Payson’s Church of the Holy Nativity will have a place in history this weekend as it becomes the first Anglican church in Arizona and the third in the Southwest to return to the Catholic Church through the changes authorized by Pope Benedict XVI in November 2009.

The congregation will be received and confirmed into the Catholic church and Holy Nativity’s pastor, Father Lowell Andrews will be ordained into the Roman Catholic priesthood under the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter in services at 2 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 16. Andrews is also the first Anglican Catholic pastor in Arizona to be ordained as a Roman Catholic priest.

Read it all.

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

With a large gathering of members and friends of the Anglican Church of St. George the Martyr, the Rev. Paul A. Rivard was installed this past weekend as the church’s new Rector, the church announced.

The Most Rev. Walter H. Grundorf, Presiding Bishop, Anglican Province of America, presided. The Rev. William Martin, of Mills River, NC, and the Rev. Peter Geromel (Diocese of the Holy Cross), in Landrum, SC, assisted during the service. Other APA clergy as well as friends and family of Rivard were also in attendance.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum • * South Carolina

It’s been five years in the making, and this morning the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Orlando, Florida will become Catholic.

At a Mass of Reception at 10:15 a.m. Sunday, September 16, the Cathedral of the Incarnation, which was formerly associated with the Anglican Church of America, will become the Parish of Incarnation—joining about twenty other former Anglican or Episcopal congregations to be accepted in the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, the personal ordinariate established as a home for Anglican converts to Catholicism in the United States and Canada.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

Earlier this month, the Most Rev. Brian Marsh, presiding bishop of the Anglican Church in America, blessed the Bible at a Sunday ceremony that included the Rev. Art Bennett, vicar of Christ Church in St. Johnsbury, Vt., Deacon David Moody of the Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd in Charlestown and Wendy Baker, museum director at the Fort at No. 4.

Baker said Tuesday that the Bible and other prayer books enhance the museum, since religion played a vital role in the daily lives of people in the 18th century.

“It adds another dimension to the fort. It adds more depth. We think of religion as being very separate from people’s lives, but in the 18th century, we know that it had control of a lot of activity. It was a different way of looking at the world,” Baker said. “It wasn’t a question of being able to separate your life from your religion or your spirituality, as we would now say.”

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum

The Anglican Mission in America (AMiA)’s Society for Mission and Apostolic Works has lost one of its two ecclesial sponsors. In a 22 August 2012 statement given to Anglican Ink, the Church of Uganda said the canonical cover offered by one of its bishops to clergy who wish to affiliate with the society under the leadership of Bishop Chuck Murphy had been withdrawn.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of Uganda • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum • * Theology • Ecclesiology

Creighton Jones first felt the call to enter the priesthood in the 1980s, but he didn’t think the time was right.

Today, 10 years after receiving his seminary training, the Myrtle Beach priest is overseeing a worldwide congregation 1.5 million members strong.

On Saturday, he was the Rev. Canon Creighton Jones of Myrtle Beach’s Good Shepherd Anglican Church. Following a two-plus hour consecration ceremony – attended by bishops from Ghana and India as well as 80 parishioners – he was rechristened as the presiding bishop of the Orthodox Anglican Church in the U.S., and the archbishop of the worldwide Orthodox Anglican Communion.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum • * South Carolina

From here:

"There's lots of work for all of us,"... [Martyn Minns] said. "This is not just one province sticking its nose in. It's the Global South collectively saying 'We've got to do something' because of the crisis in the U.S. church."

But a spokesman for the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, James Naughton, said the proliferation of "offshore" churches "makes it clear how difficult it is going to be for the conservatives to unite, because each of these primates wants a piece of the action, and none is willing to subjugate himself to another."

