wfn.org | Episcopalians: News Briefs

[dmack@episcopalchurch.org]

October 18, 2002

2002-241

Episcopalians: News Briefs

Anglicans, Catholics warn Nigeria not to consider war with 
Cameroon 

(ENI) Anglican and Roman Catholic church leaders have warned 
Nigeria not to consider the option of war over the award of the 
oil-rich Bakassi peninsula to neighboring Cameroon by the world 
court at The Hague. 

Anglican archbishop Peter Akinola, reacting to the October 10 
judgment against Nigeria, advised his government to exercise 
restraint in handling the issue of the disputed land, after the 
ruling sparked some heated statements. "I don't think Nigeria 
should go to war," Akinola told ENI. "It's obvious that 
manufacturers of armaments are looking for markets to sell their 
products. We should not listen to advice from foreign countries 
that want to incite us against Cameroon." 

The court's ruling in favor of Cameroon followed a bitter 
dispute between that country and Nigeria, sub-Saharan Africa's 
richest oil producer, over the peninsula in the Gulf of Guinea 
which had become a potential military flashpoint. 

Akinola said: "Painful as it is that Nigeria is parting with 
what legitimately belongs to her, there is the need for wider 
consultations among the various groups at the international 
level for a peaceful resolution of the dispute." Before the 
Nigerian government acted, he advised, it should carefully study 
the court judgment and see if it was based on facts or politics. 
"If it is [based] on facts, then we have to accept it gallantly, 
and if it is based on politics then we go for a political option 
to resolve the issue," said Akinola. 

After the ruling, Nigeria's president, Olusegun Obasanjo, 
said his government would study the judgment and comment 
afterwards. He called for people to remain calm. However, 
Governor Donald Duke of the state of Cross Rivers, where Bakassi 
Peninsula is located, said the people in his state would not 
give up an inch of the peninsula. "This is an international 
conspiracy against Nigeria, and the general view of the Nigerian 
people is that we cannot let go of our territory," said Duke. 
"Bakassi is our land. It is our heritage and we will not sit by 
and allow our heritage to be taken away from us." 

In the court case, Cameroon argued that Bakassi was included 
in its territory under a 1913 treaty between the German and 
British colonial powers in West Africa, and the court accepted 
this. 

Muslim and Christian leaders in Nigeria sharply divided on 
Sharia law 

(ENI) Christian and Muslim leaders who have met to discuss 
religious tension in Nigeria remain sharply divided on the 
strict Islamic Sharia law that has been implemented in 12 
Nigerian states. At a sometimes-tetchy meeting of Nigeria's 
Inter-Religious Council (NIREC), Christian leaders told their 
Muslim counterparts that the Sharia laws, which call for 
punishments such as stoning, amputation of hands and floggings 
for certain offenses, were not right for Christians. 

"All of us had agreed here that Muslims in this country 
cannot be prevented from practicing their religion. This, we all 
agreed, was not to be extended to non-Muslims," said Sunday 
Mbang, co-chairman of the council, at the meeting that gathered 
25 Christian and 25 Muslim leaders. The NIREC was established by 
the Nigerian government in September 1999.

Since 2000, 12 Muslim-majority states in Nigeria have decided 
to implement the strict code, but to apply it only to Muslims. 
Nigeria's population of some 126 million people is roughly 
divided between Christians and Muslims, with Islam more 
prominent in the north of the country. 

The inter-religious council met in an attempt to find a 
solution to ongoing religious tensions between Muslims and 
Christians in Nigeria. Religious conflicts have escalated 
recently, claiming the lives of thousands of people over the 
past three years and destroying millions of dollars worth of 
property. 

Muslim leaders, for their part, accused Christians of being 
intolerant, and threatened to walk out of the council. However, 
although accusations flew, the religious leaders resolved to 
continue to work for peaceful co-existence in the country. 

