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The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it (John 1:5). The world settles into winter, at least in the northern hemisphere, and life to many seems increasingly bleak. Foreclosures, layoffs, government bailouts and financial failures, continuing war on two fronts, terrorist attacks, murders of some identified only by their faith -- this world is in abundant need of light. We know light that is not overcome by darkness, for God has come among us in human flesh. Born in poverty to a homeless couple, to a people long under occupation, Jesus is human and divine...

Despite protest from the head of The Episcopal Church, clergy from a diocese that is moving toward a split with the national church are meeting with Archbishop Gregory Venables, head of the conservative Anglican Province of the Southern Cone in South America. Venables was invited by the Rt. Rev. Jack Iker, bishop of the Diocese of Fort Worth, to discuss this weekend issues affecting the diocese and the global Anglican Communion which has been wracked by division. Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, however, urged Venables "not to bring further discord into The Episcopal Church" by accepting the invitation. His...

"Coming here to bless a garden, especially at this time in the history of humanity, when we're focused on how the church can be a more proactive voice in caring for the rest of creation, is an important message," she said before the service. Bishop Jefferts Schori, 54, leads a church that is at odds with much of the Anglican Communion and faces revolt internally. The Episcopal Church has seen conservative congregations – and one California diocese – depart over what they say is its liberal drift, particularly the acceptance of openly gay Bishop Gene Robinson. "We're struggling over the...

From the time Anglican pilgrims arrived in Jamestown, it's as if America and the Episcopal Church have been soul mates – for better or for worse. Now come the country's culture wars over sexuality, conservative versus liberal, change versus tradition. And the 2.4-million-member denomination that has given us more U.S. presidents than any other, along with its first-ever woman leader, is not being spared. Nearly five years after a gay priest was elected bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, the fallout continues. One diocese has seceded from the U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Dozens of congregations,...

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori made it clear Friday night that she will direct The Episcopal Church to move ahead to reconstitute the Diocese of San Joaquin and to establish control over church property swiftly. In addition, she said, she intends to begin the process of revising the denomination’s canons to allow it to deal more expeditiously with breakaway bishops.   “I expect to see revisions to the canons to deal with situations like the one that you have been living with in San Joaquin for several years,” she said.   The Presiding Bishop spoke at a question-and-answer session at...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The presiding bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Episcopal Church called for members of their churches "to advocate for just national policies on resettlement and migration." The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, ELCA presiding bishop, and the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, made the comment in joint statement released Jan. 30 at a gathering here with refugees, staff and friends of Interfaith Refugee and Immigration Ministries (IRIM). The gathering was at the Episcopal Church of the Atonement. Jefferts Schori is here in advance of the Feb. 2...

For Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first female head of the 2.4 million-member U.S. Episcopal Church, military conflict in the Middle East hits very close to home. Jefferts Schori has a 26-year-old daughter, Kate, a pilot who was recently deployed to the United Arab Emirates as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force. "We raised our daughter to make her own decisions and she's clearly done that," Jefferts Schori said Friday in Birmingham. "We're very supportive of the work she's doing, believing that it's far better to have leaders who come with a solid, moral, ethical base and...

LONDON - Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori says her church has been unfairly singled out for criticism because it is honest about consecrating gay bishops. Jefferts Schori told BBC Radio 4's "PM" program that the New York-based church, which is the Anglican body in the U.S., is far from the only Anglican province that has a bishop with a same-sex partner. In 2003, Episcopalians elected the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, causing an uproar that has pushed the Anglican family toward a split. "He is certainly not alone in being a gay bishop; he's...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Episcopal Life reports from Church Times: A suggestion that Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori ordered the removal of information from the Wikipedia website has been discredited, according to a report by Simon Sarmiento in the U.K.-based Church Times newspaper. The story, which originated on an American conservative website in May, resurfaced last Saturday in The Independent newspaper, which reported that Barbara Alton, personal assistant to Bishop Charles Bennison of Pennsylvania, "deleted information concerning a cover-up of child sexual abuse [by the bishop's brother], allegations that the bishop misappropriated $11.6 million in trust funds, and evidence of other scandals. When...

Anglican Conflict: A Battle with 'Eternal Significance' http://www.christiantoday.com/article/anglican.conflict.a.battle.with.eternal.significance/10915.htm http://tinyurl.com/2ndbyg by Lillian Kwon, Christian Today Correspondent Posted: Saturday, May 26, 2007, 12:39 (BST) The recent non-invitation of two wayward bishops to a decennial global Anglican meeting produced a media frenzy this week. But what does all this mean? "First of all, it is clear that the Archbishop of Canterbury faces an impossible task – he is confronted by two irreconcilable truth claims," stated Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns, newly installed missionary bishop of CANA (Convocation of Anglicans in North America) – an orthodox Anglican splinter group and offshoot of the Church of...

