The Rev. John Kirkman of Western Michigan called my office to report that Mrs Betty Heidema's son was kidnapped near Quito, Ecuador. Mrs Heidema is the treasurer of his parish and her son is also Episcopalian. Fr. Kirkman asked us to contact Mrs Heidema directly, which my assistant did and obtained the following details:
22 August 1996
The Anglican Communion Office has read in the diocesan paper of Trinidad and Tobago, that two women were ordained priest in the Anglican Diocese of Barbados in May. The women Sonia Hinds and Beverley Knight were ordained by the Rt Revd Rufus Brome at the Cathedral of St Michael, Bridgetown.
26 July 1996
One of the oldest churches in the United States, where George Washington held his inaugural services and Alexander Hamilton was buried following his fatal duel with Aaron Burr, kicked off a year long celebration of its 300 years of history in May.
02 July 1996
The board of directors of the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief awarded $1,037,729 in relief and development grants during its semi-annual meeting in New York, in June. The board also approved the release of $340,500 in emergency and special grants made during the time between board meetings.
02 July 1996
Ten Episcopal bishops who brought ecclesiastical charges against a fellow bishop for ordaining a non-celibate homosexual as a deacon will not appeal on the Church court's decision dismissing those charges.
02 July 1996
The Standing Committee of the Diocese of Maine announced in May that Bishop Edward Chalfant has resigned, following revelations that he had been involved in an extra-marital relationship with an unmarried adult lay woman.
19 June 1996
During a meeting on 21 April in Moscow, Patriarch Alexi of Moscow and All Russia blessed the emerging cooperation between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Episcopal Church USA as the Russians restored their military chaplaincy with the appointment of Bishop Savva.
19 June 1996
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