eni-summary list Ecumenical News International News Highlights 25 July 2003

US and European agencies call for peacekeeping force in Liberia

New York (ENI). US and British aid agencies, increasingly frustrated by the slow international response to the crisis in Liberia, are calling for the immediate deployment of peacekeeping troops in the west African nation. The “waiting game currently being played by the US administration is costing lives”, said four British agencies in a joint statement on Wednesday, echoing mounting calls in the United States for the Bush administration to deploy a contingent of troops to end brutal fighting in the Liberian capital of Monrovia. [451 words, ENI-03-0374]

Vote on gay US Episcopal bishop may upset fragile world Anglican unity

New York (ENI). The already fragile unity of the worldwide Anglican Communion may soon be tested once again with US Episcopalians poised to approve the election of the communion’s first openly gay bishop. The Episcopal Church, as the Anglican church is called in the United States, may give final approval to the election of Canon Gene Robinson, an openly homosexual priest, as the bishop coadjutor (assistant) for the state of New Hampshire when the denomination’s general convention meets in Minneapolis, Minnesota, from 30 July to 8 August. [756 words, ENI-03-0373]

Kenyan churches support country’s Anglicans against same-sex marriages

Nairobi (ENI). Church leaders in Kenya have rallied behind the country’s Anglican church in rejecting blessings of same-sex marriages within the worldwide Anglican Communion. The churches were reacting to the blessing of a same-sex couple in a church in the Canadian west coast Anglican diocese of New Westminster and the approval by the local bishop of a liturgy for such a blessing. Anglican leaders in Kenya have also strongly condemned the naming of openly gay priests to be bishops in England and in the United States. [365 words, ENI-03-0376]

Priest appeals to Vatican against suspension for offering open communion

Bielefeld (ENI). A Roman Catholic priest in Germany is appealing to the Vatican against his suspension for leading an open communion service at a Protestant church during a major ecumenical gathering in Berlin this year. More than 2000 worshippers attended the service on 29 May at the Protestant Gethsemane Church in eastern Berlin at which Hasenhuettl invited all to share the bread and the wine. The service had been organised by groups campaigning for church reform, in protest against the traditional Roman Catholic teaching that Protestants and Catholics cannot share the Eucharist, which had been reaffirmed in a Papal encyclical in April. [361 words, ENI-03-0372]

Owner of box inscribed with Jesus’ name arrested, but supporters rally

Jerusalem (ENI). The Israeli owner of an ancient burial box with an inscription suggesting a link to the family of Jesus has been arrested on forgery charges but his supporters continue to rally behind him. Israeli antiquities dealer Oded Golan, owner of the burial box, or ossuary, bearing the Aramaic inscription “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus” was arrested this week in a surprise raid at his home in Tel Aviv. [537 words, ENI-03-0375]

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