wfn.org | [ACNS] News Digest 19 April 2005

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

The following is a roundup of the recent ACNS Digest stories, with
reports from New Zealand, Nigeria, Kenya, the US, South Africa, and
Lambeth Palace. The ACNS Digest can be found here:

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

(363) 19-April-2005 - Pacific Islanders in New Zealand celebrate - New
Zealand

Pacific Islanders gathered at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Parnell last
night (Sunday, April 17) to celebrate their first locally-based Anglican
bishop. The Rt Revd Dr Winston Halapua, who was born in Tonga, but a
Fiji citizen, has been installed as the first Bishop for the Diocese of
Polynesia in New Zealand.

He was inducted by Bishop Jabez Bryce, the Suva-based Diocesan Bishop of
Polynesia, supported by a number of local Anglican bishops - and
welcomed by a congregation of about 500, many of whom were decked out in
traditional Polynesian finery.

Bishop Halapua, who was one of three men consecrated in Suva's cathedral
the previous Sunday as new bishops for the Diocese of Polynesia, entered
the Parnell cathedral to the sound of Fijian drumming and the blowing of
a conch shell.

The congregation sang hymns and choruses accompanied by a 100 strong
choir and a band, children danced in the aisles, and everyone rose to
applaud Bishop Halapua when Bishop Bryce asked for their verdict on the
new appointment.

The service ended with a mass song and dance performance by dozens of
young Pacific Island New Zealanders, followed by a feast.

Among his other responsibilities, the Rt Revd Dr Halapua looks forward
to "taking part in a journey of a group of people - the Polynesians born
in New Zealand - who are exploring their identity."

That shouldn't be, he says, about forging a stand-alone identity. It
should be about contributing particular riches to the development of
Aotearoa New Zealand, honouring the Treaty of Waitangi - and it should
be grounded in an understanding of Christ.

Bishop Halapua will continue as the principal of the college of the
Diocese of Polynesia at St John's College in Meadowbank, and as a
lecturer in the School of Theology at the University of Auckland.

Ends

The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia comprises
three equal cultural strands - Tikanga Maori, Tikanga Pakeha and Tikanga
Polynesia. The Anglican Diocese of Polynesia serves Fiji, Tonga and
Samoa, and Pacific Islanders living in Aotearoa New Zealand.

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(362) 13-April-2005 - Make Anti-Corruption campaign all encompassing -
Nigeria

>From Church of Nigeria News

Make Anti-Corruption campaign all encompassing says Anglican Bishop

Abuja, April 12, 2005 - The Anglican Bishop of Kubwa, the Rt Revd Simon
Bala has urged the Nigerian government to make the on-going
anti-corruption campaign all encompassing.

Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo had in the last three weeks sacked
two of his ministers for alleged involvement in corrupt practices. The
swoop on corruption also led to the resignation of the country number
three man, the Senate President, Adolphus Wabara following his
indictment on a 55 million ($400,000) naira bribery scam.

In a communique issued at the end of the one-day inaugural council of
the Missionary Diocese of Kubwa, the Bishop also called on the
government to ensure that the National Political Reforms Conference was
not an exercise in futility.

Earlier, the Bishop in his inaugural address highlighted the major
interests of his administration. He encapsulated his mission statement
thus "The Diocese of Kubwa shall be a community of faith where each
member reflects the character of Christ and so becomes a catalyst for
the expansion of speedy consummation of God's kingdom.'

According to him the beginning of his tenure marked a good opportunity
to prove the saying that "the church exists by mission just like fire
exists by burning." The Bishop said the vision of the diocese will give
priority to evangelism, rural development and education. He, however
underscored the financial responsibility required to realize the vision
even as the new diocese- mainly rural based- had enjoyed a comfort zone
from her parent diocese, Abuja.

He proposed a Budget of Sacrifice saying "you would have to pay an
assessment that is a bit unusual from the former one. We appeal to all
churches to accept this budget and the assessment given as a sacrifice
they have to make.'

The council accepted the budget and further constituted an investment
and development committee with the sole aim of putting the new diocese
on a sound economic footing.

Already plans are underway to develop a 20-hecatare of land belonging to
the diocese in Paegei, Kuje area council and a health centre located in
Sokoa, along the Airport road, is to receive immediate attention.

