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[Episcopal Public Policy Network - Newsletter] And we’re back! The Senate floor debate began on Friday with opening statements from some members but substantive debate and amendments are expected to start this week!

Over the next 3 weeks amendments will be considered very quickly, so it’s important that your Senators hear from you today in advance of the vote and every day until the Senate passes immigration reform! It will also be important to check Facebook and Twitter for real-time amendment updates.

Amendments are expected related to eligibility for the path to citizenship, access to social services for immigrants, increasing enforcement practices and border militarization, and changes that could negatively impact refugees and asylum seekers. We need 60 votes to pass positive amendments; 41 votes to defeat negative amendments; and a final 60 votes for immigration reform to pass in the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said that would like to see the debate finished, and the bill passed by the July 4th recess.

A Senator’s support for or against the bill can change at any moment- over the weekend Senator Ayotte from New Hampshire announced her support for the bill . Make sure that your Senator is hearing from you and knows that you, and Episcopalians across your state, support a comprehensive and humane immigration system that offers an accessible pathway to citizenship, allows families to reunite without undue delay, repeals the 1 year filing deadline for asylum seekers, protects refugees, ensures that all workers are treated fairly, and respects the dignity of every human being through proportional enforcement measures and due process protections.

Just like mark-up, 1-866-940-2439 is the number to call to hear any amendment updates and messaging before you are connected to your Senator. There will be a lot of reporting and hype around this debate but there is no better advocacy than to share with decision makers the great work of welcome happening in our communities and congregations across your state.

Your advocacy has changed our national conversation and gotten us this far- keep up the great work!

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

There are a lot of pieces of this bill- want to know what the Episcopal Church has to say? Click here for a full list of immigration and refugee resolutions

Bishop Curry, Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina, filmed an interview with the immigration policy specialist from the North Carolina Council of Churches - watch it here 

Your Representatives also need to hear from you – many worry that the House will not support a pathway to citizenship for our undocumented community members. Give them a call at 202- 224-3121.

[Episcopal Church Office of Public Affairs -- Press Release] The Executive Council, currently meeting in Baltimore, MD, elected Rosalie Simmonds Ballentine of the Diocese of the Virgin Islands, to serve as the Episcopal Church lay representative on the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC).

Ballentine is the chancellor of the Diocese of the Virgin Islands since 1995 and has been a deputy to General Convention since 2000.  She served on the Executive Council from 2006 – 2012, chairing the Joint Standing Committee on World Mission from 2009 – 2012.  For six years, she chaired the task forces working on the Episcopal Church’s response to the Anglican Covenant. She was the chair of the Legislative Committee on World Mission at General Convention 2012, and she chaired the Legislative Committee on Constitution at General Conventions 2003 and 2006. She is an elected member of the Church Pension Fund Board of Trustees and is vice-president of Province II. She is an attorney, court certified mediator and dispute resolution practitioner.

The ACC is one of the four instruments of communion in the Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is one of the 38 Province members. The ACC is the only instrument of communion in which there is lay representation. According to the ACC website, the role of the ACC is to facilitate the cooperative work of the churches of the Anglican Communion.

The term, which takes effect immediately, is for three meetings of the ACC, generally nine years. The next ACC meeting is slated for 2016 in Central Africa.

Ballentine was one of four nominees presented by the Executive Committee of Executive Council following a review of 11 applications.

Current Episcopal Church members of ACC are Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori (as a member of the Anglican Communion Standing Committee), Bishop Ian Douglas of the Diocese of Connecticut (bishop), and the Rev. Gay Clark Jennings of the Diocese of Ohio and President of the House of Deputies (clergy).

[Anglican Communion News Service] More than 2000 people in the three archdeaconries of Tonj east area in Wau diocese of South Sudan were confirmed by the bishop during his recent trip around the diocese.

The Rt. Rev. Moses Deng Bol told ACNS that the confirmations were done over eight days during a tour of his diocese that covers two out of the 10 states of South Sudan and measures more than 13,000 square kilometers (8078 square miles).

“These are very serious Christians and most of the them are adults who have became Christians for the first time in their lives,” he said. “So they’re not just children of Christian parents.”

The bishop disagreed with some religious educators who believe that by withholding confirmation until later in life, young people are kept involved in the life of the church for a longer period of time.

He equated such teaching to holding young people captive in order for them to receive grace from God. “How do we justify this? This attitude surely has a negative impact on young people and their experience of God and church,” he said. “Is this the God we want them to know? One who withholds grace until we’ve jumped through all the hoops that our church tells us we have to jump through?”

Deng said that children cannot be expected to have a positive memory or experience of the church or God later in their lives “if we keep dangling the sacrament over their heads like a carrot.”

Deng said it was crucial for the newly confirmed to have “a very intensive discipleship to really understand what being a follower of Christ means in their daily lives.”

However, he highlighted some of the challenges that the diocese faces in ministry, evangelizing and Christian teaching. “There are only 65 priests, most of whom have very little or no theological education at all,” he said. “This is the reason why my priority number one is theological training for priests and evangelists.”

Deng also said despite the large numbers, they have enough churches for the new Christians. “We have sufficient churches [but] most of them are under-tree churches and others built out of mud and grass thatch.”

The bishop also bemoaned the poor state of the roads saying it was a real challenge to access remote areas of his diocese. “The people confirmed in various parishes did not just come from that parish alone,” he revealed. “Many of them came from far away parishes and some of them had to walk for two days in order to come to the main parish where I was.”

Deng said one benefit of embarking on such diocese-wide tours was that he was also able to undertake other tasks including training clergy, lay readers, Mothers’ Union leaders and evangelists.

“During this period, I got to have meetings with the clergy because we don’t get to meet often due to long distances and lack of transport,” he said. “I also had a chance to dedicate two concrete church buildings that were constructed in partnership with Samaritan’s Purse.”

The Episcopal Church of Sudan covers the two countries of Sudan and South Sudan. It comprises 28 dioceses that stretch many thousands of miles.

[Lambeth Palace -- Press Release] The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has spoken out in support of a campaign encouraging world leaders to tackle hunger, saving the millions of lives it claims each year.

The Archbishop spoke via video to thousands gathered in Hyde Park today to launch the IF campaign, of which the Church of England is a member. The IF campaign is made up of more than 200 charities, faith groups and organisations. The campaign is urging G8 leaders to take big steps that will tackle the global injustice of hunger.

He said:  “We’ve come to celebrate the opportunity we have to end hunger in our lifetimes. The only way that’s going to happen is by mass movements of people, like yourselves, getting together”.

At the rally, featuring a range of inspirational speakers, a symbol created with children’s spinning flowers was a powerful reminder of the two million children who die of hunger each year.

The Archbishop said we can celebrate the fact that in the UK we commit 0.7% of our national income “to help those around the world who need it”.

But he added: “I encourage you, keep the pressure on. We can change the world in our own lives.”

Earlier in the day Archbishop Justin addressed an ecumenical church service at Methodist Central Hall via video to mark the commitment of the faith communities to ending hunger. He said: “In many parts of the world, the churches are the most effective networks, through which generosity from other people can be used most effectively and without actually displacing or diminishing the work of the people on the ground locally – local people developing their own countries.”

In his message he reflected on issues of aid, tax and transparency on the G8 agenda. The Archbishop concluded: “My prayer would be that in this country and across the world, that we are deeply committed to enabling people to be self-sustaining, so that global hunger can be ended in our lifetimes.”

The events in London began the IF campaign journey to the G8 Summit at Enniskillen, Northern Ireland.

Links to the video messages are below:

Hyde Park rally message: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hzZfQVy9WI

Ecumenical church service message: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYQU6gxjyWQ

Transcripts of the messages are below:

ARCHBISHOP’S MESSAGE TO HYDE PARK RALLY

“It’s amazing that you’re here today. It’s absolutely wonderful that you’ve come together. We’ve come to celebrate the opportunity we have to end hunger in our lifetimes. The only way that’s going to happen is by mass movements of people, like yourselves, getting together, encouraging governments to go on doing what they’re doing well. And a lot of things are being done very well. We’ve seen that in our own country. One of the great things we can celebrate is giving away 0.7% of our national income to help those run the world who need it. I encourage you, keep the pressure on. We can change the world in our own lives.”

ARCHBISHOP’S MESSAGE TO ECUMENICAL SERVICE

“I’m very pleased to be able to welcome you, most warmly, to this service today – to the celebration of the generosity that Jesus Christ has shown us, which we’re called to share with others round the world.

The G8 is the centre of financial resource and power in all kinds of ways. Many members of the G8 are increasingly deeply committed to using that power for the global good. Our own Government is one that has very courageously, at a time of austerity, increased its giving in aid. But it’s important that we put before them the needs of the global community in which we live and with which we are inter dependent.

One of the biggest issues we face is around how aid is used. The issues of tax transparency are increasingly at the top of the agenda and are really, really important.

One of the things that most excites me as a church leader is the role that the church has in ending global hunger and poverty. In many parts of the world, the churches are the most effective networks, through which generosity from other people can be used most effectively and without actually displacing or diminishing the work of the people on the ground locally – local people developing their own countries.

My prayer would be that in this country and across the world, that we are deeply committed to enabling people to be self-sustaining, so that global hunger can be ended in our lifetimes.”

About the IF campaign
Two million children around the world die each year from hunger. Although there is enough food for everyone, one in eight people do not have enough to eat. This year, the IF campaign calls on world leaders to tackle hunger and save millions of lives.

The G8 can take three big steps towards ending hunger IF they:

• Clamp down on tax havens and launch a convention on tax transparency to stop the flow of billions of pounds out of developing countries – money that could be used to end hunger.
• Help poor countries make sure that everyone, especially children, have enough nutritious food to eat and support poor families to grow their own food.
• Give people in developing countries more control over their land by protecting poor farmers from land grabs and using land to grow food not fuel.

People are urged to join the campaign at enoughfoodif.org and go to a Big IF event.

[Episcopal Church Office of Public Affairs press release] Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori preached the following sermon June 9 during the June 8-10 meeting of the Executive Council at the Conference Center at the Maritime Institute in Linthicum Heights, Maryland. The Holy Eucharist used the day’s proper (1 Kings 17:8-16 (17-24), Psalm 146, Galatians 1:11-24, Luke 7:11-17).

Executive Council
Linthicum Heights, MD
9 June 2013

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop and Primate
The Episcopal Church

That widow in Zarephath is starving because of a drought.  There’s no water for the fields, not enough for growing grain.  It’s hard for people in a part of the world like this to imagine – flooding is far more common here than drought.  It’s even worse in Europe right now, where rivers are overflowing their banks in hundred-year floods for the second time in 10 years.  Yet if the clouds dried up and the rain stopped it wouldn’t take long before this lush green disappeared.  Groundwater supplies are shrinking almost everywhere, and wells must reach deeper to tap aquifers.

Drought and access to water are still major issues in the Middle East, and they are primary obstacles to peace.  Hunger and thirst have driven Elijah to Zarephath, yet he finds a small family in as much difficulty as himself.  The widow says she’s going to fix a tiny meal and then she’s going to lie down and die.  The response is the most significant kind of healing possible.  Elijah assures that widow that her supply of flour and oil will last until the rains return and the next harvest comes.  It’s a deeply powerful witness to God’s care for the least and the forgotten.