Alhaji Muhammadu Maccido, sultan of Sokoto in the north and 
co-chairman of the council, described Nigeria as "a country with 
a multitude of ethnic groups and beliefs, diverse in languages 
and cultures. We don't have any better choice than tolerance and 
respect of others." 

Churches say development needed to aid peace process in Sri 
Lanka

(ENI) Church leaders and Christian activists in Sri Lanka 
have said that action to rebuild war-ravaged areas and restore 
the economy is now needed to assist the government's bid to seek 
peace after 19 years of armed conflict. 

Welcoming peace talks, Duleep de Chickera, Anglican bishop of 
Colombo, said: "Now there is a gradual shift from suspicion to 
trust." 

"Despite the positive change in the culture of violence," 
Chickera warned, the "peace rhetoric does not have any meaning 
for most people, especially the poor in the conflict areas, who 
measure peace with development." 

Though everyone was happy about the recent exchange of 20 
prisoners by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE), as they 
are officially known, and the Sri Lankan army, the Anglican 
bishop said, "People want food to fill their stomachs and roofs 
over their heads." 

G. L. Peiris, the Sri Lankan government's chief peace 
negotiator, announced a meeting of international aid donors 
would be held to rebuild the embattled areas. He made the 
declaration on his return to the island from Thailand after 
historic peace talks with the Tamil Tigers to resolve the ethnic 
conflict that has since 1983 claimed nearly 65,000 lives. 

The LTTE has aided the peace process by saying it is prepared 
to give up its demand for an independent Tamil homeland and to 
settle for regional autonomy and self-government

Church leaders call for calm after southern Philippines 
bombing kills six 

(ENI) Church leaders asked for prayers and calm after 
condemning two bombings in the southern Philippines which killed 
six people and wounded about 150 and which authorities blamed on 
a group fighting for a separate Islamic state. 

"We pray for the victims and their families as we ask God for 
justice. Let not hostility reign in our hearts but justice," 
Monsignor Hernando Coronel, spokesperson for the Catholic 
Bishops' Conference of the Philippines, said in a statement 
after the two bombs went off in adjacent shopping malls in 
Zamboanga City. Noting that the Roman Catholic bishops "strongly 
condemn" the bomb attacks, Coronel hoped that the latest bomb 
attacks would not widen misunderstandings between Christians and 
Muslims, who are a minority in the country. Zamboanga is a port 
city with an 80 per cent Christian population located near 
predominantly Muslim islands in the southern Philippines. 

The Philippines military blamed Abu Sayyaf, a violent group 
notorious for kidnapping Christians and foreigners, for carrying 
out the attacks. Defense officials said they feared the violence 
might "spill over" into the capital, Manila. Some Philippine 
officials have linked Abu Sayyaf with the al-Qaida terrorist 
group. 

The attacks were the third in a series in the Philippines 
during the month of October. A bomb attack on October 2 at a bar 
frequented by American servicemen, also in Zamboanga City, 
killed a U.S. Special Forces (Green Beret) sergeant and three 
Filipinos and injured 20 others. Police blamed Abu Sayyaf for 
that attack. Six other people were killed and more than 20 were 
wounded in a similar attack on October 10 in Kidapawan City, 
also south of Manila. The military blamed renegade members of 
the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) for the Kidapawan 
attack. The MILF has been waging a rebellion for a separate 
Muslim state in the southern Philippines since 1978. 

Apprehend killers, says WCC after attack on Christians in 
Pakistan 

(ENI) The general secretary of the World Council of Churches 
has expressed dismay that none of those involved in past deadly 
attacks on Christians in Pakistan has faced trial, and he has 
called on the government to bring to book those responsible for 
the latest killings. 

Dr. Konrad Raiser, the WCC general secretary, wrote to 
Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, expressing the 
council's "shock and profound distress" over the September 25 
attack on a Christian non-governmental organization in Karachi. 
Seven members of the Pakistani ecumenical organization's staff 
were killed in the attack. 