The Missionary Diocese of Kubwa, carved out of the Diocese of Abuja was
inaugurated on March 12, 2005 at the Cathedral of St. Bartholomew Kubwa.

(Church of Nigeria News)

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(361) 12-April-2005 - Kenyan bishops demand fair trade - Kenya

>From the East African Standard (Nairobi)

By Dennis Lumiti

Anglican bishops in Western Province have announced they will lead
demonstrations in the region this Friday to protest what they termed
trade injustices against Africans.

The six bishops said they would lead the faithful in a variuos
activities running over one week to mark the "Global Trade Week of
Action". More here:

http://www.eastandard.net/archives/cl/hm_news/news.php?articleid=17664&d
ate=11/4/2005

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(360) 12-April-2005 - Who's bringing up our children? - Lambeth

Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Revd Rowan Williams

Formation: Who's bringing up our children?
Citizen Organising Foundation lecture,

Queen Mary University of London, Mile End
Monday 11 April 2005

A few years ago a book was published by Hillary Clinton under the title,
It Takes a Village to Raise a Child, and while that title and some of
the content reflects a slightly sentimental American approach to many of
these matters, the issue that is flagged up in those words and that
title is a focal one. Children are not brought up, are not educated or
inducted into human society just by one or two people. The whole of the
social complex of which they're part makes them the persons they are.
And that is true whether we like it or not, whether we notice it or not.
When a culture ignores or sidelines the question of what it actually
wants to produce, what kind of human beings it actually wants to
nurture, when it assumes indifference, it still educates. That is to say
it still shapes a certain kind of person. And if that turns out to be
not quite the sort of person we would like to see in huge quantities,
well, we might have guessed.

The first exercise I want to offer this morning is an exercise in
imagining what a human adult might be like. If you are asked what are
the characteristics you would regard as marks of maturity, or having
grown up as a human being, what would you say? Let me try a few
suggestions. The human adult I imagine is someone who is aware of
emotion but not enslaved by it. A human adult is someone who believes
that change is possible in their own lives and the lives of those around
them. A human adult is someone who is aware of fallibility and death,
that is who knows they are not right about everything and that they
won't live forever. An adult is someone sensitive to the cost of the
choices they make, for themselves and for the people around them. An
adult is someone who is not afraid of difference, who is not threatened
by difference. And I would add too, an adult is someone aware of being
answerable to something more than just a cultural consensus - someone
whose values, choices, priorities are shaped by something other than
majority votes; which is why I add - in brackets, but you'd expect me to
-  that I think that an awareness of the holy is an important aspect of
being an adult, however you want to phrase that.

Now I think that without a working definition of maturity, whether it is
that one or something like it, we can't even begin to understand the
process of formation. I'll say it once more because it is worth saying:
if we don't know what it is we are 'inducting' people into when we try
and help them grow as humans, we cannot be surprised if chaos results.

But if we begin with working definitions of maturity of the kind I've
suggested, that gives us a way of looking quite hard, and sometimes
quite painfully, at the things in our environment that push us away from
being adults. If we start from that kind of list of features of maturity
we might come up with a list something like this, identifying the things
that stop us growing up. What if we live in a climate where our emotions
are indulged but never educated? That is to say where we never take a
thoughtful perspective on how we feel, that brings in other people and
their needs. What if we live in an environment where apathy and cynicism
are the default positions for most people on issues of public concern?
What if our environment is short on dialogue and learning and
self-questioning? What if it is characterised by a fear and a denial of
human limitations, by a fundamentalist belief in the possibility of
technology in solving our problems for example? By the constant
bracketing or postponing of the recognition that we have limits and that
we are going to die. What if our environment is passive to the culture
of the global market, simply receiving that constant streams of messages
which flows out from producers and marketers? Because one of the things
that implies is that the world ought to be one in which difference
doesn't matter very much because we are all flattened out, as you might
say, in the role of consumers. What if our environment is characterised
by intense boredom and an addiction to novelty? Or characterised by an
obsessive romanticising of victim status, and a lack of empathy? What if
it is characterised by secularism, that is to say by an approach to the
world which is tone deaf about the sacred and the mysterious?