The great joy in the food aid that the widow receives is the act of the same God whom Mary and Hannah extol – the lowly one has been raised up, God has remembered the people everyone else forgets.  That’s divine justice.  The raising of widows’ sons in Zarephath and Nain reminds us that God’s justice is always overturning the powers and principalities of this world.  Defender of the poor, feeder of the hungry, cause of rejoicing for the hopeless – this is I AM WHO I AM, present and at work in the world.  The psalmist proclaims that  justice in every way imaginable:  in God’s help for all the downtrodden, as the one who gives justice and food, who sets prisoners free, makes the blind see, who loves the righteous, cares for the stranger, sustains orphan and widow, and yes, frustrates the way of the wicked.  The God who cares about the most unnoticed life is the one who restores creation.  This is the God who frustrates the wicked and turns enemies into advocates, as Saul the destroyer becomes Paul the creative proclaimer of good news and abundant life.

As we began, we prayed that God might make us partners in abundant life, builders of the divine vision of peace:  The collect says: ‘O God, you’re the source of all good – help us to think of what is just, and then guide us to do it.’  [it’s clearer in Spanish!]
Famine in the ancient world was a fairly common occurrence.  It wasn’t inevitable, however, that some would die of hunger while others sat around with full bellies.  Joseph’s work in Egypt is a telling response to the ability of faithful people to do justice.

The wild weather we’re experiencing – floods on both sides of the Atlantic, storms in tornado alley, fires in the west, melting glaciers and sea ice – may seem inevitable to some, but it is related to our wasteful use of the earth’s bounty, and dumping carbon into the atmosphere.  We must pray with the psalmist that God will frustrate the ways of the wicked, that God will help us to recognize what is just, and then act on it.

We are here on this earth to be witnesses and partners.  The raising of helpers from among the dead and the dying is still going on all around us.  Saul was a long way gone, maybe even stinking already, when his confrontation with blindness told him to “rise.”  That urgent word comes to all of us.

The church and community garden projects springing up everywhere have something in common with that widow’s supply of flour and oil.  Those gardens invite people to rise into a life of justice at many levels – slowing down enough to put our hands in the dirt and remember the source of all life, turning our attention away from frantic consuming, even taking carbon out of the atmosphere, and reminding us of the very real hunger of our neighbors.

The presidents of China and the US have been meeting in something of a garden – albeit a very hot one – to talk about the weather as well as hunger in North Korea.  Pray that their work will bring greater justice to millions of people.

Hunger is ultimately at the root of much human struggle.  Wars and human migration are often the result of a search for food security.  Last weekend I visited a camp for asylum seekers in Munich.  The residents are people like those widows and their children, with no real means of support, whose only apparent answer is to find a way across the border into Germany to ask for help.  They come from Ethiopia, Iraq, Syria, Romania, seeking food and jobs.  The German government gives basic aid, and houses them in refugee camps that are more attractive than what we imagine in Sudan or Nigeria.  The one we saw in Munich is a decommissioned military fort.  It’s basic, but it’s functional.  Food staples are distributed twice a week, but the refugees have to cook for themselves – and it’s commodity food.  Married couples without children can’t live together – each room has to house several people, so the men are in one place, the women in another; only families with children share a room.  Unaccompanied teens have their own barracks, with chaperones.

The social worker who oversees life there says the government doesn’t want to encourage dependency, so they make sure it’s not too comfortable.  People stay in the camp for a month or two before being resettled in smaller groups in other communities.  Life is hard and boring, and work is very difficult to find, because the jobs go to Germans first.  Children can’t go to German schools while they’re in the process of seeking asylum.  The social worker, together with a number of volunteers, works to provide basic schooling in the camp, some individual and group therapy for traumatized people, and a sense of order in the midst of chaos.  Parishioners bring clothing, supplies, and companionship, including very popular gym classes for Muslim women!  I spoke with a Palestinian man there who has fled the violence in his homeland, looking for peace.  There is peace in that camp of asylum-seekers because of the witness of caring human beings who become evidence of God at work in that place.  Everyone is being invited to “rise” and find life in the face of what others see as hopelessness.

We met another group of peacemakers at a soup kitchen run by the Sisters of Charity – the order that Mother Teresa was part of.  Four nuns live in a city building that also houses a shelter for a dozen women, and a winter shelter for a few men.  Every day around 100 people are fed a hot meal, and food is distributed to several dozen families on Saturdays.  The sisters make pastoral visits to the homes of the people who come for food.  The kitchen work and serving is done by volunteers, in two shifts each day – one to prepare the food, and another shift to serve and clean up.  It’s a post-modern version of a medieval monastery, welcoming all comers as Christ himself, offering hospitality of the deepest and most gracious sort.  The mother superior, who is an Indian woman, welcomed me with a hug that was like a mother greeting a wandering child.  She held my hand, laughed, and answered our questions.  That community offers the welcome of friends of Jesus.

That is what Jesus was up to in Nain, raising the dying and downtrodden, feeding the hungry, turning the injustice of the world upside down, making peace, and giving evidence of more abundant life.  That’s what God is always up to.  Rise, friends, rise and live!  Live as I AM in this world.  Think of justice and then do it.

Members of the Diocese of Chicago’s convention meet June 8 in St. James Cathedral in Chicago to approve reunion with the Diocese of Quincy. Photo/Diocese of Chicago, Brian J. Morowczynski

[Episcopal News Service] Members of the dioceses of Chicago and Quincy unanimously agreed June 8 to reunify, something that no other dioceses have done in the Episcopal Church for 70 years.

Both dioceses, meeting separately, approved the same reunification resolution.

“This is a day that both dioceses have yearned for,” Diocese of Chicago Bishop Jeffrey D. Lee, who will be bishop of the reunified diocese, said in a press release issued after both dioceses acted. “Now the people of Chicago and the people of Quincy will join together in witnessing to the power of the Risen Christ who overcomes all divisions.”

Quincy Provisional Bishop John Buchanan added that “the faithful people of Quincy have shown us all what it means to live as witnesses to God’s mission in the Episcopal Church.”

“Their unflagging commitment to our common life will make them invaluable leaders in the Diocese of Chicago,” he said in the same release.

“The mood here is jubilant following the vote,” according to a tweet from Quincy’s Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Peoria after that diocese’s vote. “It’s a family reunion that’s been a long time in the making.”

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who is chairing the church’s Executive Council June 8-10 meeting in Linthicum Heights, Maryland, welcomed the news. “The wider church can rejoice at the mutual decision of Quincy and Chicago to reunite for missional purposes,” she told Episcopal News Service. “There is blessing abundant to be found in committing to new ways to engage, serve, and love our neighbors. May this be a rich blessing to the people of Illinois.”

The Rev. Gay C. Jennings, House of Deputies president and vice chair of council, placed the decision in the larger context of the Episcopal Church’s consideration of how it needs to reorganize to meet the needs of a rapidly changing world.

“Restructuring begins at home, and today, the leaders of the Episcopal dioceses of Chicago and Quincy have set an example for the rest of the church to follow,” she told ENS. “The Holy Spirit is calling all of us to find new ways to collaborate, streamline and reunify, and they have answered that call with foresight and grace.”

“I am particularly thankful for this very happy day for the people of the Episcopal Diocese of Quincy who have shown us all what it means to be faithful Episcopalians.”

The reunified diocese, to be known as the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago, will include the 125 congregations and chaplaincies and more than 36,000 members of the existing Diocese of Chicago in northern Illinois, and the nine Quincy congregations and 755 members in west central Illinois.

A majority of bishops and standing committees of other Episcopal dioceses must consent to the reunion, according to Episcopal Church Canon 1.10.6. Assuming that consent is given, the two dioceses will hold their first unified convention Nov. 22-23 in Lombard, Illinois, according to a press release issued after the June 8 votes.

The church’s consent would reunite two of the three dioceses in the State of Illinois that General Convention created in 1877. What was then called the Diocese of Illinois asked the convention to carve out of it two additional dioceses – Quincy (based in Peoria) and Springfield – to accommodate anticipated church growth in those parts of the state. The remainder of the Diocese of Illinois retained that name until 1884 when it was renamed the Diocese of Chicago.

In November 2008, about 60 percent of the members of several congregations in the Diocese of Quincy left the diocese and the Episcopal Church to join the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone.

Then-Quincy Bishop Keith Ackerman announced Oct. 29, 2008 that he would retire on Nov. 1 of that year. The diocesan synod gathered six days later and a majority voted to leave the Episcopal Church.

About a year later, Jefferts Schori released Ackerman from his ordination vows after he told her he planned to function as a bishop in the Diocese of Bolivia. He is now the bishop vicar of the Anglican Church in North America’s Diocese of Quincy (which includes churches in Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin) and president of the Forward in Faith North America Council.

Buchanan, the retired bishop of West Missouri, was elected provisional bishop of Quincy at a special reorganizing synod in April 2009. According to the reunion agreement, Buchanan will become an assistant bishop in the Diocese of Chicago.

Buchanan said during his June 8 sermon that at that 2009 convention, the diocese “set out on a highway that would take us right to the heart of the Diocese of Chicago.”

The process that led to the June 8 votes began in 2012 when the Quincy Future Committee approached Lee and the Diocese of Chicago about the possibility of reunion, according to the press release. Members of the Diocese of Quincy attended Chicago’s convention in November 2012 when that gathering unanimously agreed to pursue reunification.

As reunification discussions progressed, members of the Diocese of Quincy began participating in the life of the Diocese of Chicago, the release said. Two Quincy congregations are part of in Chicago’s two-year congregational development program called Thrive, and clergy and lay leaders have attended retreats and training events with their Chicago colleagues.

In March, Tom Hunt, a member of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Peoria, was elected to the board of trustees of Episcopal Charities and Community Services in Chicago.

“I love the process of becoming part of the Diocese of Chicago and its ethos of adding to our Episcopal tradition without taking away from it,” the Rev. Paula Engelhorn, rector of St. George’s Episcopal Church in Macomb in the Diocese of Quincy and a Thrive participant, said in the release. “Quincy has been isolated for 30 years, and now the Spirit is blowing in. Now we get to grow; now we get to be part of the wider church and its movement toward including all people and embracing the Millennium Development Goals. It’s a wonderful move for us.”

Hal Stewart, second vice-president of the bishop and trustees of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago and a convention delegate from Church of the Holy Comforter in Kenilworth said that the trustees of Chicago see in Quincy “a group of dedicated, faithful Episcopalians.”

“They desire nothing more than to return to the fold and, once again, to be part of a strong Episcopal diocese and the wider Episcopal Church,” he said. “This reunion is the compassionate thing to do and it is the right thing to do.”

Prior to the June 8 vote in Chicago, Lee said in his convention sermon that Episcopalians in the Diocese of Quincy “have been daring to practice a radical trust in God’s overflowing goodness.”

“Their commitment to Christ and to the fellowship of this church is an act of sheer, foolish, godly trust,” he said. “Today we stand with them and we pledge to join them in learning to sow the seeds of God’s love for this world with absolutely wild abandon. We join them in seeking to practice a genuinely catholic witness to the love and mercy of God, one that knows to the depths of its being that no one, no one, stands outside the economy of grace.”

The Diocese of Quincy has been involved in property litigation since the 2008 split. The testimony phase of the lawsuit in Illinois state court concluded April 29 and the parties are awaiting a decision, according to an information sheet posted on the Chicago website. The reunion agreement calls for all of Quincy’s property and assets to become those of the reunited diocese.

St. Paul’s in Peoria will cease being a cathedral and become a parish church of the reunited diocese under the terms of the agreement, which also spell out issues such as integrating Quincy Episcopalians into the diocese’s governance and dealing with Quincy diocesan employees.

Springfield, the other Episcopal Church diocese in Illinois, was not part of the reunification discussions. Close to 5,230 Episcopalians are active baptized members in that diocese’s 36 congregations, and the average Sunday attendance across the diocese was 1,945 in 2011, according to the most recent statistics.

