Something mysterious (well, not really---but read on) has happened with regard to the corporate entity recognized under California law as the religious corporation sole associated with the Diocese of San Joaquin. Under California law, a "corporation sole" is a special kind of corporation---with just one shareholder, one officer and one director, who are all one and the same person---that can be formed by "a bishop . . . of any religious denomination, society, or church, for the purpose of administering and managing the affairs, property, and temporalities thereof." (Calif. Corp. Code section 10002.)

There has been a corporation sole for the Diocese of San Joaquin in California ever since 1911. Each time a new bishop is elected, there is an amendment to the articles filed by the new bishop, naming him as the successor to the position. When the Rt. Rev. John-David Schofield was elected Bishop in 1988, the articles were amended (albeit in 1992); and preceding the first convention vote in December 2006 to change the Diocesan Constitution, the articles of the corporation sole were amended in March 2006 to change the method of electing his successor. (That amendment caused four other Episcopal Bishops in California to issue an ultimatum to Bishop Schofield that they would file a presentment against him unless he rescinded the changes---the documents may be seen here.) On January 22, 2008, Bishop Schofield filed another amendment to the articles, changing the name of the corporation from "The Protestant Episcopal Bishop of San Joaquin, a Corporation Sole" to "The Anglican Bishop of San Joaquin, a Corporation Sole."

Now, quietly and without any fanfare, the Secretary of State's Web site lists the corporation again under a new name as of April 8, 2008: the name has changed back to "The Protestant Episcopal Bishop of San Joaquin, a Corporation Sole". Further research with this filing shows that it lists the sole member of the corporation as the Rt. Rev. Jerry A. Lamb, in Stockton, California, and that its agent for service of process is attorney Michael Glass of San Rafael, California.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: San Joaquin • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues

Filed under: * Economics, Politics • US Presidential Election 2008

Drivers were facing a £20 limit on fuel spending yesterday as panic buying intensified at Scotland's filling stations.

Despite calls to motorists not to drain supplies, at least one station had to resort to rationing petrol and diesel.

Other filling station managers reported drivers losing their tempers in long queues.

Chris Furphy imposed at £20 maximum purchase for fuel at his Jet station in Dalmuir, Clydebank, in a bid to conserve stocks.

The move infuriated some of his customers.

Chris said: "It has been going mad in here all day, and the staff have been getting a lot of abuse.

"One woman stuck in £60, despite signs at every pump saying there was a £20 limit.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Energy, Natural Resources • * International News & Commentary • England / UK

The most recent Washington Post-ABC News poll charts Clinton's decline from a high point just after her victory in New Hampshire to a new low point this spring. In that time, her favorable rating underwent a 40-point swing among independents. In mid-January, 59 percent of independents said they had a favorable impression of her, compared to 39 percent unfavorable. Last week, it was the reverse: 39 percent favorable and 58 percent unfavorable.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • US Presidential Election 2008

Over and over again...[Benedict] has made it clear that the marriage and family debate is central -- not peripheral -- to understanding the human person, and defending our human dignity.

For example, when receiving the credentials of the new U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican, Harvard Law Professor Mary Ann Glendon, Pope Benedict XVI expressed his appreciation for America's recognition of the important of a dialogue of faith and faiths in the public square and linked this to respect not only for religious freedom but for marriage as the union of husband and wife:

I cannot fail to note with gratitude the importance which the United States has attributed to interreligious and intercultural dialogue as a positive force for peacemaking. . . The American people's historic appreciation of the role of religion in shaping public discourse and in shedding light on the inherent moral dimension of social issues-a role at times contested in the name of a straitened understanding of political life and public discourse-is reflected in the efforts of so many of your fellow-citizens and government leaders to ensure legal protection for God's gift of life from conception to natural death, and the safeguarding of the institution of marriage, acknowledged as a stable union between a man and a woman, and that of the family.

Pope Benedict devoted about half of his message for the January 1 World Day of Peace to the significance of marriage in developing a culture of peace:

Consequently, whoever, even unknowingly, circumvents the institution of the family undermines peace in the entire community, national and international, since he weakens what is in effect the primary agency of peace. This point merits special reflection: everything that serves to weaken the family based on the marriage of a man and a woman, everything that directly or indirectly stands in the way of its openness to the responsible acceptance of a new life, everything that obstructs its right to be primarily responsible for the education of its children, constitutes an objective obstacle on the road to peace.

