Albany Via Media Revisits DEPO

From Openly Episcopal in Albany:

In a letter intended for members of Albany Via Media, and meant for publication here, Via Media board member Dennis Wisnom argues for taking another look at DEPO, or delegated episcopal pastoral oversight, for parishes in the Diocese of Albany whose pastoral needs are not being met. The DEPO program was announced in 2004 following the House of Bishops meeting at Camp Allen,Texas. Its usefulness was limited, and in practical application only extended to parishes and dioceses opposed to the liberal direction of The Episcopal Church at the time. The fact that is is again being urged is a reflection of the dissatisfaction felt by moderate-to-liberal parishes and members of the Diocese of Albany with the direction of their diocese.

Read it all at OE. Perhaps it's an idea worth trying. What's sauce for the goose....

Dennis Wisnom says:

If Bishop Love is willing to provide DEPO to conservative parishes in liberal dioceses, I think we in the Albany Via Media have an equal right to ask for DEPO as well.

Remember that Bishop Love is one of the seven who recently visited with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and later published a statement which included a request to other like-minded bishops of the Episcopal Church:

5. We encourage Bishops exercising jurisdiction in The Episcopal Church to call upon us for service in needed cases of Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight.

So. How would the Communion Partner bishops respond to the request to have DEPO bishops exercise oversight in their own dioceses to care for moderate and liberal members?

Bishop Gene in Portland, Maine

From the Portland Press-Herald:

The nation's first openly gay Episcopal bishop got a warm welcome Thursday night from a crowd that came to hear him say why religion matters in the debate about Maine's Nov. 3 referendum on same-sex marriage.

More than 300 people came to the Cathedral Church of St. Luke on State Street to hear the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson, the Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, deliver a speech aimed at getting out the vote.

Robinson, who has been in a relationship for more than 20 years, held back nothing when talking about rights for gays and lesbians, and about people who oppose same-sex marriage based on their interpretation of the Bible.

"We need to rescue the Bible from the religious right, which has held us hostage for a very long time," said Robinson, whose remarks drew a long ovation.
....

Robinson directed several of his remarks at Stand for Marriage Maine, the group that is campaigning to repeal Maine's new law legalizing same-sex marriage.
....

"I have a message for them," the 62-year-old bishop said. "Religious people and religious institutions need not fear marriage equality, because if this passes, nothing will change for them."

"Speak up, don't whine, and for God's sake don't be afraid to come out as a religious person," he told his audience.

Thanks to Wade who sent the link to me. He was present and says:

There was an article in the local rag about the event, though they're full of it as regards the turnout. The Cathedral was set up to seat 650 and there were very few empty seats. I'd dare say we had 550 in attendance. I'm starting to feel like we're going to win this one!

Let us hope that Wade is right and the repeal effort fails.

New York - Friday Evening - The Oyster Bar

On Friday evening, after I arrived by train in New York from Connecticut and settled in at my hotel, I headed back to Grand Central Station to meet Tobias and his partner, James, near the big clock in the center of the main floor. As Tobias said, there were so many people gathered around, it was like Grand Central Station. We met and headed for the bar section of The Oyster Bar until our table was ready.

I saw James and Tobias in Anaheim, but I didn't spend much time with James. I suppose that he was very busy, as he has an important job at 815, from which he will soon be retired due to belt-tightening by the national church. Tobias was, to be sure, quite busy, too, but we ran into each other twice in the cafeteria and had lunch together. James and Tobias are charming company. What could be better than an evening of drinks, excellent company, sparkling conversation, and good food?

We shared calamari as an appetizer. For the next course, Tobias had oysters on the half shell, and James and I had a spicey clam chowder. I tasted one of Tobias' oysters, which was good, but Louisiana oysters are better. I have not yet found oysters anywhere that are as delicious as those from Louisiana. Since the appetizer and soup pretty well filled me up, I was glad that I had ordered a crab salad. The big chunks of blue crab meat mixed with fresh greens, tomatoes, and a nice dressing, made for a heavenly salad. I can't tell you what the others ate, because I was swept away by my delicious crab salad.

