The Rev. Ann Holmes Redding, the Episcopal priest who has been told by Rhode Island Bishop Geralyn Wolf that she had until the end of March to recant her faith in Islam or face expulsion from the Episcopal priesthood, said Tuesday she still has no intention of doing so and realizes that by dawn Wednesday she may no longer be a priest.
Reached by phone as she was stepping into a language academy in Seattle where she has begun studying Arabic, Redding said she had spent part of Tuesday mourning her impending expulsion.
“There is an acknowledged sadness, because if it were not for the limited vision of one particular bishop I still might have been able to function as a priest.”
Although Redding has never ministered in Rhode Island since Bishop George N. Hunt, the then-bishop of Rhode Island, ordained her 25 years ago, she has remained, at least until now, under the jurisdiction of Rhode Island’s bishop because she has never changed her canonical residence.
Bishop Wolf — who plans to release a statement on Wednesday — initially called Redding back from Seattle in 2007 after learning, at a bishop’s meeting, that Redding had converted to Islam while continuing to serve in the Olympia, Wash., diocese as an Episcopal priest. Redding’s unusual step did not seem to raise the ire of the then-bishop of Olympia, who called her move innovative.
Bishop Wolf — who plans to issue a statement on Redding on Wednesday — said she became particularly concerned because Redding had publicly recited the Shahada, the statement of belief that is at the cornerstone of becoming a Muslim and that she was attending prayer services at a mosque in Seattle.
http://www.projo.com/religion/content/episcopal_muslim_priest_04-01-09_F3DT8I4_v15.36a8f35.html
1 comment:
There's so much wrong with this news item. The priest cannot remain a priest while professing the Islamic faith. It's not fair to her parishioners nor is it fair to her new faith because while both are monotheistic religions there is one thing that is absolutely irreconcilable and that is the doctrine of the trinity. If she no longer believes in that then she is Muslim, but if she does believe in it in its many manifestations, like the Nicene Creed, for example as well as the biblical verses that seem to codify that doctrine, then she cannot be Muslim. On some things you must choose sides; regrettably someone had to do it for her.
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