Marriage essential to world peace? This may strike American ears as an oddity...

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Marriage & Family • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

Check it out.

Filed under: * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

Clergy in six Lower Mainland Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) churches... denied charges they have abandoned their ministry.

In February, Bishop Michael Ingham of the Anglican Church of Canada Diocese of New Westminster issued a “Notice of Presumption of Abandonment of the Exercise of the Ministry” to nine Anglican priests and two ordained deacons. These priests and deacons - including world renowned theologian, the Rev Dr J I Packer - all serve in churches where parishioners had voted to join the Anglican Network in Canada.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Canada

Stephen Kent: Well I too was pleasantly surprised by the book, especially given all the sometimes rocky pre-publication publicity it received. What struck me most about the book actually Morton's discussion about the behind-the-scenes negotiations that went on involving Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Certainly a lot of us who observe Scientology wondered whether Kidman caused a problem for Scientology, because in part, her father is a psychologist, and also in part she never really seemed to be that committed. What I did not realise however was the extent to which the organisation apparently involved itself in that relationship.


Stephen Crittenden: They were there at the beginning, helping to set the marriage up. They were there when the children were being adopted, and they were there at the end when the marriage was falling apart.


Stephen Kent: It's a very good observation. And it's the case that many people take on the veneer of a partner's marriage just for practical purposes and don't internalise that particular faith, and that seems to be the pattern that Nicole Kidman followed. But of course her relationship with her parents, particularly her father, was going to be an ongoing problem. Scientology's antipathy towards the mental health profession, psychiatry, but also psychology, is long-standing and well-known.


Stephen Crittenden: And what about Andrew Morton's statement that Tom Cruise is the No.2 figure in Scientology; was that news to you?


Stephen Kent: I hadn't thought of it in the way that Andrew Morton framed it, and his framing was something along the lines that Tom Cruise is the No.2 person. Now certainly in an organisational sense, that claim is just not true, but it may be true in the context of the prestige that Tom Cruise has for other Scientologists, and from that standpoint Morton's statement made a great deal of sense.


Stephen Crittenden: A couple of other things that struck me in Andrew Morton's book: one is that Tom Cruise appears to have gone through the same step-by-step initiation process that everyone else in Scientology goes through.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths

Consider what $20 will buy at your local grocery store.

Now consider that for the same $20 you could provide 100 meals to people living in an impoverished country.

Grace Episcopal Church is once again teaming up with Stop Hunger Now to provide 50,000 meals to people in need.

SHN is a nonprofit, international relief organization committed to ending hunger worldwide. The organization provides direct emergency food and other life-saving aid in crisis areas. SHN is headquartered in Raleigh and has provided more than $100 million of aid to more than 55 countries. Grace Episcopal first partnered with SHN in 2006.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Parishes • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry

While many 18- and 19-year-olds await word from colleges, one of their peers has been accepted to a university — as a professor. Just days before her 19th birthday, Alia Sabur was hired to teach cell science at Konkuk University in South Korea.

Listen to it all from NPR.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Education • * International News & Commentary • Asia

Leaving aside the obvious problems with such a claim, let us, for the sake of discussion, simply grant it. One would think that--simply for the sake of appearances, to say nothing of legal strategy--it would then be in 815's best interests to establish as much continuity as possible between the "new" DSJ--i.e. the one configured at the Lodi convention of March 29 of this year--and the "old" DSJ, that is, the one that was spun off as a Missionary District from the Diocese of California 97 years ago. One would think that it would be in the best interest of the Presiding Bishop and her counsel to be able to credibly say, "Several individuals have left, but the diocese remains. Look: We have retained eleven congregations, including the three largest ones, representing over half of the average Sunday attendance of the diocese. We have retained the most senior clergy, and six of the eight members of the Standing Committee, who have assured us that once Bishop Schofield resigns or is lawfully deposed, they will step in and perform their canonical duty. The Diocese of San Joaquin is still vital, diverse, and financially viable without any outside help."

