BISHOPS GO 1ST CLASS - PRIESTS DON'T GET PAID

Read MadPriest's post at Of Course, I Could Be Wrong from an article in Anglican Information on the cost of whitewashing tombs:

Albert Chama, who is now in Singapore, is accompanied by Bishops William Mchama of Eastern Zambia and Godfrey Tawonzi of Masvingo, Zimbabwe, also with travelling them is the Rev’d Christopher Mwawa of Malawi. The cost of first class flights and accommodation for the four of them amounts to the value of approximately a whole year’s pay for all the currently unpaid priests in Zimbabwe and Lake Malawi! Pictures of the bishops in all their glory fronting the magnificent St Andrew’s Cathedral in Singapore are available on our blogsites.

"A CHURCH MARY CAN LOVE"

From Nicholas Kristof's column at the New York Times titled "A Church Mary Can Love":

I heard a joke the other day about a pious soul who dies, goes to heaven, and gains an audience with the Virgin Mary. The visitor asks Mary why, for all her blessings, she always appears in paintings as a bit sad, a bit wistful: Is everything O.K.?

Mary reassures her visitor: “Oh, everything’s great. No problems. It’s just ... it’s just that we had always wanted a daughter.”

That story comes to mind as the Vatican wrestles with the consequences of a patriarchal premodern mind-set: scandal, cover-up and the clumsiest self-defense since Watergate. That’s what happens with old boys’ clubs.
....

The Catholic Church still seems stuck today in that patriarchal rut. The same faith that was so pioneering that it had Junia as a female apostle way back in the first century can’t even have a woman as the lowliest parish priest. Female deacons, permitted for centuries, are banned today.

That old boys’ club in the Vatican became as self-absorbed as other old boys’ clubs, like Lehman Brothers, with similar results. And that is the reason the Vatican is floundering today.
....

Yet there’s another Catholic Church as well, one I admire intensely. This is the grass-roots Catholic Church that does far more good in the world than it ever gets credit for. This is the church that supports extraordinary aid organizations like Catholic Relief Services and Caritas, saving lives every day, and that operates superb schools that provide needy children an escalator out of poverty.

This is the church of the nuns and priests in Congo, toiling in obscurity to feed and educate children. This is the church of the Brazilian priest fighting AIDS who told me that if he were pope, he would build a condom factory in the Vatican to save lives.

This is the church of the Maryknoll Sisters in Central America and the Cabrini Sisters in Africa. There’s a stereotype of nuns as stodgy Victorian traditionalists. I learned otherwise while hanging on for my life in a passenger seat as an American nun with a lead foot drove her jeep over ruts and through a creek in Swaziland to visit AIDS orphans. After a number of encounters like that, I’ve come to believe that the very coolest people in the world today may be nuns.

Yes, there is the other Catholic Church, the church which does not get the headines, the church in which my family and friends remain and which they don't even recognize when they read the headlines, the church that serves the least amongst us, not only in mission fields abroad, but mission fields here at home, and carries on with the work of the Gospel in spite of the failures of their leadership.

To my family and friends within the Roman Catholic Church who remain to do the work of the Lord, I offer you my prayers, my encouragement, and my support. If I could ask one thing of you, and I freely admit that I, as an outsider, have no right to ask anything of you, and yet I am bold to do so: Please do not feel compelled to defend the indefensible. Tell me about your church on the ground. Tell me about your ministries. I see in my own town that God's kingdom is brought into reality right here and right now by faithful members of the Body of Christ, who are also faithful members of the Roman Catholic Church. Tell me your stories, for I know the good news is plentiful.

CANTUAR AND AKINOLA AT THE GLOBAL SOUTH GATHERING

From the website of the Anglican Communion: The video and text of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams' address to the Global South Gathering. Below is a brief excerpt:

But of course we are reflecting on the need for a covenant in the light of confusion, brokenness and tension within our Anglican family – a brokenness and a tension that has been made still more acute by recent decisions in some of our Provinces. In all your minds there will be questions around the election and consecration of Mary Glasspool in Los Angeles. All of us share the concern that in this decision and action the Episcopal Church has deepened the divide between itself and the rest of the Anglican family. And as I speak to you now, I am in discussion with a number of people around the world about what consequences might follow from that decision, and how we express the sense that most Anglicans will want to express, that this decision cannot speak for our common mind.