Rwanda's Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini and the archbishop of Southeast Asia, Moses Tay, were the first to establish a missionary branch in the United States. In 2000, they jointly consecrated two former Episcopal priests as bishops and formed the Anglican Mission in the Americas, or AMIA. It has grown at the rate of one church every three weeks and now numbers about 120 congregations, with five bishops.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • TEC Departing Parishes • Global South Churches & Primates • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum • * Theology • Ecclesiology

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Kenya • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum

The Archbishop of Kenya has withdrawn from the Anglican Mission in America’s (AMiA) College of Consultors. Sources within the AMiA and in the Anglican Church of Kenya tell Anglican Ink Archbishop Eliud Wabukala has written to Bishop Chuck Murphy withdrawing his patronage from the organization.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Kenya • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum

While in London, we had the opportunity to talk at length together about the continuing turbulence from the separation of the Anglican Mission in America from its founding church, the Anglican Church of Rwanda. The House of Bishops of Rwanda has recently declared the establishment of a Missionary District in North America (PEARUSA) as its only continuing work on this continent and has offered a deadline of August 31 for clergy and churches to determine their future jurisdiction. There are three options available: remain with Rwanda through PEARUSA, transfer to another Anglican jurisdiction through letters dimissory, or follow the Anglican Mission into its new venture. Provision and procedure for each of these options is available or is being developed as rapidly as possible. (These materials will be available through the http://www.pearusa.org website as they are developed.)

At the same time, there has been a great deal of confusion recently around the issue of the resigned bishops of the AMiA, their relationship with Rwanda, and their possible relationship with ACNA. We write this communiqué together primarily to address that confusion.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church in Congo/Province de L'Eglise Anglicane Du Congo • Church of Rwanda • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum

In 2004 a man serving on our vestry decided to leave his wife after only two years of marriage. There was no adultery, no abandonment, nothing. He’d just grown tired of her and wanted to find someone new. He and I were close. I trusted him. He’d been instrumental in saving my job. When liberal members of Good Shepherd, upset over the stance I had taken with regard to Gene Robinson, called a parish meeting at another local Episcopal Church trying to gather support to have me ousted, this man rallied my supporters and showed up at the meeting with the majority of the congregation behind him.

So when he came seeking my blessing for his divorce he may have expected me, for the sake of our friendship and his past loyalty, to give it. Instead I told him that he needed to step off of the vestry. I told him that in order to remain a member in good standing he’d need to halt his divorce proceedings, go to a Christian marriage counselor, and commit to reconciliation.

He refused.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Analysis • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church in Congo/Province de L'Eglise Anglicane Du Congo • Church of Rwanda • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum • * Theology • Ecclesiology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology

A Special Message from the Chairman, Chuck Murphy:

At the close of this year's Winter Conference, we issued a Communiqué expressing the mind of the gathering. One of the key components and goals of that Communiqué, as well as subsequent communications from our Council of Bishops, was to "diligently seek appropriate jurisdictional connections" with an authentic and orthodox Anglican Communion province. As we continue to celebrate our Lord's Resurrection during this Easter season, it is a particular joy to report the good news that our goal has now been realized. This week, I received an official letter from Archbishop Henri Isingoma of the Anglican Church of the Congo, receiving me as a Bishop of the House of Bishops in his Province and offering us a new canonical residence. In response to a recent letter from Archbishop Rwaje asking our bishops to translate to another Anglican jurisdiction by the end of this month, I had earlier requested that he send my letters dimissory to the Province of the Congo.

This transfer follows a process of relational reconciliation with Rwanda facilitated by Archbishop Eliud Wabukala. These conversations culminated in our meeting in Johannesburg and the Communiqué in which Archbishop Rwaje agreed to release theAM to develop other jurisdictional relationships. Under our accord with the Province of the Congo, we are now secure and validly attached to the global Anglican Communion. Rooted in the East African Revival, the Province of the Congo [formerly Zaire] was originally joined together as one larger province, which also included Rwanda and Burundi. In 1992, all three were subsequently established as separate provinces. The Anglican Mission's connection with the Congo began at Winter Conference 2012 when Bishop William Bahemuka Mugenyi generously made provision for scheduled ordinations to go forward.

