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Saint
Saviour’s Episcopal Church
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350
Sound Beach Avenue
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Home
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Old
Greenwich, Connecticut 06870
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Saint
Saviour’s Episcopal Church
|
|
350
Sound Beach Avenue
|
||
Home
|
Old
Greenwich, Connecticut 06870
|
Discussion
The Episcopal Church and the Millenium Development Goals
During last summer’s General Convention in Ohio, much of the attention was focused on issues of human sexuality and the future of the Anglican Communion. Other important business was addressed, however, including the adoption of a resolution that will help to focus evangelism and outreach in The Episcopal Church over the next few years. The House of Deputies and the House of Bishops agreed to support the United Nations Millenium Development Goals and to urge congregations and dioceses across The Episcopal Church to work for implementation of the MDGs. The MDGs aim to do the following:
1. eradicate extreme poverty
and hunger;
2. achieve universal primary education;
3. promote gender equality and empower women;
4. reduce child mortality;
5. improve maternal health;
6. combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases;
7. ensure environmental sustainability; and
8. develop a global partnership for development.
The Episcopal Church resolved to do the following:
* to make achievement
of the MDGs a mission priority;
* to urge every local congregation and every diocese to give 0.7 percent of
its annual budget towards the MDGs by July 7, 2007;
* to designate the last Sunday after Pentecost (namely, November 26) as a
special day of prayer, fasting, and giving in the Episcopal Church toward
global reconciliation and the MDGs;
* to call upon dioceses to establish groups to work toward achievement of
the MDGs;
* to endorse the “ONE Episcopalian” campaign that calls upon the
U. S. government to spend an additional one percent of its budget to fight
global poverty; and
* to ask the Episcopal Church’s budget committee to consider including
a line item equal to 0.7 percent (roughly $900,000) in the budget for the
next three years in support of work that furthers the MDGs.
What does the Presiding Bishop do?
On Saturday, November
4, at The Cathedral Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Washington,
D. C., The Right Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori will be installed as the
Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church. Bishop Jefferts Schori has been
serving as the bishop of The Episcopal Diocese of Nevada and was elected to
serve as the 26th Presiding Bishop at the General Convention held last summer.
The Presiding Bishop is elected to serve a nine year term, beginning the first
day of the month of November following the close of the Convention when elected
(unless he or she will reach the retirement age of seventy prior to the end
of nine years, at which point he or she is to resign).
According to the national church canons (laws), the Presiding Bishop is to be the chief pastor and primate (head bishop) of the The Episcopal Church and shall:
1. be charged with the responsibility to initiate and develop policy and strategy in the Church and to speak about these on behalf of the General Convention;
2. speak God’s words to the Church and to the world as the representative of the Episcopal Church and its episcopate (all the bishops together);
3. make sure that episcopal services (like confirmation and ordination) are provided in dioceses in which there is a temporary episcopal vacancy;
4. oversee the consecration of duly elected bishops and gather the bishops together from time to time;
5. preside over meetings of the House of Bishops (as well as have other responsibilities at the triennial General Convention);
6. visit every diocese in The Episcopal Church for purposes of (a) holding pastoral consultations with the bishops of the diocese and, with their advice, with lay and clergy leaders of the diocese; (b) preaching; and (c) celebrating the eucharist.
The Presiding Bishop is also to report annually to the Church and may issue
pastoral letters (that are required to be read out in congregations).