Well I don't really need to put all those 'what ifs' in because I think
you will probably recognise that this is not a million miles away from
the environment we, in fact, inhabit. But I think we need a sharp-edged
diagnosis here, to help us identify that these things are not just
'problems' in a vague way, they are actually the things which stop us
growing up. When we live in a debased environment of gossip, inflated
rhetoric, non-participation, celebrity obsession and vacuous aspiration,
it's not surprising that we have a challenge in the area of formation,
human formation.

And the way in which that challenge shows itself is in a number of ways
with one in particular which needs looking at in this context. It's
nothing new, it's twenty four years since David Elkind wrote a book
called The Hurried Child (1981), a book which was perhaps one of the
first to identify the phenomenon of rushing children through childhood
so that they could be assimilated as quickly as possible into the
commercial and sexual habits of supposed adulthood. That haste to
consumerise and sexualise childhood has become more and more hectic in
the intervening years. A little while ago I read a book by the American
writer, Walter Davis, who is both a playwright and a philosopher. The
book was based on one of the most shocking cases of child abuse and
murder in the United States in the last ten years. And it dealt very,
very painfully with the nexus that links the sexualisation of childhood
with abuse. The child whose story lay at the base of this book was one
who had been schooled from the age of five in the provocative behaviour
and dressing appropriate to beauty contests in a certain part of the
American south. Davis in his play traces mercilessly the connections of
abusive imagination that not only entrap the child in such a process,
but eventually and literally stifle her life.

It would be interesting to look at some of the literary classics of the
last 20 or 30 years including many of the works that have played such a
significant part in pushing forward the emancipatory agenda of the
modern world, and asking, 'yes but what about the child?' I re-read, a
couple of years ago, Doris Lessing's masterpiece, The Golden Notebook,
one of the foundational classics of feminism and a work of genius and
poignancy. But, as we've already been reminded this morning, we have to
bear in mind something which that book itself faces much more honestly
than many do. And that is the cost in terms of the formation of another
generation when children are so caught up into the energy of adult
dramas that they do not have the space, the period of latency, in which
to be securely children.

And if we want to give children a chance of experiencing childhood as
they should, experiencing as a time to learn, play, grow in an
environment of stability and security, we have to face the demands of
being adults ourselves. We have to accept that growing up is about
taking on the task of forming other human lives.

Stability - a difficult issue because in an environment where change and
novelty have a kind of glow around them, stability isn't immediately a
very attractive word. It sounds like being static, being stuck. But
whether we're talking about the family or about the community overall,
it remains true that people do not grow freely and courageously unless
there are things in their environment they can trust, primary among
those things of course being people in their environment they can trust,
and primary among those people being their primary carers, their
parents. A trustworthy environment is what we are talking about, and
were reminded very sharply a few minutes ago of how economic instability
in an environment, the effects currently of the problems facing Rover,
can impact on a whole nurturing environment.

The questions raised about stability are not only then about domestic
issues, they are about public ones. And among the question that have to
be raised here, there would have to be some very, very tough questions
about advertising and children. You've seen that in the superb drama
that was put before us at the beginning of this session. We all know,
those of us who are parents, something of the consumer pressures that
there are around in what is now called 'pester power'. What is a proper
regime of regulation for advertising aimed at children? It is a question
of some urgency. If we are interested, corporately and socially, in
creating and maintaining an environment where pressure on children is
regarded as unjust - I use the word deliberately - then the right of
children to justice involves challenging many of the habits of the
advertising world in respect of children.

Again we've heard something already this morning about that crucial
question around our culture of work. How do we stop rewarding neglect?
We are concerned, rightly concerned, that people should have choices
about their work. We have rightly moved away from a situation in which
women were assumed to have no legitimate choices about their work. But
the story does not end there because we have moved in very many parts of
our society to a situation where there are active incentives to take
carers away from the home.

One of the issues I remember vividly from my time in South Wales was a
moment when one of the major local employers in South Wales began
offering a set of special arrangements to facilitate women working at
weekends. A number of community organisations protested vehemently at
this, noting that the weekend was still, in that particular context, a
time when families did things together and that there was a deeply
unscrupulous element in that particular case of making the family
'market-friendly', to pick up Madeline's phrase.

