Episcopal Press and News
World Church in Brief
Diocesan Press Service. December 30, 1968 [72-20]
Ecumenically Speaking
Lord Fisher of Lambeth, former Archbishop of Canterbury, has asked for the rejection of a unity plan for the Church of England and the Methodist Churches of England. He said a rejection of the merger plan would make it possible to amend the proposal, making it acceptable to other free Churches and to the Roman Catholic Church.
The General Assembly of the Protestant Council of New York has adopted a new constitution, effective January 1, 1969, which will make it possible for the Roman Catholic Church to be eligible for membership. The new name will be "The Council of Churches of the City of New York, Incorporated. "
The Rt. Rev. Robert Mortimer, Bishop of Exeter and noted moral theologian of the Church of England, has proposed a simplified marriage service which could be used for divorced persons desiring to be married in the Anglican Church. The service would be "without frills" and might include a penitential preface.
The Rev. Canon T. D. Soverville, of Toronto, has been elected Suffragan Bishop of New Westminster, B. C. Since 1966 he has served as director of planning for the Anglican Church of Canada.
For information on summer voluntary service opportunities in the United States and overseas, send 50 cents for each copy of "Invest Yourself," together with name and address to: Commission on Youth Service Projects, 475 Riverside Drive, Room 832, New York, N. Y. 10027.
The Notre Dame Sisters, of Cincinnati, an order of Roman Catholic nuns, recently completed a 10-week experiment teaching Sunday School classes at St. James Episcopal Church. The sisters were recruited when the Church was unable to get teachers for its Sunday School program.
Mrs. David R. Hunter, of the Episcopal Church's Executive Council staff, is an Episcopal Church representative on a Joint Exploration Team of Church education leaders making plans to meet Church educational needs in the next twenty years. Other Churches represented on the "team" are the United Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., the United Church of Christ and the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. (Southern).
Wearing red cassocks in the choir of Christ Church Anglican Cathedral, Ottawa, were 38 convicts and 15 officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, plus the regular choristers of the Cathedral. At the close of the service officials counted noses and discovered there were only 37 prisoners present. They're still looking. The Rt. Rev. William Chadwick, Suffragan Bishop of Barking, has been named by the Archbishop of Canterbury to be chairman of the Commission on Roman Catholic Relations.
The Nixon cabinet includes four Presbyterians, three Roman Catholics, two Mormons, a Baptist, an Episcopalian and a member of the United Church of Christ.
Overseas
The Rt. Rev. John C. Vockler, Bishop of Polynesia, is leaving his Diocese to enter the Order of St. Francis in England. He preached his farewell sermon in the Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Suva, Fiji. The synod of the Anglican Church meeting at Durban, South Africa, was told to "set its own house in order" by white and Black members of the clergy, who said that the Church practiced discrimination in employment and educational policies. The synod voted a resolution condemning apartheid but failed to act on proposals to equalize pay for white and non-white clergy.
Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, has urged the Israeli government to "respond to urgent appeals in the United Nations and permit the immediate return of refugees and displaced persons to their homes on the west bank of the Jordan."
Two missionaries have been killed and eaten by cannibals in New Guinea, according to the account of Mrs. Patricia Dale, widow of one of the missionaries. The two slain men were Stanley Dale, an Australian, and Philip Masters, an American.
The Most Rev. F. Donald Coggan, Archbishop of York, has proposed a radical change in the Church's evangelizing techniques, suggesting that less money should go into buildings and more into "thinking, writing, radio and television."
At Home
The Washington, D.C., chapter of the Episcopal Society for Culture and Racial Unity has asked the Rt. Rev. William F. Creighton to resign immediately from a number of clubs and academic organizations which it says are restrictive toward Negroes and Jews.
Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University is teaching introductory New Testament Greek with the assistance of computers. The course, it was reported, has "resulted in superior student achievement. "
The Rt. Rev. Richard Millard, Suffragan Bishop of California, will transfer his office to San Jose, Calif., in a reorganization of the Diocese ordered by the Bishop of California, the Rt. Rev. C. Kilmer Myers. He will coordinate Church program in the southern part of the Diocese. The Rev. Spencer M. Rice, rector of St. Luke's, San Francisco, has been appointed executive director of the department of missions with the title of Archdeacon.
The Rev. Earl Neil, Jr., Episcopal priest and adviser to the Black Panther Party, has reported that the organization is growing rapidly in membership and its influence in Negro communities. He criticized the conviction of Huey Newton, founder of the Black Panthers, for manslaughter and said that Newton "did not receive an impartial trial by a jury of his peers."
The Rt. Rev. Noble C. Powell, 77, retired Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, died in Baltimore on November 28. He was Bishop of Maryland from 1943 until his retirement in 1963.
The Episcopalian, national publication of the Episcopal Church, reports that 18 Dioceses now allow 18-year-olds to vote in Diocesan conventions. Nine Dioceses, the magazine said, have no canonical age limits.
The Rt. Rev. Paul A. Kellogg, Bishop of the Dominican Republic, has been given a gift of $400 by the women of Christ Church, Dover, Del. The funds were raised through the sale of a cookbook, called "Recipes Retold."
The new attorney general of the state of Missouri, the Rev. John C. Danforth, an Episcopal priest, recently baptized his infant daughter in a service held at the Church of St. Michael and St. George, in suburban Clayton. He is an associate rector of the parish.
A union has been organized by 35 Episcopal priests in the Diocese of Oregon. They represent almost half of the Episcopal clergymen in the Diocese. The Oregon union is a chapter of the Association of Episcopal Clergy, a nationwide organization which seeks to "increase the effectiveness of the Church by seeking improvement in the conditions of life and work of the Church's clerical leadership. "