I told Tobias and James the story of FDR's visit to New Orleans during Robert Maestri's term as mayor of the city. Maestri, who had only a third grade education, threw a dinner for FDR, which included oysters in the menu. As they were eating, Maestri leaned over to FDR and asked, "How ya like dem erstuhs?" Oh, the horror! What did FDR, with his patrician manner of speaking, think of that?

Tobias took the picture below without being able to see what he was snapping, but he got us centered on the second try. He looks to have gained about 10 pounds during the meal. If you've seen other pictures of Tobias, you'll know that he is quite slender.



Tobias, James, and me

Altogether a lovely evening.

And as a special treat, below is a picture of Tobias in another life, his life as an actor. Yes, that's Julie Harris in the picture. Tobias played Tad Lincoln in James Prideaux's "The Last of Mrs. Lincoln", with Julie Harris as Mrs. Lincoln, at the Kennedy Center Opera House and the ANTA Theater on Broadway (1972-3). How about that? More than two years ago, before I knew Tobias at all well, I boldly posted on his life in the theater after a bit of snooping around and internet stalking. Here's the post from June of 2007. Be sure to read the comments.

Julie Harris and Tobias Haller

Story Of The Day

stable as long as nothing else in the
whole world shifts (so don't get your
hopes up)


From StoryPeople.

I gotta tell ya, I like this one a lot.

Myron Update

Good Morning Everyone,

Myron spent the last evening in the ER at Christiana because of abdominal and back pain. An ultrasound was performed and a significant amount of sludge was seen in the gall bladder. The doctors decided to wait for several hours then repeat the ultrasound and it was determined he would in fact need to have the gall bladder removed. At this point the gall bladder is too inflamed to remove so they will wait a couple of days until it calms down a bit before surgery. An endoscopy will be done at the time of surgery to make sure there are no stones in any of the ducts.

Thank you all for your continued good thoughts and prayers.

Sue

Strengthen your servant Myron, O God, to do what he has to do and bear what he has to bear; that, accepting your healing gifts through the skill of surgeons and nurses, he may be restored to usefulness in your world with a thankful heart; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

"...they use my bathroom...."

From Yahoo News:

A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.

"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."

Bardwell said he asks everyone who calls about marriage if they are a mixed race couple. If they are, he does not marry them, he said.
....

Beth Humphrey, 30, and 32-year-old Terence McKay, both of Hammond, say they will consult the U.S. Justice Department about filing a discrimination complaint.

Ah, but the justice of the peace did it only out of concern for the as yet non-existent children of the couple. After all, he lets his black friends use his bathroom, which does NOT have a "Whites Only" sign. See. He is not a racist.

I lived in Hammond, Louisiana, in Tangipahoa Parish, for 5 years, and I did not like it there. Thibodaux is a liberal town compared to what Hammond was back then. Since we moved away some 40 years ago, Hammond has grown quite a bit, because two Interstate highways now intersect just outside of town. I assume an influx of new people moved in, and the town may have changed, but surely not a flip-flop, with Justice of the Peace Bardwell as Exhibit A.

Thanks to Roger and Ann for the link.

UPDATE: From NOLA.Com:

The ACLU sent a letter to the Louisiana Judiciary Committee, which oversees the state justices of the peace, asking them to investigate Bardwell and recommending "the most severe sanctions available, because such blatant bigotry poses a substantial threat of serious harm to the administration of justice."

"He knew he was breaking the law, but continued to do it," Schwartzmann said.

According to the clerk of court's office, application for a marriage license must be made three days before the ceremony because there is a 72-hour waiting period. The applicants are asked if they have previously been married. If so, they must show how the marriage ended, such as divorce.

Other than that, all they need is a birth certificate and Social Security card.

UPDATE 2: From CNN:

The actions of a justice of the peace in Louisiana who refused to issue a marriage licence to an interracial couple have prompted some top officials, including Gov. Bobby Jindal, to call for his dismissal.
....

Sen. Mary L. Landrieu, D-Louisiana, said the committee should "use its authority to have Justice Bardwell dismissed from his position."

