Free Republic

Seven years after the Episcopal Church caused an uproar by consecrating its first openly gay bishop, it has done the same thing again -- only this time with a woman. The Rev. Canon Mary Glasspool, of Baltimore, was ordained and consecrated on Saturday, making her the second openly gay bishop in church history and one of the first two female bishops in the Diocese of Los Angeles' 114-year history. Breakaway Episcopal conservatives have formed a rival church, the Anglican Church in North America. Several overseas Anglicans have been pressuring Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the world's 77...

Daniel W. Herzog became an outspoken national opponent of ordaining gay clergy after he retired from the ministry in 2007. He made news that year when he and two other diocesan bishops left the Episcopal Church to join the Roman Catholic Church. The Episcopal Church, the American wing of the worldwide Anglican Communion, had been in turmoil following the consecration in 2003 of V. Gene Robinson as its first openly gay bishop.Herzog's return was announced this week by Albany Bishop William Love. Both Herzog and his wife, Carol, left the church. Herzog was one of only a handful of Episcopal...

Fr. Christopher Phillips with Pope Benedict XVI Fr. Christopher G. Phillips is the pastor of Our Lady of the Atonement Catholic Church in San Antonio, Texas, where he has served for nearly twenty-seven years. He is the founding pastor of the first Anglican Use parish, erected in 1983 under the terms of the Pastoral Provision. Fr. Phillips was ordained as an Anglican for the Diocese of Bristol, England, in 1975. After serving as Curate for three years at St. Stephen Southmead, he returned to the United States and served in two Episcopal parishes in the Diocese of Rhode Island....

Grateful for the gracious guidance of the Holy Spirit, and the leadership of the Most Reverend Peter J. Akinola, the Primates Council of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (GAFCON/FCA) met in Bermuda from April 5 through 9, 2010. The Primates Council consists of Primates (Senior Archbishops) of Anglican Provinces who met together in Jerusalem in June 2008 as part of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON). Their determination to give witness to the life transforming gospel of Jesus Christ and the trustworthiness of the Bible led to the establishment of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA). FCA is a movement...

Protestant Organist Finds Musical Home in the Catholic Church April 6th, 2010 by Patricia Coll Freeman On the third Sunday in Lent, high in the choir loft of Holy Family Cathedral in Anchorage, a born and bred West Virginian Baptist directed a group of Catholic singers and worshipers through the prayerful notes of the Latin Agnus Dei.But at Pentecost, Gary Marks, the cathedral’s new music director and Baptist-turned-Episcopalian with a Methodist divinity degree, comes home to the Catholic Church guided by the Holy Spirit along the mellifluous thread of sacred music.God’s Musical Direction“The church and music have always been tied together for...

(RNS) With her careers as veterinarian, astronaut and U.S. president behind her, Barbie has at last found her true calling: as a second-career Episcopal priest. The 11.5-inch-tall fictional graduate of Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, Calif., has donned a cassock and surplice and is rector at St. Barbara’s-by-the-Sea in (where else?) Malibu, Calif. She arrived at the church fully accessorized, as is Barbie’s custom. Her impeccably tailored ecclesiastical vestments include various colored chasubles (the sleeveless vestments worn at Mass) for every liturgical season, black clergy shirt with white collar, neat skirt and heels, a laptop with prepared...

March 22 Fr. Donald Calloway Former Episcopal FROM Aquinasandmore blog We recently had the opportunity to interview Fr. Donald Calloway M.I.C., well-known Marian priest, popular speaker and presenter, and author of the new book No Turning Back: A Witness to Mercy.Our interview:Father, our readers and customers know your name from your many books and talks, but can you give us some more information about your background?IÂ’m a convert to the Catholic faith. I was born in 1972 to non-Christian parents; my parents were not members of any religion. When my mother remarried I was adopted and baptized into the...

Mary Douglas Glasspool. Los Angeles, Calif., Mar 18, 2010 / 11:34 pm (CNA).- On Wednesday, the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles reported the approval of the election of Mary Douglas Glasspool as their first openly partnered lesbian assistant bishop. The decision drew sharply contrasting reactions from those within the Episcopal community, including dissatisfaction from the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. Glasspool, 56, was elected bishop in December of last year but had to wait for consent from the Office of the Episcopal Church, which was confirmed yesterday. Upon hearing of her election confirmation, Glasspool was reported by the LA...

A majority of bishops and dioceses of the Episcopal Church have approved the election of the church’s second openly gay bishop, the Rev. Mary D. Glasspool, a decision likely to increase the tension with fellow Anglican churches around the world that do not approve of homosexuality. The worldwide Anglican Communion, the network of churches connected to the Church of England, has been in turmoil since the Americans elected their first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson, in New Hampshire in 2003. Theological conservatives in the Communion say the Bible condemns homosexuality, while liberals say the Scripture is open to interpretation....