Katharine Jefferts Schori on the future of the Episcopal Church http://www.statesman.com/life/content/life/stories/faith/05/19/0519schori.html http://tinyurl.com/2vknks First woman to preside as bishop talks with Statesman religion reporter By Eileen Flynn American-Statesman Staff Saturday, May 19, 2007 The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, addressed the graduates of the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest on Tuesday in Northwest Austin. After the commencement, Jefferts Schori, the first woman to lead the national church, sat down with an American-Statesman reporter to talk about her denomination's challenges, including tensions within the 2.4 million-member American province and with Anglicans worldwide and her recent...

Episcopal Bishop says few leaving over same-sex issues http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=123562&ran=89412 By STEVEN G. VEGH, The Virginian-Pilot April 26, 2007 Last updated: 12:16 AM VIRGINIA BEACH - The Episcopal Church's presiding bishop on Wednesday downplayed the notion of a denominational schism over homosexuality, saying only a tiny fraction of congregations have moved to break away. In an interview, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said the congregations had "gotten a lot of attention and been very noisy," but accounted for less than 1 percent of the country's total number of parishes, which she put at 7,500. "The Episcopal Church is alive and well,"...

Leadership: Amen To Women http://www.forbes.com/2007/03/20/katharine-schori-episcopalian-lead_cz_ch_0321pink.html http://tinyurl.com/ynvrms Cecile S. Holmes, PINK 03.21.07, 6:00 AM ET Katharine Jefferts Schori -- oceanographer, instrument-rated pilot and Episcopal bishop -- remembers the evening in 2000 when it seemed she might be reaching the zenith of her short ecclesiastical career. After spending the day in a diocesan committee meeting along Oregon's southern coast, she had returned to her home in Corvallis, Ore. Her daughter was away at college, her husband out for the evening with friends. She was sitting at home alone when the call came, she recalls. "They said, 'You have been elected bishop. Will...

FRESNO, CA--An Episcopal diocese in California overwhelmingly passed a series of resolutions yesterday that position it to secede from the Episcopal Church and affiliate with conservatives in the global Anglican Communion. If the Diocese of San Joaquin affirms the move in a second vote next year, the small diocese, with 48 parishes and 7,000 members, would be the first to try to break from the Episcopal Church, which has been torn by conflict since the consecration of a gay bishop in 2003. Until now, only individual parishes have severed ties. The vote by the diocese is one more step in...

Division looms for Episcopal Churchhttp://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=2216 http://tinyurl.com/kr9gt July 25, 2006 Signs of a full-blown split between the Episcopal Church and most of the worldwide Anglican Communion appeared only days after the U.S. church's General Convention refused to renounce the election of gay bishops. The 2.2-million-member Episcopal Church would be reduced to nonvoting "associate" status in a proposed two-tiered membership policy for the 77-million-member communion that was announced June 27 in London. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said those national churches that sign a covenant affirming Anglicanism's traditional stance on homosexuality could be full members of the communion, while other churches would...

A Schismatic Canterbury Talehttp://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/14/opinion/main1805855.shtml http://tinyurl.com/r9z5a (The American Prospect) This column was written by Adele M. Stan July 16, 2006 It was with great joy that religious members of the progressive movement received, late last month, news of the election of Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori to the top leadership position in the U.S. Episcopal Church. For one, the fact of the bishop’s gender heralded an important first for Episcopalians, whose rites and rituals cling closely to those of the Roman Catholic Church. Furthermore, the inclusive position taken by Jefferts Schori with regard to the full participation of gays and lesbians in...

By coincidence, a potentially historic speech about women that received little media fanfare was made two weeks before America's Episcopal Church elected Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori as its leader, the first female to head a branch of the international Anglican Communion. The speaker was Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican's top official on relations with non-Catholic Christians, addressing a private session with the Church of England's bishops and certain women priests. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the 77 million Anglicans, invited Kasper to discuss the English church's projected move to allow women bishops. To date, only the United...

Some Anglican liberals are slowly coming to the realization that the Anglican charade is just about over: If the church is taken over by the conservative evangelicals, how broad would it remain? And if they are in charge when Prince Charles becomes king, with his commitment to being a defender of faiths, would they feel happy to crown him? After all, some of them disapprove of ecumenical, or interfaith, services as it is. Where would that leave the old church’s established status? Liberals are beginning to wonder whether a covenant is something they could, or should, support with more than...

SOURCE: WASH POSTDIRECT LINK... Although she will not take up her new role until November, six U.S. dioceses already have rejected her authority, and that number is rising. Many church leaders expect that by the time she takes office, about five more, for a total of 10 percent of the nation's 111 Episcopal dioceses, will have joined the rejectionist camp....READ MOREUPDATE: Good perspective on article hereUPDATE II: Terry Mattingly writes about it here

I was an Episcopalian for 25 years, but left the church 19 years ago with a million others. Occasionally I attend Episcopal services because I love its liturgy. However, the national church's recent General Convention offered two new reasons why many more orthodox Christians will leave. This week former Episcopalians who call themselves Anglicans, held a Requiem Mass at St. Paul's Cathedral in Portland, Maine, "in observance of the death of the Episcopal Church." Why? First, the church elected as Presiding Bishop for a nine year term, Katherine Jefferts Schori, who has an earned Ph.D. in marine biology, is fluent...