"Not only does [Bardwell's] decision directly contradict Supreme Court rulings, it is an example of the ugly bigotry that divided our country for too long," she said.

There you have it. I think he'll be out.

"When the Word on the Street is RESIST"

Here's the link to the original text of Bishop Peter Selby's Address to the Inclusive Church Conference.

As I reread Bp. Peter's address, I am enormously impressed by its prophetic brilliance and timeliness, especially in light of the fact that Bp. Peter says that his ideas are not new and were first expressed in 1991 in his book titled BeLonging: Challenge to a Tribal Church. I present a few choice quotes from the address and my brief responses:

I write in the knowledge that the Archbishop speaks and acts as he does out of a profound concern for the unity and mission of the Anglican Communion, and that he acts as he does in the belief that his role as its principal Primate and ‘instrument of unity’ demands that he does. I sadly believe that his good purposes have been and are being subverted.

Indeed, the Archbishop's words are being widely subverted by a good many folks to suit their own purposes, and not always to good purposes. It seems to me that if the Archbishop spoke and wrote with clarity, his words would not be so easily exploited and subverted.

For in that paper these denunciations of homophobia are made without any reference to the fact that the Archbishop was personally responsible for a decision – I refer of course to his requiring Jeffrey John’s withdrawal from his acceptance of the see of Reading – that was personally hugely painful and damaging. While I don’t know any gay person who doubts Archbishop Rowan’s personal sincerity in making those statements against homophobia, I know many who say that their situation in the Church is far worse than it was during his predecessor’s time, something paradoxical to say the least, but for which he surely needs to own some responsibility. Expressing horror at overt homophobic acts is only a part of what we need to do; we also have a responsibility to acknowledge the distress that is being inflicted on LGBT people by the teaching that is being proclaimed and the characteristic style of the debate. In particular, when the Archbishop says that there must be no questioning of LGBT people’s human or civil rights or of their membership of the Body of Christ, it needs to be said that what he is questioning has serious implications for both; I shall not forget the occasion when a bishop who is unmarried wrote to me after the article I wrote dissociating myself from the statement of the House of Bishops made on civil partnerships, ‘Being celibate doesn’t make you acceptable’. (My emphases)

Pressing Jeffrey John to withdraw from his appointment as Bishop of Reading was, I believe, a serious misstep from which the Archbishop never recovered. After that decision, perhaps other paths harmful to LGTB persons, however unintentionally, were easier for the ABC to take.

The Archbishop’s opening warm comments on TEC carry little weight if most of his thoughts are actually directed against it. It needs to be said also that, as is shown by the strong American critique of TEC in the paper I mentioned above, The Anglican Covenant: Shared Discernment Recognized by All, opinion within TEC is deeply divided, and it is that division within TEC which, arguably, has been projected outwards into the Anglican Communion.

Yes, indeed, once again. All too often, I saw the Archbishop's words directed to and about TEC as offensive beyond my understanding, especially coming from our "primus inter pares", the spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion. The repeated, offensive remarks came so often as to cause me to consider why I wanted to be a part of the AC which looked to the ABC for spiritual and a degree of temporal leadership.

As to the "trans-communion recognisability" of the member churches of the AC upon which the ABC insists, Bp. Peter asks:

One might ask whether the history of the church bears out such a notion as having operated in the decision-making of churches over issues of considerable importance; and in particular one might ask whether the history of Anglicanism supports requiring that way of undertaking and then sanctioning developments. Is it the case that provinces have not acted on new ideas until they had consulted with other provinces and taken the teaching of ecumenical partners into account? Is it not rather the case that quite controversial decisions have been taken because they seemed to be right, and it has taken time for it to become clear whether they were legitimate developments or not?

Yes, it is the case that the member churches have moved forward in important decisions on many issues without seeking the approval of other provinces of the Communion. Concerning many weighty matters, the members have neither sought nor received the consent of other provinces, and they have not spoken with one voice. Whence this new, non-traditional idea from the Archbishop, which dismisses a large part of the history of the Communion?