The only other time an Episcopal Church diocese has reunited with its “parent” diocese occurred in 1943 when the then-Diocese of Duluth rejoined the Diocese of Minnesota, according to researchers at the Archives of the Episcopal Church. The two dioceses had been created in 1895 with Minnesota being based at Faribault in the south central part of the state and what was at first called the Missionary District of Duluth based in its namesake city in the northeast on Lake Superior. The district became a full-fledged diocese in 1907.

The dioceses of Eau Claire and Fond du Lac, which had once been united with the rest of Wisconsin Episcopalians, came close to forming a new diocese in 2011. Eau Claire was created by division of the Diocese of Milwaukee in 1928. Fond du Lac had in 1875 been carved out of what was then known as the Diocese of Wisconsin, which became the Diocese of Milwaukee in 1886. A diocese incorporating Eau Claire and Fond du Lac would have encompassed the northern three quarters of Wisconsin.

After the annual convention of Fond du Lac and a special convention of Eau Claire appeared to have voted on Oct. 22, 2011 to ask the 2012 meeting of the General Convention to approve what is called “junction,” the decision had to be set aside. A recount of the Fond du Lac voting showed that the original understanding of the vote in the lay order being 53 in favor and 51 opposed was found to be, in fact, 53 no and 51 yes.

– The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is an editor/reporter for the Episcopal News Service.

[Episcopal Church Office of Public Affairs press release] The popular Episcopal Youth Event (EYE) will be held at Villanova University in suburban Philadelphia. Slated for July 9-13, 2014, EYE14 is being planned in partnership with the Diocese of Pennsylvania.

The announcement was made June 8 by Bishop Clifton Daniel of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, to Executive Council, currently meeting in Maryland.

“Villanova University offers a scenic setting, with ample facilities for all the activities we are planning for EYE14,” Bronwyn Clark Skov, Episcopal Church Youth Ministries Officer, explained. “Villanova is well known for its academics as well as its athletics, and its prime location near public transportation makes it an ideal place for our gathering.”

The 2014 event marks the twelfth EYE and remains a popular and well-attended event. EYE 2014 is geared for youth in grades 9-12 during the 2013-2014 academic year and their adult leaders.

Planning team
Skov said that the planning team has met; activities topics, themes and worship services are being addressed.

Planning team members are:

Youth

• Thomas Alexander, Diocese of Arkansas, Province 7
• Madeline Carroll, Diocese of Milwaukee, Province 5
• Whitney Chapman, Diocese of West Virginia, Province 3
• Ariana Gonzalez-Bonillas, Diocese of Arizona, Province 8
• Lillian Hardaway, Diocese of Upper South Carolina, Province 4
• Angela Hudnell, Diocese of Ohio, Province 5
• Cydney Jackson, Diocese of San Diego, Province 8
• Casey Nakamura, Diocese of Hawaii, Province 8
• Kayden Nasworthy, Diocese of Massachusetts, Province 1
• Joseph Prickett, Diocese of Nebraska, Province 6
• Justin Thao, Diocese of Minnesota, Province 6
• Hauseng Vang, Diocese of Minnesota, Province 6
• Roger Villatoro, Diocese of Southeast Florida, Province 4
• Rosanna Vizcaino, Diocese of the Dominican Republic, Province 9

Adults

• Arlette Benoit, Diocese of Atlanta, Province 4
• Vincent Black, Diocese of Ohio, Province 5
• Randy Callender, Diocese of Maryland, Province 3
• Cookie Cantwell, Diocese of East Carolina, Province 4
• Randall Curtis, Diocese of Arizona, Province 7
• Earl Gibson, Diocese of Los Angeles, canonically resident in Diocese of Arizona, Province 8
• Andrew Kellner, Diocese of Pennsylvania, Province 3
• Shannon Kelly, Diocese of Southern Ohio, canonically resident in Diocese of Milwaukee, Province 5
• Abigail Moon, Diocese of Florida, Province 4

For EYE announcements and updates via email, subscribe to the Youth Ministries Network www.episcopalchurch.org/youth. Also check www.facebook.com/episcopalyouthevent

Episcopal Church Youth Ministries http://www.episcopalchurch.org/page/youth-ministries
Diocese of Pennsylvania http://www.diopa.org/

Villanova University http://www1.villanova.edu/villanova.html

[Episcopal Church Office of Public Affairs press release] Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori presented the following remarks at the opening of the Executive Council Meeting at the Conference Center at the Maritime Institute in Linthicum Heights, MD (Diocese of Maryland).

Executive Council
Opening Remarks
June 8, 2013

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop and Primate
The Episcopal Church

I’m going to talk about the kinds of mission we’re engaging in and beyond the Church, and where in recent months I’ve been particularly asked to enter into this work.  I’m going to frame this in the context of the Five Marks of Mission, both as a witness to how they shape the work that my office is called to attend to, and as a kind of accountability exercise.  None of us is called to do all of the work, but awareness comes from paying attention to how we and our communities are involved.

1  Proclaim the good news of the kingdom is the First Mark of Mission
That’s the basic work of the church – holding up a vision of God’s dream for all creation – a world living in right relationship with God and neighbor, so that all people live in peace because there is justice.  That vision prompts movement toward the reign of God that’s more particularly addressed in some of the other Marks, but I think relationship-building belongs here – especially when focused on developing shared understandings and strategies for moving toward that dream.
It also includes standing in solidarity with the oppressed, offering hope through personal presence and being opened to transformation.
That’s basic to the work of visitation asked of the Presiding Bishop.  This year I’ve spent time in conversation, worship, teaching and learning, and solidarity with Episcopalians and others in South Carolina, Haiti, Virginia, Central Florida, Eau Claire, California, Washington (DC), Venezuela (in the country of Curaçao), and Europe (in the country of Germany).  The mission initiatives I encounter in those places become opportunities to share stories with people and ideas.
There’s also a broader kind of relationship-building that can begin to share our vision of the goal of God in creation – in ecumenical efforts, like the National Council of Churches and its restructuring efforts, and in interreligious conversations.  This year I’ve spent time in conversation with US Jewish leaders as well as Muslim Palestinians.  The Board of the Anglican Center in Rome met in New York recently to discuss new and creative ways to work more effectively with the Roman Catholics, as well as how to be a more useful teaching resource.  Our relationships around the Anglican Communion get some tending not only through work on the Standing Committee, with other primates, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, but with our particular covenant partners.  I’m going to Costa Rica (part of IARCA) later this month to help celebrate the opening of a school begun when several of us were there for the Mission Conference in the Americas.  Tending our long-standing relationship with Cuba is an ongoing responsibility through the oversight work of the Metropolitan Council.  Our relationships with the Diocese of Jerusalem are also part of the portfolio of this office – I visited Israel/Palestine at Christmastime and more recently Lebanon.

II  Teach, baptize, and nurture new believers is the second Mark of Mission
This Mark is particularly concerned with the regular teaching and formation work of congregations and dioceses.  Baptism is not the endpoint – continuing development of capacity for service is essential.  I want to frame this mark a bit more explicitly as the development of missionaries, through their increasing capacity to serve God’s mission.  We might call that the work of formation and teaching, as well as the encouragement of mature Christianity.
The mission theologians of the mid-19th century included Roland Allen whose feast we are celebrating today, gave us a gift in re-examining Paul’s missionary activity, and noting that a mature Christian community is self-propagating, self-sustaining, and self-governing.  Later Anglican theologians dubbed this Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence in the Body of Christ.[1]
We’re encouraging that kind of maturation work through the self-sustainability initiatives in Haiti, Ecuador, and Navajoland, and throughout Province IX.  But this is the work of the whole church, not only formerly or currently dependent dioceses.  I understand my part in that as encouraging creative strategizing and more effective theological education, encouraging people to read and publish new books and resources (I get countless requests to write blurbs and forewords).  The work I do with and for bishops is fundamentally about supporting greater capacity and effectiveness, through the College for Bishops, the formation program for new bishops, ongoing pastoral development, and sharing in consecrations.
The communications work I am encouraged to do is certainly about that first mark, but it’s also frequently a teaching opportunity – e.g., Lent, Christmas, Easter messages, climate change events, churchwide webcasts like the recent one on human trafficking.  My participation in various meetings – the chancellors’ network, with Church Pension Group, the federal chaplains, Global Episcopal Mission Network, Episcopal Relief & Development, Episcopal Preaching Excellence program – is an opportunity to offer a reflection of God’s dream and the wider implications of a group’s engagement in God’s mission. And I get to learn more about their work.

III  Respond to human need by loving service is the Third Mark of Mission
This is not only about corporal works of mercy – the hands-on relief of hunger, thirst, loneliness, and illness – but it involves developing capacity for this mark of mission.  I don’t get many opportunities for the traditional kinds of hands-on work, but I do get to see remarkable examples of engagement, and point people to resources.  Resources of people and ideas as well as funds. An example – when we visited the Princess Basma center for disabled children in Jerusalem, we saw abundant needs and encouraged them to apply for a UTO grant.  They have just received a grant to rehabilitate their therapy pool.
Service comes in a variety of forms, and the work of advocacy for immigrants, trafficking victims, and the poor and oppressed has deep resonance with the reasons and causes of human need that the Third Mark points to.

IV  Transform unjust structures of society, challenge violence of all kinds, pursue peace and reconciliation is the Fourth Mark of Mission
As this year began to unfold, I realized that a new depth of engagement was being asked of me in this area.  Middle East peace has been a challenging conversation in this Church, particularly since General Convention, and it seemed deeply important to return to Israel-Palestine at Christmas for more conversations and to build opportunities for solidarity.  Then the Japanese church asked for an address about the American bases in Okinawa and the church’s role in peacemaking, as part of the second Worldwide Anglican Peace Conference in March.  The first one was held in Korea in 2008.  A few weeks later the Methodists held a peace conference about Korean reunification and wanted a contribution about the wider church’s role in that conflict.  And then came an invitation from the World Council of Churches and the Middle East Council of Churches to participate in a consultation about peace across the many lands of the Middle East.  I have been moved beyond imagining to hear the stories of people living in deeply conflicted areas, and by the need of the wider world to constructively engage in transforming violence into greater possibility for abundant life.  That is the foundation of our vocation as baptized members of the body of Christ.
Yet peace-making and anti-violence work is not only needed beyond the bounds of this Church.  The divisions in this particular nation are abundant, and the current state of our federal government is a scandal.  The good news is that there are opportunities to build bridges across the chasms between positions – by prayer and dialogue at least, and by forming our members as peacemakers.  The inaugural prayer service in January offered a glimpse of transcending division; the Better Angels project that is being encouraged by the Faith and Politics Institute is another.  The Christian religious leaders involved represent vastly different constituencies and positions, together we have committed to expanding our shared public witness to civil discourse.
The opportunity for direct advocacy work in the US Congress, and occasionally with other governments, has been focused on human trafficking, immigration, and poverty, as well as the epidemic of gun-related violence in our culture.  Our United Nations work continues to engage issues of migration, trafficking, indigenous peoples and women.  We are in the midst of application for ECOSOC[2] status, which will permit us somewhat greater access to the UN.  Lynnaia Main has borne the greatest part of the burden in moving that work forward.
There are other sorts of advocacy in which I continue to be involved across the Church, particularly around the consequences of slavery and our need to become a thoroughly anti-racist society.  Dioceses continue to learn about their history and to commit to transformation.  It’s a particular privilege to join celebrations and observances like the one Virginia held in recognition of the anniversary of the emancipation proclamation.  We will webcast a churchwide conversation on the State of Racism in Mississippi in mid-November. It will originate in Mississippi but will apply across the church.
I have begun to wonder if this Church might lead a truth and reconciliation initiative about not only the aftermath of slavery, but also the depredation of Native Americans and their lands, and the history of American colonialism.
Another major area of ongoing advocacy work is directly related to the last mark of mission.

