Free Republic

The headlines coming out of the Episcopal Church’s annual U.S. convention are stunning — endorsement of cross-dressing clergy, blessing same-sex marriage, the sale of their headquarters since they can’t afford to maintain it. The American branch of the Church of England, founded when the Vatican balked at permitting King Henry VIII to continue executing any wife who failed to bear him sons, is in trouble. Somehow slipping out of the headlines is a harsh reality that the denomination has been deserted in droves by an angry or ambivalent membership. Six prominent bishops are ready to take their large dioceses out...

Breaking news: House of Bishops affirms gay commitment ceremony Posted on July 9, 2012 by cherie Cherie Wetzel reporting from the 77th General Convention in Indianapolis July 9, 2012 This afternoon, the House of bishops voted in roll call vote, to affirm A049 the resolution endorsing the same-sex commitment ceremony. The vote was 111 yes, 41 no and 3 abstained. As I listened to the 1:45 minute discussion prior to the vote, I continued to have hope as clearly 19 bishops stated they would vote no that I had not expected. At the end of the process, after announcing the...

Sixteen years after allowing gays and lesbians to become priests, the Episcopal Church appears poised to introduce a rite that would specifically bless the unions of same-sex couples. If the liturgy is approved, which is expected, Episcopalians will become the first major denomination to endorse such a ritual for homosexual couples. On its face, the blessing seems similar to that of a marriage rite -- including “I do,” “we have gathered together today” and an exchange of rings. Notably absent are the words “husband,” “wife” and “marriage.”

The Episcopal Church (TEC) and the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) are vying for ecumenical partners as each jockeys for recognition by the wider Christian community. TEC recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Episcopal-Lutheran Concordat wherein the Episcopal Church USA and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) entered into full Communion. While this was initially met with much enthusiasm and idealism in the hope that the two denominations would usher in a new era of inter-denominational cooperation, the occasion went mostly unnoticed. In February of this year, the Northern and Southern Provinces of the Moravian Church in...

As I stood in front of the new Mormon Temple in Liberty, Mo., it struck me as ironic that close to 175 years ago, Mormons were forced out of this same state. Whereas the Missouri public once urged their governor to force Joseph Smith and his followers out of the area surrounding Kansas City, Mormons began to return to the region in the 1900s, eventually gathering in such large numbers that the Church organization decided the region needed a temple. Which is why I came to visit. Latter Day Saints restrict temple access to members of their denomination who...

The announcement on Monday, March 30 that The Rev. Dr. Katherine Ragsdale was appointed as the sixth and newest president of Episcopal Divinity School (EDS) in Cambridge, MA, has orthodox and pro-life Episcopalians shaking their heads... ...the EDS website also has a link to Rev. Ragsdale’s sermon blog. There, the first sermon is entitled, “Our Work is Not Done...” “These are the two things I want you, please, to remember – abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Let me hear you say it: abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Donning their Sunday best, President Barack Obama and his family attended Easter services this morning at St. John's Church in Washington D.C. Located a block away from the White House, the protestant Episcopal parish is a frequent visit for Obama and past presidents. A casual stroll through Lafayette Park will bring you to the historic house of worship in minutes. The president, first lady Michelle Obama, and daughters Sasha and Malia were seated about six pews back from the pulpit of Rev. Luis Leon, whose sermon reflected on the uncertain state of world affairs as they related...

<p>Good citizens of Atlanta, the Obamas were spotted heading off to church via foot from the White House, traversing Lafayette Park to get to St. John's Church for their Sunday services on December 11, 2011 in Washington, DC.</p> <p>The buzz is that President Obama’s stance on religion was on personal attack in a commercial launched by Rick Perry, that claims that Barack Obama has a supposed “war on religion.”</p>

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama and his family are attending a worship service at a church just across the street from the White House where presidents frequently have visited. The president, first lady Michelle Obama and daughters Sasha and Malia made the short walk across Lafayette Park to St. John's Church.

The Rev. Mark Lewis awoke early on the last morning of his life as an Anglican priest and dressed in a suit and tie instead of his usual priestly regalia. That’s different, he thought, for the first of many times on a day when so much was different for St. Luke’s, the small Episcopal church in Maryland where Lewis had been rector since 2006. On Sunday — with Lewis wearing lay clothing and sitting with St. Luke’s parishioners inside the Crypt Church at Washington’s Basilica of the National Shine of the Immaculate Conception — most of the parish from Bladensburg...

The spiritual head of the Anglican Communion, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, will resign his position next year almost a decade before he is due to retire in order to return to academic life, a newspaper reported on Sunday. Williams, 61, who has worked hard to prevent the worldwide Anglican community from splitting over the ordination of women and gay bishops, may take up a senior post at Cambridge University, the Sunday Telegraph said. ...Williams has regularly come under fire for his outspoken comments, most recently making headlines in June with an attack on the British government’s deficit-cutting austerity programme....