What is happening to the role and person of the Archbishop is a question that cannot be avoided and is far from being just his responsibility. It has been pointed out that his paper is addressed to ‘the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful of the Anglican Communion’, a form of address very familiar to readers of papal encyclicals, including the address to ‘the faithful’, a term well known (and not always happily so) to Roman Catholics but not the usual way in which we refer to lay Christians in the Anglican Communion.

The Archbishop denies more than once in his paper that the Covenant and his paper are manifestations of centralisation; but why would he need to deny this? The sad reality is that the Archbishop has removed himself from his natural area of thought in the matter of sexuality, that is his remarkable capacity to bring a godly wisdom to bear on secular developments, a gift we need more than any other in attempting to work out how to assess current developments in human attitudes and behaviour in matters sexual. Instead the issues that surround sexuality are now treated by him only as ecclesiastical problems, to be resolved as such.

A tragedy, surely. I see the Archbishop more and more as a tragic figure, who could have avoided much of the disapprobation which has been visited upon him simply by being true to himself. Yes, there would still have been those in vehement disagreement, even to the point of withdrawing from the Communion, but he may have gained respect, even from them, for having the courage of his convictions and not making "unity" in the AC into something resembling an idol.

As Bp. Peter says in his next to last paragraph:

Above all what we need is not to take our eye off the issue, that of the treatment to be accorded to LGBT people and the ways in which they have – over many generations, not just in the last few decades – sought to live lives obedient to the gospel within the cultures in which we all, sexual majorities and minorities alike, seek to do just that. To leave that issue behind in favour of the worthy but secondary issue of how to keep the Anglican Communion together will stunt our discernment – and not keep the Anglican Communion together either. The Archbishop says the enterprise is ‘becoming the Church God wants us to be, for the better proclaiming of the liberating gospel of Jesus Christ’; but that means engaging in the search for the truth together, not settling for the stalemate which is what his paper actually advocates. (My emphasis)

Yes.

Update On Myron

Dear Friends,

I've been alerted this afternoon by Maryann that Myron will be headed to Christiana Care this afternoon for evaluation of abdominal pain. He was complaining about it yesterday and today his urine is discolored, and has tenderness on his right side around the gall bladder. He will be admitted through the ER and that will insure a quicker CAT scan and work up. I'll keep you posted concerning his progress.

Therapy at Bryn Mawr has been progressing nicely. So this is a set back where his therapy is concerned.

Sue

Not the best news, but we continue with our prayers for Myron and Maryann and look ahead to continued progress, once the present condition is resolved.

Go Nancy!

From TPM:

Speaking at her weekly press conference just off the House floor moments ago, Speaker Nancy Pelosi made her most impassioned argument in weeks, for including a public option in comprehensive health care reform legislation, arguing against the idea, favored by some conservative Democrats, of mandating that people buy health insurance, and then throwing them into what she called the "lion's den" of the private insurance industry.
....

The House, she said, "will not force America's middle income families to negotiate with insurance companies."

What about you, Harry Reid? Where are you? Take a lesson from your sister in the House.

In these parts, Nancy Pelosi is disliked almost as much as Barack Obama.

Isn't La Bella Principessa Lovely?

From MSNBC News:

A new portrait by Leonardo da Vinci may have been discovered thanks to a centuries-old fingerprint.

Peter Paul Biro, a Montreal-based forensic art expert, said that a fingerprint on what was presumed to be a 19th-century German drawing of a young woman has convinced art experts that it’s actually a Leonardo.
....

Canadian-born art collector Peter Silverman bought “Profile of the Bella Principessa” at the Ganz gallery in New York on behalf of an anonymous Swiss collector in 2007 for about $19,000. New York art dealer Kate Ganz had owned it for about 11 years after buying it at auction for a similar price.
....

“I would say it is priceless. There aren’t that many Leonardos in existence,” Biro said. He said he had heard that one London dealer felt it could be worth 100 million British pounds (more than $150 million).

Gallery owner Kate Ganz says she does not believe the portrait is by Leonardo. I understand why. Whoever painted it, I think the portrait is lovely.