In his letter, Raiser noted that there had been a series of 
attacks targeting churches and Christian institutions over the 
past year. He asked the president to ensure that Pakistan's law 
enforcement agencies did all in their power to bring the 
perpetrators to court so that justice could be done. Raiser also 
renewed the WCC's call on the government "to provide safety and 
security to the Christian minority in Pakistan." The same letter 
was sent to the National Council of Churches in Pakistan and the 
two WCC member churches in the country. 

Raiser noted that Idare-eb Amin-o-Insaf (the Institute for 
Justice and Peace), where the latest attack took place, "works 
for the poor and socially marginalized in Pakistan society, 
irrespective of their religious beliefs." 

Law against conversions threaten Christian relief work, say 
churches 

(ENI) Indian Christians have warned that legislation 
introduced in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, banning 
religious conversions by "force, allurement or fraudulent 
means," could put Christian relief work at risk. The Tamil Nadu 
state government claimed the measure was aimed at preventing 
attempts by "some religious fundamentalists and subversive 
forces to create communal disharmony in the name of religious 
conversion." It follows the conversion of 250 Dalits--members of 
India's lowest economic and social class--to the Seventh-day 
Adventist church in August at Madurai, Tamil Nadu's 
second-biggest city. 

Hindu groups welcomed the emergency, which provides for a 
punishment of up to three years in prison and a fine. But the 
National Council of Churches in India, which groups 29 
Protestant and Orthodox churches, said the law threatened to 
undermine constitutional rights and would create mistrust 
between religious communities. "The law will also make it 
difficult for the churches in Tamil Nadu and religious NGOs 
[non-governmental organizations] to work for social and economic 
justice and even for humanitarian relief," the council said, 
calling on the state government to repeal the measure. 

Nearly 70 per cent of India's 24 million Christians are 
Dalits, and many of them have converted from Hinduism to other 
religions in protest at the discrimination they faced from 
upper-caste Hindus. 

Christians and Muslims tell each other they need to face 
differences 

(ENI) Muslims and Christians should not play down their 
religious differences but rather face them and learn to respect 
them, a leading Orthodox prelate told international political 
and religious leaders gathered in Geneva October 16. 

"Religious identity is stronger than ethnic or cultural 
identity. It tends to build walls between people. However, we 
cannot allow these walls to stand," asserted Aram I, Catholicos 
of Cilicia, who is co-moderator of a three-day international 
inter-faith conference in Geneva sponsored by the World Council 
of Churches (WCC). 

Called "Christians and Muslims in Dialogue and Beyond," the 
meeting brought together top religious and political leaders 
from Muslim-majority countries such as Iran, Libya, Nigeria and 
Saudi Arabia, and Christian-majority countries in Europe and 
North America with the aim of building mutual trust between the 
faiths and finding ways to live together. 

Dialogue between Muslims and Christians has taken on renewed 
urgency because more people than ever before are living in 
communities with members of other religions. Also, 
fundamentalism is taking root in many places around the world, 
said Aram I, a member of the Armenian Apostolic Church and 
moderator of the WCC's main governing body. 

"We must not fall into the temptation of understating the 
existing differences in order to effect an easy compromise," 
said the Lebanon-based Orthodox clergyman, pointing to what he 
called "significant differences" in the "moral and social 
values" of the two religions as well as in their theological 
teachings. 

Christians and Muslims interpret liberty, democracy and human 
rights differently, he said, with "concrete implications to our 
communities living together in one place." The two religions, he 
said, also "perceive the nature and role of religion, civil 
society and the state quite differently." 

Abdelouahed Belkeziz, secretary-general of the Organization 
of the Islamic Conference, said, however, that with the spread 
of modern education and science, "partial doctrinal differences 
between Islam and Christianity have started to decline." 
"Consequently, we should be able to narrow our differences, 
particularly as we all belong to the people of the Scriptures, 
and are followers of revealed religions which all stem from a 
common source," the Saudi-based theologian asserted. 

