Word: synods
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Through much of 1985, Roman Catholic analysts have been speculating avidly and almost ceaselessly about what will happen at the forthcoming international synod of bishops. Pope John Paul II has called for the extraordinary session to commence in Rome on Nov. 25 to examine the implementation of the decrees of the Second Vatican Council, which concluded 20 years ago. The synod will follow a rare, three-day meeting in Rome of the full College of Cardinals. Some alarmists fear that a rollback of the accomplishments of the reformist council is in the works. That is an extreme view...
Nevertheless, the Church of England's policymaking General Synod last week overwhelmingly endorsed the ordination of women as deacons, the clergy's lowest rank, which is beneath priests and bishops. If Parliament agrees, as seems likely, the church's 350 deaconesses, who are not ordained, can take their place alongside male deacons, performing marriages and assisting priests in other ways. Priests will continue to be the only celebrants of Holy Communion and dispensers of absolution. The pressure will be great, however, to allow the women deacons to advance to the next step, priesthood...
When Lutheran Minister D. Douglas Roth last November defied his bishop and refused to leave his church in a depressed steel town near Pittsburgh, police were called in, and Roth was jailed for 112 days. Last week a church synod voted 499 to 33 to defrock the still outspoken minister. It was only the second such action in the 22-year history of the Lutheran Church in America. Said Nadine Roth, his wife: "I guess we're like any other unemployed family...
...first enjoyed the support of the church when in 1980 they proposed to enlist Pittsburgh corporations to help laid-off steelworkers. But then they turned to confrontation, disrupting church services attended by bank and steel executives, and ignored church orders to stop. After his defrocking at last week's synod in Greenville, Pa., Roth seized the podium and refused to leave the auditorium, shouting, "There is great corruption in the church!" He was arrested again, along with a fellow dissident minister, then released on the condition that he not go near the auditorium. Said Bishop James Crumley: "We're tired...
Perhaps the Pope's most important confrontation was with the Rev. Henk Huting, chairman of the Netherlands Reformed Synod. Huting deplored the Catholic Church's ecumenical regression and blamed it on "instructions from higher authority." Read: Rome. For his part, John Paul skipped some hard-line passages in his prepared address, but the text remains the Pontiff's most forthright statement on his approach toward Protestantism. Discussion of joint Communion services is futile, he indicated, and Rome is unwilling to explore changes in the nature of the priesthood. The speech removed any remaining doubt that John Paul now foresees substantial...