Court Protects All Episcopal Property and Accounts During Appeal: Sets Six-Figure Bond, and Orders Monthly Financial Reporting from All Southern Cone Defendants

On October 20, 2011, the Hon. Judge John P. Chupp signed an order setting the terms of a $100,000.00 supersedeas bond and imposing injunctions designed to protect all of the historic Church property during the breakaway faction's appeal. See copy of the order to the right.

To stop execution of the February 8, 2011 Final Judgment against them, the Southern Cone defendants must post a $100,000.00 bond by November 20, 2011. The Court declined to adopt the breakaway faction's repeated assertion that $0 was the only permissible bond.

The Court also imposed the injunctions requested by the Episcopal Parties at the May 19 supersedeas hearing. These injunctions protect "all real and personal property," including all historic church buildings, trusts, endowments, and savings accounts, that were held by or for the Episcopal Diocese, its Corporation, its parishes and missions, and its other constituent entities as of November 15, 2008, plus any new property acquired by or through the protected property ("Episcopal Property"). The order applies to all 62 breakaway Defendants, from the individuals wrongly holding themselves out as Diocesan leaders to the breakaway factions from 48 congregations that wrongfully took and retained possession of Episcopal Property. Defendants must submit monthly financial reports to monitor their actions during appeal, to ensure that no further wrongful dissipation, transfer, or encumbrance of Episcopal Property occurs.

The order also prohibits the breakaway faction from using any Episcopal Property to pay the breakaway faction's attorney's fees or litigation costs without prior notice, hearing, and leave of court. And it prevents the breakaway faction from increasing the balance of indebtedness on the Jude Funding line of credit, or on any other debt that is purportedly secured by Episcopal Property, without prior notice and hearing.

The breakaway faction also remains bound by its March 14, 2011 Rule 11 Agreement with the Episcopal Parties to "preserve and safeguard all documents in their possession relating to bank accounts, endowments, trusts, investment accounts, investments, real, personal, or intellectual property, expenditures, income, finances, transactions, taxes, and any and all other [such] documents."

The Court's injunctions are effective immediately.

Chancellor Kathleen Wells noted that, "This order is yet another positive step to preserve the sacred property that has been accumulated over more than 170 years of Episcopal mission in this area and to hasten the day that this property is returned for the mission and ministry of The Episcopal Church."

Gay Pastor in New York Urges Change in Malaysia

The Rev. Boon Lin Ngeo, a Malaysian Protestant pastor whose message of tolerance for homosexuals has drawn fire in his country, sat with his male partner on a lime-green sofa inside the Office of the City Clerk in New York on a late summer day, where they waited their turn to be married. “I’m nobody here,” he said in New York, where same-sex marriage became legal in June, “but this marriage could have a global impact.”

While prosecutions in Malaysia under the sodomy law are rare, they are not unheard of. The leader of the country’s political opposition, Anwar Ibrahim, is facing sodomy charges for the second time in what he has called a politically motivated trial. More @ The Advocate

DISAPPROVAL OF THE PROPOSED ANGLICAN COVENANT PASSED

Approved by Convention with a broad majority:

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Disapproval of THE PROPOSED ANGLICAN COVENANT

Resolved, That the 162nd Convention of the Diocese of California disapproves the proposed Anglican Covenant.

Explanation: Our opposition to the proposed Anglican Covenant grows out of a lengthy listening process that involved all six of our deaneries. More than 200 lay and clergy members from across this diocese participated in this process. Those participating in this conversation were well prepared, demonstrating both familiarity with issues and a deep affection for the Anglican Communion. They placed a deep value on the Anglican Communion, The Episcopal Church's constituent part in it, and the common heritage shared by all Anglicans. They voiced a deep desire to continue in the Communion’s common life. They spoke of the importance of our developing diocesan companion relationships as well as the inter-provincial relationships a number of our congregations enjoy. A summary of these discussions as compiled by the General Convention Deputation of the Diocese of California is online at: bit.ly/nufhXP  

Working from these discussions, we affirm our tradition holds Holy Scripture as containing all things necessary for salvation. We hold fast to our responsibility to interpret scripture to meet the needs and challenges of living in our time and place. We affirm the value and importance of the Anglican Communion in our life and work. We affirm our Communion is founded on The Book of Common Prayer, the Thirty-Nine Articles, and the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral. We believe the current instruments of communion are adequate to heal today’s wounds if all parties are willing to accept and live within a communion that has room for divergent views and differing understandings of how Holy Scripture speaks to us today.