V  To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth is the Fifth Mark of Mission
Climate change, environmental racism, and the exploitation of the earth’s resources, and their consequences for the poorest among us, bring together many of the marks of mission.  Along with peace-making, attention to these issues has been a significant part of my work this year.  Early this year, a church in Milwaukee hosted a gathering to discuss environmental issues and faith.  It brought together representatives of the interfaith council of that city, the scientists of the major Water Institute, parishioners, and activists.  Then Province I hosted a Climate Revival in Boston days after the bombing event, and it was a remarkable witness both to those who attended and to pilgrims visiting the memorials in central Boston.
Soon afterward, this Church co-hosted a major event on climate change in Washington, DC with the Church of Sweden.  Again it was an opportunity for witness to the wider community, education, and a sacramental expression of full communion with both the Swedes and the ELCA.  The videos are posted online.
I also sit on a committee of the National Academy of Sciences that oversees research for the public good.  It is an ongoing opportunity to build bridges between the church and the scientific community as well as the varied business, entrepreneurial, and academic communities that are represented on the board.
I’d invite you to reflect on how and where your engagement in God’s mission reflects the Five Marks, and where you are working in partnership with the communities in which you live and move and have your being.  Our work here is meant to support and encourage the church’s engagement in God’s mission in ways beyond our imagining.  The Five Marks are a good tool for reflection and accountability.

[Episcopal Church Office of Public Affairs press release] Episcopal Church President of the House of Deputies the Rev. Gay Clark Jennings presented the following remarks at the opening of the Executive Council meeting at the Conference Center at the Maritime Institute in Linthicum Heights, MD (Diocese of Maryland).

Executive Council Opening Remarks
June 7, 2013

The Rev. Gay Clark Jennings
President of the House of Deputies
Episcopal Church

In her 1998 book Amazing Grace, Kathleen Norris writes about learning to believe:

Perhaps my most important breakthrough with regard to belief came when I learned to be as consciously skeptical and questioning of my disbelief and my doubts as I was of my burgeoning faith. This new perspective also helped me to deal with my anger over the fact that churches, as institutions, so often behave in polarized and polarizing ways. I found an unexpected ally in Fr. Martin Smith, an Anglican monk, who wrote in an issue of Cowley, his monastery’s newsletter, that ambivalence is a sacred emotion. Restating in spiritual terms Keats’s definition of ‘negative capability,’ he wrote that he finds

“a widespread need in contemporary spirituality to find ways of praying and engaging with God, our selves, and one another that have room for simultaneous contradictions, the experience of opposite emotions. We need to find the sacredness in living the tensions and to admit how unsacred, how disconnecting and profane, are the attempts at praying and living while suppressing half of the stuff that fascinates or plagues us…We can connect our own fear of death and the unknown,’ Smith writes, ‘with the institution’s dread of the new.”[1]

Ambivalence is a sacred emotion. Let’s remember that as we continue what I proposed last year we call the “something else” triennium. We have a lot of change to provoke and manage, and sometimes we are going to feel ambivalent about it. We’re going to need to live with simultaneous and contradictory emotions as change happens. Ambivalence is okay. But paralysis is not.

We have right here among us some great examples of how to live in this tension of ambivalence and get the work done. FFM (the Executive Council Joint Standing Committee on Finances for Mission) is picking up the pieces from last triennium’s budget process, which was a pretty spectacular example of the institutional church behaving in polarized and polarizing ways. Through their new budget visioning process, FFM is charting a better course for us all. My thanks to Susan Snook and Mark Hollingsworth for leading the work, and to all who are participating.

We’re also trying new ways of carrying out the work of General Convention by establishing coordinating committees for resolutions that cross our old boundaries of departments and commissions. At our last meeting (February 2013), we created a coordinating committee for Resolution B019, “Israeli-Palestinian Peace and Support for the Diocese of Jerusalem.” That committee has been appointed and, in one case, reappointed when Deputy Chip Stokes went off and got himself elected bishop of New Jersey.

The committee will begin work later this summer. Given that faithful people have different and strong beliefs about the plight of the Palestinian people and how the church is called to respond, I expect that this work will give us many opportunities to practice finding the sacredness of living the tension.

At this meeting, we’ll consider another such resolution from GAM (Executive Council Joint Standing Committee on Governance and Administration for Mission) with endorsement from A&N (Executive Council Joint Standing Committee on Advocacy and Networking) and LMM (Executive Council Joint Standing Committee on Local Ministry and Mission). The proposed resolution will create a coordinating committee for resolution A135, titled “Focus Mission Funding on Alleviating Poverty and Injustice.” I’m particularly excited about this work because I believe it will help the church learn more about how community organizing and asset based community development can call us away from the comfortable models of charity we have too often built to protect ourselves and toward the heart of Christ’s mission with those who are poor.

Here’s a new development that many of us who have served the church for decades feel deeply ambivalent about:  While some standing commissions and Executive Council committees are working productively, others are floundering in the new virtual ways of working that we have adopted. Some, too, had little or no work referred to them by General Convention and are struggling to interpret their mandates in light of changing priorities and structures. This may be hard for some of us to accept, but I think that we are in the death throes of the current standing commission and committee structure. Both those who are on TREC (the Task Force for Reimagining the Episcopal Church) and those of us who aren’t need to begin imagining new ways of bringing together laypeople, clergy and bishops to accomplish the work of General Convention.

Thanks to the work of GAM (Executive Council Joint Standing Committee on Governance and Administration for Mission) in the last triennium leading to a canonical change made by General Convention last summer, Executive Council may now sunset committees. What needs to go so that new structures can emerge? At our last meeting, a number of committees were sunsetted and a few were extended to the end of this triennium We have two years left in this triennium—enough time to do some serious reshaping.

Last, I want us – I hope we will each – recommit to faithfully and actively executing our corporate and fiduciary responsibilities as members of Executive Council and the DFMS Board of Directors.  The church has entrusted us with this work, and it is especially important as we continue to examine our corporate structures, the location of the Church Center, and the relationship of staff and elected leaders. You might feel skeptical about your ability to ask questions or ambivalent about what you might risk by participating actively, but remember—ambivalence is a sacred emotion. Let’s stick with it and let it lead us toward greater belief in each other, in the work we have been called to do, and in the promise of the risen Christ that new life awaits us.

[The Episcopal News, Diocese of Los Angeles] These days, the Rev. Canon Malcolm Boyd prefers quiet revolutions to the public upheavals that have distinguished his life and times for decades.

The Hollywood executive turned Episcopal priest, Freedom Rider, anti-war and gay rights activist, author, playwright, social critic and church revivalist will be 90 on June 8 and has been busy being filmed for a documentary about his life.

“This is the first time anyone has made a film of my life,” he chuckled during a recent telephone interview from his Los Angeles-area home, adding: “I just show up and I’m filmed.”

On April 27, Los Angeles filmmaker Andrew Thomas was on hand to document the Lambda Literary Foundation’s 25th annual benefit event OUTWRITE! honoring Boyd and other celebrated West Hollywood LGBT literary pioneers.

Malcolm Boyd, photographed for an interview after the 1965 publication of Are You Running With Me, Jesus? a book of unconventional but deeply devout prayers that made Boyd an international celebrity.

Perhaps best known for Are You Running with Me, Jesus? “a little book of prayers” he wrote in 1965, Boyd still is working, both as writer-in-residence of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles and as a regular columnist for the Huffington Post, exploring issues of life, death and aging gracefully, with his characteristic sense of humor.

Like a recent column about attempts to renew his driver’s license that ultimately yielded the desired result.

“Let’s just say I’m legal now,” he laughed.

Despite his advanced age, “Retirement wasn’t a reality, obviously. It’s kind of a process,” Boyd said. So is reflection, and the documentary undertaking by the award-winning Thomas has offered ample opportunity for that.

“Malcolm and Mark (Thompson, an author and Boyd’s partner of 30 years) and I went to Grace Cathedral and walked the labyrinth. He spoke at some events,” Thomas said during a recent telephone interview. “We’ve done four interviews with Malcolm so far; we just sit in a room quietly and we don’t deal with questions; we deal with themes and see where it takes us.

“Malcolm has forgotten more than I’ll ever learn,” added Thomas, who hopes to complete the film in time for a fall release. Thomas has written, produced and/or directed highly acclaimed episodes of such TV series as “COPS” and “Modern Marvels.” He has received several Emmy award nominations for work on the History Channel, A&E, Discovery and the Sci-Fi Channel. His 2009 film “The Anatomy of Vince Guaraldi” about the jazz great has accumulated five film festival Best Documentary awards.

Ironically, it was that film which led him to Boyd, he said.

“Guaraldi composed ‘Cast Your Fate to the Wind’ and the music for ‘Peanuts’ and I realized that Malcolm worked with Vince twice in his life,” Thomas recalled. “[Vince] composed all the music for the very first jazz mass at Grace Cathedral and Malcolm did the sermon and then a month later, Malcolm did a series of performances at the hungry i [a café in San Francisco],” he recalled.

After some initial checking, Thomas discovered Boyd was alive and well and “living about two miles from me,” the filmmaker recalled. “It was a wonderful, serendipitous moment to know that one of your heroes is still alive.”

Even more serendipitous has been his discovery of historical “reel to reel” film footage of Boyd and other unpublished materials, along with interviews of people from seminal moments in Boyd’s life.

Like a conversation with Penny Liuzzo, daughter of Detroit homemaker Viola Liuzzo, who was part of a group that met weekly at Boyd’s apartment during his Wayne State University chaplaincy days. Viola Liuzzo was so inspired by Boyd’s civil rights activism she left home and family to work for voter rights. She was murdered on March 25, 1965, the last night of the Selma, Alabama, voting rights march.

And like Woody King Jr., “the great actor who worked with Malcolm on ‘A Study in Color’ and ‘Boy’ and a lot of those somewhat subversive plays Malcolm did about racism back in the early 1960s,” Thomas said.

“[King] said Malcolm would never bring up religion or Christianity … but after working with him for a few weeks, they all realized they were inspired to go back to the word.

“[Malcolm] inspires people to go on their own journey,” Thomas said. “It reminded me of the time we were taking a walk and Malcolm said, ‘the point here is not to spend your life looking for God but to allow God to find you.’ It’s typical of his way of twisting the traditional mundane approach to life and trying on a different hat and looking at it from a new perspective.

“It’s part of his incredible deep well of empathy. That’s just who Malcolm is.”

‘Trailblazer, truth-teller, courageous witness,’ reluctant hero

Boyd was born in Buffalo, New York on June 8, 1923 to fashion model Beatrice Lowrie and financier Melville Boyd, “an alcoholic and womanizer. I later understood him and conducted his burial service. His father was an Episcopal priest, but he died so young,” Boyd said.

After his parents divorced in the 1930s, Boyd and his mother moved to Colorado. He survived bouts of atheism during his undergraduate college years, and made his way to Hollywood where he worked as a junior producer before entering seminary in 1951.

He was ordained to the priesthood in 1955 and after extended studies, became Colorado State University chaplain four years later. There he was dubbed the “espresso priest” for his talks given in coffee houses and bars.

He has written more than 30 books and is considered an icon for righteous social struggle and a hero to many, including author Nora Gallagher and gay rights activist the Rev. Susan Russell.

