Week Ending 12/13/16

Massachusetts Bishop Ask Trump to Reconsider EPA Head

Five Episcopal Bishops from Massachusetts, including the current diocesans of the Dioceses of Western Massachusetts and Massachusetts, and the current and two retired suffragan bishops of the Diocese of Massachusetts have all signed a letter to President-elect Donald Trump requesting that he rethink his appointment of Scott Pruitt as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.  They also stated that they would write their representatives in Congress urging them to block Pruitt's appointment.  Both dioceses currently feature the letter on the home page of their diocesan web site.  

South Carolina Episcopalians Back in Federal Court

Episcopalians in South Carolina made oral arguments in their second appeal to the Federal Appeals Court in Richmond Virginia.  They are hoping to get the appeals court to tell the retired federal judge in S.C. he can no longer delay in hearing the suit brought originally by Bishop von Rosenberg against Mark Lawrence for fraudulently claiming he is an Episcopal bishop.  The local judge had originally stayed the case until the State law suits over property had been settled.  SC Episcopalians appealed the stay and the court sent the case back to the retired judge to hold the trial.  He again issued a stay.
You can find a summary of the arguments on the December 9, 2016 blog posting on  scepiscopalians.com.  The actual oral arguments are available from the diocese. .  Pittsburgh Update covered the filing of the second appeal here.

Anglicans Take Action Against Gender Violence

The Update carried the announcement that the Anglican Communion was sponsoring a sixteen day focus on actions against gender violence.  In response the Anglican Church of Burundi has established a shelter for victims of Gender violence and trained 126 volunteers to offer support to victims of violence.  The province has made the issue of gender violence a major part of its ministry and has a coordinator for gender violence issues. In Fiji (part of the Province of  Aeotaeroa, New Zealand, and Polynesia), Anglicans worked with other Christian groups to produce a 60 second advertisement that ran in movie houses and national television.  The video stressed that Gender-based violence was a sin. Sixty-four percent of Fiji women between the ages of 15 and 49 have been the victim of intimate partner abuse. 

Former St. George's School Chaplain Arraigned

Howard White, the former Chaplain at St. George's School in Rhode Island has now been arraigned on criminal charges of assault and battery in Massachusetts concerning incidents that took place in the 1970s when he was in Massachusetts on a school trip.  White has already been deposed from the priesthood based on the charges of sexual abuse of children both at the school and in a parish in North Carolina.