Week Ending 8/26/19

Episcopal Parish Hosts Vigil Against "Straight Pride"

When a Modesto individual teamed with a San Francisco organizer to organize a "Straight Pride' March for August 24, the local churches decided to organize a counter event.  The Rev. Nick Lorenzetti of St. Paul's Episcopal Church worked with the local rabbi and the Islamic Center Imam to organize a vigil for  diversity at St. Paul's.  Other religious and community leaders, the NAACP and more planed to attend.  The  "Straight Pride" group claims to be protecting "traditional gender roles, Christianity, heterosexuality, Western Civilization, and the contributions of whites to Western Civilization from the malevolence of the homosexual movement."  The St. Paul's event will celebrate the diversity of the area.  The Modesto Bee has the full story of the planning of the vigil and a follow-up on the vigil itself. 

Pittsburgh Cathedral Hosts Overdose Awareness Day

Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Pittsburgh will once again host the Annual Overdose Awareness day on August 30.   The day includes continuing education for professionals, a free workshop for the public and a service at noon where all 432 people who died from drug overdoses will be remembered. Trinity hosted the interfaith event last year as well.

Oxford College Dean Reinstated

The Church of England minister who serves as the Dean of the ancient Christ Church College at Oxford has been reinstated after a year.  He had been suspended in September 2018 after a complaint was filed against him for non-sexual kinds of offenses. The public, however, was not told that the charges were related to the way he ran the college and  were thus free to assume he had been caught up in the on-going scandal in England related to sexual abuses by the Church leaders.  The College is self-governing and not under the authority of the Church of England.  The special tribunal that held hearings on the charges cleared the Dean of all but a minor financial misstep and restored him to his position.  The charges seem to have been brought by a group upset at changes the Dean was bringing to the college. 

 Anglican Church in Rwanda "Forgot" To Register 1000 Marriages

From 2006 to 2016 the Church of the Redeemer in Bugolobi, Rwanda was not "gazetted" to perform marriages and thus had to take the extra step of recording with civil authorities the marriages done there.  The church collected a fee required to do that registration, but used the money on its own expenses rather than registering the marriages.  The Rwanda government has recently declared the 1000 unregistered marriages illegal, and the parish is now scrambling to correct their mistake.

Continuing Stories

Laity Send Petition Against Welby Visit to India

The early September visit by Archbishop Welby to the churches in India has been under fire for a variety of reasons. (See Updates here and here) Now a group of South Indian laity have weighed in with a petition that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan not receive him.  The petition claims that the visit was planned by Church officials to distract the press from numerous corrupt activities committed by Church leaders.

Jewish Group Files Complaint Against National Cathedral for Political Activity

The Washington National Cathedral leaders spoke out against President Trump's intemperate words about Baltimore and Representative Cummings (see Update here).  In response, JewsChooseTrump.org filed a complaint with the IRS seeking to have the cathedral's tax exempt status revoked for political activity.  The story in Anglican.ink provides most of its space to those filing the complaint.  The Living Church coverage notes that the filing is not likely to be successful.