“There are so many things I could say about Malcolm Boyd as a trailblazer, truth-teller, and courageous witness to the power of God’s inclusive love,” said Russell, a blogger, Huffington Post contributor and senior associate at All Saints Church in Pasadena.

“It is no exaggeration to say that his Are You Running With Me, Jesus? fed the hunger of a generation of people who had given up on the church or anyone connected with it having anything relevant to say. His willingness to put his faith into action by marching in Selma to end segregation was a powerful witness to what former Presiding Bishop John Hines called ‘justice as the corporate face of God’s love,’” Russell said via e-mail.

“And his example as an out-gay priest in a time when such a thing was practically unimaginable was – and continues to be – an inspiration to all who work for the full inclusion of LGBT people in this church and in this country,” added Russell, a gay rights activist.

Gallagher, a parishioner at Trinity Episcopal Church in Santa Barbara and author of “Moonlight Sonata at the Mayo Clinic” (Alfred P. Knopf, 2013) said in the foreword of a reprinted version of Running that Boyd’s famous book of prayers “made it possible for me to imagine a church that had something to do with what was happening in the world, to see that the work of the faithful is to expose injustice.”

Yet, Boyd is reluctant to take credit for being an icon for social justice for many, or even a hero to some.

He does acknowledge sacrificing personal privacy for public persona, for “belonging to the church” even as early on as 1951, when he dissolved his partnership with Hollywood stars Mary Pickford and Buddy Rogers to enter the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, California.

In the 1940s, Malcolm Boyd was a business partner of film star Mary Pickford before he departed the Hollywood scene in 1951 to attend Church Divinity School of the Pacific.

Again, with characteristic humor, he quipped that at his going-away party “with a lot of celebrities, gossip columnist Hedda Hopper said that everyone, including the bartender, bowed their heads for the Lord’s Prayer.”

But “it was all new ground,” he said recalling tumultuous decades of his life. “I had no textbook. What happened came out of a very strong sense of responsibility because I realized that I was speaking for a number of other people who did not have a voice.”

It meant frequently running afoul of authorities, both church and civic. While Boyd was serving as Colorado State University chaplain, students flocked to his coffeehouse campus ministry but “the bishop, without coming to look at the work, characterized it as “beatnik” and said, “you can’t call yourself a beloved child of God if you have matted hair, smell badly or wear black underwear.”

“To me, this was blasphemy,” Boyd recalled.

“I thought, if this was the church, then to hell with the church because it wasn’t the church of Jesus Christ. And if it wasn’t the church of Jesus Christ, then let me get out where I could breathe fresh air. Then, I answered him, that yes, you can call yourself a beloved child of God if you have matted hair, smell badly or wear black underwear.”

He moved on, invited by then-bishop of Michigan Richard Emrich to serve as Wayne State University chaplain in Detroit. His activism in full swing, he demonstrated with the likes of Martin Luther King Jr. and Stokely Carmichael and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee as well as Jonathan Daniels, an Episcopal seminarian who was murdered in Selma, Alabama in August 1965 by white supremacists.

“I was involved in an enveloping process,” Boyd said.

“The summer of ’65 was the hardest,” he said, recalling his own harrowing close calls with white supremacists and feelings of alienation and fear.

In 1977, he came out as gay. “At this point, you could throw your hands up and scream, because what do you do with a story like this?” he said, laughing. “Here’s Malcolm Boyd, with all of this — terribly controversial — and now on top of everything, he’s a queer?”

Malcolm Boyd and author Mark Thompson have been a couple for 30 years. Photo/Mary Glasspool

Back in Los Angeles, he served local parishes, continued writing and public speaking engagements and met author and photographer Mark Thompson, his life partner of 30 years.

He now considers himself an elder and his life “an odd story, to put it mildly. It was quite a lot to live through, so I’m grateful to anybody who helped — and a number of people did.”

Aging and the prospect of turning 90 brings yet new “surprises. It’s like being on the Titanic. You’re out there on the ocean and somebody spots an iceberg. It ain’t going away.”

He added that: “Wouldn’t it be great if all of us — you and I, for instance — might take ourselves a wee bit less seriously?

All kidding aside, he still accepts occasional preaching and speaking engagements and is spiritual director to about a dozen people. Always the activist, he adds: “I accept myself as an elder. I think elders need to analyze their own position in society and in some cases argue with society about what their position is because I think there’s all sorts of stereotypes about elderly people right now.”

Perhaps his own experiences could still serve as a primer for the church: “There’s too much talk about the future of the church and meetings and discussions,” he said. “If you have faith, the main thing now is to move, one foot ahead of another, and to trust in God.”

As always, Boyd looks to the future with hope, adding: “Let’s do this again in 10 years.”

[Trinity Episcopal Church] The Rev. Andrew Wright has been called to serve as the new Associate Rector for Families, Children and Young Adults at Trinity Episcopal Church, Fort Worth, Texas.

Father Andrew was raised in the Episcopal Church, growing up in the North Panhandle town of Borger, Texas. He met his wife, Melanie, while a student at TCU and was part of Trinity’s own campus ministry throughout college.

Shortly after college and their wedding, the Wrights moved to Sewanee, Tenn., for Andrew to begin his seminary studies. He graduated with a Master of Divinity from Sewanee in 1995 and was ordained by Bishop Sam Hulsey on June 4th that year. Andrew has since worked in Tennessee, Nebraska, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and, home at last, in Texas, serving parishes along the way as Assistant, Rector, Priest-in-charge, and most currently as Rector of Saint Anne Episcopal Church in DeSoto, Texas.

Andrew received a Master of Sacred Theology degree in 2003 from the General Theological Seminary and a Doctor of Theology degree in Liturgical Theology in 2012 from General as well. His wife, Melanie, is also an Episcopal priest, ordained in 2006, and serves St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Arlington as priest-in-charge.

The Wrights have three children, Aidan (19 at UTA), Benjamin (17), and Macrina (13). Aside from youth, children, family, and campus ministry, Andrew has an abiding interest in theater, science, and storytelling in all its forms.

Father Andrew’s first day in the Trinity Church office will be Tuesday, July 9. His first Sunday at Trinity will be July 14.

[Episcopal Church Office of Public Affairs - Press Release] Bishops, clergy and laity from throughout the Episcopal Church are invited to gather April 9 – 11, 2014, to explore one of the major issues in today’s society – violence in all its forms.

Reclaiming the Gospel of Peace: An Episcopal gathering to challenge the epidemic of violence will be held at the Reed Center and Sheraton in Oklahoma City, OK (Diocese of Oklahoma).

“With Our Lord’s gospel of peace as the basis of our work, the Episcopal Church will look closely at the violence that surrounds our lives today,” noted Bishop Eugene Sutton of the Diocese of Maryland.

Bishop Edward J. Konieczny of the Diocese of Oklahoma added, “It is significant that Oklahoma City was selected as it was the site of one of the most violent and devastating events in our history.”

The conference will include worship, plenary sessions, workshops and visits to theOklahoma City National Memorial and Museum.

Schedule details, speakers, workshop titles and registration information will be available in the fall of 2013.

In addition to staff members of the Domestic & Foreign Missionary Society including Federal Ministries, the Offices of Communication and Government Relations, participating in the planning of this major event are representatives from the Dioceses of Atlanta, Chicago, Connecticut, Louisiana, Los Angeles, Maryland, New York, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Southeast Florida, Washington, West Texas, and Wyoming as well as other groups.

For more information about the event, contact Mary Getz, Episcopal Church Office of Government Relations Grassroots and Online Communications, mgetz@episcopalchurch.org.

El Consejo Latinoamericano de Iglesias (CLAI) reunido en La Habana a fines de mayo celebró su asamblea regular bregando con una extensa agenda que fue desde un llamado a la unidad de las iglesias hasta los problemas sociales de América Latina. En una larga declaración afirma su lucha contra “la violencia de género y la violencia sexual” y además de sugerir “la educación de la sexualidad, la prevención y atención de las personas que viven con sida y el respeto del cuerpo y la planificación familiar”. La declaración dice además que “deploramos el inhumano bloqueo económico que por más de cincuenta años mantiene el gobierno de los Estados Unidos contra el pueblo de Cuba”. El CLAI reúne a iglesias y movimientos cristianos de tradición protestante o evangélica, y fue fundado en 1982, con el objeto de promover la unidad entre los cristianos del continente.

Guy Erwin, 55, pastor luterano y profesor de seminario, fue electo el 31 de mayo obispo del Sínodo del Suroeste de California de la Iglesia Luterana en América (ELCA) durante una asamblea sinodal en Woodland Hills, California. El nuevo obispo, nativo de Oklahoma, tiene compañero sentimental y es miembro activo de la Nación Osage, una comunidad indígena. ELCA es la denominación luterana más numerosa de Estados Unidos.

Marco Feliciano, pastor evangélico y diputado federal de Brasil, ha dicho que no renunciará a su cargo en el congreso pese a la presión de sus colegas por declaraciones suyas consideradas anti-gay. “La Biblia es mi modelo de fe y conducta”, dijo en una entrevista.

Daniel Gutiérrez, auxiliar del obispo Michael Vono de la diócesis de Río Grande, en Estados Unidos, ha sido electo presidente nacional de la Asociación de Ejecutivos Diocesanos que comparte programas y entrenamiento para el mejor funcionamiento de las diócesis del país.

La Corte Interamericana de los Derechos Humanos acaba de emitir medidas provisionales en favor de “Beatriz” una joven salvadoreña de 22 años obligada a mantener el embarazo de un feto inviable que pone en riesgo su vida. La joven que sufre de lupus y problemas renales serios, ha hecho un video rogándole al presidente Mauricio Funes que acceda a su petición. El Salvador no permite el aborto ni aun en casos terapéuticos.

Aviso desde Cartagena, Colombia: Radio Episcopal está nuevamente en el aire después de reparar el computador. Nuestra dirección: www.episcopalradio.com y en la radio FM 93.7 en Cartagena de Indias. Esperamos su visita. Rafael Abuchar Curi

La rama Norte Americana de la orden irlandesa de los Hermanos Cristianos ha dicho que pagará $16.5 millones de dólares a más de 400 hombres y mujeres que fueron sexual o físicamente abusados cuando eran niños. La orden opera escuelas y orfanatos alrededor del mundo. Su primera escuela fue fundada en 1802 en un establo abandonado.

La guerra civil de Siria se está extendiendo según observadores internacionales y se puede convertir en un conflicto regional. Se vislumbra un encontronazo entre potencias y mayor lucha entre los mismos musulmanes. Los muertos de la población civil llegan ya a casi 100 mil. El número de refugiados ni se puede calcular.

Según una encuesta de la firma Gallup la religión está perdiendo fuerzas en Estados Unidos y el número de ateos está creciendo. El 75 por ciento de los encuestados opina que si los estadounidenses fuesen más religiosos eso tendría un impacto positivo en la sociedad, mientras que el 17 por ciento cree que el efecto sería negativo.

El Centro Anglicano de Estudios Teológicos Superiores ha comenzado en San José, Costa Rica, su curso lectivo para este año. El programa incluye cinco cursos bíblicos tratando de profundizar el estudio de las Escrituras desde una perspectiva latinoamericana, con el fin de responder a los desafíos pastorales de cada lugar. Las clases son impartidas por profesores de la Universidad Bíblica Latinoamericana con sede en San José. Eduardo Chinchilla es el director del centro.

