c. 2006 Religion News Service
Episcopal Summit in New York Yields No Way Forward
(RNS) A three-day summit of Episcopal bishops was not able to resolve the denomination’s intense disputes over its new top prelate and the role of gays and lesbians in the church.
“We recognized the need to provide sufficient space, but were unable to come to common agreement on the way forward,” the bishops said in a joint statement issued at the end of the closed-door meeting on Wednesday (Sept. 13).
The 11 participating Episcopal bishops _ including current Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold and Presiding Bishop-elect Katharine Jefferts Schori _ met Monday through Wednesday in New York at the behest of the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.
Williams is the spiritual leader of global Anglicanism, of which the 2.1 million-member Episcopal Church is the U.S. branch. His representative at the private meeting was the Rev. Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Communion.
“It’s a positive sign that these difficult conversations have been taking place in a frank and honest way,” Williams said in a statement on Wednesday.
The dispute between liberals and a vocal conservative minority about the direction of the Episcopal Church have intensified since an openly gay man, V. Gene Robinson, was elected bishop of New Hampshire in 2003.
Both Griswold and Jefferts Schori, who will become presiding bishop in November, voted to approve Robinson’s consecration.
Since Jefferts Schori’s election in June, seven dioceses have asked Williams to be put under the guidance of someone else instead. Bishops representing four of those dioceses _ Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh; Edward Salmon of South Carolina; James Stanton of Dallas; and Jack Iker of Fort Worth,Texas _ participated in the New York meeting.
Duncan, who heads a conservative network of 10 dioceses and some 900 parishes said Wednesday that “it was an honest meeting.”
However, “it became clear that the division in the American church is so great that we are incapable of addressing the divide, which has two distinctly different groups both claiming to be the Episcopal Church,” Duncan said in a statement.
_ Daniel Burke
Pope Allows Latin Mass in Bid to Welcome Back Schismatics
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI is allowing a group of traditionalist priests and seminarians in France to celebrate Mass in Latin in a push to bring members of the schismatic Society of St. Pius X back into the fold.
The Good Shepherd Institute, which brings together members of the schismatic group and other traditionalists, will be allowed to celebrate the Latin Mass in the archdiocese of Bordeaux, France.
A statement from Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard of Bordeaux on Sept. 8 announced that Benedict had officially recognized the group’s union with the Roman Catholic Church, calling it a “sign of welcome” to followers of the Society of St. Pius X, commonly known as the Lefebvrites.
Since the reforms of the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s, permission to celebrate the Mass in Latin has been granted on a limited basis, becoming a source of tension between the Vatican and groups of traditionalist Catholics who do not accept the Council’s reforms.
French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s insistence on celebrating Mass in Latin led him to defy papal orders in 1988 and consecrate four bishops _ a move that resulted in the excommunication of the group. He subsequently founded the Society of St. Pius X.
Since taking office, Benedict has made repairing relations with Lefebvre’s followers a priority, meeting with the group’s current leader Bishop Bernard Fellay a year ago.
“Benedict has been concerned about the return to full communion of those who followed Archbishop Lefebvre,” Ricard said.
The Good Shepherd Institute is not the first group to be welcomed back into communion with Rome. Since the schism, several groups have formed to reunite the pope with former followers of Lefebvre. These groups are also allowed to celebrate Mass in Latin under Vatican supervision.
_ Stacy Meichtry
Candidate Poised to Become First Muslim Member of Congress
(RNS) Minnesota lawmaker Keith Ellison won the Democratic primary for his Minneapolis-area congressional district on Tuesday (Sept. 12), paving the way for him to become the first Muslim in Congress.
Ellison, who was elected as a state representative in 2002, took 41 percent of the vote Tuesday, beating six other contenders from the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Ellison celebrated the primary victory at an Ethiopian restaurant in Minneapolis Tuesday night.
“We are going to celebrate together,” he said, the Pioneer Press reported. “All God’s children, all religions, all colors, gathered together for an agenda that puts the people first.”
The win followed a sometimes thorny campaign when Ellison was criticized for his unpaid parking tickets and earlier association with the Nation of Islam. Ellison, 43, converted to Islam as a college student.
A strong critic of the Iraq war, Ellison has called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq. He has also advocated for universal health care and renewable energy use.
If elected Nov. 7, Ellison would also become the first black congressman in Minnesota.
Ellison will be challenged by Republican Alan Fine, Independent Party nominee Tammy Lee and the Green Party’s Jay Pond. But political analysts say the November contest will likely be a victory for Ellison.
_ Kat Glass
Chaplain Says Porn Forced Him Out of the British Navy
LONDON (RNS) A trainee chaplain has told an employment tribunal that he was driven out of Britain’s Royal Navy by pornography being shown at all hours aboard warships on which he was serving.
The Rev. Mark Sharpe said he quit his Navy job within weeks after being told to turn a blind eye to porn aboard the assault ship HMS Albion and later the destroyer HMS Manchester. He added that he was advised not to raise the issue if he valued his naval career.
Sharpe, an Anglican priest married for 20 years and now based ashore in Worcestershire, England, said he was invited to join a sex club and smacked on his rear, and found sexually explicit photographs of women plastered on his bunk.
At one point, he said, he witnessed shipmates watching hard-core DVDs at 7 a.m. “I expected people to have pictures of girls,” the priest told the tribunal, but he was “not aware this level of hard-core pornography would be a routine part of life.”
Sharpe, a former policeman, said that “I was in the obscene publications squad in the police, but this pornography was stuff I had not seen before.” When he raised the issue with others, “they said it was harmless fun.”
“I was asked about celibacy and about whether I preferred the missionary position,” he said. “These were teasing points.”
When he took his case to the commodore in charge of the training program, Sharpe said, “he was adamant and aggressive that it was not my place to comment on such issues. He made it clear that if I wanted to continue training, I should put up and shut up.”
Sharpe has brought a claim alleging sexual harassment and discrimination on grounds of religious affiliation against Britain’s Ministry of Defense. At the tribunal hearing, naval officials have admitted the harassment charge but denied discrimination.
The Royal Navy also denied that pornography was condoned aboard its ships and said it was not the real reason Sharpe left the service. Rather, the officials said, the cleric missed his wife and began complaining only after he had decided to leave the service.
The hearing was still under way Wednesday (Sept. 13).
_ Al Webb
Quote of the Day: President Bush
(RNS) “There was a stark change between the culture of the ’50s and the ’60s … and I think there’s change happening here. … It seems to me that there’s a Third Awakening.”
_ President Bush, quoted by the National Review Online. Bush was referring to discussions by scholars and others that a third time of spiritual revival, following the First Great Awakening in the 1700s and the Second Great Awakening in the 1800s, may be taking place.
KRE/JL END RNS
