Large contingent of churches joins Pride celebration

By LOU CHIBBARO JR
Friday, June 15, 2007
Washington Blade

Surging crowds lining the parade route added to the enthusiasm of this year’s 32nd annual Pride festivities as thousands turned out for last weekend’s Capital Pride parade and festival.

Similar to past years, colorful floats, a gay marching band and members of dozens of gay social, political, sports and faith-based groups walked or rode along the parade route, which began on P Street, N.W., near Dupont Circle, and wound its way through gay neighborhoods before ending at Thomas Circle.

But in what organizers said appeared to be a new trend, a considerably larger contingent of mainline city churches and religious groups joined the parade this year, and thousands more spectators — both gay and straight — lined the streets to watch the parade. Many cheered, waved and snapped pictures with their digital cameras as the contingents moved past them.

Leading the religious contingent was Right Rev. John B. Chane, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, who rode in an open car. Official contingents of at least four of the city’s largest Episcopal parishes joined Chane in the parade, including one from the Washington National Cathedral, over which Chane presides, according to church spokesperson Jim Naughton.

"For us, we felt we should not be timid after what our church has been through recently," Naught[on] said.

He was referring to the heated controversy and possible church schism surrounding the ordination of gay Episcopal bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire and the decision by a number of conservative Episcopal parishes to break away from the official church leadership over the gay clergy issue.

Naught[on] said Chane and the gay and straight parishioners joining him in the city’s June 9 Gay Pride parade believe they were carrying our the best tradition of their faith.

"In a way, this is evangelism at its best,” he said. “You reach out to new audiences. Churches have to make themselves visible to the community."

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Individual bishops respond to Lambeth Conference invitations announcement

By Mary Frances Schjonberg, May 24, 2007

[Episcopal News Service] Some Episcopal Church bishops have responded to the May 22 announcement that a small number of bishops have not been invited to the 2008 Lambeth Conference.

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Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori issued a brief statement that same day calling for "a calm approach" to the announcement and noting that aspects of the matter could change in the 14 months leading up to the July 16-August 4, 2008 gathering at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England. She said that "the House of Bishops' September meeting offers us a forum for further discussion." Williams and members of the Joint Standing Committee of the Primates and the Anglican Consultative Council will attend that meeting.

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Ohio Bishop Mark Hollingsworth wrote in a letter to the diocese on May 22 that Minns and the Bishop of Bolivia were in the Diocese of Ohio the previous week to participate in an ordination in Akron. Neither bishop had "sought or received my permission to perform episcopal acts within the ecclesiastical jurisdiction for which I am responsible," Hollingsworth added.

Robinson's presence at the Lambeth Conference "might be awkward or difficult for some of the other participants, but that is hardly uncommon in Christian community," he said. "There are plenty of bishops whose presence in the councils of the Church I find difficult, and doubtless plenty who find mine the same. However, Bishop Robinson, throughout his ministry, has been unfailingly honest and open, consistently establishing and maintaining trust within the diocese he has faithfully served and throughout the Church. Time and time again he has been an instrument of reconciliation and resolution."

Hollingsworth wrote that he concurred with both Jefferts Schori's "sense of patience and her hope for productive conversations with the Archbishop of Canterbury in New Orleans this autumn."

Hollingsworth, who became a bishop the same year as Robinson, is meeting with him and the other members of that class this week in a previously scheduled gathering.

"Of course we will consider this recent news thoughtfully and prayerfully...seeking not to be reactive, but faithfully responsive," he wrote.

The complete text of Hollingsworth's letter is available here.

Washington Bishop John Chane wrote in a May 23 letter to his diocese that he was "saddened" by the news that Robinson would not be invited to the Lambeth Conference in his status as
Bishop of New Hampshire.

Chane wrote that Williams' failure to invite Robinson "will be a high priority in our time together" when the House of Bishops meets with Williams in New Orleans in September.

Chane wrote that the "real issue" facing the Communion is leadership.

"Until we are able to separate ourselves from our fixation on human sexuality as the root of our divisions and address the dynamics of power and leadership in the Communion, we are doomed to fail in Christ's call to engage the world in the act of inclusive love and a mission-driven theology that claims justice, the rule of law and the respect for human rights as the core of our work as a Communion," Chane wrote.

The complete text of Chane's letter is available here.

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New York Time | Episcopal Church Rejects Demand for a 2nd Leadership

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Published: March 22, 2007

Bishop John Chane of Washington, D.C., said in an interview, "It was very clear that the majority of bishops, wherever they were on the theological spectrum, agreed that this scheme doesn’t match with who we are as the Episcopal Church."

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Several bishops also said in interviews that they believed that the pastoral council arrangement was intended to strengthen the position of conservative parishes or dioceses that want to leave the Episcopal Church and take their property with them. The breakaway parishes could claim that they came under the new pastoral council guided by the primates, and that the council was the highest authority in the Episcopal Church’s hierarchy.

Bishop Mark Sisk, of New York, said in an interview, "The concern is that that would indicate we are, in some sense, subservient to the primates, rather than simply a church in fellowship with them. And that could have significant legal implications."

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"It’s a good day to be an Episcopalian," said the Rev. Terry Martin of Holy Spirit Church, Tuckerton, N.J., who writes a liberal blog that is called fatherjakestopstheworld.

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