[ENS] MDG summit opens amid calls for action, not just words / Coalition of Episcopal Latinos gather

[<mdavies@episcopalchurch.org>]

>Episcopal News Service
>September 20, 2010

Episcopal News Service is available at 
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/ens.

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>Today's Episcopal News Service includes:

* TOP STORY - MDG summit opens amid calls for action, not just words
* TOP STORY - Coalition of Episcopal Latinos gathering focuses on 
unity, mi ssion
* TOP STORY - Bishops urge affirmative vote on DREAM Act to give
conditional legal status to undocumented youth
* TOP STORY - High-level UN summit on Millennium Development Goals
opens in New York
* TOP STORY - Bishops preach throughout Arizona diocese
* DIOCESAN DIGEST - COLORADO: Former Grace-St. Stephen's rector
accepts plea agreement stemming from 20 felony theft charges
* DIOCESAN DIGEST - EAST TENNESSEE: Honduran girls representing Osman
Hope visit diocese, five U.S. states
* PEOPLE - Joseph Murrenz Constant, Rosemari Gaughan Sullivan
appointed special coordinators for Haiti
* DAYBOOK - September 21: Today in Scripture, Prayer, History
* EPISCOPAL BOOKS & RESOURCES PICK - "Brown - The Last Discover of 
America"

>_____________________

>TOP STORIES

MDG summit opens amid calls for action, not just words

Archbishop of Canterbury says churches can offer vision, energy, faith

>By Mary Frances Schjonberg

[Episcopal News Service] The call for a renewed commitment to the
world's poor was a refrain included in speeches made Sept. 20 on the
opening day of the United Nations' three-day summit in New York on the
Millennium Development Goals.

"The challenge will be to follow words with action to bring about
bought positive change for the billions of people who need the MDG
promise of a decade ago honored," Helen Clark, U.N. Development
Program administrator and former New Zealand prime minister, told the
morning plenary session. "The series of global crises, natural
disasters and on-going conflicts of recent years do not make the task
any easier, but nor do they make it impossible. The MDGs can be
achieved. They're all inter-linked; progress on one can spur progress
on another."

The goals are a set of eight targets designed to reduce by half
poverty, hunger, maternal and child deaths, disease, inadequate
shelter, gender inequality and environmental degradation. The world's
leaders agreed in 2000 to achieve the goals by 2015.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79425_124639_ENG_HTM.htm

>- - - - -

Coalition of Episcopal Latinos gathering focuses on unity, mission

>By Pat McCaughan

[Episcopal News Service] The Coalition of Episcopal Latinos -- la
Coalición de Episcopales Latinos -- cast a vision of advocacy,
formation, education, inclusion, activism and unity at its historic
inaugural gathering Sept. 15-18 near Phoenix, Arizona.

At least 70 participants -- lay and ordained of all ages, some from as
far away as El Salvador -- attended plenary and workshop sessions
focused on immigration, evangelism, congregational development,
communications and social media, and organizational structure at the
Franciscan Renewal Center in Scottsdale, Arizona.

"Our vision is to bring together Latino people in the Episcopal
Church," said the Rev. Floyd Naters "Butch" Gamarra, assisting priest
at St. Mary's Church in Los Angeles and a CEL board member.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79425_124634_ENG_HTM.htm

>- - - - -

Bishops urge affirmative vote on DREAM Act to give conditional legal
status to undocumented youth

>By Pat McCaughan

[Episcopal News Service] Ninety-six Episcopal Church bishops have sent
a message to the U.S. Congress seeking approval of the Development,
Relief and Education of Alien Minors Act, which is scheduled for a
Senate vote on Sept. 21 and would give conditional legal status to the
children of undocumented persons if they complete two years of college
or the military.

The bishops have signed a letter in support of the DREAM Act that has
been sent to the Senate and the House of Representatives, according to
Ana White, immigration and refugee analyst for the Episcopal Church's
Office of Government Relations in Washington, D.C.