It's a strange phenomenon when weather—or anything—slows the archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola. But that's what happened when record snowfall in Washington last month forced the cancellation of a long-anticipated celebration, known among Anglicans as a festal eucharist, to commemorate Akinola. The stout, 66-year-old clergyman, who friends say gets by on three to four hours' sleep a night and keeps a travel schedule to rival any gold-status f requent flier, will step down March 25 as head of the Anglican church in Nigeria—at 20 million, the largest Anglican communion in the world. The event that was to include national and...

Now "strengthening of the heart" is one of the great wants of many professing Christians...They want to realize more tangible comfort. They fancy they ought to feel more and see more...Where shall they turn? What shall set their consciences at rest? Then comes the enemy of souls, and suggests some shortcut road to establishment. He hints at the value of some addition to the simple plan of the Gospel, some man-made gimmick, some exaggeration of a truth, some flesh-satisfying invention, some improvement on the old path, and whispers, "Only use this, and you shall be strengthened."... "Come to us," says...

LA CRESCENTA, Calif. – March 1, 2010 – St. Luke’s Anglican Church has learned today that the Supreme Court of the United States has denied its petition for writ of certiorari filed in December of last year. St. Luke’s asked the Court to decide whether California courts violated the First Amendment of the United States Constitution by conferring on The Episcopal Church and its Diocese in Los Angeles a special power – not available to nonreligious persons or nondenominational churches – to seize St. Luke’s property and take over its corporation based on its religious affiliation. Since its founding, the...

She sings the litany. He delivers the sermon. It is Sunday morning at All Saints Episcopal Church in Sacramento and both the Revs. Michael and Betsey Monnot preside over the worship services, one of several ways the church keeps down expenses. "We trade off duties every week," said Betsey Monnot. The two priests, who are married and have two children and another due in three weeks, said the church could afford one full-time clergyperson. So they agreed to job-share and serve as co-rectors. "When you're a small church, you have to be creative," said Michael Monnot. He echoes a message...

Katharine Jefferts Schori and David Booth Beers talk things over.

MODESTO – The Episcopal-Anglican battle in Stanislaus County got very personal this week when the Episcopal faction filed a lawsuit against St. Francis Anglican Church in Turlock seeking control of the its assets. The suit was filed Monday in Stanislaus Superior Court by the Rev. Jerry Lamb, bishop of the Modesto-based Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin. It names the Rev. Gerald "Gerry" Grossman and nine members of the church's vestry, or ruling body, as well as the St. Francis parish as defendants. St. Francis is the first parish in the diocese to face an individual lawsuit in the dispute that...

They worked for years cleaning and maintaining the Episcopal Church Center in midtown Manhattan. But after they were fired on Dec. 30, nine hard-working people are in desperate need of divine intervention. "We came to work on Dec. 30 as every day, hoping to leave a little earlier to celebrate the new year," said Bronx native Héctor Miranda, a father of three. "But when we got to the building we were told that we no longer worked there. Just like that. They picked the date well to fire us." Now, without the means to support his family, Miranda has no...

Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson Washington D.C., Feb 5, 2010 / 03:20 am (CNA).- The first openly homosexual Episcopal bishop, V. Gene Robinson, has claimed that the Bible does not address the ethics of “monogamous, lifelong” homosexual relationships. He suggested that the people of St. Paul’s times did not realize that some people were “affectionally oriented” to their own sex.On Tuesday at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., CNSNews.com spoke to Bishop Robinson about St. Paul’s condemnation in the Book of Romans of “unnatural” relations and “indecent acts” between members of the same sex. CNSNews.com asked if St....

Wicca’s Invitation Pagan practices are meeting with an increasingly receptive audience in the Episcopal Church. Is it the consequence of an unmet need? The following article originally appeared in Forward in Christ Magazine, and is reproduced with permission. The monthly meditation had a playful air about it. “A crone is an old woman. A crone is a witch. A crone is a wise woman. Which one will you be, my friend? Which one I?” Wrapped around a rite for “croning”, the meditation embraced a history of mystical women and offered prayers to “Mothering God” and “Eternal Wisdom.” But the article...

I have been looking for God my whole life. I first recognized Him in the black foster parents I worked with who manifested Christ-consciousness. I then found him four years ago, when my parents died three weeks apart and I was carried by a force stronger than myself. And more recently, as I’ve gone from left to right, I have discovered him in the many conservatives guiding me, such as AT readers.

A priest in Britain is under fire Monday for advising his congregation to shoplift in tough economic times, the Daily Mail reports. Father Tim Jones, a 41-year-old clergyman at St. Lawrence Church in York, England, said that shoplifting — rather than prostitution or burglary — is sometimes the best option for poor people struggling to make ends meet, according to the Web site. "My advice as a Christian priest is to shoplift," Jones reportedly told churchgoers during his Sunday sermon. "I do not offer such advice because I think that stealing is a good thing, or because I think it...