“[We must] talk of hard financial issues and church decline and growth, to address elephants in the room, and to speak truth to one another in love." Executive Council of the Episcopal Church A month long investigation by Virtueonline into the numerical state of The Episcopal Church reveals that more than one third of all 6825 Episcopal parishes in the U.S. have an average Sunday attendance (ASA) of 40 or less. VOL believes that the figure of 2.3 million Episcopalians, regularly stated by TEC leaders and officials, does not reveal the true state of church attendance. More than two-thirds of...

The Washington National Cathedral sustained significant damage in the earthquake that hit D.C. on Tuesday afternoon. Damage included arch displacement, cracking, falling limestone and rotating pinnacles on the Cathedral's neogothic towers. National Cathedral Head Mason Joe Alonso estimated a piece weighing about 3,000 pounds toppled from the central tower. He called the damage to that section of the Cathedral "mind boggling." A link to video of Alonso detailing the damage was tweeted by the National Cathedral on Wednesday morning. "A lot of what fell, we're fortunate that it fell in toward the roof and not out toward the streets," Alonso...

“As we began to think about certain matters, our hearts began to melt, and we moved towards Rome,” said Father Mark Lewis, rector of a church that was formerly St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Bladensburg, Md. St. Luke’s has made headlines as the first Episcopal church in the Washington, D.C., area and the second in the state of Maryland to avail itself of Pope Benedict XVI’s offer to Anglicans. That offer was outlined in Anglicanorum Coetibus, an apostolic constitution that makes it possible for groups of Anglican congregations to enter the Catholic Church For the St. Luke community, that will...

The fight over the Westside church on the hill has finally ended. The Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande has agreed to settle a 2008 lawsuit that challenged the ownership of St. Francis on the Hill Church. The settlement means the conservative breakaway Anglican group now occupying the church has to be out by the end of July. It also means a smaller group of Episcopalians who felt forced out of the church a few years ago will take control of the property, but not its financial assets.The departing Anglicans have found a new home down the hill, off Mesa...

The Anglican bishop of Massachusetts, the Rt Revd M Thomas Shaw SSJE, witnesses the "marriage" of the Very Reverend Katherine Hancock Ragsdale and Mally Lloyd, Canon to the Ordinary on New Year's Day 2011.By Father James Bradley of St John the Baptist Church, Sevenoaks, Kent who, by the way, are using the Evangelium course to learn about the Catholic Faith.

The most powerful propaganda is often the most subtle. If a person is portrayed as doing great, humanitarian things versus doing divisive or hurtful things, that person's cause and message are also given a psychological boost. In today's culture wars the mainstream media does this in spades. When writing about people involved in these issues, there is rarely any middle ground -- as we've warned pro-family people for years. Although the casual reader may not realize it, the media takes this very seriously. On Dec. 5 the Boston Globe ran a prominent feature article on Bishop V. Gene Robinson, the...

The historic marriage of Episcopal Divinity School, dean and president, the Very Reverend Katherine Hancock Ragsdale and Mally Lloyd, Canon to the Ordinary, took place today at the Cathedral Church of St Paul in Boston.The Episcopalian bishop of Massachusetts began 2011 by solemnizing the first lesbian marriage - of two senior Episcopalian clergy - at Boston's St Paul's Cathedral Saturday (January 1). The marriage of Episcopal Divinity School, dean and president, the Very Reverend Katherine Hancock Ragsdale and Mally Lloyd, Canon to the Ordinary, was the first lesbian marriage solemnized by the Right Reverend M Thomas Shaw SSJE, Bishop Diocesan...

Gene Robinson, the homogenital bishop of New Hampshire and the first homosexual to be ordained to the episcopacy, has opted for an early retirement saying that seven years of controversy have "taken their toll" on him, his family and followers. Robinson told his diocesan convention that "the constant strain" was too much to bear. He went on to say that death threats, and the now-worldwide controversy surrounding his election as bishop, have been a constant strain, "not just on me, but on my beloved husband, Mark, who has faithfully stood with me every minute of the last seven years, and...

Across the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, congregants and clergy today reacted with heavy hearts to word that Bishop V. Gene Robinson is retiring. Robinson, 63, whose consecration seven years ago as the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church divided the Anglican Communion worldwide, yesterday announced at the annual convention of the New Hampshire diocese that he plans to retire in January 2013, short of the mandatory 72-year-old retirement age for Episcopal bishops. He cited death threats and the considerable strain that the worldwide rift has placed on him, his family, and the church.