I used to wait for a sign, she said, before
I did anything. Then one night I had a
dream & an angel in black tights came to
me & said, you can start any time now,
& then I asked is this a sign? & the angel
started laughing & I woke up. Now, I
think the whole world is filled with
signs, but if there's no laughter, I know
they're not for me.
Almighty God our heavenly Father, graciously comfort your servant Göran in his suffering, and bless the means made use of for his cure. Fill his heart with confidence that, though at times he may be afraid, he yet may put his trust in you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The sacking of William Morris as bishop of the Australian diocese of Toowoomba raises more than a few theological questions about the relationship between bishops and the Bishop of Rome.
Many Catholics believe, and so apparently does Benedict XVI, that the Bishop of Rome is free, by the will of Christ, not only to appoint all bishops in the Roman Catholic church, but to dismiss them as well.
This is an incorrect assumption, and the firing of Bishop Morris provides us with a teachable moment in ecclesiology.
From the very beginning of church history, bishops were elected by the laity and clergy of the various local churches, or dioceses. And this included the Bishop of Rome, known more popularly as the pope.
One of the most important bishop-saints of the third century, Cyprian of Carthage in North Africa, offered explicit testimony about the election of bishops in the early church.
"It comes from divine authority," Cyprian wrote, "that a bishop be chosen in the presence of the people before the eyes of all and that he be approved worthy and fit by public judgment and testimony."
Indeed, when Cornelius was elected pope in 251, Cyprian described the process in a letter to a contemporary: "Cornelius was made bishop by the judgment of God and His Christ, by the testimony of almost all the clergy, by the vote of the people who were then present, by the assembly of venerable bishops and good men."
As to the earliest ages, Ferraris (op. cit. infra) says that St. Peter himself constituted a senate for the Roman Church, consisting of twenty-four priests and deacons. These were the councillors of the Bishop of Rome and the electors of his successors. This statement is drawn from a canon in the "Corpus Juris Canonici" (can. "Si Petrus", caus. 8, Q. 1). Historians and canonists, however, generally hold that the Roman bishopric was filled on its vacancy in the same manner as other bishoprics, that is, the election of the new pope was made by the neighbouring bishops and the clergy and faithful of Rome. Nevertheless, some maintain that the naming of the successor of St. Peter was restricted to the Roman clergy, and that the people were admitted to a part in the elections only after the time of Sylvester I (fourth century). (My emphasis)
So there you have it. Of the three main denominations of the Christian Church, Roman Catholicism, Byzantium Orthodoxy and Anglicanism, the most orthodox, when it comes to the election of bishops, is Anglicanism and the province within the Anglican communion that has got it the most correct is the USA. This fact emphasises just how devious and perverted the accusations of revisionism and apostasy, levelled at the US Church by its jealous detractors, actually are, especially as they come mostly from bishops who have assumed dictatorial powers for themselves and who have been elected in processes that reflect those practiced by the secular powers of the cultures they minister within.
What you call the "handle" is also referred to as the "hilt". It is made up of the guard which is what is made of metal and the handle which appears to be wrapped in leather and stitched into ribs to keep it from slipping in the hand. (I learned all I know about these things on the American version of "Antique Road Show.")
Fast forwarding through her messages
hoping to hear from old boyfriends who
finally realize the treasure they've
thrown away.
"Let America be America again."
"This was a very dumb thing to do."
"HB277 generated debate prior in a House committee when it was questioned whether such a monument could make non-Christians and Jews uncomfortable." (My emphasis)
Let America Be America Again
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
by Langston Hughes
An Episcopal parish in Maryland announced Monday that it will become the first in the United States to join the Roman Catholic Church under a Vatican process designed to bring disgruntled Anglicans and Episcopalians into its fold.
St. Luke's Episcopal parish in Bladensburg will become part of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington within the next few months. It will sever ties from its liberal bishop, who has spoken out in favor of same-sex marriage and other controversial issues.
The bishop, John Bryson Chane, said in a statement Monday that he approved the separation. Chane said the decision was made with "mutual respect," adding that "Christians move from one church to another with far greater frequency than in the past, sometimes as individuals, sometimes as groups."
The parish will lease its land from the Episcopal diocese with the option to purchase.
The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in France is located on the site of the temporary American St. Laurent Cemetery, established by the U.S. First Army on June 8, 1944 and the first American cemetery on European soil in World War II. The cemetery site, at the north end of its ½ mile access road, covers 172.5 acres and contains the graves of 9,387 of our military dead, most of whom lost their lives in the D-Day landings and ensuing operations. On the Walls of the Missing in a semicircular garden on the east side of the memorial are inscribed 1,557 names. Rosettes mark the names of those since recovered and identified.From the American Battle Monuments Commission.
ALMIGHTY God, our heavenly Father, in whose hands are the living and the dead; We give thee thanks for all those thy servants who have laid down their lives in the service of their countries. Grant to them thy mercy and the light of thy presence, that the good work which thou has begun in them may be perfected; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord. AMEN.Note: Reposted from last year and the year before.
(Book of Common Prayer, p. 42)
From Maureen Dowd at the New York Times:THE archbishop of Dublin was beginning to sniffle.
He could not get through a story about “a really nasty man” — an Irish priest who sexually abused, physically tortured and emotionally threatened vulnerable boys — without pulling out his handkerchief and wiping his nose.
“He built a swimming pool in his own garden, to which only boys of a certain age, of a certain appearance were allowed into it,” Archbishop Diarmuid Martin told me recently. “There were eight other priests in that parish, and not one of them seemed to think there was something strange about it.”
Two years after learning the extent of the depraved and Dickensian treatment of children in the care of the Irish Catholic Church — a fifth circle of hell hidden for decades by church and police officials — the Irish are still angry and appalled.
The only church leader who escapes their disgust is the no-nonsense, multilingual Martin. He was sent home to Dublin in 2003 after 27 years in the Vatican bureaucracy and diplomatic corps and found the Irish church in crisis, reeling from a cover-up that spanned the tenures of four past Dublin archbishops.
....
In February, Martin held an unprecedented “Liturgy of Lament and Repentance” at a Dublin cathedral, where he asked forgiveness from God and victims of abuse and praised the courage of those who had come forward.
Wearing a simple black cassock, he helped wash the feet of eight victims and conceded that the church “will always bear this wound within it.”
....
In return for doing the right thing, he has been ostracized by fellow bishops in Ireland and snubbed by the Holy See.
....
Yet Martin, famous protector of victims, is an outlier of the club, while Cardinal Bernard Law, notorious protector of pedophiles, has a cushy Vatican sanctuary. And Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who was in league with the notorious abuser of seminarians and inseminator of women, Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, is the dean of the College of Cardinals in Rome.
Garry O’Sullivan, the managing editor of The Irish Catholic in Dublin, told me that Martin “has had a prophetic role in the church.”
When he [Archbishop Martin] was growing up, his mother always told him “go serve your Mass but don’t hang around with the priest.”
....
In his brusque way, he rejects the appellation of hero.
“Nobody could have read what I have read and not did what I did,” he said as he walked me out into the windy spring day. “If I didn’t react to the stories I heard, there would be something wrong.” (My emphasis)
