Oregon Bishop Search: Discernment Begins...

By The Rev. Sara Fischer and the Rev. David Sweeney,

Search Committee Communications Sub-Committee

The Bishop Search Committee met on April 24 at St. Paul in Salem. It was clear to all of us that the work of discernment is truly underway. The committee is now receiving application materials from priests from around the country—men and women engaged in their own process of discerning whether or not God might be calling them as the tenth Bishop of Oregon.

Our agenda included the following:

• An update of our applicant list. This list changes daily, as individuals submit application materials. The application deadline is May 15,2009.
• A report from the education sub-committee on its work in developing materials to help Oregonians of all ages understand the office of Bishop. Look for an insert in the summer issue of The Oregon Episcopal Church News.
• Discussion of our discernment process as we review application materials. A recurring theme in committee discussions has been the need to treat each application on its own merits, according to criteria we’ve established, and the need to bring every applicant to prayer as we review his or her materials.

What’s next? The Search Committee will gather in the third week of May to review all application materials, using a carefully-developed screening process which we hope will assist us in identifying eight applicants as semi-finalists. Those semi-finalists will be invited to participate in in-depth interviews in June.

Questions? More information about our search process is available on the Bishop Search website, www.diocese-oregon.org/bishopsearch/bishopsearch.htm, and those with questions or concerns are also encouraged to contact Search Committee Co-Chairs Mary Cramer (m.m.cramer@comcast.net) or The Rev. Paul Barthelemy (vicah@nehalemtel.net).

An important note about nomenclature: The Search Committee strives not to use the term “Candidate.” In our present American culture, the term candidate implies a process wherein people are running “against” one another for political office. Hence in our meetings we refer to those who enter into the search process as applicants. After our first round of screening, in June, we will interview eight semi-finalists. The individuals whose names the Search Committee submits to the Standing Committee for approval are referred to as nominees.

Sincerely,

Deirdre Steinberg, Communications Director

Episcopal Diocese of Oregon

11800 SW Military Lane, Portland, Oregon 97219

Direct: 971-204-4108, Mobile: 503-890-1542

www.diocese-oregon.org

Communion Partners statement challenges Episcopal Church polity

The Episcopal News Service has posted an article also revealing the undermining that Katie Sherrod writes about in the previous entry. Here is more information that is vital to know about these alleged "communion partners". You can read the full story at ENS here.

Group's conclusions draw swift criticism

By Matthew Davies

[Episcopal News Service] A statement released April 22 and signed by Episcopal bishops and clergy challenges the polity of the Episcopal Church by suggesting that dioceses are autonomous entities and independent of General Convention, the church's main legislative body.

The statement, which drew swift criticism for being an attack on the church's governance, was signed by 15 active and retired Episcopal Church bishops and endorsed by three Episcopal clergy who are members of the conservative Anglican Communion Institute. It was leaked online April 22 and officially released later the same day. It suggests that Episcopal Church dioceses are "not subject to any metropolitical power or hierarchical control" but rather "the ecclesiastical authorities in our dioceses are the Bishops and Standing Committees; no one else may act in or speak on behalf of the dioceses or of the Episcopal Church within the dioceses."

In light of their conclusions about the church's governance, the group's statement also claims that individual dioceses are constitutionally entitled to sign onto the proposed Anglican covenant, a set of principles intended to bind the Anglican Communion provinces in light of recent disagreements over human sexuality issues and theological interpretation.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_107043_ENG_HTM.htm

Katie Sherrod: The Undermining of the Episcopal Church continues...

Katie Sherrod is an independent writer and journalist in Fort Worth, Texas. Her blog "Desert's Child" chronicles in part if not whole, the developments in the Episcopal Church USA, its ups and downs and the controversies that assail it. Here is the latest development that many of us are completely unaware of and if you read this and think your friends, or priest, or fellow parishioners need to know how the undermining of our Church continues, then guide them here or to Katie's blog. The truth will on one level, set you free, and on another, turn your stomach.

Here is part of Katie's article revealing the latest conspiracy to weaken and break The Episcopal Church USA:


There is news busting out all over cyberspace about a group of Episcopal Church bishops and rectors calling themselves Communion Partners and a group grandly named the Anglican Communion Institute Inc. who are working to establish as fact their "belief that Episcopal Church polity legitimately arises out of the autonomy of dioceses who gather in voluntary association at The Episcopal Church in General Convention. In this view it is the diocese and not The Episcopal Church that is the "basic unit" of The Episcopal Church. In this argument TEC is not a metropolitical entity, but rather a free association of dioceses."

In this world view, a diocese would have full right to sign on to an Anglican Covenant, thus maintaining its purity without having to leave the Episcopal Church for an entity such as ACNA -- the Anglican Communion in North America, the "province' Duncan and Iker et. al. are trying to set up to replace The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada in North America.

But while these Communion Partner bishops and rectors say that this is a way to keep dioceses and parishes from leaving the Episcopal Church, they also have to know that this argument will be used against the Episcopal Church in the litigation now going on in the dioceses of San Joaquin, Fort Worth and Pittsburgh.

Read the rest of her informative and revealing article at Desert's Child.

See the newest entry for more information and explication from the Episcopal News Service .

A Better Resurrection

I have no wit, I have no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numbed too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is like the falling leaf;
O Jesus, quicken me.

Sylvia Plath

Best Friends' Cwazy Rabbits' Appeal

As you know, with each Easter holiday season comes the sale of defenseless bunny rabbits in pet stores, on street corners, in front of supermarkets and the like. And each year, those of us who do understand the rabbit and its life, urge people to NOT buy little bunny rabbits because often they are neglected after the novelty wears off, abandoned, or fall prey to unsupervised children and pets.

Best Friends Animal Society has conspired with their rabbit charges to begin a new campaign to help abandoned and orphaned rabbits in shelters by offering a wiser alternative to this inhumane Easter practice that commercializes and sells these fragile creatures for profit. If you go to this site, you will see how you and your friends can enjoy the beauty of these and other creatures, give a gift of an "animal" and help the real bunnies at the same time. It's time to put an end to the cycle of animal abuse during what should be a time of celebrating new life, and not contributing to the end or suffering of innocent creatures.


Thank you.

Catherine