News Brief
Episcopal News Service. January 16, 1976 [76011]
The Office of Refugee Resettlement, related to the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief at the Episcopal Church Center, has assisted in relocating 1,277 Southeast Asian refugees who sought a home in the United States in recent months. Many other refugees were resettled by Episcopal individuals, parishes, and dioceses. All three of the resettlement installations in the U.S. -- in California, in Arkansas, and in Pennsylvania -- were closed by December 31, 1975, with the resettlement of all of the waiting refugees. Thus, no more sponsors of refugee families and individuals are needed, according to Mrs. Isis Brown, refugee resettlement coordinator.
The united Church of Lanka was inaugurated at a ceremony in Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), on November 16, 1975. This church union involves the two Anglican dioceses in Sri Lanka -- Colombo and Kurunagala -- as well as the Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian Churches, and the Jaffna Diocese in Sri Lanka of the Church of South India.
A Religious Communication Congress will be held March 24-28, 1980, in Nashville, Tenn., according to the newly elected coordinator, Dr. W.C. Fields, Southern Baptist Convention, Nashville. A broadly based, open, inter-faith meeting aimed at the widest possible participation by organizations which fit under the terms "religious" and "communication," the congress follows a similar event in 1970. Thirty religious groups, including the Episcopal Communicators, have become participants at a recent organizing meeting. The participating organizations will be requested to hold their 1980 annual meeting in conjunction with the congress.
A complimentary copy of a new paperback book, This Nation Under God, has been sent to all clergy of the Episcopal Church, according to the Rev. Page S. Bigelow, Bicentennial Resource Associate for the Executive Council. This book, one of several resources offered for the observance of the bicentennial of the nation, contains the Propers for the days of special observance, a service of Te Deum, and "The Sunday Morning Service of 1776," with introductory material to highlight and explain some of the customs of 200 years ago. A limited number of copies of the book can be ordered from The Seabury Bookstore, 815 Second Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10017, at a cost of $1.00 plus 10 cents per copy for postage and handling. (For prepaid orders of 100 or more, postage will be paid.)
An Episcopal priest, the Rev. John Moore Hines, has announced his intention to stop officiating at marriages and services of Holy Communion to protest the Episcopal Church's denial of the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate. His bishop, the Rt. Rev. David B. Reed of Kentucky, has consented to inhibit Fr. Hines from functioning as a priest, thus giving his protest official recognition. Fr. Hines, who is the son of the Rt. Rev. John E. Hines, former Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, said his father "told me he supported what I was doing." The bishop's inhibition extends until September 23, 1976, the last day of the Episcopal Church's General Convention, which will meet in Minneapolis/St. Paul. It is expected that the Convention will vote on the issue of the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate. Fr. Hines teaches at St. Francis Episcopal Day School, Goshen, Ky., and has served as a priest on weekends at a mission church in Louisville.
The Rt. Rev. William F. Creighton, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, has formally admonished the Rev. William A. Wendt for disobeying his "godly admonition" and has warned him not to permit any uncanonically ordained person to celebrate Communion at his church, St. Stephen and the Incarnation. Fr. Wendt had been convicted in an ecclesiastical court of disobeying Bishop Creighton by permitting the Rev. Alison Cheek to celebrate the Eucharist in his Church. Mrs. Cheek is one of the 11 women involved in the disputed ordination service in Philadelphia in 1974. An appeals court recently upheld the earlier conviction of Fr. Wendt.
The first national forum to address itself to "the other victims of alcoholism" will be held at the Biltmore Hotel in New York City on Feb. 25. Sponsored by the National Council of Women of the U.S., Inc., the forum will feature a number of leaders in the field of alcoholism, including Ms. Marty Mann, founder of the National Council on Alcoholism, and the Rev. Betty Works Fuller, a non-stipendiary Episcopal deacon, the daughter of the Rev. David Works, director of the North Conway Institute in Boston. The other areas in which there are victims of alcoholism which are included in the forum program are industry, family, health, law, education, and the communications media. Inquiries for information may be directed to Josie Couture, telephone 212/586-2264.
The Rev. Canon Reinhart B. Gutmann, formerly on the Episcopal Church Center staff in the social ministries division, has been appointed national director of Foster Parents Plan, Inc., U.S.A., a non-sectarian international child welfare agency. For the past four years he has been principal human resources specialist of the Human Resources Administration of New York City.