How do we stop rewarding neglect; giving incentives for the breakdown of
stable domestic environments? And then, in the world of education, how
do we foster a conversational atmosphere in conversation; how do we make
room for dialogue? There's a very fine recent book, Positive Childhood:
Educating Young Citizens, by Mildred Masheder (notice the subtitle)
educating young citizens - and in the second chapter of this book she
discusses different kinds of educational strategy in making people
literate about how they communicate. In terms particularly of primary
education, she looks at all the practices of dialogue and listening that
can be built into the education process - 'circle time', and other
structured practices that teach you how to communicate and to listen.
And she is very severe - and rightly severe - on an educational
philosophy which is obsessed with testing. It's another form of our
obsession with results and productivity and it's a particularly malign
one in a context where, if we are trying to educate persons, we ought to
be educating in emotional and communicative literacy as well as in other
kinds of literacy.

In a setting where relentless productivity is overvalued we forget what
is needed to produce functioning human beings. We can become abusers of
our children by default when we ignore the choices we can make to secure
their stability, their sense of being seen and being listened to; do you
remember that wonderful Children's Society poster a few years ago
showing the face of a child obviously in distress, with the slogan 'What
I need is a good listening to?' The result, when we ignore this, seems
to be to produce people who themselves cannot properly look or listen.
And that's not a matter of pop psychology, but a serious insight from
those who have studied neurological development in human beings. To
speak of conversation, social interaction - intelligent, understood
social interaction as part of the educational process - is simply to
recognise, not only that citizens are not born but made, but in one
important sense, persons are not born but made. Persons are cultivated,
grown, at a very literal, a very physical level. A controversial book by
Sue Gerhardt - Why Love Matters: how affection shapes a baby's brain -
is one that's well worth looking at in this connection. Gerhardt sets
out the ways in which certain areas of the brain simply atrophy without
proper social interaction. And her argument breaks through the
conventional polarity between nature and nurture in education by telling
us that nature is itself something which demands to be nurtured. If our
potential - our literal physical potential - is to be activated, other
persons are necessary; other persons who will listen engage, create
trust and offer love. Neurological development needs social input and we
need to break out of some of the sterile standoffs between views here.

Here is what Sue Gerhardt says on page 85 of the book:

    "The weight of research now makes it quite clear that these
biological systems involved in managing emotional life are all subject
to social influence, particularly the influences which are present at
the time of their developing most rapidly. They will develop and
function better or worse depending on the nature of these early
experiences,"

- and she's not afraid to raise the question already raised in our
discussion this morning about home and work , a question about what is
needed in a domestic environment to secure stability.

    "We have swung from one unworkable situation to another, where
either mothers pay or children pay the price. Betty Friedan first
described the oppression of young mothers in the 1960s, suffocating in
the suburbs, unable to play any social role except that of 'mom' or
wife: But our current situation may be equally oppressive to babies and
toddlers who are being shunted to or from nurseries or child minding
groups, plonked in front of videos, fitting around the parents' busy
lives which are elsewhere. How are such children learning to regulate
their emotions?" (p214)

Back to the point I raised earlier; if you want to imagine the human
adult, you have to imagine someone who is aware of emotion, and not
enslaved by it; how is such a person to be formed?

Which means that especially where we're thinking of environments of
poverty and deprivation, the 'welfare to work' nostrum isn't enough. It
has served importantly as a corrective to a passive attitude, but,
insofar as it presumes that economic productivity is where we all ought
to end up, irrespective of our nurturing and forming responsibilities in
society, it isn't enough. We need stable environments of nurture, and we
certainly need more co-operation than in some social settings if we're
to avoid the oppression of young mothers described by Betty Friedan,
noted by Sue Gerhardt. 'It takes a village to raise a child'.

But we need to think of that steady background of nurture not just in
terms of the provision of bits and pieces of child care, but in terms of
what human environments we create and encourage which offer security -
steady, trustworthy backgrounds for human growth.

