Episcopal Press and News
News Brief
Episcopal News Service. July 21, 1976 [76245]
After waiving his right to an ecclesiastical trial, an Episcopal priest has been suspended for two months by the bishop of Central New York. The Rt. Rev. Ned Cole suspended Fr. Walter N. Welsh, rector of Grace Church here, because he allowed the Rev. Betty Bone Schiess to celebrate the Eucharist in his church last year "with knowledge that she was not licensed so to minister at that time and place," according to the charges earlier lodged against Fr. Welsh and Mrs. Schiess. Bishop Cole had first announced that the trials of the two ministers would be put off until after the General Convention in September and only took the further step of suspension when Fr. Welsh waived his right to a trial in a letter that said he did not believe that any court action of the diocese "can fairly deal with the issue of the Christian gospel in relation to women before or after the Episcopal Church Convention in Minneapolis this September." Mrs. Schiess is one of 11 women deacons who took part in a disputed ordination service in Philadelphia in July 1974.
A grant from the Social Ministry and Concerns office of the Episcopal Church Center was a key factor in helping a Diocese of Los Angeles parish develop a rehabilitation center. The $4,000 grant launched the Episcopal diocese and the Parish of Christ the Good Shepherd on their drive to raise $8,300. This enabled the parish to receive a $75,000 grant from the State of California to make the center a reality in this parish of largely elderly and disabled black people.
One of the largest world relief grants from any Episcopal diocese has come from the Diocese of Colorado in response to the earthquake in Guatemala. As of the end of June, diocesan officials reported that $64,649.61 had been raised for the quake victims. Of this, $25,000 went to the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief earmarked for Guatemala, $38,731.61 was sent directly to Bishop Anselmo Carral's emergency fund, and $918 was used in shipping tents and surgical supplies to relief camps in conjunction with the Diocese of Kentucky. The Rt. Rev. William C. Frey, Bishop of Colorado, was formerly Bishop of the Missionary Diocese of Guatemala.
Ecumenical talks that began in secret over 50 years ago were remembered and celebrated by Anglican and Roman Catholic prelates in services at Malines, Belgium, the site of those groundbreaking talks. The Anglican Archbishop of York, the Most Rev. Stuart Y. Blanch and the Roman Catholic Archbishop of MalinesBrussels, Carinal Leo Joseph Suenens, were the chief figures in the services of July 20 which commemorated talks held from 1920-25 in the Belgian town. Nothing substantial came of the talks which were curtailed by a Papal Encyclical and the death of the leading Roman Catholic ecumenist, Cardinal Leo Mercier, in early 1926, but a report issued two years later showed a concensus of opinion on a number of issues that have since formed the agenda of ecumenical dialog.
The translation of the Psalter made for the Episcopal Draft Proposed Book of Common Prayer (DPBCP) has been commended by a Lutheran worship commission for inclusion in a book of liturgies and hymns that body plans to release in late 1978. The Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship said that the DPBCP version -- which would be included in a Pan-Lutheran book of hymns and liturgies -- was chosen because it lends "itself better to corporate reading, and preserves the traditional English shape of the Psalms." The commission also called the version an adequate translation from a Biblical viewpoint and noted that it was mostly free of the "generic pronoun problem."
The former head of the American Episcopal Church (AEC) has been received as a layman into the Episcopal Church and will undertake seminary studies with the aim of re-entering the ordained ministry. Former Bishop Primus A. F.M. Clavier -- who is being sponsored by the Episcopal Bishop of Eau Claire, the Rt. Rev. Stanley Atkins -- will study at Nashotah House in Wisconsin. He led the Church -- which is an offshoot of the Episcopal Church -- for six years and no decision has yet been made on his successor.
Word has been received of the death in China of Dr. Francis Cho-min Wei, an educator and philosopher who was well known to American missionaries in China before the revolution. Dr. Wei was educated in China, the U.S.A. and England and served much of his professional life on the faculty and as president of Hua-Chung University in Wuchang, province of Hupeh. He was born in 1888.
An Episcopal and a Roman Catholic parish have become the seventh pair of Rhode Island parishes to enter into a covenant in which they pledge to pray for each other, carry on a dialog and hold at least one joint service a year. Episcopal Bishop Frederick H. Belden and Auxiliary Bishop K.A. Angell of the Catholic Providence Diocese witnessed the signing between St. Barnabas Roman Catholic Church and St. Mary's Episcopal Church.
The increasingly irrational violence of today is directly attributable to the fact that "young people are not given the proper guidance, " claims the Archbishop of York. In a speech here, the Most Rev. Stuart Y. Blanch asserted that violence is part of human nature but that its more virulent expressions come about because young people are "brought up with the notion that this universe is a meaningless and irrational thing with no-one in control. " The Anglican primate said a solution lay in discovering the "loving providence of God in the Bible" and went on to say that the "great majority of people in this country have never read the Bible in any intelligent way at all."
Eleven churches -- Protestant, Anglican, and Roman Catholic -- were represented in a six-day conference at the University of Dallas which attempted to explore "The Laity -- a New Direction. " The late June meeting sought to plan "a new initiative directed outside the church, permeating the totality of North American society," according to a statement issued at the end of the sessions. Seven Episcopalians, including members of the National Institute for Lay Training in New York, were among the 75 participants.
When 7,141 new citizens took the oath of allegiance to the United States here July 4, they heard the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Southeastern Florida, the Rt. Rev. James L. Duncan, give thanks for their new status and "their share and responsibility in our freedom." Bishop Duncan delivered the invocation at the Miami Beach Convention Center which was transformed into a federal court for the oath-taking ceremony.
Christians throughout the Soviet Union bolster and practice their faith with the help of a small group of people who collect funds and buy and supply religious books and worship manuals that are available in Russia. The Russian Student Christian Movement Abroad has been sending these materials into Russia for the last 15 years and, last year, received 14,290 books and 72,000 French francs for their work. They have raised half of $20,000 that they need to carry on their work this year. Inquiries can be directed to 91 rue Olivier de Serres, 75015, Paris, France.
Bishop Sotirios, head of the Greek Orthodox Church in Canada, has said that as far as his Church is concerned, "there can never be intercommunion with the Anglican Church if it has women priestesses. " He said that if the Anglican Church of Canada proceeds to ordain women to the priesthood in November, he will continue to work with Anglicans, as he does with Jews, Moslems, and Roman Catholics, but there could be no intercommunion. If the Canadian Anglicans ordain women to the priesthood, he said he will issue a decree forbidding Greek Orthodox faithful to attend Anglican churches. Bishop Sotirios, 39, heads a Church which has 200,000 members.
A special commission directed by Archbishop Donald Coggan of Canterbury has proposed a major reorganization of the Anglican Diocese of London which was founded in 314 A.D. The diocese now includes a 282-square-mile area north of the River Thames. The present four suffragancies, under the proposal, would be given diocesan status in all but name and the functions of the Rt. Rev. and Rt. Hon. Gerald A. Ellison, Bishop of London, and of the London Diocesan Synod would be drastically reduced. His responsibilities would be confined to the one-square-mile City of London, which includes St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, and the seat of government.
Bishops of the Church of England, on advice of their lawyers, have announced that women ordained to the priesthood by Anglican Churches abroad will not be permitted to celebrate the Eucharist in the Provinces of Canterbury and York. Lawyers for the House of Bishops said that the tradition of the Church has been to ordain men only and this has "the force of law." The Anglican Church of Canada is preparing to ordain its first women priests, possibly in November, and the Episcopal Church in the U.S. is expected to vote on the issue of ordination of women to the priesthood in September.