The conference is the latest in a series of inter-faith 
dialogues that have been held world-wide, in such cities as 
Assisi, Atlanta, Cairo and Johannesburg, after the 2001 
terrorist attacks in the US. 

Iranian warns that Bush war with Iraq will play into Bin 
Laden's hands 

(ENI) Iran strongly condemns the terrorism inflicted on the 
United States by the September 2001 attacks, but by looking to 
war with Iraq, America will play into the hands of Osama bin 
Laden, Iranian vice president Sayyid Mohammad Ali Abtahi warned 
October 16. 

Speaking at a high-level international meeting on 
Christian-Muslim dialogue held in Geneva, Abtahi said the basic 
measures the US was taking were not working to their advantage 
due to the country's refusal to right wrongs committed against 
the Palestinian people and in carrying out attacks on Muslim 
countries like Afghanistan. 

"The type of logic George Bush and Osama Bin Laden are 
following is the same logic--whoever is not with us is against 
us," said Abtahi, speaking at the forum organized by the World 
Council of Churches, a grouping of 342 churches in more than 100 
countries. Abtahi, a theologian who is also president of the 
Institute for Inter-religious Dialogue in Tehran, is known as a 
strong supporter of reform in the cabinet of President Mohammad 
Khatami. He said all right thinking Muslims supported peace, but 
unfortunately the world was getting into a "vicious circle" of 
"war being used to fight war." Blaming politicians for 
exploiting religions to fuel their own ambitions, Abtahi said 
using wars to right wrongs was "exactly the opposite" of the 
teachings of such religions as Islam and Christianity. 

On the US stance on Iraq, the vice president noted that Iran 
had itself been "victimized by Iraq" in the eight-year war the 
two countries fought during the 1980s in which hundreds of 
thousands of people died. He also noted that Iraq's invasion of 
Kuwait in1990 had triggered the unwelcome arrival of US troops 
in the Middle East. 

In an interview with ENI he pointed out the fine balancing 
act that reform-minded leaders like the Iranian president had to 
carry out, due to the resistance to change that comes from hard 
liners in the country's Islamic hierarchy who still wield 
enormous power. "The younger generation have been given more 
importance and significance in our country, but this does not 
mean that they want to abandon the tradition and the culture to 
which they belong--they want to reform it. That is why reform is 
so important in our country," the 45-year-old Abtahi told ENI. 

But the Iranian vice president hinted that pressure on Iran 
to speed up the process could derail it. He said: "The 
democratic goal of this process is what we are looking for, but 
to reach it very fast might harm the whole process." He observed 
it had taken Western countries hundreds of years to reach where 
they were, "so you must not expect us to reach this point within 
five or 10 years." 

Future belongs to the non-violent, Lutheran tells interfaith 
gathering 

(ENI) Under the shadow of a possible US war over Iraq, laity 
and clergy from a range of faiths and continents meeting in 
Atlanta, Georgia, re-committed themselves to the cause of peace 
as part of a world-wide effort to overcome violence. 

"Religion has encouraged violence, and that has been a strain 
in each [major religious] tradition," said the Rev. Gilbert 
Friend-Jones of the Central Congregational United Church of 
Christ in Atlanta, which co-sponsored the event October 4-5 
along with the United States Conference for the World Council of 
Churches (WCC) and Emory University. Friend-Jones told ENI that 
conference participants, who came from all faiths, made a 
commitment "to stimulate new co-operation between faith 
communities around the globe." 

The conference was held on the same weekend that thousands of 
protesters in various US cities--including New York, Los 
Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco--demonstrated against 
possible US military action against Iraq. The October 6 peace 
rallies also marked the anniversary of the first US military 
strikes in Afghanistan. 