Now all of this is manifestly relevant to the work of COF because COF
works with a clear sense of what adulthood involves, and it trains and
campaigns with this in mind. My hope is that it is part of the process
of change we need in moving towards a culture which is capable of
nurture because it's capable of responsibility and of conversation.
'Conversation' may sound almost a weak word in this connection; and yet
to be a confident conversational partner is surely part of what we mean
by being adult, let alone being a citizen. In or out of educational
institutions, what most deeply forms persons is conversation; taking
each other seriously so that one of the most critical questions we can
ask at the domestic level and at the public and political level is what
nourishes and what frustrates conversation. I referred earlier to the
subtitle of Mildred Masheder's book Educating Young citizens. Educate in
a way which takes communication seriously, and you have educated
citizens.

What emerges from all this, I think is that the education of adults and
the education of citizens are inseparable aspirations and that we can't
think about the education or formation of children without thinking
about that. I'll take you again to Mildred Masheder's book and note what
she has to say about some of this:

    "In order to give our children the education they deserve, there
must be much more commitment to a radical change in investment in
education. Children need to be given full consideration as unique
individuals and this means smaller classes and an approach to learning
not tied to a rigid syllabus geared to a series of examinations.

    If I had one wish which would make a vast improvement throughout the
schooling system, it would be for much smaller classes. This would
facilitate all the aims of this book.

    Childhood, whether at home or at school, should be a happy time,
with real interest in learning and joy in playing and we have the means
to make this ideal a reality; if education is given its rightful place
in terms of priority and support." (p113-114)

What Mildred Masheder says there reminds us that the clamour for results
which sometimes comes up in our discussion of education can be a kind of
displacement. We know we can't cope with educating persons, so at least
let's have a full balance sheet of skills acquired and tests satisfied.

When we lived in Central Newport, my wife used to go to the local
primary school which our daughter attended to help with reading
practice. She would come back regularly and say that the problem was not
teaching children how to read; the problem was communicating with
children who were simply not used to talking with adults at all or being
talked to by adults. Children had, in effect, been turned loose.

Literacy is not only about words; literacy is about the 'reading' of
feelings and persons, about speaking and listening: emotional literacy,
social literacy.

So, in conclusion, we're left with a number of questions about our
practice; what are the messages we're sending out? But also, where do we
find our opportunities to become adults? If the rather gloomy analysis I
offered earlier about our culture is right - a culture of gossip and
rhetoric and apathy and all those other things - we are badly in need
not only of networks like the COF but all those organisations and groups
that are part of it, in which we may practice being adults. And I would,
in brackets, say that this is a very good question for religious
institutions to address. My vision is that religious communities and
institutions ought to be supremely capable of 'growing' human adults,
because they convey and communicate a profound sense of the worth and
value of human beings in the eyes of God; a regular awareness of the
need for self-questioning in the presence of God; and thus that balance
between hope and realism which, I believe, is deeply characteristic of
maturity. Rumour has it that not every religious institution in human
history has produced adults in quite this way and perhaps doesn't do so
even now. That's why I say it's a good question for religious
communities to ask themselves, knowing what they can be, and knowing
sadly what they often fail to be.

Perhaps I could draw some of this together by saying that childhood is
most positively valued and fostered when we resist infantilism; when
adults stop being infants, children can be children. We want - don't we?
- to see a society which is composed of adults, people who can choose
and act and change. Who can hope; who can assume that they can make a
difference; who can be sorry when they fail, who can empathise who can
continue learning. It doesn't happen by accident.

If we go on producing grown-up infants, we can hardly wonder why
different sorts of violence and dysfunction persist in our society. We
have choices; we have choices that face us in this election period, but
we have much longer-term choices as well. I hope and I pray that we have
the courage and the positive, delighted appreciation of childhood that
will give us the energy to pursue those choices.

ENDS

(c) Rowan Williams 2005

Lambeth Palace press office
Tel: 0207 898 1280 / 1200
Fax: 0207 261 1765
www.archbishopofcanterbury.org

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(359) 11-April-2005 - Further theological education resources - Anglican
Communion Office

Further resources linked to theological education have recently been
added to the web site administered by TEAC (Theological Education for
the Anglican Communion) - the Anglican Primates Theological Education
Working Group. These include a lecture on theological education
delivered by the Archbishop of Canterbury at the Centre for Anglican
Communion Studies in Selly Oak, Birmingham, England, November 2004, and
suggested reading material for lay people wishing to explore their faith
and their understanding of what it means to be an Anglican. See the TEAC
website www.anglicancommunion.org/teac