We are very grateful to Archbishop Henri for his warm welcome to the Province. As we continue to transition toward a Mission Society with oversight provided by a College of Consultors, we remain committed to the multi-jurisdictional model that launched the Anglican Mission in Singapore (the Provinces of Southeast Asia and Rwanda). Toward that end, conversations with other jurisdictions including the Anglican Church in North America will continue.

Now that a new canonical residence provides for our bishops and clergy to transfer from Rwanda to the Congo, I have been asked to facilitate the transition and therefore, requests for transfers should be sent to the Mission Center.

We look forward with great anticipation to the multi-layered process of developing a Mission Society designed to encase our values and facilitate our desire to be a mission, nothing more and nothing less. While we continue our consistent focus on planting churches in North America, our process will include careful consideration of our present structures including the roles of bishops, the Mission Center and its staff, and our Networks as we prepare to develop the constitution and statutes that will ultimately order our common life. We are scheduling several meetings in which we will discuss and seek input from clergy and leaders throughout the Mission to assist us in designing and vetting the shape and specific details of our proposed Mission Society. We expect to complete these conversations by mid-October.

The Council of Bishops and our leadership team are united in a vision to further develop and carry forth an Apostolic/missionary (sodality) call to reach those outside the faith in effective, creative and entrepreneurial ways. This journey is well underway, and we invite and encourage you to celebrate and press on with us.

In Christ,

--(The Rt. Rev.) Charles Murphy is Chairman, AMIA

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church in Congo/Province de L'Eglise Anglicane Du Congo • Church of Rwanda • The Anglican Church in South East Asia • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • TEC Departing Parishes • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum • * Theology • Ecclesiology

In 2010, AMiA's leadership chose to distance themselves from the newly started ACNA. Where AMiA was once an organization with "dual citizenship" within the ACNA as well as Rwanda, it pulled out of the ACNA, changing its status to "mission partner." Some inside the AMiA were disappointed by this distancing and wanted the opportunity to officially reconnect with the ACNA; now the establishment of PEARUSA by the Archbishop of Rwanda, Onesphore Rwaje, has rekindled hopes for those who want to be structurally within the ACNA.

The Rev. Clark Lowenfield, Rector of Hope Pointe Anglican Church near Houston, Texas is among those formerly in AMiA who are now in PEARUSA and would like to join the ACNA. Lowenfield says there are a number of parishes in his region alone that desire as much, however "there is a very high value on doing things decently and in order" within the group. That's good news for a mission organization that has been through such turmoil in recent months and is made up of churches that may be headed in different directions.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) • Anglican Provinces • Church of Rwanda • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum

(Please note two things. First, I realize this article is dated but it was only yesterday working on something that I realized it had not yet been posted and it remains relevant. Second, make sure to note that it should not be confused with the earlier article on the AMIA by this same writer which was posted on the blog there.. Blog readers should make sure to digest both pieces--KSH.)

Bishop Terrell Glen, a former AMIA leader who remains part of the Church of Rwanda, said [Chuck] Murphy and other American bishops did the wrong thing by bolting. They had taken a vow of obedience to their bishop, he said, and broke it by quitting.

"I don't believe the archbishop was requiring anything of anyone that we could not submit to," he said.

For years, leaders of the Anglican Mission and other breakaway Episcopal groups have tried to get the Anglican Communion to recognize them as a legitimate alternative to the Episcopal Church. This latest split shows how difficult that will be, said Jim Naughton, editor of Episcopalcafe.com and a former spokesman for the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C.

"We don't know how much staying power they have," said Naughton.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) • Anglican Provinces • Church of Rwanda • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • TEC Departing Parishes • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum • * Theology • Ecclesiology

AMiA was founded in 2000. Initially the relationship between the American congregations that joined the Rwanda Province went well due to the lax control the Rwandan Church exercised over AMiA congregations. In return for being part of the Rwandan Church, AMiA freely gave 10 percent of its revenue to the province.

