Week Ending 07/26/21

Both posts this week are updates

GAFCON Continues Creation of Alternative Communion

The recent move by several dioceses in the Australian Anglican Church's Sydney Province to bless same sex unions has let the conservative network GAFCON  to announce that they will set up an alternative diocese for parishes that feel they can no longer be part of the Anglican Church of Australia.  GAFCON is a network that blends some of the national churches that belong to the Anglican Communion with a series of new break-away organizations that operate without Anglican Communion recognition competing with the official Anglican Communion churches.  GAFCON has previously set up competing jurisdictions in the U.S. and Canada, Brazil, New Zealand, and England, among other places.  

More Than Two Dozen Parishes Have Participated in Retiring Medical Debts

Update has carried notices of several parishes that partnered with a non-profit to buy up and retire medical debts of families in their communities. (The most recent is here.) Relief is limited to those making less than $53,000 a year or 200% of the federal poverty line. The most recent Update notice was of a parish in New Mexico that retired the medical debts of their entire state and part of Arizona.  The Episcopal News Service has now done a story that makes clear there were many more Episcopal parishes that have been doing this outreach -- at least 29 Episcopal parishes since January 1 2019.  For more on this program and some of the parishes that have been involved, go here.