The legislature on the Isle of Man, a self-governing British Crown dependency located in the Irish Sea between the north-west coast of England and Northern Ireland, has approved a Bill to enable same-sex couples to marry on the island. The Bishop of Sodor and Man, a member of the island’s parliament, voted against the Bill.
04 May 2016
Anglicans in Brazil are continuing to stand-by the country’s embattled President, Dilma Rousseff, claiming that attempts to impeach her are a right-wing attempt to scupper her party’s endeavours to support Brazil’s poor and marginalised.
29 April 2016
Moves to impeach Brazil’s President, Dilma Rousseff, are motivated not by evidence of wrong-doing but by political opposition to “social policies that have changed the lives of millions of Brazilians in recent years,” the bishops of the Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil – the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil – have said.
01 April 2016
The Archbishop of Cape Town, Thabo Makgoba, has called for a “tsunami of truth-telling” after the President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, lost a court battle brought by campaigners who alleged he benefitted from state funding of R246 million (approximately £11.65 million GBP) for improvements to his private home, Nkandla, under the guise of security.
31 March 2016
The Primate of Brazil, the Most Revd Francisco De Assis da Silva, has appealed for calm in the country as continuing protests take place about alleged government corruption. Archbishop Francisco said that the protests “must not pass the limits of constitutional rights and liberties” and that the allegations must be dealt with through the law.
23 March 2016
The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church in America has issued a unanimous “word to the church” expressing concern about the language being used in the US political season.
17 March 2016
The US Government has declared the persecution of Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East by Daesh (the self-proclaimed “Islamic State”) as a genocide. The statement, made today by US Secretary of State John Kerry, follows similar declarations in the past few months by the Council of Europe and the European Parliament.
17 March 2016
The European Union’s political leaders are gathering in Brussels for two days of talks on the refugee crisis; and five Christian ecumenical organisations have used the occasion to write to the EU’s leaders calling for stronger action.
17 March 2016
Britain’s finance minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, has this afternoon delivered the annual budget speech to MPs in the House of Commons; and the Church of England has been quick to respond to two measures which will affect churches.
16 March 2016
The Archbishop of Cape Town, Thabo Makgoba, has called for South Africans to stop chanting “this must fall” and “that must fall” and instead work together to “create a deafening chorus of what must rise.”
15 March 2016