In this case, a split was not a draw.

In what early returns suggested would be a win for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in Indiana but a loss for her in North Carolina, Tuesday’s results did not fundamentally improve her chances of securing the Democratic presidential nomination. If anything, Mrs. Clinton’s options for overtaking Senator Barack Obama may have dwindled further.

For Mr. Obama, the apparently divided outcome came after a brutal period in which he was on the defensive over the inflammatory comments of his former pastor. That he was able to hold his own under those circumstances should allow him to make a case that he has proved his resilience in the face of questions about race, values and patriotism — the very kinds of issues that the Clinton campaign has suggested would leave him vulnerable in the general election.

When paired with Mr. Obama’s comfortable victory in North Carolina, a bigger state, Mrs. Clinton’s performance in Indiana did not seem to be enough to cut into Mr. Obama’s lead in pledged delegates or in his overall lead in the popular vote. And because Mrs. Clinton did not appear to come particularly close in North Carolina, despite a substantial effort there, she lost an opportunity to sow new doubts among Democratic leaders about Mr. Obama’s general-election appeal.

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

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

The work of amending the Constitution and Canons of the Southern Cone in order to regularize the admission of parishes and dioceses beyond South America is about to begin, according to Presiding Bishop Gregory Venables. The Primate of the Southern Cone made a visit to the Diocese of Fort Worth for a series of meetings with clergy and lay leaders May 2-4.

“The Anglican Communion in the United States has been hijacked,” Bishop Venables said, by an Episcopal Church leadership that doesn’t “mind what happens as long as they control it.

“I am astounded that in America, the land of the free, so many people have been robbed of their freedom,” he said.

Bishop Venables’ visit began with a private meeting of diocesan clergy at the Church of the Holy Apostles in Fort Worth on May 2. The following day, Bishop Venables met with a convocation of elected clergy and lay delegates to the diocesan convention. The convocation also included about 130 visitors who were granted seat, but not voice. There was no voting. On Sunday morning, Bishop Venables preached at St. Vincent’s Cathedral, Bedford, and again later during Evensong at St. Andrew’s, Fort Worth. At each stop on Sunday he answered questions from those present.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Latest News • Anglican Provinces • Southern Cone • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts

Another Central Florida Episcopal congregation has split over the issue of the denomination's policy on homosexuality.

Most of the members and ministerial staff of Trinity Episcopal Church in Vero Beach will leave their historic facility in July to form a new congregation separate from the Episcopal Church, USA, if an agreement is ratified later this week with the Diocese of Central Florida. The agreement would formally separate the two groups.

On Sunday, about 200 of the congregation's 700 members who wish to remain part of the diocese elected a new vestry, the congregation's governing board. That board is expected to sign a separation agreement already approved by the diocese and the departing members.

"I hope it shall be," said Warren Winchester, who was elected Sunday as the vestry's presiding officer.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: Central Florida • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings

The economy was on voters' minds in Democratic primaries in Indiana and North Carolina. Two-thirds of Democratic primary voters in Indiana and nearly as many in North Carolina said the economy is the most important issue facing the nation. That's more than have said so in 28 previous competitive Democratic primaries with exit polls this year.

Only about one in five in each state said Iraq was the top issue, and even fewer picked health care from a list of three issues.

Four in 10 Indiana Democratic voters said the current recession or economic slowdown has affected their family a great deal. Nearly as many said that in North Carolina.

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

But large-scale job loss has the most potent effect, note Eric Belsky and Daniel McCue, economists at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. Markets can overheat, overexpand and digest flippers and overexuberant builders, but housing prices are most likely to fall when people lose their paychecks.

Belsky and McCue studied housing downturns from 1980 to 2004 and discovered that the most likely cause of housing price declines were spikes in unemployment. Consider the industrial cities of Cleveland and Detroit, which have lost jobs steadily since 2000 and now post unemployment rates of 6% and 7.7%, respectively, well above the national average of 5.1%. Of the 10 cities on our list of cities experiencing the greatest price drops, they are the only two where prices are lower than in 2000.

Surprised? Don't be. While prices are falling, they are, for the most part, higher than earlier this decade. In 2000, Inland Empire prices, for example, were $138,560. Moody's has Riverside- San Bernardino, Calif., home values declining another 23% this year, to $291,590.

