A controversial legal process that threw an international spotlight on the Episcopal Church's struggles over the place of homosexuals in the ordained ministry came to an apparent conclusion on 15 May as an ecclesiastical court ruled that retired Bishop Walter Righter violated no Church law or "core doctrine" when he ordained a non-celibate homosexual man as a deacon.
19 June 1996
Following the decision on the "Righter trial" 10 bishops in the USA are to propose that the 1997 General Convention of ECUSA should adopt a canon obliging members of the clergy to abstain from sexual relations outside marriage. This canon, if adopted, would effectively bar the ordination of non-celibate homosexuals as priests.
19 June 1996
I write from South America and it is my privilege with colleagues in the Southern Cone to serve Christ among people of widely varying but mainly traditional background. For us here the issue of the church and homosexuality, as it is reported in the Anglican press in Britain, Canada and the United States, makes strange reading.
07 May 1996
A Canadian judge has ruled that an Anglican priest cannot sue for wrongful dismissal. Justice Hector Soubliere of the Ontario Court ruled on an unusual civil suit filed by Arthur Brewer against the Anglican Church of Canada's Ottawa diocese and Bishop John Baycroft.
03 April 1996
The Anglican Church of Canada's national council has approved a motion asking Church members to join in a fast in solidarity with people affected the Canadian Health Service Transfer (CHST).
03 April 1996
In the final days before a March 21 vote in the House of Representatives of ECUSA and religious groups were working hard to curb what they considered the worst excesses of a bill that would severely restrict refugees' access to asylum in the United States.
03 April 1996
Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning has announced that the Episcopal Church in the USA has reached an agreement to settle the Church's civil suits against former treasurer Ellen Cooke and her husband, Nicholas.
03 April 1996
Presiding Bishop Browning and his wife, Patti, made the pastoral visit to Archbishop Andrew Mya Han and the Anglican Church of the Province of Myanmar, 12-17 January, to learn how the Episcopal Church might assist the Church there.
04 March 1996
According to Episcopal News Service, the resolution, approved on 27 January after a year-long study by a diocesan task force, states that suicide by a terminally-ill patient is acceptable when "pain is persistent and/or progressive; when all other reasonable means of amelioration of pain and suffering have been exhausted; and when the decision to hasten death is a truly informed and voluntary choice free from external coercion."
04 March 1996
Eagles are fairly rare in central Oklahoma. So, on a cold afternoon in late January when three eagles were sighted circling low over the rolling grounds of St Crispin's Conference Center, 50 Native Americans duly took note.
04 March 1996