Muchos peregrinos acudieron a fines de mayo a una calurosa y polvorienta extensión de la reserva india de Pine Ridge, South Dakota, para aprender acerca de la confianza y la reconciliación y su práctica, así como sobreponerse a los estereotipos, a crear amistades y a crecer en la fe. El evento trajo a la Comunidad Ecuménica de Taizé que se trasladó hasta acá. Cantaban música armonizada por alondras de la pradera y el ritmo de los grillos. Uno de los participantes dijo que todo fue una experiencia inolvidable: “No teníamos duchas, ni electricidad y había que tener cuidado con las serpientes cascabel, las espinas de los cactus o pisar una plasta de vaca”.

VERDAD. Las dificultades son puentes y peldaños que nos ayudan a triunfar.

[Anglican Communion News Service] The leader of Kenya’s Anglican Church has reprimanded the country’s parliamentarians for demanding a pay increase 100 times the minimum wage.

In a statement, Archbishop Eliud Wabukala of the Anglican Church of Kenya expressed his disappointment over the MPs’ demands. He said, “We are aggrieved that MPs on both sides of the house found common ground to overwhelmingly vote for the salary increment, yet positions on national priorities like security, health, education and poverty alleviation are not assured of such prompt response.

“The MPs’ move to determine their pay is unconstitutional and is a direct conflict of interest,” said the archbishop. “We urge [them] to pursue dialogue with the Salaries and Remuneration Commission as opposed to [engaging in such] rebellious acts as attempting to repeal acts of parliament to work in their favor.”

Kenyan MPs are already among the world’s best-paid politicians in a country where the majority only earn under US$1 a day. Yet last month they voted to raise their salaries in defiance of government plans to cut them as part of spending reforms. According to the government, the pay cuts are needed help free up cash to create jobs.

The archbishop reminded parliamentarians that Kenya is undergoing a transition process and that “resources should be channeled towards the stabilization of the various decentralization structures and not be derailed by MPs’ demands.”

“State officers must recognize that the authority bestowed to them is a public trust that needs to be respected and any exploitation is translated as abuse of power,” he said. “Parliamentarians should note that a public officer is elected for public service and not personal gain.”

The archbishop added that the country’s public sector wage bill constitutes 50% of the annual government wage revenue and that this push for even higher salaries, “is selfish, inconsiderate and uncalled for.”

The archbishop also reminded the people of Kenya that all state officers, including MPs, are not exempt from the rule of law and that the constitution as the supreme law binds everyone.

Bishop Julius Kalu of Mombasa agreed that it is wrong for MPs to fight for a pay rise “at the expense of the more than 50 percent of Kenyans who are living below the poverty line.”

“If MPs went to parliament to enrich themselves, then they are in the wrong place,” he said. “Those who are dissatisfied with the salary should immediately resign and give the opportunities to other Kenyans.”

[Anglican Communion News Service] Thousands of pilgrims from Zimbabwe and beyond are expected to gather in Harare next week to commemorate the life of Bernard Mizeki, a lay African catechist and missionary martyred in 1896.

The celebrations, between June 14-16, will be the first ones held at the martyr’s shrine in more than five years. Previously Anglican pilgrims had been barred from the site by excommunicated and former bishop Nolbert Kunonga.

Bishop Chad Gandiya of Harare told ACNS, “After having been in exile for five years and failing to host these celebrations at the shrine, this years’ celebrations are indeed special and the theme God is faithful could not be more timely.

“This time we are back at our churches, and all other church properties including the shrine are back in our hands,” he said. “Going by last year’s numbers which were estimated at over 10,000 people, we do not expect anything less this year,”

Last year Kunonga, with backing from the police, stopped members of the Church of the Province of Central Africa (CPCA) from worshipping at the shrine. Pilgrims instead went ahead and celebrated the event at the Marondera show grounds, an area located about 11 kilometers from the shrine.

Commenting on this year’s event, the Most Rev. Albert Chama, CPCA primate and bishop of Northern Zambia, said he was grateful to God that the festival will be held at the shrine.

He also explained the relevance of the event to Christians in Africa and how they can learn from a life guided by Bernard Mizeki. “[African] Christians should know that the route they have chosen is not without challenges or hurdles,” he said. “Christianity is about actions, some of which can lead to death. All pilgrims should remember that death in Christ is in fact a gain.

“The event itself shows the importance of Christianity among Africans,” said Chama. “Bernard Mizeki was an African who was martyred for propagating the Good News to fellow Africans at a time when they did not understand the Christian faith.”

Gandiya said Bernard Mizeki’s life had been one of deep commitment to God and his people. “Even after being warned, he decided to preserve the lives of others at the expense of his own.”

“As a shepherd, you don’t desert people that have been put under your care,” the Bishop said. “Having been in exile for a long time, we understand and find a lot of relevance and comfort from his life.”

Gandiya also revealed that the preparations for the celebrations are in the final stages and that they are ready and happy to host the event freely for the first time in more than five years.

He concluded, “This is the first time that we won’t be looking over our shoulders as we celebrate this special day.”

[World Council of Churches] “A new framework for negotiation for peace and unification of the Korean peninsula is the need of the hour…especially in the context that the armistice agreement declared 60 years ago lost its effect,” said Dr. Lee Jae-joung, former minister of the Ministry of Unification of the Republic of Korea at an international consultation on Asian peace and security being held in Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong, 3 to 6 June.

The international ecumenical consultation, “Asia’s Human Security Challenges: Towards Peace with Justice in North East Asia” was organized by the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA) of the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Christian Conference of Asia as an opportunity to reflect on the theme of the upcoming WCC 10th assembly which is being held in Busan, Republic of Korea 30 October to 8 November this year.

The consultation allowed the participants to explore the theme of the assembly “God of life, lead us to justice and peace” within the Asian context and with a specific focus on the situation on the Korean peninsula.

“The armistice agreement never brought peace in the Korean peninsula” Lee who was unification minister from 2006-2008 said. “There were constant violent conflicts at the truce line, as well as military infiltrations in the past years which affect peace and security.” Lee’s presentation was titled “From the Armistice Agreement to Peace Treaty in Korea.

“The international ecumenical community has to perform the important task of mobilizing the international community to ensure lasting peace in the divided country of Korea,” he added.

In a presentation on “Resumption of the Six Party Talks or Third Nuclear Test, the Future Prospects for US- North Korea Relations,” Prof. Sachio Nakato of Ritsumeikan University in Japan said, “The framework of the six-party talks should play a key role. The U.S focuses more on managing the North Korean nuclear issues rather than solving the problems through the framework of the six-party talks.”

During a biblical and theological reflection on the Korean situation the general secretary of the Presbyterian Church of Korea, Rev. Dr Hong Jung Lee, said, “Healing and reconciliation sustain the integration between justice and peace and their coexistence for life. Healing and reconciliation are both the spirituality and the strategy of God’s salvation and liberation and the way of witnessing the wholeness of the Gospel at all dimensions. In today’s complex situation of Korean peninsula, God’s liberation will show the way of sustaining peace and justice in the region.”

The consultation has also been addressing various other Asian issues threatening peace and security in the region.

“The increase in defence spending has now become a wider Asian phenomenon,” said Dr Mathews George Chunakara, director of the CCIA in a thematic address.  “A  variety of factors explains the new wave of increased military budgets in Asian countries.”.

“The increasing arms build-up in several Asian countries makes this region one of the fastest-growing regions for defence spending in the world, and military spending in Asia for the first time in history overtook that of the European members of NATO,” he said.

“Terrorism and counter-terrorism in South Asia are taking the lives of hundreds of people in South Asia every week. The drone strikes carried out by the U.S military in Pakistan have killed thousands of people,” stated Bishop Samuel Azariah, moderator of the Church of Pakistan and member of the WCC Central Committee and Executive Committee. “The nuclear arms race in South Asia and the ongoing territorial disputes between India and Pakistan pose a perennial problem for peace and security in South Asia.”

In a presentation on peace and security in South East Asia, Rev. Rex R. B. Reyes, Jr, general secretary of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines, said that, “through the implementation of the neoliberal policies of globalization, the opening up of more mountains for mining and logging and the shores for mineral extractions, more lands are being converted as mining fields of multinational companies in the Philippines.”

The consultation is being attended by fifty participants from Asia, Europe and North America representing churches, ecumenical councils, specialized ministries, peace activists and academia.

Read about the consultation

WCC member churches in Korea

Christian Conference of Asia

Korean Ministry of Unification

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, by the end of 2012 the WCC had 345 member churches representing more than 500 million Christians from Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other traditions in over 110 countries. The WCC works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is the Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, from the [Lutheran] Church of Norway.

[Church of Ireland -- Press Release] Ahead of the G8 Summit meeting on 17-18 June at the Lough Erne resort, the Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of Ireland extend their welcome to the world leaders and their officials who will be visiting County Fermanagh. They commend the work of civic government as a calling which can lead to blessing, stating that ‘the equitable management of economic affairs has the potential to bring many benefits to a de-moralised world’. The bishops also recognise that journalists from across the world will gather to cover the summit and both welcome and wish them well in the difficult task they perform, saying ‘The demands of insightful reporting and making fair comment are very great as is the responsibility that goes with their vocation.’

In praying for a fruitful series of meetings, the bishops call for a renewed ethical focus on economic life across the globe and, echoing the collective voice of the General Synod in May, express wholehearted support for the IF Campaign which proposes practical ways towards achieving equity in food availability worldwide. They say: ‘It is an unequivocal good that fewer people should have to go to bed each night hungry. We would urge the leaders of the G8 to make this fundamental goal into a reality.’

Concerning Ireland, North and South, the bishops state that ‘ordinary people from both jurisdictions have felt the heavy weight of austerity economics, and are in desperate need of a positive vision to guide them into a secure future’. Specifically regarding Northern Ireland they say, ‘It is beyond doubt that wholesome economic life (and especially useful investment) requires social stability, a regard for the rule of law, and good community relations. Much has been achieved in these areas in recent years and again it is our prayer that the fruits of this work will be clear for all our visitors to see.’ Relating especially but not exclusively to the Republic of Ireland, the bishops call for ‘very open dialogue with both commercial and personal customers’ by the Financial Sector which, in having received special rescue measures, owes to people ‘complementary special responsibilities’. The Archbishops and Bishops also call for a dynamic focus on providing special measures to remedy youth unemployment, as a ‘means to develop both the good of society and the capacity of the individual’.

In closing their statement, the bishops express their support for the PSNI and those involved in the policing operation at the G8 summit and urge practical cooperation and support from all.

The full statement is provided below.

Full Statement by the Church of Ireland Archbishops and Bishops Ahead of the G8 Summit

The Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of Ireland wish to extend a very warm welcome to the leaders of the G8 nations and their officials as they meet in County Fermanagh.

It is our prayer that they will have a fruitful series of meetings and that many people may be blessed in the decisions that they make.

The importance of the task

We are fully aware that the problems which the G8 leaders face are complex and often deep seated, and we acknowledge with thankfulness and humility the work which all involved in government undertake for our well being. We acknowledge also with penitence that as believers we have often sidelined consideration of economic affairs as of little relevance to our vocation. This has led not only to apathy about economic debate, but also to a refusal to face up to our economic responsibilities as individuals.

From our perspective as religious leaders, the work of civil government is a holy task and a calling of the most sacred kind. The equitable management of economic affairs has the potential to bring many benefits to a de-moralised world. As a subject for academic study, economics was first considered as a branch of ethics – the right ordering of human relationships – and we earnestly hope that something of that spirit can re-invigorate national and international discussion of our fiscal and economic affairs.

A faith perspective; the IF Campaign

Speaking as people of faith we wish to emphasise our belief that there is a reality even greater than the realities of the State and the Market, and which stands over both; the reality of the personality of God. Just as God in ancient Israel took notice of the merchant who used unfair weights to gain advantage, so he still takes notice of questionable commercial practice and inequity in economic life today.