The keynote speaker at the Atlanta conference, Bishop Margot 
Kaessmann of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover, in 
Germany, said while she agreed with US President George W. Bush 
that Iraq should disarm, so should the rest of the world, 
including the US. "The future belongs to the non-violent or we 
have no future," said Kaessmann, who helped to inspire the WCC's 
"Decade to Overcome Violence," a campaign promoting initiatives 
for peace by churches, secular movements and people of other 
faiths. 

As part of the follow-up to the conference, religious leaders 
in the Atlanta area plan to pressure their city's civic leaders 
to create specific goals for reducing rates of crime and 
violence. 

Pope canonizes Josemaria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei 

(ENI) Before a record crowd at St. Peter's Square, Pope John 
Paul II canonized Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, the founder of 
Opus Dei, an institution that has stirred as much admiration as 
controversy in the Roman Catholic Church world-wide. The 
canonization brought 300,000 people to St Peter's Square--"a 
record crowd for a canonization," wrote the Turin daily 
newspaper La Stampa. La Repubblica of Rome noted: 
"The elevation of Escriva will remain one of the most 
controversial acts of this pontificate." 

Born in Spain in 1902 and ordained a priest in 1925, Escriva 
in 1928 founded Opus Dei, an institution that encourages its 
adherents to attain sainthood "in ordinary life"--through the 
world of work and family --with its official objective being 
"finding God in work and daily life." 

Although some Opus Dei members take vows of chastity and 
obedience and live in community, the majority--called 
"supernumeraries"--are married women and men living in the 
world. Opus Dei does not disclose the names of supernumeraries, 
which has led to accusations, even from heart of the Roman 
Catholic Church, that the organization is a "secret sect," an 
accusation always energetically rejected by its members. 

Seven years after Escriva's death in 1975, Opus Dei obtained 
from Pope John Paul II a personal prelature, a juridical form of 
oversight that had never before existed in the church. 
Introduced for the first time in a new code of canon law (the 
general laws of the Catholic church), a personal prelature is 
similar to a diocese, only not bound by geographic limitations. 
The members of Opus Dei are under the authority of a prelate, a 
bishop who resides in Rome and who answers directly to the Pope. 

In 1984, John Paul II named a member of Opus Dei, the 
Spaniard Joaquin Navarro-Valls, director of the Vatican press 
room. Then in 1992, the Pope beatified Escriva in a gesture 
praised by many bishops who supported the idea of reinvigorating 
the mission of lay people in the church. But it was criticized 
by other prelates, who thought that the beatification of someone 
who had died only 17 years before was too hasty. Others accused 
Escriva of supporting the regime of General Francisco Franco, 
who died in 1975, because members of Opus Dei had been 
government ministers in Madrid under the Spanish dictator.

Roman Catholics condemn Zambian government for downplaying 
hunger 

(ENI) The Roman Catholic Church has condemned Zambia's 
President Levy Mwanawasa, saying the president is intimidating 
the opposition and downplaying the severity of the famine which 
threatens millions of people in Zambia and other southern 
African countries. 

"We find it disturbing that our government finds it difficult 
to recognize the fact that the hunger situation in the country 
is so serious that people are dying," the Catholic Commission 
for Justice and Peace said in a statement released on October 
11. 

Countries in the southern Africa region are experiencing 
severe famine due, in part, to poor rains. The worst affected is 
Zimbabwe, where more than half of the population of 12 million 
requires food aid; Malawi with 3.5 million people in need of 
food aid and Zambia with 2.9 million. 

Three months ago, Mwanawasa came under a barrage of criticism 
from the Christian Council of Zambia (CCZ), the Zambia 
(Catholic) Episcopal Conference (ZEC) and the Evangelical 
Fellowship of Zambia (EFZ) for "feeding the people with words" 
and failing to address the famine. The UK-based aid organization 
Oxfam said in an October 3 report: "Some 2.9 million people in 
Zambia (26 per cent of the population) will require an estimated 
224,000 metric tons of emergency cereal food aid in the period 
up to March 2003. The Zambian government's reluctance to allow 
genetically modified food into the country has meant that, for 
this month, no new food will be brought into Zambia." 

