Federal Court Again Rules Against Tax Exemption for Clergy Housing
Having had an appeals court throw out an earlier suit for lack of standing, those challenging the standard tax-exemption given by the IRS for clergy housing allowances, tried again, this time ensuring that they did have standing by having been denied a requested exemption. The Federal District Court in Wisconsin that heard the first case, ruled on Friday, October 6, that the 1954 federal law granting an exemption to clergy housing was unconstitutional by granting privileges to religious organizations not offered to other philanthropic groups, thus creating an establishment of religion. Religion News carried the story.Primates Meeting Concludes with No Surprises
The primates meeting went pretty much as expected, helped in part by the absence of three primates most hostile to the provinces who are supportive of LGBTQ rights and same-sex marriage. The first two days were spent largely in discussion of the 2015 vote by the Episcopal Church General Convention to allow same sex marriages, and the more recent decision of the Scottish Episcopal Church. The Church of Canada's vote to change their canons seems to have slipped by. The result has been that the primates have asked for the same "consequences" for Scotland as were requested by the primates in 2016 for the U.S. Since the Anglican Consultative Council refused to confirm these consequences, any implementation is up to Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby. The Scottish primate does expect Canterbury to refrain from appointing members of their province to leadership and ecumenical matters for three years. Most of the meeting dealt with other issues faced by primates around the world, such as global warming, hunger, and evangelism. During the meeting, the primates heard the announcement of the new Anglican Inter Faith Commission (requested by the Anglican Consultative Council) to be chaired by Bishop Mouneer Anis. By video he invited every province to send representatives ot an initial meeting of the commission in Cairo in February. At the conclusion of their meeting, the primates issued a Communique covering all of the issues and stressing their desire to continue to walk together. Other positive assessments of the meeting, can be found in reports printed in the Canadian Church's Anglican Journal, in the statement by Presiding Bishop Curry, and the story in the Church Times.The first two days were interrupted by the news of the Las Vegas shootings, and Presiding Bishop Curry was asked to do a special prayer at the beginning of their evening worship. This resulted in the ACNA media head, Canon Andrew Gross, making some comments about how it was inappropriate for Curry to lead any prayers at the meeting. Gross's comments backfired. Archbishop Welby noted he was "taken aback" by the criticism, and even conservative primates found the remarks uncalled for. The remarks may have had a further consequence in that Gross was denied press credentials and barred from the final news conference for the meeting.
GAFCON and ACNA were certainly not happy with the outcome of the meeting. During the meeting Anglican Communion Secretary General Josiah Idowu-Fearon of Nigeria confirmed that he had not changed his opinion that conservative money from the U.S. had manipulated African Church leaders into making sexuality a major issue. The Communique included statements confirming that ACNA is not a member of the Anglican Communion, and a section condemning cross-border incursions by other provinces. GAFCON and ACNA are responsible for most such incursions. Not surprisingly, GAFCON issued a statement critical of the meeting, as did Archbishop Venables, primate of the Province of South American, and a GAFCON leader, who left the conference on Wednesday noon.