It was for this reason that, at its recent meeting in General Synod, the Church of Ireland passed a motion recognising the importance of taxation in developing countries both to provide financial resources to government and to enhance accountability between a State and its citizens.

The Synod also supported the call for a new international accounting standard requiring companies to report on profits made and taxes paid in every country where they operate.

It was also at the meeting of this year’s General Synod that the Church of Ireland expressed a very wholehearted support for the IF Campaign which proposes practical ways by which much greater equity in food availability can be achieved. It is an unequivocal good that fewer people should have to go to bed each night hungry. We would urge the leaders of the G8 to make this fundamental goal into a reality.

Reporting the G8

In the coming days Ireland will play host to an enormous number of journalists from all over the world, and as such we will come under intense, if brief and tangential, worldwide scrutiny. We wish to offer our welcome and prayers to all journalists and wish them well in the difficult task they perform. The demands of insightful reporting and making fair comment are very great as is the responsibility that goes with their vocation.

The suffering of ordinary people

Such demands come at a time when Ireland, North and South, is experiencing extraordinary difficulties. Ordinary people from both jurisdictions have felt the heavy weight of austerity economics, and are in desperate need of a positive vision to guide them into a secure future.

Although Northern Ireland remains a much more settled and stable society than it was prior to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, it is not a significantly more integrated one. It is very far from clear how substantial progress can be made in this area, and again as a Church we must acknowledge our part in perpetuating the failure to define a common identity for the people of Northern Ireland.

However, it is beyond doubt that wholesome economic life (and especially useful investment) requires social stability, a regard for the rule of law, and good community relations. Much has been achieved in these areas in recent years and again it is our prayer that the fruits of this work will be clear for all our visitors to see.

In the Republic of Ireland perhaps the most widespread demoralising factor in the lives of ordinary people is a grave uncertainty over how mortgage arrears are to be dealt with. Regardless of what technical difficulties it may have involved, citizens can’t help but draw a contrast between the treatment of the Banking Sector compared to the treatment of its clients.

In the case of the banks heaven and earth were moved to secure survival, whereas clients have, by and large, been left to the operation of the market. We acknowledge that the Financial Sector (especially banking) is not the same as other commercial enterprises. It much more closely resembles a blood bank, providing a vital resource without which every other factor in economic and commercial life cannot function.

If that has been the basis for the special treatment which it has received, then a complementary emphasis on its special responsibilities is also needed. Such special responsibilities cannot be worked out without very open dialogue with both commercial and personal customers.

It is perhaps one of the strangest and saddest aspects of the world post 2008 that governments, especially governments of wealthy countries, have not promoted serious discussion of alternative economic models beyond those of a particular form of financial capitalism.

Youth unemployment

The levels of youth unemployment in wealthy countries is not only an economic disaster, it is also a moral tragedy. Useful work is a God-given means to develop both the good of society and the capacity of the individual. Not to have useful paid work is to be deprived of one of the means of developing great virtues.

It is through the world of work that most of us learn the habits of regularity, team working, application, balanced judgement, reliability and toleration. For millions of young people to be deprived of the opportunity to acquire and deepen these virtues, which are as necessary for economic development as much as personal well-being, is to store up enormous personal and societal problems for decades to come.

The pace of economic recovery is so slow that, unless some special measures are made to cater for this generation, they may well be doomed to spending the most creative and productive years of their lives in a sterile no man’s land of economic inactivity.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland

One group of people who most certainly are not underemployed at present are the PSNI, who have had to carry the substantial organisational burden of ensuring that the G8 passes off in peace and good order. That has been an enormous task for a relatively small police service, supplemented by officers from elsewhere. Aside from the ordinary policing difficulties which come with any substantial public event the PSNI are also accommodating constructive lobbying and protest groups who quite rightly wish to make their mark at an important gathering.

It is our hope and prayer that less constructive or downright disruptive groups will not create more difficulties than those which are already facing a hard worked Police Service.

We wish to support those involved in this Policing operation both by our prayers and by urging the practical cooperation and support from all who will be in County Fermanagh during the G8.

The Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of Ireland:

The Most Revd Dr Richard Clarke, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland
The Most Revd Dr Michael Jackson, Archbishop of Dublin & Bishop of Glendalough, Primate of Ireland
The Rt Revd Harold Miller, Bishop of Down & Dromore
The Rt Revd Dr Paul Colton, Bishop of Cork, Cloyne & Ross
The Rt Revd Ken Good, Bishop of Derry & Raphoe
The Rt Revd Michael Burrows, Bishop of Cashel & Ossory
The Rt Revd Alan Abernethy, Bishop of Connor
The Rt Revd Trevor Williams, Bishop of Limerick & Killaloe
The Rt Revd Patrick Rooke, Bishop of Tuam, Killala & Achonry
The Rt Revd John McDowell, Bishop of Clogher
The Rt Revd Ferran Glenfield, Bishop of Kilmore, Elphin & Ardagh
(The See of Meath & Kildare is currently vacant)

[Lambeth Palace -- Press Release] Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby gave the following speech on the first day of a two-day peers’ debate on UK government proposals to allow same-sex marriages.

My Lords, this Bill has arrived in your Lordship’s House at great speed. The initial Proposals, when published at the end of the autumn, have needed much work to get them into today’s form. Much of that work has been done through detailed legal effort and discussion, and I am deeply grateful to the DCMS (Department for Culture, Media and Sport) teams – and especially to the Secretary of State for the thoughtful way in which she has listened and the degree to which she has been willing to make changes in order to arrive at the stage we’ve reached today.We all know, and it’s been said, that this is a divisive issue. In general the majority of faith groups remain very strongly against the Bill, and have expressed that view in a large number of public statements. The House of Bishops of the Church of England has also expressed a very clear majority view – although not unanimous, as has been seen by the strong and welcome contribution by the Bishop of Salisbury.

The so-called Quadruple Lock may have some chance of withstanding legal scrutiny in Europe, and we are grateful for it, although other faith groups and Christian denominations who’ve written to me remain very hesitant. There have been useful discussions about the position of schools with a religious character and issues of freedom of conscience. And I’ve noted the undertaking of the Noble Baroness the Minister on those subjects, and I’m grateful for what she has said. The Noble Baroness the Minister has also put forward all her views today with great courtesy and persuasive effect, and I join in the remarks of the Noble Baroness, Baroness Royall, in appreciation of that.

And I have to say that personally I regret the necessity of having to deal with the possibility of a division at this stage, on a bill passed by a free vote in the other place.

I was particularly grateful to hear the speech of the Noble Baroness, Baroness Royall, and agreed with the proud record that was established by the last government during the years in which it held office in this area. I also, if I may, will pass on her comments with gratitude to my colleague the Most Revd Prelate the Archbishop of York.

It is clearly essential that stable and faithful same sex relationships should, where those involved want it, be recognised and supported with as much dignity and the same legal effect as marriage. Although the majority of Bishops who voted during the whole passage of the Civil Partnerships Act through your Lordships’ House were in favour of civil partnerships a few years ago, it is also absolutely true that the church has often not served the LGBT communities in the way it should. I must express my sadness and sorrow for that considerable failure. There have been notable exceptions, such as my predecessor Archbishop Ramsey who vigorously supported decriminalisation in the 1960s.

It is also necessary to express, as has been done already, total rejection of homophobic language, which is wrong – and more than that, sickening.

However, I and many of my colleagues remain with considerable hesitations about this Bill. My predecessor Lord Williams of Oystermouth showed clearly last summer, in evidence during the consultation period, that it has within it a series of category errors. It confuses marriage and weddings. It assumes that the rightful desire for equality – to which I’ve referred supportively – must mean uniformity, failing to understand that two things may be equal but different. And as a result it does not do what it sets out to do, my Lords. Schedule 4 distinguishes clearly between same gender and opposite gender marriage, thus not achieving true equality.

The result is confusion. Marriage is abolished, redefined and recreated, being different and unequal for different categories. The new marriage of the Bill is an awkward shape with same gender and different gender categories scrunched into it, neither fitting well. The concept of marriage as a normative place for procreation is lost. The idea of marriage as covenant is diminished. The family in its normal sense, predating the state and as our base community of society – as we’ve already heard – is weakened. These points will be expanded on by others in the debate, I’m sure, including those from these benches.

For these and many other reasons, those of us in the churches and faith groups who are extremely hesitant about the Bill in many cases hold that view because we think that traditional marriage is a corner stone of society, and rather than adding a new and valued institution alongside it for same gender relationships, which I would personally strongly support to strengthen us all, this Bill weakens what exists and replaces it with a less good option that is neither equal nor effective. This is not a faith issue, although we are grateful for the attention that government and the other place have paid to issues of religious freedom – deeply grateful. But it is not, at heart, a faith issue; it is about the general social good. And so with much regret but entire conviction, I cannot support the Bill as it stands.

My Lords, this Bill has arrived in your Lordship’s House at great speed. The initial Proposals, when published at the end of the autumn, have needed much work to get them into today’s form. Much of that work has been done through detailed legal effort and discussion, and I am deeply grateful to the DCMS (Department for Culture, Media and Sport) teams – and especially to the Secretary of State for the thoughtful way in which she has listened and the degree to which she has been willing to make changes in order to arrive at the stage we’ve reached today.

We all know, and it’s been said, that this is a divisive issue. In general the majority of faith groups remain very strongly against the Bill, and have expressed that view in a large number of public statements. The House of Bishops of the Church of England has also expressed a very clear majority view –  although not unanimous, as has been seen by the strong and welcome contribution by the Bishop of Salisbury.

The so-called Quadruple Lock may have some chance of withstanding legal scrutiny in Europe, and we are grateful for it, although other faith groups and Christian denominations who’ve written to me remain very hesitant. There have been useful discussions about the position of schools with a religious character and issues of freedom of conscience. And I’ve noted the undertaking of the Noble Baroness the Minister on those subjects, and I’m grateful for what she has said. The Noble Baroness the Minister has also put forward all her views today with great courtesy and persuasive effect, and I join in the remarks of the Noble Baroness, Baroness Royall, in appreciation of that.

And I have to say that personally I regret the necessity of having to deal with the possibility of a division at this stage, on a bill passed by a free vote in the other place.

I was particularly grateful to hear the speech of the Noble Baroness, Baroness Royall, and agreed with the proud record that was established by the last government during the years in which it held office in this area. I also, if I may, will pass on her comments with gratitude to my colleague the Most Revd Prelate the Archbishop of York.

It is clearly essential that stable and faithful same sex relationships should, where those involved want it, be recognised and supported with as much dignity and the same legal effect as marriage. Although the majority of Bishops who voted during the whole passage of the Civil Partnerships Act through your Lordships’ House were in favour of civil partnerships a few years ago, it is also absolutely true that the church has often not served the LGBT communities in the way it should. I must express my sadness and sorrow for that considerable failure. There have been notable exceptions, such as my predecessor Archbishop Ramsey who vigorously supported decriminalisation in the 1960s.

It is also necessary to express, as has been done already, total rejection of homophobic language, which is wrong – and more than that, sickening.

However, I and many of my colleagues remain with considerable hesitations about this Bill. My predecessor Lord Williams of Oystermouth showed clearly last summer, in evidence during the consultation period, that it has within it a series of category errors. It confuses marriage and weddings. It assumes that the rightful desire for equality – to which I’ve referred supportively – must mean uniformity, failing to understand that two things may be equal but different. And as a result it does not do what it sets out to do, my Lords. Schedule 4 distinguishes clearly between same gender and opposite gender marriage, thus not achieving true equality.