Russian patriarch and Israel's Sharon meet in Moscow 

(ENI) Patriarch Alexei II of the Russian Orthodox Church met 
with Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon during Sharon's recent 
two-day visit to Moscow and expressed concern about Christian 
pilgrims being unable to visit holy sites in the Middle East. 

"We are grieving for the victims of terrorist acts and 
military conflict which is borne by the peoples of Israel and 
Palestine," Alexei told Sharon in a one-hour meeting at St. 
Daniel's Monastery, the patriarch's official residence. "We are 
praying for peace in the Holy Land and ask of you ... to do 
everything possible for peace to be established in the Holy Land 
so that pilgrims could come to its holy sites without 
obstacles," the patriarch said in remarks released to the press. 

Alexei was also due to meet with a leading Palestinian 
politician, Mahmoud Abbas, the Moscow Patriarchate announced. 
This was apparently intended to underline the church's 
even-handed approach to the Holy Land. Abbas, also known as Abu 
Mazen, arrived in Moscow just as Sharon was leaving and was 
expected to meet Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov to discuss 
the results of Sharon's visit and to present the Palestinians' 
own demands for ending two years of conflict. Abbas is widely 
seen as a potential successor to Palestinian leader Yasser 
Arafat. 

In his meeting with Sharon, Alexei also brought up the issue 
of damage to Russian Orthodox church properties--a hotel in 
Bethlehem and monastery in Hebron--which resulted from Israeli 
military operations in the West Bank earlier this year. "We 
welcome the efforts of representatives of all 
confessions--Christianity, Judaism and Islam--who speak for the 
peaceful solution to inter-ethnic problems in the Holy Land," 
the patriarch said. 

Orthodox church to debate future as peace-builder at US 
meeting 

(ENI) The Orthodox church will need to define itself in the 
future as an arbiter and peace-maker in an increasingly violent 
world, said several participants at a major international 
conference looking at the role of the church in society. 

The conference, meeting from October 3-5 at the Holy Cross 
Greek Orthodox School of Theology near Boston, Massachusetts, 
examined the future of Orthodox churches in the light of the 
September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States and a 
rapidly changing international environment. The World Council of 
Churches was a joint sponsor of the event, along with Holy Cross 
Greek Orthodox School of Theology. Co-operating were the Boston 
Theological Institute and the Initiatives in Religion and Public 
Life program at Harvard Divinity School. 

Violence and the need to build a more peaceful world were 
major topics of the conference, under the theme of the "Orthodox 
Churches in a Pluralistic World," as were questions of 
globalization, human rights and ethnicity. "We live in a new 
situation, and we need to discuss the challenges the church 
faces," Emmanuel Clapsis, a theologian at the school and one of 
the organizers of the events, told ENI prior to the conference. 
"We must unite our voices with those of other Christians." 

Another participant, Rodney Petersen, the executive director 
of the Boston Theological Institute, said the Orthodox church's 
geographic particularity--"the arc from the White Sea to the 
Black Sea"--with its proximity to many Muslim nations makes it a 
unique institution in the process of peace. 

Beards, cassocks and head-dress to remain compulsory for 
Greek clergy 

(ENI) Leaders of the (Orthodox) Church of Greece have 
rejected a request by priests to be allowed to dispense with 
traditional beards, cassocks and head-dress. The church's Holy 
Synod decided to preserve the traditional dress after 
considering arguments made by some clergy that these were 
uncomfortable and lacked "relevance" in current times. 

Ignatius Soferiades, a spokesman for the church's governing 
Holy Synod, explained the decision in terms of showing 
consideration for the faithful: "When they kiss their [priests'] 
hands and ask for blessings, people like to see their priests 
looking different from other citizensOur way of living and 
believing isn't the same as in other countries. If the faithful 
are asking for these [traditional signs of dress], we've no 
right to change them from one day to the next." 

