wfn.org | Episcopalians: News Briefs

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December 19, 2002

2002-283

Episcopalians: News Briefs

Agreement allows church to serve society, Canadian primate says

 

(ACC) An agreement between the Anglican Church of Canada and the 
Canadian government over liability for Indian residential 
schools will allow the church to continue to serve society and 
to forge new bonds with native people, the Anglican primate 
said. 

In a letter to church members posted on the Anglican Church of 
Canada's Web site, Archbishop Michael Peers said he is 
"profoundly encouraged" by the way Canadian Anglicans and 
Anglican dioceses have responded to the agreement. 

Under the terms of the agreement, all 30 Anglican dioceses must 
ratify and agree to contribute $25 million to a settlement fund 
over a five-year period. The agreement effectively ends the 
Anglican Church's involvement in costly litigation that was 
threatening the future of its national organization. 

>From 1820 to 1969, the Anglican Church of Canada was involved in 
residential schools. In 1911, the first contracts were signed 
between the Government of Canada and a number of dioceses. In 
1921, the Missionary Society of the Church in Canada began to 
assume those contracts. "In the words of the Bishop of Keewatin, 
a person with experience of the schools decades ago and a 
partner in dialogue with many former students, this was not a 
good system with a few bad people in it, but a deeply flawed 
system with many good people in it," Peers wrote. "In 1969 we 
abandoned participation in the schools, and began to forge a new 
relationship with aboriginal Canadians that would be rooted in 
justice, solidarity, and mutuality.

"More than twenty years later, former students of the schools 
began to come forward, alleging abuse at the hands of those in 
authority in the schools. Those allegations have prompted our 
church to come to terms with two painful realities. First, our 
partnership with the government in seeking the assimilation of 
aboriginal Canadians was itself a profound error. Second, some 
within the schools used their power to take advantage of the 
vulnerability of children," the primate wrote. 

In November, the Anglican Church of Canada and the government of 
Canada reached agreement on a settlement of validated claims of 
sexual and physical abuse in schools administered by the 
Anglican Church. "We are asking each diocese to consider the 
proposed agreement, and to make a financial commitment to the 
settlement fund," Peers said. Several dioceses have already 
ratified the agreement, and at least four dioceses that have 
ratified the agreement had no formal relationship with any of 
the schools, and therefore no legal liability. "That we 
recognize both a common 'moral liability' and a common vocation 
to ministry and mission in our society, whether or not we are 
directly and legally affected by the schools issue, is surely 
one of the strengths of this Anglican Church of Canada," said 
Peers. 

"This settlement is not about 'getting out of' anything," the 
letter emphasized. "It is instead a way of getting more deeply 
into the healing and reconciliation by which we can both 
strengthen our own common life and extend that life into mission 
in our society."

Lilly Endowment awards $1.6 million grant to Chicago

(ENS) Congregations and clergy in the Diocese of Chicago will be 
the beneficiaries of a $1.6 million grant from the Lilly 
Endowment Inc. for a pioneering clergy mentoring program. The 
grant, the largest the endowment has made in its 
Transition-into-Ministry Program, initiated in 1999, will fund 
the five-year "Making Excellent Disciples" pilot project being 
developed by the diocese's Department of Congregational 
Development and Deployment. 

The pilot project, the first of its kind in the Episcopal 
Church, aims to create and sustain pastoral excellence among new 
clergy and to recognize and revitalize excellence among 
established and effective clergy through a comprehensive 
training and mentoring program. Recently ordained clergy will 
spend their first two years of ordained ministry in a "mentoring 
congregation," stable congregations led by exemplary pastors. 
Then they will be placed in "mustard seed congregations," 
missions or parishes of fewer than 150 active members with a 
strong sense of mission and the potential for growth. 

"This program will allow us to take enthusiastic, promising 
ordinands and place them in some of our strongest mentoring 
congregations so they are better prepared for everyday realities 
as new ministry leaders," said Bishop William Persell, Chicago's 
diocesan bishop, in his grant application letter. 

In 2003 five congregations will be chosen as mentoring 
congregations with an additional five chosen in 2004. For the 
initial five-year pilot phase, 25 new clergy will be mentored by 
10 seasoned and successful pastors. They will spend their first 
two years as curates (a newly ordained assistant priest) in the 
mentoring congregations and then be assigned to serve in one of 
the 15 mustard seed congregations for at least three years. 