"In a normal housing market, we have ratios that you qualify for a certain amount of house at your income level," says Anthony Sanders, a professor of finance at Arizona State University. "Since banks have tightened credit, we're starting to revert back to those lending standards, and prices are going back to reflecting a ratio of income and median house value."

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Housing Market

Sitting cross-legged in the dirt beneath a canopy of jungle vegetation, Nasruddin Anshory, with his Koran open in front of him, was telling a group of visitors about their ordained responsibility to protect the environment.

"As a Muslim," he said, "you have to do something."

His visitors were a mix of people from universities and mosques all over the island of Java, seeking to broaden their understanding of Islam. Off to the side were several students from Gajah Mada University nearby, eagerly taking notes in preparation for their dissertations, all of which will focus on promoting conservation through Islam.

Nasruddin founded Ilmu Giri, an Islamic school devoted to environmentalism, five years ago. But in the past couple of years, as global awareness of climate change and related problems has increased, interest in the school has swelled.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Energy, Natural Resources • * International News & Commentary • Asia • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam

Oil futures blasted to a new record of $122 a barrel Tuesday, gaining momentum as investors bought on a forecast of much higher prices and on any news hinting at supply shortages. Retail gas prices edged lower, but appear poised to rise to new records of their own in coming weeks.

A new Goldman Sachs prediction that oil prices could rise to $150 to $200 within two years seemed to motivate much of Tuesday's buying, although a falling dollar and increasing concerns about declining crude production in Mexico and Russia contributed, analysts say.

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

(Please note: this is posted here because of website issues elsewhere so that the resource may be available--KSH).

MEMORANDUM TO: Working Group April 21, 2008

FROM: [Redacted]

RE: Canonical Violations



You have asked for advice as to whether the Presiding Bishop has violated the constitution and canons of The Episcopal Church and what procedures would be applicable for charging her with a presentable offense. This memorandum identifies at least eleven violations of TEC’s constitution and canons by the Presiding Bishop in her dealings with Bishops Cox, Schofield and Duncan and the Diocese of San Joaquin. Taken together, these actions demonstrate willful violation of the canons, an intention to repeat the violations and a pattern of concealment and lack of candor. In the case of DSJ, the fundamental polity of TEC as a “fellowship of duly constituted dioceses” under the ecclesiastical authority of the diocesan bishop has been subverted. The memorandum then addresses the procedural requirements for filing charges against the Presiding Bishop.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Conflicts • TEC Polity & Canons

Listen to the whole RealAudio report (An MP3 is also available if you follow the link provided on this page).

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Abp of Canterbury Rowan Williams • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

The Anglican Diocese of Niagara and three breakaway parishes must share custody of three Southwestern Ontario churches until the courts ultimately decide who holds the keys to the properties, an Ontario Superior Court judge ruled yesterday.

"I accept that although there are fundamental religious disputes between these parties ... there is clearly a dispute over property rights," Madam Justice Jane Milanetti wrote in her 21-page decision.

She ruled that the three parishes and the diocese share possession of St. George's Anglican Church in Lowville, St. Hilda's Anglican Church in Oakville, and the Church of Good Shepherd in St. Catharines. She further ordered that the diocese, which is named in the titles of two of the three properties, "have full access to and use of" the three properties between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. every Sunday, as well as other "feast days" such as Christmas.

The order is meant to be in place until the courts decide who owns the properties. Some lawyers have suggested that could take up to a decade.

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

I was walking through Ashfield shopping centre at 10 o'clock last Sunday morning. Every shop was open. It could have been any day of the week.

If I had been on the west coast it would have been different. In Western Australia a referendum to deregulate Sunday trading was soundly defeated in 2005. Countries such as Belgium and Germany restrict Sunday trading, and others impose strict limits on hours and regulate the types of businesses that can open.

But the extraordinary thing is that children in most Australian cities must now be left without parental supervision for so much of the time. A Bureau of Statistics report this year on how Australians use their time confirms we are spending less time playing, sleeping, and eating and drinking, but longer working.

We can feel it and see it all around us. Hairdressers are often open into the night, international banks are conducting business on combined southern and northern hemisphere time, emails and text messages find us day and night, seven days a week.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • Marriage & Family • * International News & Commentary • Australia / NZ

The archbishop of Canterbury, ahead of a private meeting with Benedict XVI, acknowledged that the Anglican Communion is going through an "unprecedentedly difficult time."

