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Bishop for Los Angeles
Over the past few weeks, I have been following the discussion on the election of Mary Glasspool as Suffragan Bishop of the Episcopal Church in Los Angeles.
I have to agree with the Revd Mark Greenstreet (Letter, 22nd January) that there are two main questions arising from this election.
The first question is the position of practising homosexual people within the Anglican Church. Unfortunately, I believe the resolution to this will result in some form of split within the Church. The bishops must provide solid leadership to the whole Church.
The second question is the position of the Church in complying with the law of the land. This can vary considerably from the position in Uganda, where homosexual people may be executed for their sexuality, to the position in the UK, where the homosexual person is protected by law.
For me, the big question is whether the Church follows the law blindly or takes the Bible teachings as its guide. However, as Christians following the teaching of the Bible, there will be quotes from the Bible both for and against each question and people from archbishops to the members of each congregation will have their personal opinions.
I will be praying for a Godgiven resolution to these questions sooner rather than later and urge all members of the Church to pray for wisdom in our leadership during this difficult time in the Church.
Paul Letters
24 Old Grange Avenue
Carrickfergus
Co. Antrim
BT38 7UE
On many occasions over the years, I have considered responding to opinions expressed in your Letters section. Only, however, when I read the sweeping statements expounded by Mrs White (29th January) did I feel compelled to put finger to keyboard!
While I agree that one should dress appropriately on any given occasion - the view Bishop Forsyth was putting forward and a concept which does seem to elude an alarming number of our clergy - Mrs White’s generalisations are quite remarkable.
I am intrigued, for example, as to why Mrs White would expect someone signing on on a regular basis for unemployment benefit to dress in the manner expected for a job interview. One might assume that if some of her clients were lucky enough to have been found work by Mrs White, they might also have found time to dash home and change before going to meet a prospective employer.
In my professional career as a teacher, I have to say, moreover, that I encountered just as many women as men with an acute sense of the inappropriate. Frequently in the summer term, with male colleagues still in suit and tie, many female colleagues seemed to deem it appropriate to appear for work dressed more for a day at the beach than a day in the classroom!
A few years ago, I left teaching to work in a different and unrelated field. Yes, Mrs White, I am self-employed and my work is home-based and yet - like every other self-employed man I know - I manage to wash, have my hair cut and dress in clean clothes.
I feel it incumbent upon me to clarify these last points in order to spare Mrs White any sleepless nights worrying over my potential to join the ranks of social outcasts with which our society is peopled - except, I presume, within that last bastion of civilised society, the Benefits Office!
Robert Thompson
Marlagh Lodge
Ballymena
Co Antrim
BT42 3BU
I attended two funerals in early January, one of my beloved grandmother, aged 92, and the second of a very good friend and neighbour. Needless to say, it was a time of personal sorrow and I found the role of a black suit and tie appropriate.
On 27th January, I went forth from my home similarly dressed. "Another funeral?", a friend asked sensitively, after sizing up my attire. "I’m going to six million funerals today," I answered.
Noting the lady’s puzzled expression, I elaborated that it was Holocaust Memorial Day and that I was attending the ceremony in Belfast City Hall that evening in memory of the six million Jews killed in the Nazi death camps.
It reminded me of living in Tel-Aviv, when I would often see the tattooed number from the concentration camps on many a senior citizen. As an outsider and as a non-Jew, at first unlearned in the matters of the Holocaust, I was quite taken aback to learn just what those numbers meant. I often wondered just what experiences those individuals had endured at the hands of the Nazis and what indescribable horrors they had seen.
In Israel on Holocaust Memorial Day (‘Yom Ha Shoah’), a siren sounds across the country and people observe a communal silence until the siren recedes, getting out of their cars and standing in the road or stopping their industry at their place of work and similarly standing to commemorate the millions who perished, many of whom would be relatives, friends or family of a previous generation. Few are unaffected in such a small community.
This is the tragedy of the Holocaust/Shoah. The pain from the Nazi experience is magnified by the horrific tactics the Germans used upon their captives. Let us use this time of the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz- Birkenau to reflect on the enormity of that hurt and learn not to forget its lessons.
Colin Nevin
45c Rathgill Park
Bangor
Co. Down
BT19 7TQ
I was interested to see your front page feature (Gazette, 15th January) about a new partnership link between Killaney and Carryduff and the chaplaincy of St Mark, Famagusta, in north-east Cyprus.
Anglican work in north Cyprus is in debt to alumni of the Church of Ireland.
While St Mark’s is enthusiastically led by the Revd Robin Brookes, formerly incumbent of Donagh in Clogher and of Drumcondra in Dublin, the long-established chaplaincy of St Andrew, Kyrenia, is in the steady hands of the Revd Michael Houston, late of Ballyphilip with Ardquin in Down, and has an overflowing multinational congregation of residents, as well as visitors and enquirers.
Readers’ prayers for all in Cyprus and in thanksgiving for the breadth of expressions of Anglicanism would be most valued.
+ Michael Cyprus & the Gulf:
Bishop’s House
Nicosia
Republic of Cyprus
I should be grateful if you would allow me space in your newspaper to ask if your readers know of an organization or charity which accepts used Christmas cards.
Some of us in St Mary’s would rather give ours to charity than just throw them in the green dustbin for recycling.
P. Paxton (Mrs)
St Mary’s Home
Pembroke Park
Ballsbridge
Dublin 4