But I hope also in your thinking about this and in your reacting to it, you’ll bear in mind that there are no quick solutions for the wounds of the Body of Christ. It is the work of the Spirit that heals the Body of Christ, not the plans or the statements of any group, or any person, or any instrument of communion. Naturally we seek to minimize the damage, to heal the hurts, to strengthen our mission, to make sure that it goes forward with integrity and conviction. Naturally, there are decisions that have to be taken. But at the same time we must all - as indeed your own covering notes suggest for your conference - we must all share in a sense of repentance and willingness to be renewed by the Spirit.

So while the tensions and the crises of our Anglican Communion will of course be in your minds as they are in mine, I know from what you have written, what you have communicated about your plans and hopes for this conference, that you will allow the Holy Spirit to lift your eyes to that broader horizon of God’s purpose for us as Anglicans, for us as Christians, and indeed for us as human beings. (My emphasis)

The former mantra to which we became accustomed as the reason given for division in the Anglican Communion was the election and ordination of Gene Robinson, "the practicing homosexual", as a bishop in the Episcopal Church. The mantra du jour is the election and coming consecration of Mary Glasspool, "the practicing homosexual", as a bishop. The archbishop does not speak the words, but they lie there, unspoken. Tedious, yes?

All the minds of those attending the Global South Gathering may have "questions around the election and consecration of Mary Glasspool", but the minds of many of the rest of us are, indeed, not questioning Mary Glasspool's election and consecration simply on the basis that she shares her life with her beloved partner of 20 years. We rejoice, even as we pray for them as we remain aware of the spotlight and scrutiny which will be focused on Mary and Becki.

Archbishop Williams, I remind you that your words "cannot speak for our common mind", either. I'd also ask if the election and coming ordination of Mary Glasspool is the wound in the Body of Christ to which you refer?

*********

From Archbishop Peter Akinola's sermon at the opening service of the Global South Gathering:

More importantly, has the real problem that tore the fabric of the Communion been addressed? Can the Covenant address the problem? As we are gathered here today, there are those who are in what they call 'impaired communion' and others in what is called 'broken sacramental communion' with The Episcopal Church in North America and the Anglican Church of Canada. All calls for accountability and repentance have not been heeded. Decisions taken by the Primates to resolve the problem at their meetings in Brazil, Dromantine and Dar es Salam have been jettisoned. Consequently, the Communion has not been able to mend the ‘broken net’.

This, sadly, is the eighth year since we have not all been in communion with one another, globally, in the same Anglican Church. It appears that some of our leaders value the ageing structures of the communion much more than anything else, hence, the illusion that with more meetings, organisations and networks the crises will disappear. How wrong.

We all know that signing the covenant will not stop TEC from pursuing its own agenda. In fact only recently, it elected and confirmed another openly practicing lesbian priest to the episcopate. The Communion is still unable to exercise discipline. We are God's Covenant to the world, yes, but we are divided. We lack discipline. We lack the courage to call ‘a spade a spade’. Our obedience to God is selective. (My emphasis)

In his final paragraph, Abp. Akinola says that he calls "a spade a spade", but he can't quite bring himself to name Mary Glasspool, except to label her as an "openly practicing lesbian priest". She who is not to be named?

Abp. Akinola speaks stronger words than Abp. Williams in calling for "discipline" rather than "consequences", but perhaps, in the end, the two mean the same thing.

Abp. Akinola:

All calls for accountability and repentance have not been heeded.

Right, Archbisop Akinola, however, I expect we speak of different actions and words for which repentance and accountability would be appropriate.


Abp. Akinola:

Our obedience to God is selective.

Right again, Archbisop Akinola, however, I expect we disagree on which actions and words are disobedient to God.


UPDATE: Pluralist has the transcript of the Archbishop of Anglicanism's real video.

