wfn.org | [ACNS] Anglican Digest 19 November 2004

[George Conklin <gconklin@igc.org>]

The following (10 items) is a compilation of the ACNS Digest articles
posted during this week, including reports from South America, Canada,
England, the Congo, Myanmar, Australia, and North India. The ACNS Digest
and its archive can be found here:

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/digest/index.cfm

(227) 19-November-2004 - Southern Cone gives full support to Primate -
South America

[Iglesia Anglicana del Cono Sur de America - Southern Cone ]

Resolution of Provincial Synod of the Southern Cone,
Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, 2-4 November 2004

FULL SUPPORT OF THE PROVINCE FOR ITS PRIMATE

As a synod we give thanks for the Windsor Report and all those that were
committed to its preparation. It offers valuable tools to the Communion
with which our serious problems can be addressed regarding the authority
of the Scripture, order in the Church and the crisis over human
sexuality that two provinces of the Communion have created by taking
"rebellious and unilateral actions".

Nevertheless it worries us that the report has not made a clearer call
to repentance on the part of the Episcopal Church of the United States
and the Anglican Church of Canada. They are the ones that have clearly
taken decisions and endorsed practices against the Holy Scriptures and
the apostolic tradition of two thousand years of ethical teaching of the
Church and against the clear voice of the Communion. This synod insists
on what our bishops said in their pastoral letter of February 2004, that
our relationship with these provinces "can only be restored through
repentance, pardon and love".

In addition it is our hope that the Primates will set down mechanisms
and limits by which the unity of the Communion can be assured in the
future.

This synod, conscious that the next meeting of the Primates, that will
take place in Ireland in February of 2005, will need clear consultation
from all over the Communion and observing the need that those parts of
the Church, especially in the Americas, that have remained faithful in
their life and testimony - as many dioceses, bishops, parishes and
individuals have - should receive adequate pastoral care, give our
Primate, the Most Reverend Gregory Venables, our full and total support
in his responsibilities, consultations and tasks. We pray that the Lord
will be with him and fill him with grace and wisdom.

(226) 19-November-2004 - Primate starts webcast series - Canada

The Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, the Most Revd Andrew
Hutchison has said that among his priorities as Primate are
communications and the building of relationships - "drawing people into
the conversation." As an innovative means of doing this, he has started
a series of webcasts entitled +Andrew: Conversations with the Primate.

To view the webcasts, click here:

http://www.anglican.ca/primate/communications/conversations.html

(225) 17-November-2004 - On Fallujah, Bishops of Coventry and Bath &
Wells - England

FALLUJAH FEARS

Joint Statement from The Bishop of Coventry and The Bishop of Bath and
Wells

We write as two Anglican Bishops who visited Iraq in 1999 and who
witnessed the terrible suffering of the Iraqi people under the double
insult of Saddam_s brutal dictatorship and the UN sanctions regime. We
wish to express our dismay at the outcome of events since the end of the
second Gulf war and, in particular, the recent attack on Fallujah.
Whilst acknowledging that terrible atrocities have clearly taken place
in and around that region we are deeply disturbed at the emerging
tragedy. In particular we would highlight three issues.

First, the humanitarian fallout from the military attack. Many, perhaps
the majority of civilians, left before the battle started. Those
remaining were either insurgents or the poor and the elderly who had
literally nowhere to go. The figures for _co-lateral damage_ that are
emerging are unacceptable in a society that prides itself on civilised
values. It is essential that immediate aid is delivered to the most
vulnerable in Fallujah and that longterm assistance is guaranteed for
the rebuilding of the homes and infrastructure that have been
obliterated.

Secondly, we need to acknowledge that huge numbers of Iraqi Muslims (and
in particular those from the Sunni Triangle) increasingly regard the
current military action as a war between religions. The battle for
Fallujah began on one of the holiest days on the Muslim calendar, the
day when the giving of the Koran is celebrated. In a culture where
symbolic deeds generally carry more weight than in the West we cannot
disentangle the actions of what is perceived to be a Christian
government from the backlash against local Christians as seen in the
bombing of Christian churches.

Thirdly, we wish to insist that those waging war on terror take
seriously the systemic nature of evil. There is a perception that
bombing cities may at times be thought desirable or even necessary (we
demur from that view), but that quasi-territorial approach fails utterly
to take account of the deeply held sense of antipathy towards much of
what we call western freedoms. Driving the insurgents from Fallujah may
prove to be little different from swatting a fly which then goes to lay
its eggs elsewhere.

We wish to affirm that the kind of dialogue modelled by the Iraqi
Institute for Peace is a positive way forward which should be welcomed
by both our great faith traditions. The leadership given by many Iraqi
religious leaders in this area is encouraging. We, as Anglican Church
leaders, pledge our support for this approach believing that working for
justice, peace and reconciliation is a God-given imperative.