Problems began after Emmanuel Kolini, the archbishop of Rwanda, retired in 2010. His successor, Archbishop Onesphore Rwaje, desired more oversight of AMiA, which led to tensions between Rwaje and American Bishop Charles Murphy, a missionary bishop ordained to head AMiA.

This led to the decision by some bishops including Murphy to resign in December of last year and leave the AMiA.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of Rwanda • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • TEC Departing Parishes • Global South Churches & Primates • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum • * Theology • Ecclesiology

I think it is safe to say that until about 30 - 40 years ago very few people would know what an Anglican was....[but today that is no longer the case]....

Via the magic of Facebook, commentator Daniel Stoddart directed my attention to a DC-area newspaper, the Vienna Connection, which has a nice story about a new church. The article entitled “Vienna Resident ‘Plants’ a Church” chronicles its story.

The Rev. Johnny Kurcina has formed a congregation that meets on Sunday mornings at the Louise Archer Elementary School cafeteria. Since its start in November, the church appears to be doing well and the write up presents an attractive picture of a young minister with a bright future ahead.

The word “Anglican” is found in the sub-title....

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Culture-Watch • Media • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum

Claims the Anglican Mission in America has been given a home in the Anglican Church of the Congo are false, the Primate of the Congolese church, Archbishop Henri Isingoma of Kinshasa tells Anglican Ink.

The Anglican Church of the Congo plans to endorse the Anglican Covenant at its forthcoming general assembly, the archbishop said, and would not violate the recommendations of the Windsor Continuation Group and initiate a cross border intervention in the jurisdiction of another Anglican province.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church in Congo/Province de L'Eglise Anglicane Du Congo • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum

For the second time in a decade, the Rev. Thomas McKenzie has found himself in an ugly church fight.

Back in 2004, it was over sexuality and salvation in the Episcopal Church.

Now it’s over power and money, the spat between leaders of the Anglican Mission in the Americas — made up mostly of former Episcopalians like McKenzie — and the overseas Anglican group that adopted them.

“It’s sinful, it’s ugly, it’s wrong,” said McKenzie, pastor of Church of the Redeemer in Nashville and a former Episcopal priest. “And it doesn’t bring honor to the name of Christ.”

Read it all.

Update: Please note--this link no longer works for me but I found it over here.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of Rwanda • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • TEC Departing Parishes • Global South Churches & Primates • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Psychology • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum • * Theology • Pastoral Theology

The Anglican Mission in America (AMiA) has come under sharp criticism from the Church of Rwanda over its plans to pull away from the oversight of the African church.

On 31 Oct 2011 Archbishop Onesphore Rwaje directed AMiA Bishop Charles “Chuck” Murphy to suspend work on a proposal that would change its oversight from a “personal prelature” under the Rwandan primate to a missionary society overseen by an independent “college of consultors”.

Founded by Evangelicals in response to what it saw as the abandonment of the classical Anglicans in the United States, Bishop Murphy and Bishop John Rodgers were consecrated on 29 January 2000 at St Andrews Cathedral in Singapore by the Archbishop of Southeast Asia and Rwandan Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini. It has grown rapidly under the leadership of Bishop Murphy, but has begun to witness internal tensions as well as stresses in its relationship with Rwanda.

Citing personal disagreements with Bishop Murphy, the Rt. Rev. Terrell Glenn, an assistant bishop, last week announced his resignation. Questions have also been raised over the transparency of the AMiA’s finances and leadership structure. Criticisms have also been raised over new canons prepared by a former Roman Catholic clergyman now serving in the AMiA that have incorporated a Roman Catholic ecclesiology and sacramental theology.

Read it all.