The ability to say all of this was within 815's grasp. But, for reasons that I could only speculate about, they looked a Public Relations gift horse in the mouth and sent it packing. They rejected continuity, and chose instead to confect a new DSJ out of whole cloth, with only a little decorative embroidery from had come before. The fact that there is not the shred of a canonical basis for doing what they have done seems to count for nothing; what's new is new and what's done is done. The rule of law has been thrown under the bus of expediency.

The irony in all of this, and the actual point of this post, is that, in rejecting the path of maximum continuity, maximum numerical strength, and maximum credibility in the eyes a watching Anglican world, 815 has undercut its own Prime Directive than "only individuals can leave." By their actions in electing to start over from scratch, they have tacitly admitted that the Diocese of San Joaquin did, in fact, leave the Episcopal Church. Why else would they have taken such pains to invent a new one--a new one that is every bit as ideologically monochrome as they accuse the old one of being, a new one that has retained not even a vestige of institutional or administrative continuity with the old one, and a new one that is wholly dependent on 815's financial largesse and will, in effect, be a client diocese for as long as it is allowed to exist?

Apparently, dioceses can leave the Episcopal Church. One just did, and they made a new one to replace it.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: San Joaquin

The Most Revd Gregory James Venables
Rioja 2995,1636 Olivos,
Province of Buenos Aires,
B1636DMG , Argentina


My Brother in Christ:

In this Easter Season I greet you in the name of our risen Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

It has come to my attention that you will be participating in the Anglican Network in Canada conference, "Compelled by Christ's Love" taking place in Vancouver, B.C., April 25-26,2008. Your visit to Canada is without any reference to or consent from my office or that of the Bishop of the Diocese of New Westminster. This represents a breach in what is considered normative in protocol among Primates and Bishops throughout the Communion.

I brought this matter before the House of Bishops meeting in Niagara Falls, Ont., last week. While we recognized that your motivation may be pastoral, there was a strong consensus that your visit at this time will further harm the strained relations between the Anglican Church of Canada and the Anglican Network in Canada.

The Bishops believe that we have made adequate and appropriate provision for the pastoral care and Episcopal support of all members of the Anglican Church of Canada, including those who find themselves in conscientious disagreement with the view of their Bishop and Synod over matters of human sexuality.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Canada • Southern Cone

But the one thing which will be remembered above all after the visit of this very different Pope to the United States is the simple word "sorry". The Holy Father recognised that there was no way he could celebrate the essence of his own faith amongst new friends without first offering a deep and profound apology for previous wrongs- and particularly to the victims of terrible abuse by representatives of his own church in former times.

The protection of children, young people and vulnerable adults is now a massive priority for any organisation working with and for them. And whilst the putting in place of stringent measures to protect children in the future is admirable - we cannot forget those who have suffered terribly in the past and who still bear the scares of previous wrongdoing.

By saying sorry so openly and unequivocally, Pope Benedict's confession and appeal for forgiveness has obviously rallied many Americans behind him and given millions of Christians a basic reminder of how true repentance can lead to a fresh start. There's no room for complacency but there's certainly an opportunity to live out perhaps the most famous prayer of all: forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.

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Filed under: * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

Jay Leno recently made fun of a commercial for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, in which she referred to playing pinochle as a child at her grandfather’s lake house in Pennsylvania.

“Pinochle?” Mr. Leno said quizzically to his late-night audience. “Well, that’ll help with the young voters, huh? I mean, come on. What kids aren’t playing pinochle now?”

The joke about the old card game captured a truth about this year’s Democratic primary: Mrs. Clinton has generally bypassed younger voters. And they have bypassed her, flocking instead to her rival, Senator Barack Obama. At the same time, she has attracted older voters, those who grew up in the pre-Internet era and might actually have played pinochle.

In a campaign where demographics seem to be destiny, one of the most striking factors is the segregation of voters by age. In state after state, older voters have formed a core constituency for Mrs. Clinton, who is 60, while younger voters have coalesced around Mr. Obama, who is 46. Age has been one of the most consistent indicators of how someone might vote — more than sex, more than income, more than education. Only race is a stronger predictor of voting than age, and then only if a voter is black, not if he or she is white.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • US Presidential Election 2008

Gasoline prices surpassed $3.50 a gallon nationwide for the first time and oil jumped to a record on Monday as the long rise of energy prices showed little evidence of giving way to recession fears.