ELCA EMBRACES AND RESTORES LGBTQ LUTHERANS

From the Rev. Dr. Cindi Love at The Huffington Post:

George Bernard Shaw once said, "Certainly all great truths begin as blasphemies." On April 11, 2010, those who identify as people of faith and as "non-heterosexual" were given particular cause to celebrate Shaw's wisdom: a most unlikely church has given a most unlikely people a gift of love and truth, and I cannot stop smiling.

After twenty-five years of deliberation, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Church Council has abolished its anti-gay policies, effective immediately. Following from discussions at the ELCA Churchwide Assembly last summer, the ELCA will now allow people in same-sex relationships to serve as rostered leaders. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) human beings are no longer considered abominations but blessed church members with full standing. Same-sex partners and families can now fully participate in the ELCA Pension Plan.

Best of all, the ELCA is reinstating people who were removed from ministry positions because they were truthful and came out of the closet, as well as those who conducted holy unions for non-heterosexual couples. The ELCA has practiced restorative justice.

Lovely news, especially the restoration to their former ministries of those who were honest. May God bless the ELCA as the church moves forward to implement their policies of inclusion and justice.

H/T to Mapko at Amictus Sindone for the link.

SCAPEGOATING? I REPORT, YOU DECIDE

Last Saturday, I posted a link to a story in the Guardian about an article that would appear today in a German news magazine on the child abuse scandal in the pope's former archdiocese. The excerpts below are from Der Spiegel.

Catholic Church officials assigned full responsibility for the reassignment of a known pedophilic priest to retired vicar general Gerhard Gruber who served as deputy to Joseph Ratzinger when he was archbishop. Gruber is now challenging a Church statement that he "acted on his own authority," a claim he says was never discussed with him.
....

Gruber's friends say that the old man was only familiar with parts of the statement, that he was apparently being used as a scapegoat and that he was also under additional emotional pressure. To everyone's surprise, Gruber wrote an open letter in which he qualified the archdiocese's statement, writing that he did not sign any documents over which he had no influence. He also noted that he was "very upset" about the "manner in which the incidents were portrayed" by the archdiocese. "And the phrase 'acted on his own authority' also wasn't discussed with me," he wrote.

The archdiocese was unwilling to comment on the accusations, except to state it continued to believe that the former vicar general had acted on his own authority in the case of Peter H., and that he had admitted to having made mistakes. Gruber has gone on a trip to recuperate from "weeks that have been very stressful for me." His loyalty is greatly appreciated in Munich. Archbishop Reinhard Marx, Gruber writes, has sent him his best wishes and "expressed his appreciation for my 'participation'."

I report on the Guardian's report on Der Spiegel's report, and you decide.

ICELAND'S VOLCANO

Smoke billows from an erupting volcano which seems to be close to the top of the Eyjafjalla glacier on April 14, 2010 near Reykjavik.



An aerial handout photo from the Icelandic Coast Guard shows flood caused by a volcanic eruption at Eyjafjalla Glacier in southern Iceland April 14, 2010.



Melting ice caused by a volcanic eruption at Eyjafjalla Glacier in southern Iceland April 14, 2010.

Pictures from Boston.com via Doug. The Globe has more pictures.

OKLAHOMA BOMBING - IN MEMORIAM

 

From the Buffalo News:

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told survivors and victims' relatives gathered Monday for a somber ceremony to mark the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing that the city's spirit in the wake of the tragedy served as an example to the nation.

Napolitano also warned of the need for continued vigilance against terrorists when she spoke during the 90-minute memorial to the 168 lives lost in the destruction of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995. More than 600 others were injured in the blast, which at the time was the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

Across Oklahoma City, people observed 168 seconds of silence to honor the dead.

Some dabbed away tears as the ceremony closed with family members reading a roll call of those who died.

"What defines us as a nation, as a people and as communities is not what we have suffered, but how we have risen above it, how we've overcome," Napolitano said.

 

Charlene Green hugs, left, hugs Constance Favorite, right, at the chair of Favorite's daughter, Lakesha Levy, in the Field of Chairs at the Oklahoma National Memorial, Monday April 19, 2010, the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing.