ENDS

+Colin Coventry (The Rt Revd Colin Bennetts) +Peter Bath and Wells (The
Rt Revd Peter Price)

For further information Revd Mervyn Roberts (Diocesan Director of
Communications) 01926 426922

(224) 17-November-2004 - Sermon at Rochester for the 1400 celebrations -
England

The Archbishop of Canterbury gave the sermon at Rochester Cathedral last
week on the occasion of celebrations to mark the 1400 year anniversary
of the diocese. The full text of the sermon can be found here:

http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/sermons_speeches/041110.html

The web site of Rochester Diocese, with photographs from the event, can
be found here:

http://www.rochester.anglican.org

(223) 16-November-2004 - CMS supports Congo women initiative - Congo

The extraordinary work of three women in Bukavu, who set up a small
counselling and referral centre for thousands of eastern Congo's rape
victims after the war, is surfacing in the West.

The women - known for security reasons just as Cecile, Jeanne and Ruth -
are seeking justice for some of these women, but being officially
discouraged.

"Not one case has been taken up in the local courts. They told me they
had been officially discouraged and their mail has been intercepted",
said Philip Bingham, CMS (Church Mission Society) Manager for the Great
Lakes Region who visited the region last March.

CMS is backing the Church of Congo's call for justice for the tens of
thousands of women raped since 1996 during seven years of war in the
East, which officially ended in July 2003. 40,000 cases have been
recorded in Central Congo alone - and CMS is focussing its Autumn Appeal
on the crisis.

More here:

http://www.cms-uk.org/_press/2004/10_11_2004.htm

(222) 16-November-2004 - USPG starts Myanmar Church project - Myanmar

USPG (United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel) Projects is
launching a new project to support the work of the Church of Myanmar
(Burma). In 2004, we are sending nearly ?90,000 to fund education,
development and health care initiatives set up by the church to benefit
some of the country's most isolated communities.

More here:

http://www.uspg.org.uk/news2004/newsaut25.htm

(221) 16-November-2004 - Sydney launches new website - Australia

Sydney Diocese of the Anglican Church of Australia now has a new web
site. It can be found here:

http://www.sydneyanglicans.net/

(220) 16-November-2004 - CNI first-phase training programme concluded -
North India

The first phase of training twenty thousand young people for leadership
in the Church of North India in a year was ceremoniously concluded
yesterday at the Centre for Human Potential Development, Nagpur.
Delivering the valedictory address, the Revd Enos Das Pradhan, General
Secretary of the Church of North India, blessed and commissioned the
thirty seven boys and girls who underwent the intensive training with a
challenge to be servant leaders wherever they are placed. He gave away
certificates and training manual to all the trainees while Mr Sudipta
Singh, Director of Programmes, CNI, presented each of them with a
sapling as an image of leadership at the Synod to take and plant in
their Dioceses as a source of inspiration and encouragement for
developing leadership temperament in young people. Those gathered
represent twenty Dioceses in the eastern, western and northern parts of
India such as Agra, Amritsar, Bhopal, Barrackpore, Chandigarh,
Chotanagpur, Cuttack, Durgapur, Delhi, Eastern Himalayas, Gujarat,
Jabalpur, Kolhapur, Lucknow, Nagpur, Patna, Phulbani, Pune, Rajasthan
and Sambalpur.

A specifically designed manual was used for the training and given to
the participants as they have to organise the similar kind of programme
in their respective Dioceses as soon as they go back. Based on theology,
concepts were imparted on servant leadership in the context of
pseudo-spiritualism seen in the church, heightened poverty shaking the
bone of national economy, consumeristic whims and fancies of the rich,
patriarchal injustice to women, globalisation of economy, culture and
religion, peace and conflict resolution, communal harmony and
inter-faith relations, ecological threats and youth movement.

A team of highly resourceful people who facilitated different sessions
includes Dr Ipe Joseph (General Secretary, NCCI), Mr Sudipta Singh
(Director, Programmes, CNI), Dr Sunil Caleb (Professors, Ethics,
Bishop's College), Dr Roger Gaikwad (Director, Extension Education,
Senate of Serampore), the Revd Packiam T Samuel (Executive Secretary,
Inter-faith Relations, NCCI), Ms Sanjana Das (Coordinator, Children
Concern, CNI), Mrs Rachael Pradhan (Coordinator, Women and Gender
Concern, CNI), Ms Moumita Biswas (Associate Secretary, Mission and
Evangelism, NCCI), Mr Dinesh Suna (Executive Secretary, Ecumenical Youth
Formation, NCCI) and Mr Kasta Dip (Coordinator, Youth Concern, CNI).

As testified by the participants, the programme has served the purpose
of developing youth leadership in the Dioceses of CNI to be the agents
of transformation for the community they live in.

The training was inaugurated on 22 October 2004 at the same venue by Dr
Ipe Joseph, General Secretary, National Council of Churches in India
(NCCI).

http://www.cnisynod.org/

(219) 15-November-2004 - Murdered hostage remembered in Cathedral
service - England

Liverpool Cathedral in England held a memorial service on Saturday 13
November for the murdered British hostage, Kenneth Bigley, who was
kidnapped in mid-September by a group in Iraq calling for the release of
prisoners. He was killed some three weeks later. More can be found here:

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3754165

(218) 15-November-2004 - CRS President elected suffragan bishop - Canada

The Revd Canon Philip Poole, President of the Compass Rose Society, was
elected Suffragan Bishop of the Diocese of Toronto, Saturday, November
14. For full details, click here:

http://www.toronto.anglican.ca/index.asp?navid=2&csid=444&csid1=2&csid2=
0&fid1=&fid2=-888&fid3=276&layid=18

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