I will take comments on this submitted by email only to at KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Latest News • Anglican Provinces • Church of Rwanda • * Christian Life / Church Life • Missions • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum

It was only in July 2006, almost three years after the Episcopal Church’s consecration of a pseudogamously partnered man as Bishop of New Hampshire that Walter, Cardinal Kasper, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU), the Vatican’s “ecumenical office,” delivered an urgent address to the House of Bishops of the Church of England imploring them to proceed no further with measures allowing for the appointment of woman bishops, as such a measure would render impossible the realization of previous Anglican and Catholic ecumenical aspirations. (I shall return to this episode further on in this presentation.) Cardinal Kasper had a reputation, perhaps not undeserved, for being interested primarily in cultivating ecumenical relations with representatives of the historic Protestant churches, such as those that made up the Lutheran World Federation or the Anglican Communion, to give two examples, and rather less with conservative or dissident groups stemming from those traditions, and reacting to their perceived liberalism, such as the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, or the various “jurisdictions” that make up “Continuing Anglicanism,” and this address to the Church of England’s bishops was almost the “last hurrah” of this type of Catholic ecumenism. Almost — for there was to be a last farewell to it at the 2008 Lambeth Conference.

All this said, the remainder of my presentation shall tell “three stories:” the story of the Traditional Anglican Communion’s approaches to Rome; the story of England’s Forward-in-Faith organization and its dealings, or the dealings of some of its member bishops and clergy, with Rome; and, finally, and perhaps most significantly, the almost completely unpublicized story of the secret discussions between the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in Rome and some English Anglican bishops in 2008 and 2009.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Analysis • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

TAC Bishop Harry Entwistle - one of four TAC Bishops in Australia and the Torres Strait Islands who will be ordained as Catholic priests, likely just before the Ordinariate is officially established, told The Record the festival is a public statement that “this is no longer just a theory, it’s really happening”. “It’s an opportunity to gather those who are more than just casually interested,” he said of the festival, which is for Catholics and Anglicans who, like the TAC, have long been disillusioned with the Anglican Church’s liberalisation with female clergy, among other things.

Melbourne Auxiliary Bishop Peter Elliott, Delegate for the Holy See for the Australian Ordinariate, will address the festival, as will Adelaide-based Archbishop John Hepworth, Primate of the TAC which claims a global membership of 400,000.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Australia • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

And why should you be interested in Addison Hart, you might say.

Well here are two reasons for starters. First, he is one of the Hart brothers. There was a time in the early 1980's at the University of Maryland in Maryland County when all three Hart brothers ((Fr. Addison Hart, Dr. David Bentley Hart, and Fr. Robert Hart) studied under Aristeides Papadakis and they have had, to put it mildly, an interesting history since.

Second, Addison Hart is one of my seminary classmates from Trinity School for Ministry and served as a distinguished member of the Episcopal diocese of South Carolina in years past. Did I say he is married with children? Hmmmm--KSH.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * By Kendall • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI • * South Carolina • * Theology • Ecclesiology

What I have grown weary of seeing is Anglican clergy who seem to go out of their way to convert people to Roman Catholicism, who buy the lie that the Anglican heritage is somehow flawed, and that our Orders are just barely valid in spite of (when in truth, they are really fully valid because of) what the English reformers believed. After buying all the false history, and with barely any grasp of sound learning, such clergy give people no confidence in the heritage of the very church they are charged to serve with honest leadership. How could they expect to grow congregations if they don't believe in their own church?

Read it all.

Filed under: * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum

About 1000 Australians are expected to join a new Anglican wing of the Catholic Church by next June, the leader of the main group of dissident Anglicans said yesterday.

A committee was set up last week to oversee the process. For the first time, Anglicans planning to switch to Rome believe they will be able to take their church properties too, which has been a stumbling block.

Read it all.

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Australia / NZ • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum • Roman Catholic

By entering into full communion, the parish will enjoy sacramental unity with the Roman Catholic Church but will retain its Anglican identity and liturgy.

The congregation of 28 parishioners is a member of the Anglican Church in America, which is part of the Traditional Anglican Communion and not recognized by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

It is also not part of the Episcopal Church, the American branch ofthe Anglican Communion.