"This is a terrific grant to receive and promises to assist not 
only newly ordained clergy in Chicago in their further formation 
but also to have learnings for us all," said the Rev. Melford E. 
Holland Jr., coordinator of the Presiding Bishop's Office for 
Ministry Development." It connects in spirit with our Fresh 
Start program which seeks to provide resources for clergy, 
congregational leaders, and dioceses in the first two years of 
their new ministry together." The Diocese of Chicago is also a 
participant in Fresh Start.

Seminary hosts missionary training for first time

(ETSS) "People always ask me: 'Is the Episcopal Church still 
sending missionaries to foreign countries?'" says the Rev. Jane 
Crosby Butterfield, mission personnel office director of the 
Episcopal Church. As an indication that the church is still 
strongly committed to sending missionaries, she points to a 
two-week orientation program for 22 candiates on the campus of 
the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest in mid-January.

This marks the first time Butterfield will stage training 
sessions for Episcopalians only. Prior to this, orientation 
programs have drawn missionary trainees from many Protestant 
denominations and the sessions have been more ecumenically 
based. "We hope to make missionaries more visible in the 
Episcopal Church," Butterfield said.  "We need to have more 
focus for training in the worldwide Anglican Communion." 
Butterfield opened an extension office of the Mission Personnel 
Office of the Episcopal Church's Anglican and Global Relations 
office last summer on the Seminary of the Southwest campus when 
spouse, the Very Rev. Titus Presler, became dean and president 
of the seminary in June.

Titled "Cross Cultural Orientation for Mission 
Personnel--Ministry in the Dimension of Difference," the January 
18-31 session will bring missionary candidates to the Austin 
campus from throughout the country. The orientation program 
includes seminar discussions ranging from cross-cultural 
dynamics and mission identity to building Christian community 
from diversity and worship and spiritual formation for mission. 
Bible studies focusing on mission themes will be mixed with 
field trips in the Austin and San Antonio areas. Staff teachers 
will be coming from countries throughout the world, as well as 
the Episcopal Church Center. Presler and the Rev. Paul Barton, 
assistant professor of Hispanic studies at the seminary, will 
assist in the training. 

Mission destinations include Zambia, the north of Ireland, 
Kenya, Honduras, Jerusalem, Venezuela and Gambia. About 
one-third of the missionary candidates are members of the Young 
Adult Service Corps. Persons planning to become Volunteers for 
mission and appointed missionaries round out the orientation 
group. Missionaries serve for a renewable term of one to three 
years. Their work is funded by the missionary programs of the 
Episcopal Church Center and supporting dioceses and home 
parishes.

Former seminary dean named interim dean in Paris

(ETSS) The Very Rev. Durstan McDonald will be an American in 
Paris throughout much of 2003.

McDonald, dean emeritus of the Episcopal Seminary of the 
Southwest, will be interim dean and rector of the American 
Cathedral in Paris from January through at least September, 
2003. As interim dean, he will be the acting priest in charge of 
the parish, carrying out regular liturgical and administrative 
duties of the dean with the support of the cathedral's clergy, 
wardens and vestry.

For more than a century, the cathedral of Paris--formally known 
as the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity--has been a center 
of worship for English-speakers abroad. Located near the Seine 
in the heart of Paris, it draws visitors from throughout the 
world. Permanent parishioners number about 400. 

McDonald's tenure at the cathedral is expected to last until a 
search committee finds a new dean to succeed the Very Rev. Ernie 
Hunt retired in late 2002. During Hunt's leadership, the 
cathedral expanded its outreach from the local and national 
community to other nations in West and Central Europe.

Don't scapegoat gay clergy, Charleston tells O'Reilly

(ENS) Bishop Steven Charleston, president and dean of the 
Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was a 
guest on the Fox News program "The O'Reilly Factor" on December 
17.

The segment related to a recent Boston Globe editorial written 
by Bishops M. Thomas Shaw and Bud Cederholm of the Episcopal 
Diocese of Massachusetts challenging a recent Vatican statement 
implying a link between pedophilia and homosexuality.

"The real problem we're facing in the church is abuse, and the 
second big problem we're facing in the church is how the church 
hierarchy deals with the cases of abuse," Charleston told host 
Bill O'Reilly.

