wfn.org | Episcopalians: Carey dedicates Hispanic mission in Diocese of Chicago

[dmack@episcopalchurch.org]

November 6, 2002

2002-256

Episcopalians: Carey dedicates Hispanic mission in Diocese of 
Chicago

by David Skidmore

(ENS) The public ministry of the 103rd Archbishop of Canterbury 
ended in a Northern Illinois blue-collar town on the shore of 
Lake Michigan October 19 with Dr. George L. Carey doing what he 
loves best--celebrating the emergence of a vigorous faith 
community.

Joined by Bishop William Persell and Assistant Bishop Victor 
Scantlebury of the Diocese of Chicago, Carey helped consecrate 
the church building and furnishings of the diocese's newest 
mission: Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe (Our Lady of Guadalupe) in 
Waukegan, and welcome its members to the worldwide Anglican 
Communion.

Despite a raw wind and temperatures in the high 40s, over 300 
people attended the outdoor liturgy, many of them from Nuestra 
Senora's partner parish, Church of the Holy Spirit in Lake 
Forest, and Christ Church, Waukegan where the Latino 
congregation worshipped for its first 10 years. Also on hand 
were diocesan staff and clergy from the local deanery. 
Waukegan's Mayor Richard Hyde, who arranged the staging, seating 
and sound system for the service, attended along with local 
Christian clergy and a dozen SWAT team members who maintained a 
tight security cordon around the event.

Carey offered some comfort to the wind-whipped crowd by 
thanking church members and visitors "for laying on some very 
good English weather here this afternoon. I am sure that this 
church is going to warm many hearts in the days ahead."

For members of Nuestra Senora, Carey's prediction comes true 
each Sunday when over 200 people fill the pews for the 
Spanish-language service. The turnout, a testimony to the 
pastoral gifts of Nuestra Senora's vicar, the Rev. Narciso Diaz, 
is a reminder of the need and opportunity for the church's 
outreach to Latinos, the fastest growing community in the 
Chicago metropolitan area. In Waukegan, the Hispanic community 
has more than doubled in the past 10 years--now standing at 40 
percent of the 90,000 residents--and similar growth is occurring 
in other suburbs and Chicago neighborhoods.

This mission opportunity figured prominently in Scantlebury's 
sermon. The Anglican Communion, he noted, has always regarded 
itself as a missionary church. "We have always followed Christ's 
command to be a mission of love to the world," he said. "More 
than being on a mission, more than merely carrying out a 
mission, we are the mission." 

Paying forward a favor

That principle has been taken to heart by members of Church 
of the Holy Spirit in neighboring upscale Lake Forest. For their 
centennial year celebration, parishioners realized they had a 
golden opportunity to pay forward the favor from a century ago 
when Trinity Episcopal Church in Highland Park started a mission 
church in Lake Forest that eventually grew to become the 
diocese's largest parish. Holy Spirit's rector, the Rev. George 
Councell, suggested a special fund to help purchase a former 
Lutheran church and daycare center in Waukegan that would become 
Nuestra Senora's permanent home. 

With assistance from bishop and trustees--the real estate 
management agency of the diocese--Church of the Holy Spirit 
negotiated a lease-purchase of the five acre site on North 
Butrick Street, and in late May members of Nuestra Senora 
celebrated their first service in the cinder block building. The 
once stark space was transformed into an Anglican church using 
pews, altar vessels and linens, and the baptismal font from the 
former Christ Church, Harvard.

Facing a narrow window of opportunity--Carey would be in Lake 
Forest in just five months--Holy Spirit launched a spirited fund 
drive that by the end of the summer had netted over $700,000 for 
the purchase of the Waukegan property. Just a week before 
Carey's arrival, Holy Spirit completed the purchase. 

The team effort was noted by Carey in comments to reporters 
after the service. "It's a wonderful story, isn't it?" he said. 
"A wonderful story of cooperation and partnership in the 
church." 

Stay rooted in the historic faith

During his three-day visit to the diocese--his final visit as 
archbishop of Canterbury to an Anglican Communion 
province--Carey joined members of Church of the Holy Spirit in 
celebrating its centennial, preaching at both the Sunday morning 
Eucharist and a Choral Evensong. 

In his sermon at Evensong, Carey urged the congregation to 
stay "rooted in the historic faith of the church." While this 
would seem self-evident to most Christians, he said, it has 
surprised him how often he has to stress this point in his 
travels. No longer is it liturgy or churchmanship that sparks 
divisions, but how we understand foundational beliefs like the 
Trinity, he said.

"For instance do we or do we not truly believe that God 
Revealed himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit? Whether or not 
the Christian revelation is for everybody? Whether or not the 
Scriptures are the final revelation of God? Whether or not the 
same scriptures declare God's moral demands about how we should 
live and conduct ourselves?" said Carey.

What he has found in his ecumenical contacts lately has been 
the "wonderful discovery" of common understanding of 
foundational beliefs among Catholics, Evangelicals, Charismatics 
and Anglicans. But this is not to say that "Godly liberalism" 
should be ignored, he said. "Indeed, the Episcopal, the 
Anglican, tradition has always given a welcome to a Godly 
liberal middle church tradition that accepts the faith of the 
church," said Carey. 

Where he has difficulty is with "radical liberalism that 
denies the truth the church has born witness to down the 
centuries." That approach, said Carey, is at odds with the broad 
church, and undermines the authority of Scripture, the source of 
our faith's foundational truths. "And we depart from them at our 
peril," he warned.

Carey also urged the congregation to be wary of succumbing to 
the prevailing culture. While the church must be rooted in the 
culture and common life, we must "never be controlled or shaped 
by it," he said. Instead, he noted, the Gospel "seeks to shape 
culture according to the norms and values of our faith." There 
may be times ahead, he added, "when the church will be an 
alternative culture, and an alternative community."

Drawing a comparison with Augustine, England's first 
archbishop of Canterbury, Carey said when he is asked how he 
wished to be remembered, his answer increasingly is as a 
missionary archbishop. "I found that story of Augustine very 
inspiring indeed," he said "because it says to each one of us 
that however weak, fallible and ordinary we may feel, we are 
special in God's sight."

------

--David Skidmore is director of communications for the Diocese 
of Chicago.