The Anglican Church in America has about 100 parishes across the country but only one in Arkansas. Individual parishes can make the decision to ally themselves with the Roman Catholic Church if they wish, Hall said.

Read it all.

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

The UK wing of the Traditional Anglican Communion – a group of rebel traditionalists who have left official Anglicanism – has voted to accept Pope Benedict XVI’s offer of a Personal Ordinariate. The TAC has only a few small communities in Britain, but the Pope will be pleased by this development.

Hat-tip to Fr Tim Finigan, who says on his blog: “I hear a lot of sceptical comments about the Holy Father’s offer of Personal Ordinariates, with the conventional wisdom being that it will not really attract many people. So it is good to hear news of twenty or so parish communities that will be interested. The TAC asked for the provision in the first place so it is to be expected that they would be first off the mark; but I think that there may well be plenty more to follow in due course.”

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Latest News • Archbishop of Canterbury • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

Members of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) around the world and other conservative believers have welcomed Pope Benedict XVI’s overture to Anglicans enabling them to become Catholics “en masse”.

The primate of the TAC, which claims 400,000 members worldwide and is not part of the Anglican Communion, said Pope Benedict’s response “more than matches the dreams we dared to include in our petition of two years ago”. Adelaide-based Archbishop John Hepworth expressed gratitude to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, for not standing in the TAC’s way.

A US group affiliated to the TAC is the Anglican Church in America (ACA), which claims 5,200 members. In a statement its House of Bishops said they welcomed the Pope’s announcement “with deep joy”. ACA Bishop Louis Campese told The Tablet the ACA bishops planned to hold a special synod to consider the proposal. Bishop Peter Wilkinson who heads the Canadian TAC organisation, the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada, said they shared Archbishop Hepworth’s excitement. He said the next moves would be determined after full details of the Apostolic Constitution were released.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

Following a Mass devoted to church unity, Rev. Aaron R. Bayles, the assistant pastor, reported that the majority of parishioners would be “on board” with the development.

He said he himself was exultant when he heard the news because he had always hoped for the unification of Anglican, Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Christianity. The new provision for Anglicans may be “a step in that direction,” he commented.

For 17 years the parish has refused to allow the local Episcopal bishop to come for a pastoral visit or confirmation. It also stopped paying its annual financial assessment to the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania. The diocese sued to take over the Church of the Good Shepherd’s building in 2009. It is a replica of a 14th-century English country parish that was built in 1894. The property is estimated at $7 million in value.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: Pennsylvania • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

If Dan Quayle was no Jack Kennedy, then Bedford is no Congress of St. Louis.

The 1977 gathering and its Affirmation were about sharply defining doctrine, with continuity both back to the origins of the Church of England, and setting a precedent for decades if not centuries to come. This week’s gathering was about fuzzing theological differences between Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics, while reassuring both parties that the ACNA is no TEC.

It’s possible that more truth, clarity and courage will be forthcoming, but right now I don’t have reason to be optimistic. If he wants to connect to those American Christians who believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church, Metropolitan Jonah still has a few dozen Schism I bishops yet to meet. Perhaps it’s time for the Congress of St. Louis/Schism I crowd to convene their own media event. If the Metropolitan isn’t available, they could invite Cardinal Kasper.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) • ACNA Inaugural Assembly June 2009 • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum

We need a unified body both to heal the divisions among ourselves and to give the broader Anglican Communion a unified and coherent partner with which to be in relation­ship.

Forming the Anglican Church in North America is a significant step forward on both these fronts. It is an amazing God-given healing of that internal division and an opportunity for forming constructive relation­ships within the Communion.

Eleven fragments of “mainstream” Anglicanism in the United States and Canada were involved in the adop­tion of the provisional constitution: the American Anglican Council, the Anglican Coalition in Canada, the Anglican Communion Network, the Anglican Mission in the Americas (Rwanda), the Anglican Network in Canada, the Convocation of An­glicans in North America (Nigeria), Forward in Faith North America, the Missionary Convocations of Kenya, Southern Cone (including the Bolivia and Recife networks), and Uganda, together with the Reformed Episcopal Church.