The national average price for regular gasoline is up 22 percent from a year earlier, according to AAA, the automobile club. Some analysts expect it to approach $4 a gallon this summer, when demand is at a peak. Diesel fuel prices reached a record $4.20 a gallon on Monday, on average, compared with $2.93 a gallon a year earlier.

In trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, crude oil for next-month delivery settled Monday at $117.48 a barrel, up 79 cents, a new high. Oil prices have more than quadrupled in the last five years, and some analysts say that oil will reach $125 a barrel this year.

The latest rise in energy prices was prompted by reports that a Nigerian rebel group had blown up pipelines in the Niger Delta. An earlier attack on a pipeline, last week, forced Royal Dutch Shell to curtail exports by 169,000 barrels a day.

Because there is little spare capacity worldwide and supplies are tight, slight disruptions in oil production anywhere can push up prices.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Energy, Natural Resources

At the Cash America pawn shop in Arlington, Texas, you could outfit, repair and protect your house with all that's on the shelves  the cast-offs of other people's lives.

With the economy near recession, pawn shops are overflowing. People are using their valuables as collateral for loans, most hoping that in a month or two they'll have enough money to pay back the loans plus interest. Otherwise, their valuables belong to the pawnbroker.

Sandra O'Neil wants to buy back her grandma's ring one day. "My grandmother would haunt me from her grave if I didn't come get this," she said.

Cash America's CEO Daniel Feehan is reluctant to admit it, but hard times are good times for the pawn industry.

"During the early stages of a downturn in the economy we're gonna get a temporary boost as people use our lending services to try to adjust to the changing financial services they find themselves in. And they'll use our retail services to find bargain purchases on merchandise that stretches their dollar a lot further than it would otherwise go," he said.

Craig West said he comes in now a couple of times a week. Now he's selling tools for $15. He's sad to leave them behind, but said, "you do what you gotta do."

The extra cash will end up in his gas tank.

"It's tough, it's real tough," he said.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy

At least 30 people were shot over the weekend in Chicago. Six died. Authorities point to the usual culprits — gang warfare and easy access to guns. Police had just released statistics showing the city's murder rate fell in March compared to a year earlier.

listen to it all from NPR.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Violence

(ENS) Episcopal Church House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson has asked diocesan General Convention deputations to find ways to comment to their bishops about the second draft of the proposed Anglican covenant.

Anderson made her request in an April 21 letter emailed to all deputies and first alternate deputies. The full text of the letter is below.

"We are told that the bishops at the Lambeth Conference will not be making a decision on the Anglican covenant, nor will they be ratifying any draft of the covenant," Anderson wrote, reminding deputies that "the only body with authority to commit the Episcopal Church to an Anglican covenant is the General Convention in which bishops, priests and deacons and lay persons share authority."

Thus, she wrote, "the input of the clergy and laity of the Episcopal Church is especially important as the Anglican Communion considers the development of a covenant."

"In the Episcopal Church the belief that God speaks uniquely through bishops, laity, priests and deacons, enables our participatory structure and allows a fullness of revelation and insight that must not be lost in this important time of discernment," Anderson wrote. "The joint work of the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops is the highest institutional expression of this belief. It is thus crucially important that our bishops go to Lambeth with a sense of where their General Convention deputations (and their diocese) are with respect to the current state of the Anglican covenant."

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Covenant • Episcopal Church (TEC)

MARIKO Watanabe admits she could have chosen a better time to take up baking. This week, when the Tokyo housewife visited her local Ito-Yokado supermarket to buy butter to make a cake, she found the shelves bare.

"I went to another supermarket, and then another, and there was no butter at those either. Everywhere I went there were notices saying Japan has run out of butter. I couldn't believe it — this is the first time in my life I've wanted to try baking cakes and I can't get any butter," said the frustrated cook.

Japan's acute butter shortage, which has confounded bakeries, restaurants and now families across the country, is the latest unforeseen result of the global agricultural commodities crisis.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Energy, Natural Resources