 

Ila Clark, left, holds her husband Dale Clark, right, of Denham Springs, La., during the reading of the names of the 168 victims of the Oklahoma city bombing.... Dale Clark's sister Kimberly Clark was killed in the bombing.

Let us pray for healing for the injured in the bombing and for those who suffered psychological trauma.

All those who loved the victims who died in the bombing will never forget them. Let us pray for healing for their friends and family.

Let us pray, "Never again!"

Thanks to Counterlight for the reminder of the anniversary of the tragedy.

"THE CHURCH...AS A LIVING ORGANISM INCLUDING ALL WHO FOLLOW CHRIST"

Read Ormonde Plater's post at Through the Dust, titled, "A Church in Crisis":

In the early 1960s, as a young man estranged from the Episcopal Church, I followed with great interest the deliberations and decrees of Vatican II. What was especially appealing was the council's theological vision of the church, not as a massive institution with a conservative bureaucracy, but as the people of God, the body of Christ, a living organism including all who follow Christ. Largely as a result of that inspiration, I returned to the Episcopal Church in 1967, bringing my wife and children with me.

Read Ormonde's account of studying for the permanent diaconate in the Episcopal Church at Notre Dame Seminary, a Roman Catholic seminary in New Orleans, during the heady days when the windows opened by John XXIII were still letting in the breeze.

DERRICK GOES TO THE PROM WITH RICHARD

Derrick and Richard in their matching black tuxedos

A follow-up on the story of Derrick Martin who asked for and was given permission by the school authorities to take his boy friend to the prom. Unfortunately, Derrick's parents threw him out of the house when the publicity began. A friend's parents took him into their home.

From Macon.com:

Bleckley County High School senior Derrick Martin made history Saturday when he arrived at his high school prom on the arm of another boy.

He was the first in his hometown of Cochran — and perhaps in Georgia — to ask permission to take a same sex partner to prom and have his school allow it.

About 7:45 p.m., couples started to arrive at the high school in a line of stretch limos, a bus, a John Deere tractor and even carriage and buggy, and afterward walked through a crowd of parents and friends who snapped photos.

When Martin, 18, and his boyfriend Richard Goodman, also 18, stepped onto a makeshift “red carpet” and their names were announced, a few parents whispered but many in the crowd gave him a loud cheer. No one yelled out in protest.

“I wonder if they realize what they’ve done,” said Arturro Beeche, a San Francisco professor who flew into Georgia on Friday and drove Martin and Goodman to the prom. “Once it happens in small-town America, it will inspire so many,” he said.
....

The move had been met with some conflict, such as talk of a separate prom.
A few weeks back, a small group of students held an opposition rally in front of the town courthouse to protest. Martin’s parents also kicked him out of his home after the publicity.

But a rally in support of Martin was also held in a Macon park and supporters have donated more than $5,000 for college this fall.

Bleckley County High School in Cochran, Georgia, showed Itawamba High School in Fulton, Mississippi, the right way to do it. Fortunately, Constance McMillen's parents stood by her as her school, her classmates, and their parents failed her. There's no word in the story as to whether Derrick's parents have relented and invited him back home, so I presume they have not.

H/T to Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin for the link.

I DON'T KNOW WHAT CAME OVER ME...

An Alabama preacher said to his congregation, "Someone in this congregation has spread a rumour that I belong to the Ku Klux Klan. This is a horrible lie and one which a Christian community cannot tolerate. I am embarrassed and do not intend to accept this. Now, I want the party who did this to stand and ask forgiveness from God and this Christian Family."

No one moved. The preacher continued, "Do you have the nerve to face me and admit this is a falsehood? Remember, you will be forgiven and in your heart you will feel glory. Now stand and confess your transgression."

Again all was quiet..

Then slowly, a drop-dead gorgeous blonde with a body that would stop traffic rose from the third pew. Her head was bowed and her voice quivered as she spoke, "Reverend there has been a terrible misunderstanding. I never said you were a member of the Ku Klux Klan. I simply told a couple of my friends that you were a wizard under the sheets."

I know. The joke is quite naughty. Don't blame me. Blame Doug.