These fragments draw together some 700 congregations in North Am­erica, with an estimated 100,000 worshippers on average on any given Sunday. This constellation is thus numbered as larger than 13 of the provinces of the Anglican Com­munion (including Scotland and Wales), and compares to the 750,000 the Episcopal Church in the United States claims to draw every Sunday.

Please note: this was in last week's print edition of the Church Times, which was available on the web for subscribers only. It is now available to all. Please read it attentively.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • CANA • Common Cause Partnership • --Proposed Formation of a new North American Province • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: Pittsburgh • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum

Forasmuch as the Reformed Episcopal Church has affirmed the teaching of God's Word that abortion is the taking of an unborn human life, and inasmuch as we have recognized the duty of all faithful Christians to work to protect the unborn and restrain the sin of abortion on demand, we hereby move that the General Council of the Reformed Episcopal Church direct the clergy and laity of the Reformed Episcopal Church to make a political candidate's position on the Sanctity of Human Life the highest priority in discerning for whom to vote regardless of political party represented or office being sought.

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

SanDiegoAnglicans has the goods.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Common Cause Partnership • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum

A part of my daily e-mail traffic comes from people who have read my various pieces, in which I show the mess into which North American Anglicanism has got itself through (a) the initial infidelity of The Episcopal Church [for details of this see my Episcopal Innovations, 1960-2004, from ]http://www.anglicanmarketplace.com] and then (b) the indiscriminate creation of small groups bearing the name “Anglican” from 1977 through to 2008 [see further my Anglican Identity from the same site]. They ask simply: what are we to do? And some of them expect that there is a simple answer which applies in all the 48 contiguous states, not to mention Alaska and Hawaii.

It seems to me that the extra-mural Anglican situation outside TEC has got so complex—not least through the intervention of at least five overseas Anglican provinces in recent years—that it is not possible to offer any simple answer, except the one that avoids the problem and is simply: “Pack your bags, leave this Anglican house, go to another with a different name [Lutheran, Catholic, Orthodox etc.] and forget about the Anglican mess as far as you are able, for to clean it up will take a generation.”

If people have patience to consider principles and not be caught up in “winds of change” and “instant solutions” and “imitating others,” then I put to them—in brief—something like the following (adapted of course to local and personal reality). I presume here that the starting point is a parish in TEC where there is a dissatisfied group of Episcopalians who wish to be faithful to Biblical religion....

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • CANA • Common Cause Partnership • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum

"My predecessors met some thirty years ago in St. Louis in the hope of organizing a home for faithful Anglicanism in this country. That project split into the many fragments of the Continuing Churches, rendering us unable to stop or even slow the march to control of the Episcopal Church by revisionists. The revisionists make the secular fads of the moment their supreme authority, and Scripture a historical curiosity. As a bishop in one of the churches of the Continuum, I must confess that we have sinned and pray God not only to forgive us but also to redeem the work we have attempted so ineptly."

--The Rt. Rev. Louis Chopin Cusachs, in response to Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi's "What is Anglicanism?", First Things 180 (February 2008): page 5.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum

Though it was founded a mere 12 months ago, the traditions and beliefs of Trinity Anglican Church of Port Charlotte are steeped in religious history.

Margo Lang, whose late husband served as rector at St. Paul's Anglican Church, joined forces with Ed and Joy Robedee to found the new church on Jan. 14, 2007, after the membership of St. Paul's had dwindled, and the church disbanded.

The retired Rt. Rev. Stanley Lazarczyk, bishop ordinary, agreed to lead the fledgling church, which meets at the Cultural Center of Charlotte County on Sundays and holy days.