"I'm happy to say we have already received some response from people
on the Hill," added White, who was participating in a panel discussion
about immigration issues at a Sept. 17 gathering of the bishops'
spouses and partners of bishops, held in conjunction with the House of
Bishops' Sept. 16-21 meeting in Phoenix. The House of Bishops is
expected to address immigration issues Sept. 21 at the conclusion of
its annual fall gathering in Phoenix.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79425_124633_ENG_HTM.htm

>- - - - -

High-level UN summit on Millennium Development Goals opens in New York

>By Mary Frances Schjonberg

[Episcopal News Service] A three-day United Nations summit on the
Millennium Development Goals begins Sept. 20 with the awareness that
the organization is $20 billion short on the 2010 commitments its
member nations made toward achieving the goals by 2015.

As the world's leaders gathered in New York for the 65th session of
the U.N. General Assembly and its three-day high-level summit, U.N.
General Secretary Ban Ki-moon told a news briefing that "Africa
accounts for 80 per cent of that gap, that means $16 billion."

"It is particularly distressing that the place of greatest need is
also the place that accounts for the lion's share of the shortfall,"
he said at a Sept. 16 press conference which introduced the 2010
report of the MDG Gap Task Force.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79425_124632_ENG_HTM.htm

>- - - - -

>Bishops preach throughout Arizona diocese

[Episcopal News Service] Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori
and other Episcopal Church bishops preached at churches throughout the
Diocese of Arizona on Sunday, Sept. 19. The bishops are attending the
annual fall meeting of the House of Bishops Sept. 16-21 in Phoenix,
Arizona.

The sermons are available at

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79425_124616_ENG_HTM.htm

More Top Stories: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/ens

>_____________________

>DIOCESAN DIGEST

COLORADO: Former Grace-St. Stephen's rector accepts plea agreement
stemming from 20 felony theft charges

>By Pat McCaughan

[Episcopal News Service] Donald Armstrong, a former Episcopal priest
and former rector of Grace and St. Stephen's Church, has pleaded no
contest to a felony theft charge and guilty to a misdemeanor theft
charge involving the historic downtown Colorado Springs church,
according to a Sept. 17 statement released by the Episcopal Diocese of
Colorado.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81803_124623_ENG_HTM.htm

>- - - - -

EAST TENNESSEE: Honduran girls representing Osman Hope visit diocese,
five U.S. states

>By Vikki Meyers

[Episcopal News Service] Honduran sixth-graders Esther and Ingrid
traveled more than 1,500 miles to Knoxville, Tennessee, recently --
one stop on their journey through five U.S. states as representatives
of Osman Hope.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81803_124629_ENG_HTM.htm

More Diocesan news: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81803_ENG_HTM.htm

>_____________________

>PEOPLE

Joseph Murrenz Constant, Rosemari Gaughan Sullivan appointed special
coordinators for Haiti

>By ENS staff

[Episcopal News Service] The Rev. Joseph Murrenz Constant and the Rev.
Rosemari Gaughan Sullivan have been appointed by Presiding Bishop
Katharine Jefferts Schori to serve as special coordinators for Haiti,
according to a press release from the Episcopal Church's Office of
Public Affairs.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81831_124638_ENG_HTM.htm

More People: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81831_ENG_HTM.htm

>_____________________

>DAYBOOK

On September 21, 2010, the church remembers Saint Matthew.

* Today in Scripture: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/82457_ENG_HTM.htm

* Today in Prayer: Anglican Cycle of Prayer:

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm

* Today in History: On September 21, 1998, Rosemari Sullivan was
appointed executive officer of General Convention.

>_____________________

>EPISCOPAL BOOKS & RESOURCES PICK

"Brown - The Last Discovery of America" from the Penguin Group, by
Richard Rodriguez, 135 pages, paperback, c. 2003, $15

[Penguin Group] In his dazzling memoir, Richard Rodriguez reflects on
the color brown and the meaning of Hispanics to the life of America
today. Rodriguez argues that America has been brown since its
inception-since the moment the African and the European met within the
Indian eye. But more than simply a book about race, Brown is about
America in the broadest sense -- a look at what our country is, full
of surprising observations by a writer who is a marvelous stylist as
well as a trenchant observer and thinker.

"The recurrent strands of his thought -- family, education, race, sex,
California, America, Mexico -- gain a new resonance each time and
stand, in the end, for the complexity of a whole greater than the sum
of its parts." -- The New York Times Book Review

To order, please visit Episcopal Books and Resources online at
http://www.episcopalbookstore.org, call 800-903-5544, or visit your
local Episcopal bookstore.