Philippine Council Meets
Diocesan Press Service. March 11, 1963 [VIII-19]
NEW YORK, --- A new pilot diocese of the Philippine Independent Church and three pilot high schools were approved at the second annual meeting of the Joint Advisory Council in Manila February 15-16.
The Advisory Council was set up by the General Convention of 1961 to implement the concordat of full communion between the Episcopal Church and the Philippine Independent Church. Its membership consists of six members from the Independent Church and six members of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines, in addition to the Rt. Rev. Stephen F. Bayne, Jr., Anglican Executive Officer, and two members from the Church in the U. S. A. --the Rt. Rev. Robert F. Gibson, Bishop of Virginia, and Clifford P. Morehouse, president of the House of Deputies.
The Very Rev. Wayland Mandell, Dean of P. I. C. Affairs for the Presiding Bishop, is the adviser and chairman of the executive committee. The Rev. Joseph A. Moore, Executive Officer of the Strategic Advisory Committee, also attended this meeting, which was under the chairmanship of the Rt. Rev. Lyman B. Ogilby, Bishop of the Philippines.
In addition to the three schools, the Joint Advisory Council gives assistance to the Supreme Bishop and the central office of the Philippine Independent Church and a number of other activities, including the following:
-A joint student center in Manila, with an Episcopal chaplain, and an Independent chaplain, to serve students in downtown Manila. A three-story building, with chapel, recreation facilities, and dormitory for women students, will be opened in March.
-Thirty-eight aided parishes (18 of them sponsored by the Diocese of Virginia). These will have a part of their expenses temporarily underwritten, to enable them to make a transition from the old system of fees for services to a basis of support through a program of Christian stewardship.
-Eight pilot parishes. These receive help in repair of buildings and rectories, and assistance to the parish priests.
-Six pilot dioceses. In these the Bishop is relieved from parochial duties in order to give full time to diocesan supervision.
Other projects include provision of materials for Christian education and stewardship, building up of school libraries, retirement of superannuated bishops and priests, and urgent repairs to Church properties. The printing of a people's edition of the P. I. C. Prayer Book is a major project.
A new project is the provision of motor-bikes to priests who serve several congregations. Trinity Church, New York City, has underwritten four of these, and 10 or 20 more are needed.
Prior to the Council meeting, the Supreme Bishop of the P.I. C., the Most Rev. Isabelo de los Reyes, Jr., and the Church's counselor, Atty. Esteban Albano, with Dean Mandell, conducted Mr. Morehouse on a familiarization tour of P.I. C. parishes in four southern provinces. Bishops Gibson and Bayne were taken on similar tours last year.