when she was jailed for taking part in a civil rights demonstration in Florida.