Articles in "North America"

CHARLESTON, SC, June 10, 2013 – U.S. District Judge C. Weston Houck today remanded the case to the South Carolina Circuit Court.  In informing the parties, Judge Houck said,

“If this Court determined that a case may be removed based on federal question jurisdiction whenever a defendant attributed a federal constitutional issue not alleged or advanced in a well-pleaded complaint, federal question jurisdiction could potentially be expanded to all cases containing tacit First Amendment issues.”

A Long Island Episcopal parish has agreed to pay $192,500 to a parish secretary and sexton to settle a lawsuit brought by the EEOC that alleged the interim rector fired the secretary after she refused his sexual advances. The Diocese of Long Island will enter into a three-year consent decree revising it sexual harassment reporting policies and promising to crack down on sexually hostile work environments in its parishes.

The Provisional Bishop of Fort Worth, the Rt. Rev. Rayford High has applauded last week’s vote by the Boy Scouts of America National Council to open its ranks to boys who say they are homosexual, and has urged as a matter of justice the Scouts to lift their ban on gay scoutmasters.

The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church has denounced the Apostle Paul as mean-spirited and bigoted for having released a slave girl from demonic bondage as reported in Acts 16:16-34.

In her sermon delivered at All Saints Church in Curaçao in the diocese of Venezuela, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori condemned those who did not share her views as enemies of the Holy Spirit. 

We were very disturbed and saddened to read the news that legal proceedings against you by other Anglicans mean that you may soon be deprived of your property at St James and have to find alternative accommodation.

The Orange County Superior Court yesterday granted a motion by the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles seeking possession of a Newport Beach church campus owned by St. James Anglican Church.

The Bishop of Los Angeles had no authority to give the parish of St James in Newport Beach a written waiver exempting the congregation’s property from the reach of the Episcopal Church’s Dennis Canon, an Orange County Superior Court Judge has held. In a ruling for summary judgment handed down on 1 May 2013 Judge Kim Dunning ordered the parish to hand its multi-million dollar properties over to the Diocese of Los Angeles.

The Anglican bishops of the West Indies have urged their governments to hold fast and resist pressure from Britain and the United States to legalize gay rights and gay marriage.

In a statement released on 25 April 2013 following the House of Bishops meeting in Barbados, bishops of the Church the Province of the West Indies (CPWI) reiterated their belief in marriage “defined as a faithful, committed, permanent and legally sanctioned relationship between a man and a woman.”

Supreme Court gives land to the diocese, funds to The Falls Church.

The controversial Bishop of New Westminster Michael Ingham has announced his retirement.

The former Executive Archdeacon of Brandon appeared before a Manitoba court yesterday to answer charges that he had embezzled approximately $190,000 from diocesan coffers.

The Ven. Noah James Bernard Njegovan, 30, was arraigned on charges of having committed a fraud of over $5,000 while serving as executive archdeacon of the diocese and assistant to his father, Bishop James Njegovan of Brandon.

As I write this letter to you it is Wednesday in Holy Week. I am travelling to Juba in South Sudan to spend the Great Three Days (The Sacred Triduum) with Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul, his clergy and his people. I am to be away from all the things that are familiar, except that the Church is one throughout the world, and the old, old story does not change (yet changes everything).