Lazarczyk made it clear that Anglican Catholic Church is not to be confused with the Episcopal Church

"There's a number of reasons," he said. "Number one is the ordination of women. We believe it is against Holy Scripture. The Bible to us is the most important book. Everything that is contained in it is necessary for salvation and we don't deviate from it. The second reason is the change of the 1928 prayer and the 1940 hymnal."

Read it all.

Filed under: * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum

Those who peruse the big Anglican blogs know that “Communion Conservatives” (those who advocate contending for the faith by staying in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion) and “Federal Conservatives” (those who are convinced one or both of those bodies are too far gone to the point they think it best orthodox at least prepare to leave) are rather close to each other’s throats at the moment.

To be honest, I have my opinion as to which side is most at blame, but that’s not my concern right now. This post may even seem a bit vague because I don’t want to engage in figure pointing. For my concern is that anger between the two sides is getting to and past the point that it will make it difficult for these two sides of orthodox Anglicans to work together in the future.

That distresses me. If it turns out the Federal Conservatives are right and the Communion Conservative eventually find staying in TEC and the like to be untenable, I want the Comm-Cons to feel they have a refuge in Common Cause and/or whatever church bodies the Fed-Cons form. Likewise, if a miracle happens and the Anglican Communion or even the Episcopal Church sufficiently reforms, I want Fed-Cons to feel they can return. I hope the current divisions between the two are temporary. And even if Comm-Cons and Fed-Cons remain on different tracks, I want them to be able still to work together on those things they can.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • CANA • Common Cause Partnership • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • Windsor Report / Process • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum

The Reformed Episcopal Diocese of the Southeast is about to consecrate a new bishop.

It recently elected the Very Rev. Alphonza Gadsden of St. Stephen, and his consecration is tentatively set for 2 p.m. Nov. 17 in Redeemer Reformed Episcopal Church in Pineville.

Invitations will go out as soon as a few remaining standing committees officially endorse the election, said the Rev. Canon J. Ronald Moock. The invitation list will include the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, he said.

The Reformed Episcopal Diocese was formed in the 1800s when the Episcopal Church would not ordain black clergy. The local Reformed Episcopal diocese and the local Episcopal diocese officially bridged the old racial divide with a joint Communion service in 2003, the same year the national Episcopal Church consented to the consecration of an openly gay bishop. Both diocese issued statements opposing the Episcopal Church's action.

The Reformed Episcopal Church is aligned with the Common Cause Partnership, a network of Anglican churches that view the Episcopal Church as out of fellowship with the majority of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina is a partner through the Anglican Communion Network.

Read it all from the front page of the Faith and Values section of the local paper.

Filed under: * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum • * South Carolina

The Orthodox Anglican Communion has churches in 12 nations and nearly one million members. By October, because of requests from 2,000 parishes in India to join the denomination, the church will boast 2 to 3 million members, said David Bessinger, the archdiocese director of communications.

Christ Anglican Church is the denomination's only congregation in Davidson County. The denomination's headquarters has been here since 2004 and is on East Second Avenue.

On his trip to Africa, McLaughlin arrived in Accru, Ghana, after a 10-hour flight and then headed to Secondi via motorcade. When he arrived, more than 2,000 people were there to greet him, many wearing bright, yellow T-shirts with his photo on the front.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum

The Rev. John H. Poole of St. Philip's says, though, he's not focusing on potential gain that could result from a schism in the Episcopal Church. His emphasis is on evangelization and attracting more people, especially young families, who are unchurched or are interested in a conservative, Bible-based, liturgical community, Poole said.

"I feel there are people searching for the truth," he said. "We certainly are welcoming of any Episcopalian that might want to come looking for a lifeboat....

Poole, who became a priest a year ago, had been a deacon in the Episcopal Church for a quarter of a century before leaving the denomination.

"I was looking for a more stable, historical faith," he said.

The former ironworker from upstate New York said he found what he was looking for when he met Bishop Walter H. Grundorf - also a former Episcopalian - of the Anglican Province of America.

"It renewed my faith," he said of the religious community with congregations scattered throughout the country.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Anglican Continuum