Word: bishops
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Communion's once-a-decade Lambeth Conference in July. But it turns out several key conservatives did not even show up at GAFcon (or simply made brief appearances) and will go on to the church-wide meeting in Canterbury in July. Meanwhile, conservative Southeast Asian bishops have fallen out with some GAFcon leaders. The conservative conference now seems reduced mostly to Africans and some first-world ideologues, not all of whom are as gung-ho as Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola, the meeting's prime mover. Cheered on by several influential U.S. churchmen, Akinola has ridden high for several years...
Still, in the end, the Pope has not budged on the issue. The 2005 Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist held firm to the total ban for remarried Catholics who have not obtained an annulment. And Sunday, following Berlusconi's public request to his bishop, Benedict spoke about Communion to a gathering in Canada by video hookup. Though he didn't specifically cite divorce, the Pope said: "We must do all in our power to receive it with a pure heart." Again he offered his empathy for "those who cannot have Communion due to their situation," and urged them...
...media mogul who boasts about his Casanova talents, is publicly pushing for Benedict to change the Communion rules for remarried Catholics. A story in the Italian daily he owns, Il Giornale, recounted how the 71-year-old Prime Minister last Saturday passed up Communion, but asked the local bishop at the chapel near his villa on the island of Sardinia to reconsider the standing rules. Bishop Sebastiano Sanguinetti reportedly responded: "Go tell that to someone higher than me." There was no indication that Berlusconi had raised the matter when he met the pontiff earlier this month at the Vatican...
What's more, the GAFcon conference itself has been a bit of a Keystone Kops affair. Several key conservative bishops who were slated to appear chose not to travel to the Mideast, leaving open the possibility that they will attend Lambeth instead. The group even had trouble finding a location for its conference. At first it was scheduled for Jerusalem, but then the Anglican bishop there said he had enough problems without a divisive conference on his turf. The site was switched to Jordan, but on Wednesday the Jordanian border authorities delayed Akinola and another bishop from entering the country...
...June 7, the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, whose 2003 election as the first openly gay Episcopal bishop sparked death threats, entered into a civil union with his partner of 20 years, Mark Andrew. Robinson said he wanted the security and "protections ... offered to me in a civil union...