"It is a very, very big problem for gay people to combat that 
kind of stereotyping and prejudice, and it's a big problem for 
heterosexual people as well," Charleston said. "What we want are 
for gay people and heterosexual leadership to come together 
united to make sure that we simply don't tolerate this kind of 
abuse in the life of any church, and this is not just an issue 
for the Roman Catholic Church." 

In a letter to the editor of the Boston Globe, Charleston wrote, 
"The church cannot make homosexuals the scapegoats for its own 
failures, especially failures at the highest levels of its own 
administration. Rather, it should acknowledge that gay and 
lesbian persons always have, and always will, provide 
outstanding clergy and lay leadership for the Christian faith."

Episcopalians join commission commemorating historic Brown 
decision

(ENS) Two Episcopalians from parishes in the Diocese of Kansas 
are among those appointed by President George W. Bush to serve 
on a new commission charged with designing ways to commemorate 
the 50th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision 
Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka that effectively 
struck down school segregation in America.

Deborah Dandridge, a member of St. David's in Topeka and Jesse 
Milan of St. Martin's in Edwardsville, are two of the 21 members 
on the nationwide panel.

The group will design public education activities to mark the 
anniversary on May 17, 2004 of the court's decision that struck 
down the "separate but equal" policy in the United States. The 
commission was created by an act of Congress and was signed into 
law by President Bush in September 2001.

Dandridge, who is an archivist and researcher at the University 
of Kansas, was selected for membership by Topeka's Brown 
Foundation. Milan, who is president of the Kansas Chapter of the 
NAACP, was selected by Bush as one of the representatives of the 
state of Kansas. 

Dandridge said, "To me this commission represents one of the 
important ways our nation will be honoring a Supreme Court 
decision that revolutionized race relations and sparked hope for 
others around the world to work for social change without 
violence or war." Milan, who has been active in civil rights 
issues for decades, said, "This is one of the points in my life 
where I can do what I always have tried to do--make life better 
for people in the future."

Dandridge said one of the goals of the commission is to work 
with textbook companies to expand the information on the Brown 
case presented to schoolchildren. Milan agreed that information 
is critical to people's understanding of the case and its 
ramifications for American society. But he wants to push the 
commission to go further. "The group must address the greater 
question of equal protection under the 14th amendment," he said. 
"We have to look to the future and think about the kind of 
America we want."

Milan also said he hopes this new role will provide him the 
opportunity to visit with church groups about how they can 
participate in this commemoration and develop ways to discuss 
issues of race in their congregations. "It is a gift from God to 
have two Episcopalians on this commission," he said. "This 
really is a teaching moment."

Central New York bishop opposed Vietnam war, supported women's 
ordination

(ENS) The Rt. Rev. Ned Cole, retired bishop of the Diocese of 
Central New York, died December 16, 2002, at the age of 85 in 
Syracuse, New York. He became the seventh bishop of the diocese 
in 1969 and served until 1983. As bishop, Cole served the 
diocese during a tumultuous time for both the Episcopal Church 
and the country. He took stands on controversial issues 
including opposition to the Vietnam War, ministering to those 
who moved to Canada to resist the draft, opposition to the death 
penalty, and support for the ordination of women. 

Cole was known as a champion of the underdog and acted as both a 
spiritual and civic force in the community. He served as a 
member of the General Board of the National Council of Churches; 
as a member of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church 
representing Province II; and as a member of the Episcopal 
delegation to the Consultation on Church Union. He was also 
active in the New York State Council of Churches; the Human 
Rights Commission of Syracuse and Onondaga County, the Food Bank 
of Central New York, the Urban League of Onondaga County and the 
Syracuse Division of the New York State Commission on Human 
Rights. 

Cole was born and raised in California, Missouri, graduated from 
Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, and attended law school 
at the University of Missouri in Columbia. He was secretary to 
the Secretary of the State of Missouri from 1940-1942, and in 
the Air Transport Command of the Army Air Forces, from 
1942-1945. He graduated from the Episcopal Theological School in 
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and ordained deacon and priest by 
Bishop William Scarlett of Missouri. He served parishes in 
Columbia and Jefferson City, Missouri, and in 1956 was elected 
dean of Christ Church Cathedral in St. Louis.

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