News for Week Ending 6/6/2011

Priest says 13 gay bishops in CoE

As if the Colin Slee memo was not embarrassing enough for leaders in the Church of England—see Pittsburgh Update story here—on May 26, 2011, the Rev. Colin Coward wrote on the Changing Attitude Web site that he knows of gay bishops in his church. “I could name a number of bishops who are gay, including several appointed in the last 12 months,” he declared. Although Coward has not outed any English bishops, he did elaborate in a subsequent comment that he knows of 13 homosexual bishops in the church, which, he observed, is more than 10% of all bishops in the Church of England.

Diocese in Europe approves Covenant

According to The Living Church, the Diocese in Europe, one of 44 dioceses of the Church of England, voted May 31, 2011, in favor of approving the Anglican Covenant. A majority of the church’s dioceses must approve the Covenant if it is to have an up-or-down vote in the General Synod. The diocesan synod heard a presentation from the Rev. Canon Alyson Barnett-Cowan, director of the Anglican Communion Office’s Department of Unity, Faith and Order. The Living Church did not report that any address was given by an opponent of the Covenant. A brief audio interview with Alyson Barnett-Cowan is available here.

Episcopal Church gets new CEO

According to Episcopal News Service, Bishop Stacy F. Sauls will become the new chief operating officer of The Episcopal Church on September 1, 2011. He replaces Linda Watt, who is scheduled to retire this month. Watt has been CEO since November 2006. Sauls, who is presently Bishop of Lexington, served on the House of Bishops Task Force on Property Disputes, which produced the so-called Sauls Report. That April 2007 report declared that “TEC is dealing with a well-thought-out, well-organized, and well-funded strategy designed to enable and justify the removal of assets from use for the Church’s mission and ministry in the world.”

Breakaway Fort Worth diocese appeals to Texas Supreme Court

According to a news release on the Web site of the ACNA-affiliated “Episcopal Diocese of Forth Worth,” the diocese, on June 1, 2011, appealed directly to the Texas Supreme Court regarding its property dispute with the Episcopalians representing the continuing Episcopal Church diocese. A lower court had earlier ordered the ACNA diocese to surrender property to the Episcopal Church diocese. (See Pittsburgh Update story here.) The ACNA diocese seeks to bypass appeals with an argument that the trial court erred so as to affect the rights of non-profits throughout Texas.