We must also disapprove a proposed Anglican Covenant that creates a means for creating second class Anglicans instead of building bridges between Anglican Churches with different traditions for understanding scripture. God does not make second class people, how could our church now endorse making some people second class Anglicans?

We cannot accept an Anglican Covenant that seeks to replace our democratic decision making process with a process that allows foreign bishops to extend their jurisdiction into the Episcopal Church as well as other provinces around the world.

We must not support a proposed Anglican Covenant that risks converting our Communion into a confessing denomination enforced by a disciplinary process detailed in Section 4 of the proposed covenant.

We oppose a proposed Anglican Covenant that seeks to build a church on division rather than inclusion, legalism rather than prophecy, inequity rather than justice.

SUBMITTED BY: The Rev. Katherine Lehman, Rector, St. Bede’s, Menlo Park,  The Rev. John Kirkley, Rector, St. James, San Francisco, The Rev. Br. Richard Edward Helmer, Rector, Church of Our Savior, Mill Valley and The Rev. Thomas C. Jackson.

At conservative church, once-shunned gays fuel growth

Like many of her parishioners, Andrews-Looper grew up in an evangelical church — in her case, Independent Fundamental Baptist — and found she was no longer welcome when she revealed she was a lesbian. She started a Bible study with a handful of other gay Christians in July 1996, which eventually led to starting Holy Trinity, affiliated with the United Church of Christ denomination.

Andrews-Looper used conservative theology combined with a progressive view of sexual orientation to grow the congregation to 600, making it one of the largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender congregations in the Southeast. MORE

Gay reverend hits back at Scottish Catholic leaders

The openly gay reverend of an Episcopal church in Scotland has hit back at anti-gay Catholic leaders.
The Very Reverend Kelvin Holdsworth, Provost of the Episcopal Cathedral Church of St Mary the Virgin, said he was “embarrassed” by the remarks of faith leaders on gay marriage.
The Times reports he said: “The behaviour of our brothers, the Roman Catholic bishops in recent days, has been so unpleasant and so ill-judged that it risks harming the good influence of the whole Christian community.
“To behave as though bishops carry some kind of block vote to Holyrood, to threaten politicians and to decry those who want access to the dignity of marriage as unnatural, to say these things seems to me to go too far.” MORE

Church of England edges nearer to allowing women bishops

Reuters reports: "The Church of England cleared another legislative hurdle to appointing women bishops, but traditionalist opponents warned on Monday the move was not a foregone conclusion. Some Anglican provinces already have women bishops, including Australia, the United States and Canada, but the ordination of women and homosexuals as bishops as well as same-sex marriages remain the most divisive issues facing the Anglican Communion, which has 77 million members worldwide. The Church of England has voted in principle for women to be consecrated, and draft legislation is currently being looked at by its 44 dioceses, or groups of parishes, as part of its long legislative process. At the weekend, the diocese vote passed the 50 percent backing needed for it to go back to the Church’s parliament, or general synod, for a final vote next year."  Read the full story here.

Modern psychology’s God problem

Modern psychology has a serious God problem. America is a deeply spiritual country. More than half of Americans say religion is “very important’’ to them, and more than 90 percent profess a belief in a higher power. Yet psychology, as a scientific endeavor, has done almost nothing to understand how spiritual beliefs shape psychological problems, or affect treatment. When a person with deep religious convictions comes in for professional help, they will find, more often than not, a therapist who is not fully prepared to help. More @ Boston Globe.