Updated.Until Mary Frances Schjonberg files her story, we will be without a first hand account, but email communication with some of those present suggests that some members of the council thought that the Presiding Bishop was beginning to make the case for a style of governance that concentrated more authority in the hands of bishops and the Church Center staff at the expense of clergy and laity.
When I consider the carefully crafted emails about deep pastoral issues that appear in my inbox in the middle of the night, I know we cannot ignore the radical changes of the last ten years, nor can we disregard the evolutions in the years to come. Time on the computer is real ministry.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has suggested that the Episcopal Church may be governing itself to death. Do you agree?
For those disaffected by recent decisions to bless the unions of gays and lesbians, Bishop Clarke will formally present the scheme for alternative oversight to diocesan council in January.
His bishop writes, “I tried often and unsuccessfully to get Monsignor to agree to an assisted living facility in his last few years of life and he successfully withstood me. He found security, comfort and continued meaning for his priestly life…”
Americans believe the messages propounded from churches may just be exacerbating the issue of suicides among gay and lesbian youth.
One of the lovely things about social media is being able to see things shared. As we become more and more connected through Facebook and Twitter and other social media services, we’re apt to discover things we might not otherwise have: from a community forming to remember the VTS Chapel, to creativity in friends we didn’t know about, to new tools that make the abundance of information easier to browse and share.
News reports from Zimbabwe indicate that two Anglican bishops might be targets for assassination.
A profile on recent innovations in congregational development shows how consultants to declining churches are having to ask necessary but often heartbreaking questions.
Andrew Greeley has written in final book and in it he says that Chicago Catholics like the Pope, respect the church but don’t like being told how to conduct their sex lives and think the mass is deadly dull.