For further information about the work of TEAC please contact the
Secretary of the Working Group Clare Amos on
clare.amos@anglicancommunion.org

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(358) 11-April-2005 - Bishop Whalon statement on death of Pope - Europe

Statement on the death of His Holiness John Paul II
By The Rt Revd Pierre W Whalon, DD

Bishop-in-charge
Convocation of American Churches In Europe

There have been and there will certainly be many more encomia to this
Pope, who even before he is buried must be recognized as one of the
great heirs to the chair of Peter. As his funeral approaches, some
critical voices have also been raised. All great people who have shed
their light on humanity must also cast their shadow as well. As time
goes on, the true impact of this man's ministry will become clearer.

What has always struck me is that John Paul II always gave an impression
of personal approachability and involvement, especially to young people,
who responded in huge enthusiastic crowds to his visits. He had an
extraordinary ability to communicate in memorable phrases-"the culture
of death," for instance. As a theologian, his writing remains unmatched
in the field of economic justice. His clear strong personal faith was a
witness to the world. And John Paul showed a personal courage which won
the admiration of even his sworn enemies.

John Paul had the gift for gestures, in which he regularly moved out of
the normal bounds of papal behavior to reach out to others. Perhaps his
greatest one came when he went to pray at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem,
leaving, as all supplicants do, a prayer on a scrap of paper wedged into
a crevasse. Thus he made an indelible impression that started moving the
Church toward real reconciliation with the Jewish people.

Pope John Paul II made a much smaller gesture on November 17, 2001, when
he formally welcomed me to Europe, the day before my consecration as
Bishop-in-charge of the Convocation of American Churches In Europe. It
was the first time a pope had ever received an Anglican candidate for
bishop. The consecrating bishops, led by the Presiding Bishop of the
Episcopal Church, the Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold, III, and all the
clergy and delegates to the Convocation's Convention were with me. The
Pope hugged and kissed the young people we had with us. Nina Miegs, then
of Emmanuel Church, Geneva, led a prayer for unity they had composed
that moved us all deeply, including His Holiness, who asked for a copy
of it.

I will always have a wonderful personal memory of that audience, the
words we exchanged, and John Paul's strong handshake of welcome. Today,
as the world gathers in Rome to escort the mortal remains of Karel
Wojtyla to his grave, let us take a moment to remember before God the
good he did for so many, including one very nervous Episcopal priest
awaiting ordination to the order of bishop.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Convocation of American Churches In Europe
23 avenue George V
75008 Paris, France
+33 1 47 20 02 23
office@tec-europe.org

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(357) 11-April-2005 - Presiding Bishop affirms stance on West Bank - USA

>From the Episcopal News Service (USA)

Presiding Bishop affirms President's recent stance on West Bank
settlements; barrier concerns underscored

Letter precedes 11 April meeting of President Bush, Israel's Prime
Minister Sharon

In anticipation of the meeting of President Bush and Prime Minister
Sharon of Israel on Monday, 11 April, the Presiding Bishop has written
the following letter to the President. The letter praises recent efforts
and statements by the administration including criticizing the continued
building of West Bank settlements, and also raises concerns about the
effects of the separation barrier.

7 April, 2005

The Honorable George W Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr President:

Almost one year ago today I wrote to you about the Episcopal Church's
strong support for your advocacy of both a two state solution for Israel
and Palestine and your "Road Map" for peace in the troubled Holy Land.
We are grateful for the positions you and your administration have taken
this year to forward that effort and the difference it is making. While
still very fragile, hope among the Palestinians and Israelis is palpable
and we know it will take a sustained effort to turn that hope for peace
into reality.

I write again now in advance of Prime Minister Sharon's expected visit
next week. We continue to be deeply concerned about the growth of
settlements, in particular the proposed expansion of Ma'ale Adumin, that
seriously undermine any possibility of the contiguous Palestinian state
you have outlined. We are grateful for the questions that you and
Secretary Rice are raising about the settlement expansion and for your
statement this week that "the road map calls for no expansion of the
settlements."

