St. Alban’s officially opens outreach center

From Texas-

 Ella Evans, 6, had been using the new Reed Outreach Center at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church and School even before it officially opened on Friday.

Friday morning, about 450 people attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the center, located at 1417 E. Austin St.

The center is equipped with a rock wall, a stage and an audio-video system for recording school plays. The church will use it for church events including picnics and youth group activities as well as hosting and mission trips.

The opening coincided with the school’s celebration of Grandparents Day.

More here-

http://www.valleymorningstar.com/news/local_news/article_83f474aa-71fc-11e4-9aeb-f3cc87fe3b62.html

Bishops Endorse Ex-Episcopalian and Champion of the Poor Fr. Paul Wattson for Sainthood

From Aleteia-

Grace works in strange ways. The path to sainthood of Fr. Paul Wattson, whose cause for beatification was endorsed by the U.S. Conference of Catholics Bishops last week, may have begun with a practical joke one fateful day in 1844.

On that day Wattson’s father, Joseph Wattson, was kicked out of an Anglican seminary for joking that he was secretly a Jesuit.

The General Theological Seminary in New York City was cracking down on anything that smacked of  “Popery,” including the reading of the extremely popular tracts of John Henry Newman, which called for a return to the more liturgical traditions of the past.

More here-

http://www.aleteia.org/en/religion/article/bishops-endorse-ex-episcopalian-and-champion-of-the-poor-fr-paul-wattson-for-sainthood-5810098102337536

Praying for time

From The Economist-

MID sighs of relief from the many, and muffled groans from the few, the Church of England on November 17th at last approved the appointment of women bishops. At a meeting of the church’s General Synod, only around 30 of the 480 people present raised their hands against the necessary change in canon law. A woman could be wearing episcopal purple by next year.

This was a big, but expected, landmark. The change was favoured by most of the church’s leadership, the clergy (one-third of which is female), and public opinion. If this week is remembered as an important one by historians, it may be for a different reason: it was the moment when the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, acknowledged that the Anglican Communion, the global family of churches with a membership of about 80m, of which he is head, may be impossible to hold together.

More here-

http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21633899-disputes-over-women-bishops-are-least-anglican-churchs-problems-praying-time

‘New phase’ as Synod vote goes through

From The Church Times-

CLEARING the last legal hurdle to enable women to become bishops has started "a completely new phase of our existence as the Church", the Archbishop of Canterbury has said.

Speaking on Monday after the General Synod had formally voted to enact the women bishops Measure into law, Archbishop Welby said that, although the process had taken "a very, very long time", he was pleased that bishops could now be chosen on the basis of their abilities without regard to gender.

He also said that work had already begun to help the Church adjust to this development: "We are working very hard on the training and development of people, men and women, for senior positions in the Church."

More here-

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2014/21-november/news/uk/new-phase-as-synod-vote-goes-through

What Bishop Frade May Have Meant When He Called President Obama A Sodomite

From Miami-

Miami's downtrodden, disenfranchised and undocumented probably have no greater friend than Bishop Leopold Frade, spiritual leader of Southeast Florida's 33,000 Episcopalians.

The Cuba-born clergyman -- once the Bishop of Honduras -- authorized the South Florida diocese's first same-sex wedding in 2012. Five years before that, he demanded that the Bush Administration give protected status to 101 Haitians refugees who had washed ashore in South Florida after a three-week ordeal at sea. Even earlier, he was convicted of trading with the enemy for helping Cuban refugees make it to Florida after the Mariel boatlift (the conviction later was overturned).

More here-

http://wlrn.org/post/what-bishop-frade-may-have-meant-when-he-called-president-obama-sodomite

Pastors opposed to same-sex marriage vow not to participate in any civil ceremonies

From The Washington Post-

What’s the surest way conservative pastors can avoid any government mandate to perform same-sex marriages? According to one prominent religious journal and a growing number of ministers, the answer is not to perform any civil marriages at all.

First Things, a conservative religious publication, has launched a movement encouraging pastors to refuse to perform marriages as representatives of the state. A signing statement called “The Marriage Pledge” has been posted to the journal’s website, where ministers can affix their names electronically. The pledge was drafted by Ephraim Radner, an ordained Anglican and professor of historical theology at Toronto School of Theology’s Wycliffe College, and Christopher Seitz, an ordained Episcopal priest and senior research professor at Wycliffe.

More here-

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/pastors-opposed-to-same-sex-marriage-vow-not-to-participate-in-any-civil-ceremonies/2014/11/20/4f8c8ea6-70ed-11e4-a2c2-478179fd0489_story.html

Presiding Bishop calls for prayer for Liberia, West Africa

From ENS-

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has urged Episcopalians to observe the Second Sunday in Advent, December 7, as a day of prayer for those in the Diocese of Liberia and the entire Anglican Church of the Province of West Africa, areas heavily affected by the current Ebola pandemic.

“The Diocese of Liberia was founded by Episcopalians in 1836, and was a diocese of The Episcopal Church until the early 1980s, when it joined the Province of West Africa,” noted Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori. “Today we continue in a covenant relationship of mutual support and fellowship.”
She continued, “Liberia is at the epicenter of the recent Ebola outbreak, and Episcopalians have turned Cuttington University (Suakoku) into a center for response in rural northern Liberia.  

The Anglican Province of West Africa includes all three nations (Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone) where the pandemic continues to develop.  The suffering and death is enormous, the economy is devastated, schools are closed, yet the caring and compassionate response continues.”

More here-

http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2014/11/20/presiding-bishop-calls-for-prayer-for-liberia-west-africa/