The result is confusion. Marriage is abolished, redefined and recreated, being different and unequal for different categories. The new marriage of the Bill is an awkward shape with same gender and different gender categories scrunched into it, neither fitting well. The concept of marriage as a normative place for procreation is lost. The idea of marriage as covenant is diminished. The family in its normal sense, predating the state and as our base community of society – as we’ve already heard – is weakened. These points will be expanded on by others in the debate, I’m sure, including those from these benches.

For these and many other reasons, those of us in the churches and faith groups who are extremely hesitant about the Bill in many cases hold that view because we think that traditional marriage is a corner stone of society, and rather than adding a new and valued institution alongside it for same gender relationships, which I would personally strongly support to strengthen us all, this Bill weakens what exists and replaces it with a less good option that is neither equal nor effective. This is not a faith issue, although we are grateful for the attention that government and the other place have paid to issues of religious freedom – deeply grateful. But it is not, at heart, a faith issue; it is about the general social good. And so with much regret but entire conviction, I cannot support the Bill as it stands.

[Episcopal News Service] Apenas una semana en las tareas de limpieza de escombros, luego que una serie de tornados causaran la muerte de docenas de personas y devastaran partes de Oklahoma, el papel del Rdo. Paul Snyder ha dejado de ser el de un socorrista para convertirse en alguien “que ayuda a las personas a tratar de recobrar el orden en sus vidas”.

Snyder, subalguacil de 35 años, capellán de la policía durante 18 años y diácono durante tres años en la iglesia episcopal de San Cristóbal [St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church] en un suburbio de Oklahoma City, fue el individuo al que algunos clérigos de la diócesis llamaron inicialmente para que les ayudara a localizar a feligreses desaparecidos.

“Por la dirección, yo podía decir con seguridad si la casa estaba en la senda del tornado”, dijo Snyder durante una entrevista el 30 de mayo con Episcopal News Service. “Iba hasta sus casas para cerciorarme de que estaban todavía en pie, y tocaba a la puerta y decía ‘hola, necesitan llamar a su sacerdote’”.

Para el jueves (30 de mayo), al igual que muchos otros en la comunidad, su foco había pasado a “hurgar en los escombros” como muchos vecinos de Moore City seguían haciendo en lo que alguna vez habían sido sus casas y barriadas.

La Rda. Emily Schnabl, rectora de San Cristóbal, dijo que dos de cuatro familias de la parroquia que vivían cerca de la senda del tornado había sufrido daños en sus casas. Un día antes (el 29 de mayo), un equipo de voluntarios de la iglesia había ido a ayudarles y se animó a ayudar a otros también.

“No hubo presentaciones; uno sencillamente entraba en el patio de alguien y comenzaba a limpiar [escombros]”, dijo Schnabl que definió la devastación en Facebook como “una herida abierta de 27 kilómetros, a cielo abierto… No hay lugar para tomarlo con calma”.

Schnabl dijo que la inmensidad de la devastación era “inenarrable, los objetos de las casas a la intemperie, todo hecho escombros, todo pulverizado… No soy capaz de ponerlo en palabras en este momento”.

Snyder —nativo de Oklahoma, que también respondió durante el atentado terrorista al Edificio Federal Alfred P. Murray en 1997 y a la serie de tornados de 1999 que mató a docenas de personas y causó miles de millones de dólares en daños— dijo que no sólo era lo que se veía y lo que se oía, sino también los olores, lo que lo remontaban al pasado.

“El olor de todo es diferente”, explicó. “Hay tanto polvo y churre en todas partes que incluso cuando lo ves después en la televisión te regresa el olor. Parece que sencillamente se queda en el aire”.

Para los socorristas y otras personas que presencian la devastación  “resulta muy emotivo a veces”, agregó. Como por ejemplo ver el ganado atravesado por objetos volantes y que tiene que ser destruido.

Y el agente que descubrió los cadáveres de una madre con su bebé. “Vino a hablarme de eso al día siguiente. Le martilleaba mucho”,  afirmó. “No pudo irse a dormir durante un tiempo. Se mantuvo trabando, creía que no había logrado rescatar al bebé a tiempo, de manera que yo he proseguido y he logrado ayudar a alguien”. En definitiva, “todo consiste en estar a disposición de las personas en una situación de crisis”, dijo Snyder. “A veces, es una crisis espiritual, a veces es física, pero consiste en estar presente cuando la gente está necesitada o cuando ha tocado fondo y tratar de sacarlas a flote”.

Jera Kiespert y su familia saben de qué se trata.

El tornado del 20 de mayo destruyó el hogar de los Kiespert en Moore, pero, al cabo de unos pocos días, la iglesia episcopal de Santa María [St. Mary’s Episcopal Church] en Edmond les dio un lugar donde vivir, y mucho, mucho más, dijo ella durante una entrevista telefónica con ENS el 30 de mayo.

Kiespert, una maestra que también dirige varios coros de niños, dijo que lo primero que vio cuando salió de un refugio para tormentas el 21 de mayo luego del tornado, fue a un vecino que intentaba sacar a su esposa de los astillados restos de su casa.

“Yo no estaba preparada para ese espectáculo”, dijo ella. “Me quedé en shock; vi a otros vecinos salir trepando de los escombros, la gente me enviaba mensajes de texto, el teléfono sonaba”. Al cabo de unos días, luego de quedarse en hoteles y en casas de familiares y amigos, recibieron una asombrosa invitación: el uso de una casa propiedad de la iglesia de Santa María, donde ella y Jason habían sido anteriormente miembros del coro y donde sus hijos habían sido bautizados.

“Es una estupenda historia de mayordomía”, dijo el Rdo. Mark Story, rector de Santa María. “Recibimos la casa como un legado” de un feligrés que murió hace aproximadamente dos años. “Su donación fue en verdad bastante sorprendente para la iglesia e hizo posible que Jera y Jason y sus hijos tengan ahora un lugar donde estar. Estamos sinceramente agradecidos”.

Para Jera Kiespert, de 35 años, no fue nada menos que milagroso.

“Recibimos una llamada de un amigo acerca de la casa” quien les llevó la llave al día siguiente.

“Es una casa bella y lo que resultó más sorprendente aun fue que, entramos en ella y las damas de la iglesia habían estado allí”, contó. “Había camas con sábanas acabadas de tender, y toallas limpias, había suministros en la cocina. Era tan bueno entrar en una casa y sentir que es un hogar”, añadió con lágrimas en los ojos.

“Cuando uno piensa en eso, no son más que cosas, pero son importantes también. Nos dieron tarjetas de regalo, dinero para víveres, había ropa y juguetes para los niños. Es muy tranquilizador para una madre ver que sus hijos pasan por algo como esto y luego encontrarse en un nuevo sitio con juguetes y sentir que vamos a estar bien, que vamos a estar bien”, recalcó.

“La gente ha estado animándonos mucho, con ayuda y con oraciones, con llamadas telefónicas, hemos sentido mucho amor y apoyo, es realmente asombroso. En verdad resulta difícil cuando estas acostumbrada a ser de los que dan y tienes que estar entre los que reciben, es algo aleccionador”.

Story dijo que habilitar la casa de cuatro dormitorios “fue una bendición para la iglesia.

“Muchísimas personas querían hacer algo físico, y limpiar la casa y tenerla lista les dio a muchísimos feligreses una oportunidad de hacer algo que los relacionaba físicamente con la tragedia de Moore. Fue una bendición para la familia, una bendición para la parroquia, sencillamente fue algo bueno”.

La iglesia había estado planeando alquilar la casa, pero se la ofrecieron gratis a los Kiespert; la póliza de seguro que ellos tenían les ha cubierto algunos gastos de vivienda temporal, añadió.

Los niños de la escuela de Santa María también enviaron tres camiones de alimentos y otros artículos a los centros de acopio, siguió diciendo Story. “También hicieron con pedazos de tela pañuelos de oración y se los enviaron a los niños como mantitas de consuelo.

“Los niños iban orando según los hacían”, contó Story. “Fue ahí donde cambiaron su foco de atención después de haber enviado los artículos de ayuda”.

El Rdo. José McLoughlin, canónigo del Ordinario en la Diócesis de Oklahoma, dijo el 30 de mayo que los empeños de limpieza y recuperación se encuentran todavía en etapas muy iniciales y que se aceptan de buen grado las contribuciones económicas, las oraciones y cualquier otra ayuda.

“Gran parte de lo que hacemos es compartir información y seguir proporcionando recursos para necesidades a corto plazo, a personas que necesitan ropa, tarjetas de regalo [de tiendas] y ayuda para vivienda”, explicó.

La Cruz Roja Americana y la Agencia Federal para el Control de Emergencias (FEMA), han abierto centros, a través de toda la ciudad, para dejar donaciones, así como han coordinado el trabajo voluntario. Él sigue en consulta con Ayuda y Desarrollo Episcopales y otras agencias, en tanto los empeños de ayuda y recuperación continúan desarrollándose.

“Hasta el momento, el dinero es lo mejor que se puede dar”, dijo. “Se han comunicado con nosotros personas de fuera del estado que quieren venir y ayudar, y de seguro que coordinamos con ellos… pero ni siquiera llevamos una semana de limpieza”.

Él hizo énfasis en que la necesidad durará largo tiempo, especialmente una vez que los medios de prensa se hayan ido. “Queremos hacer las cosas inteligentemente y no duplicar esfuerzos y cerciorarnos de que las personas sepan que no serán olvidadas, tanto a corto plazo como a largo plazo”, añadió.

“Queremos ser parte de la solución, sea quien fuere el que esté haciendo la necesaria labor de recuperación… Una vez que las personas tengan una mejor idea de lo que van a hacer sus compañías de seguro, sabremos mejor donde están las deficiencias en servicios y viviendas y podremos ayudar en eso”.

El aluvión de apoyo ha sido abrumador  tanto de dentro como de fuera de Oklahoma. “Hay un tremendo espíritu aquí”, resaltó. “Los oklahomenses son gente optimista… y ellos sencillamente se han mostrado dispuestos a ayudar”.

Kiespert está de acuerdo. “Ha habido mucho apoyo. La gente se ha ofrecido ha lavar la ropa, a cuidarnos los niños, [a responder a] cualquier necesidad. No puedo describirlo, es tan asombroso, el altruismo de la gente de echar una mano y tratar de lograr que la vida de otra persona se recobre”.

En medio de la devastación, Kiespert experimentó muchas más señales de esperanza. Aunque el hogar de ellos quedó destruido, su dormitorio sigue aún en pie, y ella pudo rescatar algunos muebles, álbumes de fotos y una muñeca de cerámica, hecha en el siglo XIX, que había sido un regalo de su abuela.

No pudieron llevarse al perro al albergue, y ella lo dio por muerto. Pero Jason, su marido, lo encontró ileso en la entrada de autos.

Celebraron el 29 de mayo, día en que Jason cumplió 37 años.

“Le dije que yo tenía que cocinar porque esa era nuestra tradición, de manera que me puse a trastear en esta cocina nueva y asé algunos pollos y nuestro nuevo vecino se apareció con esta maravillosa torta de chocolate. Comimos torta y le cantamos el Happy Birthday a Papá y vimos TV y todo fue normal y magnífico.

“Estoy viviendo al día y recomponiendo las cosas. Mi máxima prioridad fue garantizar que mis niños se sintieran seguros y que tuvieran un hogar y, una vez que pudimos venir aquí, su actitud cambió, su conducta cambió, supieron que era aquí donde íbamos a estar y que íbamos a estar bien. Como madre, eso fue extraordinariamente gratificante”.

–La Rda. Pat McCaughan es corresponsal de Episcopal News Service y está radicada en Los Ángeles. Traducción de Vicente Echerri.