While fully recognizing Israel's need for protection against acts of
terror, we continue to question the building of the separation barrier:
most of it violates Palestinian land and therefore it has a devastating
impact on the daily lives of Palestinians and engenders deep resentment
and anger that can cause volatile reactions. It also makes it more
difficult for Christian pilgrims to visit their holy places and walk the
paths followed for centuries. While it is said that the barrier need not
be permanent, it is now feared that even were it to be torn down, in
many places the settlements would serve the same ends, becoming a "fact
on the ground" and thereby preempting discussions that should be part of
final status negotiations.

As I wrote last year, the Episcopal Church has a long record of support
for a just peace that guarantees Israel's security and Palestinian
aspirations for a viable state with Jerusalem as the shared capital of
both Israel and Palestine. There can be no just or lasting peace for
either Palestinians or Israelis without the engagement of both parties
in the peace process, and it appears that in President Abbas you have
found the partner for peace that you sought.

I note here that we have been happy to provide grassroots support for
your request for Palestinian aid and hope you will call upon us if there
are other ways in which we can support these efforts for peace. Please
be assured, Mr. President, of my continued prayers for you in these
complex and difficult times.

Yours sincerely,

The Most Revd Frank T Griswold
Presiding Bishop and Primate
The Episcopal Church, USA

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(356) 11-April-2005 - Archbishop challenges USA to share American Dream
- South Africa

"From the outside, it too often appears that the American dream is to be
served by everyone else, not shared with everyone else"

The Archbishop of Cape Town, the Most Revd Njongonkulu Ndungane gave the
annual Martin Luther King Jr. lecture at Duke Divinity School in North
Carolina, USA yesterday [Thursday April 7]. Echoing King's famous "I
have a dream" speech the Archbishop spoke about his own dream of "a
world with a human face". This in contrast to the present one, rife with
a "new global apartheid", where millions of people are still trapped in
an ongoing spiral of poverty.

He challenged international institutions such as the IMF, World Bank and
World Trade Organisation which, he said "are all on paper committed to
overcoming poverty and pursuing prosperity". He pointed out that in
practice however, the unprecedented economic growth of recent decades
has profited the richest most and had a minimal, sometimes negative
impact on the poorest.

"You may argue that poorer countries are party to decisions that keep
them in the poverty trap," said the Archbishop. "But when, for example,
in the IMF, the poorest 50 nations share less than three percent of the
vote, what choice do they have? Meanwhile, one country - guess which -
has veto power. Is that justice?"

Archbishop Ndungane quoted Martin Luther King's Nobel Peace Prize
acceptance speech of 1964 when he identified poverty as one of the
greatest problems of his time but said, "We have the resources to get
rid of poverty," and added "There is no deficit in human resources. The
deficit is in human will"./P>

"The resources are still there," said the Archbishop, "but the will
power is still lacking. It is shameful."

He added that in the next few months there will be unique opportunities
to break the grip of poverty in tangible and lasting ways. These include
global commitment to the Millennium Development Goals, UK Prime Minister
Tony Blair's pro-poor chairmanship of the G8 and EU and the launch of
the report of the Commission for Africa which offers far-reaching and
realistic recommendations.

The Archbishop said that in all these initiatives, the spotlight will be
on US President Bush and how far he will support recommendations for
funding to meet anti-poverty targets and for reform of international
institutions. These institutions need to be biased in favour of poorer
countries, to enable them to compete equally on the global stage, he
said.

"From the outside it too often appears that the American Dream is to be
served by everyone else, not shared with everyone else," he said.

The Archbishop called the US "the only superpower" and said "Surely it
is for this great nation to give a lead in ensuring world affairs are
governed through policies that uphold equity, fairness and the
well-being of all humanity".

The Archbishop also expressed his concern over the Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment's warning that many of the world's ecosystems are on the
brink of irreversible collapse. "We cannot have a life of freedom if we
degrade the home in which we live," he says, adding "I pray the United
States may turn around and walk with the rest of us in the Kyoto
Protocol. Indeed, I pray you may stride ahead of us in setting an
example of sustainable growth, for the healing of the planet, and for
the healing of its nations," said the Archbishop.

For further information or a copy of the full speech, please contact
Penny Lorimer, Media Liaison for Archbishop Ndungane, on 0027 (0)82
894-1522 or pennl@netactive.co.za

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