Episcopal Press and News
News Brief
Episcopal News Service. July 9, 1981 [81198]
The Rt. Rev. Philip Russell, 61, Bishop of Natal, has been elected Archbishop of Capetown and Metropolitan of the Church of the Province of South Africa to succeed the Most Rev. Bill Burnett who retires at the end of August.
A deadlock between Bishop Desmond Tutu, general secretary of the South African Council of Churches and auxiliary bishop of Johannesburg, and Bishop Michael Nuttall of Pretoria, led to the election of Russell, a compromise choice. Russell is a strong critic of apartheid and has often called for radical change in South Africa.
The Anglican Church of Canada has launched "Anglicans in Mission," a three-year program designed to stimulate a new awareness of mission and a new commitment to meet the financial needs and opportunities of the Church at home and overseas. The project calls for a year of study and a major fund-raising campaign with a goal of $20 million. The Rev. Canon W. Ebert Hobbs, membership development officer for the Canadians for the past year and formerly a priest in the Episcopal Church, has been named director of the program.
Episcopal Bishop John T. Walker of Washington has announced that Washington Cathedral has received a $700,000 gift for its $15.5 million capital campaign from Mr. and Mrs. Joe L. Allbritton. The gift, which will be used to fund past and present construction in the west facade and Pilgrim Observation Gallery of the cathedral, brings the campaign total past $10 million. The campaign is scheduled to run for another 18 months.
The Rev. Leonard W. Freeman has been called to head Trinity Parish's office of communication, it has been announced by the Rev. Robert R. Parks, rector. Freeman, who comes to Trinity from the rectorship of St. James' Church in Perkiomen, Collegeville, Pa., where he has served since 1975, will join the Trinity staff on Aug. 3. Freeman has spent three years in doctoral study in communications at Temple University and 11 years on the staff of The Episcopalian as film critic and contributing editor. At Trinity he will be responsible for all communication and public relations needs of the parish. He succeeds the Rev. William B. Gray who died last November.
The Rev. James Parker, former provincial vicar of the Anglican Society of the Holy Cross, has moved with his family from Albany, Ga., where he was an Episcopal parish priest, to join the staff of Bishop Bernard Law of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau. He has become the first married Episcopal priest to be received into the Catholic Church under a plan announced by the Vatican in August 1980. Although he has been received as a layman into that Church, the former Episcopalian hopes he will soon be accepted as a married Roman Catholic priest. The Vatican appointed Law in March as its "ecclesiastical delegate" to carry out its decision to admit former Episcopal priests into the Catholic priesthood.
The Colorado Supreme Court has declined to override the Colorado Court of Appeals in a case concerning ownership of St. Paul's Church, Central City, a mission of the Diocese of Colorado. As a result, the historic church remains within the Episcopal Church. Controversy over ownership of the church began in September 1977 when a faction of the small congregation, with its then-vicar, disassociated itself from the Episcopal Church but retained possession of the building. The Diocese claimed ownership and brought suit. In October 1979, a District Court ruling held that title to the real and personal property of St. Paul's was vested in the Diocese; this judgment was affirmed by the Colorado Court of Appeals last December.