Archbishop Rowan Williams told Vatican Radio before his encounter with the Pope today that he was expecting "a fairly informal and low-key meeting."

Williams added: "I hope to bring him up to date on our plans about the Lambeth conference, perhaps to discuss with him a little what's going to be happening at the [Christian-Muslim] conference this week at Palazzola and just touch base with him about China, the initiatives we're involved in with regard to the churches in China."

The Anglican leader is in Rome this week for the 7th Building Bridges seminar with Christian and Muslim scholars, scheduled for Tuesday through Thursday.

And he explained some of the initiatives regarding China: "We've been trying to build relationships with scholars of religious studies in China. We brought a group over a little while ago to meet some British theologians and that was very constructive; so it's really a question of keeping the door open for something more than polite exchanges but more real theological dialogue."

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Abp of Canterbury Rowan Williams • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Iraq War

For the Rev. Nino Gonzalez, last year's contentious debate over immigration reform was a rude awakening -- one that has propelled him into the political arena.

Mainstream white and black evangelical leaders initially denounced the bipartisan effort to create a path to legalization for undocumented workers. Some even argued for the roundup and deportation of millions of Hispanic immigrants in the U.S., the very people to whom Gonzalez ministers every day at Iglesia el Calvario just south of Orlando.

"I was stunned, shocked and surprised," Gonzalez said of the initial reaction of those he thought of as his spiritual allies. "They turned their backs on the Hispanics."

Gonzalez and other Hispanic pastors across the country seized on the debate to come together as a political force gaining momentum. Hispanic Pentecostals, some experts say, can become an important swing vote in the 2008 elections in key demographic battlegrounds such as Florida, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and North Carolina.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • US Presidential Election 2008 • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals

Grounded in research at the Dartmouth Medical School, slow medicine encourages physicians to put on the brakes when considering care that may have high risks and limited rewards for the elderly, and it educates patients and families how to push back against emergency room trips and hospitalizations designed for those with treatable illnesses, not the inevitable erosion of advanced age.

Slow medicine, which shares with hospice care the goal of comfort rather than cure, is increasingly available in nursing homes, but for those living at home or in assisted living, a medical scare usually prompts a call to 911, with little opportunity to choose otherwise.

At the end of her husband’s life, Ms. [Edie] Gieg was spared these extreme options because she lives in Kendal at Hanover, a retirement community affiliated with Dartmouth Medical School that has become a laboratory for the slow medicine movement. At Kendal, it is possible — even routine — for residents to say “No” to hospitalization, tests, surgery, medication or nutrition.

Charley Gieg, 86 at the time, was suffering from a heart problem, an intestinal disorder and the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease when doctors suspected he also had throat cancer.

A specialist outlined what he was facing: biopsies, anesthesia, surgery, radiation or chemotherapy. Ms. Gieg doubted he had the resilience to bounce back. She worried, instead, that such treatments would accelerate his downward trajectory, ushering in a prolonged period of decline and dependence. This is what the Giegs said they feared even more than dying, what some call “death by intensive care.”

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Health & Medicine

He may not have been thinking about it at the time, but Pope Benedict, in the course of his recent U.S. visit may have dealt a knockout blow to the liberal American Catholicism that has challenged Rome since the early 1960s. He did so by speaking frankly and forcefully of his "deep shame" during his meeting with victims of the Church's sex-abuse scandal. By demonstrating that he "gets" this most visceral of issues, the pontiff may have successfully mollified a good many alienated believers — and in the process, neutralized the last great rallying point for what was once a feisty and optimistic style of progressivism.

The liberal rebellion in American Catholicism has dogged Benedict and his predecessors since the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65. "Vatican II," which overhauled much of Catholic teaching and ritual, had a revolutionary impact on the Church as a whole. It enabled people to hear the Mass in their own languages; embraced the principle of religious freedom; rejected anti-Semitism; and permitted Catholic scholars to grapple with modernity.

But Vatican II meant even more to a generation of devout but restless young people in the U.S. Rather than a course correction, Terrence Tilley, now head of the Fordham University's theology department, wrote recently, his generation perceived "an interruption of history, a divine typhoon that left only the keel and structure of the church unchanged." They discerned in the Council a call to greater church democracy, and an assertion of individual conscience that could stand up to the authority of even the Pope. So, they battled the Vatican's birth-control ban, its rejection of female priests and insistence on celibacy, and its authoritarianism.

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