Soferiades was speaking after a synod debate, called when 
priests complained that the cassocks and kamilavki headgear they 
wear were too hot and "irrelevant to contemporary times." A 
brief communiqui said synod members had unanimously decided 
traditional clerical dress "posed no problems," and that the 
issue of change "did not arise." 

Priests were allowed to don ordinary clothes when driving, 
shopping or spending time with their families, Soferiades told 
ENI, but were also expected to act "at all times in the spirit 
of tradition." "To claim traditional clerical garb is alienating 
rather than attracting people is an exaggeration--everyone knows 
this is the official form of dress," said the priest, who sits 
on the synod's commission for inter-Christian relations. 

The synod ruling followed the rejection of other recent calls 
for change, including a plea for church services in modern Greek 
as a way of winning back lapsed church members. The church 
claims the nominal loyalty of 97 per cent of the country's 
population of 10.6 million. 

The Church of Greece synod also recently rejected calls for a 
change in celibacy rules to allow priests to marry after 
ordination. Under current rules, Orthodox priests must marry 
before being ordained, or subsequently remain monks. 

The constitution of Greece, a member state of the North 
Atlantic Treaty Organization and European Union, declares 
Orthodoxy the "dominant religion" and prohibits Bible 
translations without prior Orthodox consent.

Brazilian priest leaves Anglican Church

(ENS) After 33 years of ministry, Anglican priest Paulo 
Garcia told a Brazilian newspaper that the "exaggerated freedom" 
granted homosexuals was one of the reasons that he made the 
decision to leave the Anglican Church of Brazil. 

After 27 years as dean of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, 
in the Aflitos quarter of Recife, Garcia said that alleged 
"liturgical and ethical divergences" from the positions adopted 
by Anglican leaders caused him to take action. He said he will 
continue celebrating the Eucharist there on Sundays, although 
the bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Recife, Robinson 
Cavalcanti, has appointed the Rev. Filadelfo Oliveira as acting 
dean of the cathedral and the Rev. Sergio Andrade as assisting 
dean.

Garcia said he is still deciding which denomination he will 
join. He has already been invited to participate in the 
Charismatic Episcopal Church, established in 1977 in Chicago. 
"We will continue activities in the cathedral. I am praying to 
discover which new way that I should go, but I have still not 
decided," said Garcia.

Garcia said he does not intend to leave the building or 
property of the congregation. He added that, legally, he has the 
right to remain there. "I am certain that Brazilian civil laws 
that regulate property guarantee permanence to the congregation 
here," observed Garcia.

Cavalcanti disagreed. "The building belongs to the Anglican 
Church of Brazil--it was donated by the English. The 
congregation is not owner of the cathedral," said Cavalcanti. 
"As bishop and representative of the church, I will go to the 
courts to set justice in motion, in case Paulo Garcia refuses to 
leave."

The part of the congregation that has decided to continue in 
the Anglican Church of Brazil will meet in another place, still 
not determined. "They will be able to meet with Oliveira at 
diocesan headquarters. The people will continue to have all the 
spiritual leadership always found in our church," said 
Cavalcanti.

Garcia said that the decision to disconnect himself from the 
Anglican Church of Brazil was very difficult and painful. "But 
the accumulation of situations that I came to observe left me 
constrained to do so. Attitudes that violate the word of God 
leave my heart sad," he explained. "As I cannot agree to this, 
nor can I explain these attitudes to my people, I opted to 
asking for the disconnection, after 33 years of ministry...The 
homosexuals deserve our understanding and love and we are to 
help them. But our doctrinal and ethical reference is the Bible, 
which is opposed to homosexuality," Garcia said.

"The departure of Paulo Garcia is lamentable and 
inexplicable. It caught us by surprise. What he is giving us are 
not arguments but excuses, because he was invited to participate 
in another church. Paulo never adjusted to Anglicanism and he 
always had difficulty in obeying his superiors and in coexisting 
in a plural church," said Cavalcanti.

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