31 DECEMBER 1998: Pretty much everybody who might be doing something newsworthy is off relaxing right now, so there is not much end-of-the-year Anglican news. Your News Centre editor did have to cope with a leap second, though, and although its relationship to the Anglican church is at best metaphoric, you may enjoy reading about how we coped with an extra second entering our lives and our computers.

25 DECEMBER 1998: Our own Archbishop of Canterbury has written A Christmas Message to the Anglican Communion. Recalling what happened with the calendar used to date his post-Lambeth message to the Anglican Communion, we think it was wise that he did not put a date on this message.

19 DECEMBER 1998: A piece in The Times, which makes me sad even though I know it's all true, about people being too busy to go to church on Christmas Day. In the Faith section of The Times for 19 December 1998. Please, please, don't anybody tell The Times about the Gadgets for God, Christmas Edition, in Ship of Fools this week. While you are poking around the 19th December edition of The Times, do look in the Britain section for a story about comments on the Iraq situation by the Archbishop of Canterbury. You can read the official text of the Archbishop's statement on his web site, but The Times article is more interesting than the statement it comments on.

17 DECEMBER 1998: Dr. and Mrs. Neary have launched a cruise-missile strike on Gibraltar. Well, actually they haven't, but you get the idea. The Church Times press columnist, Andrew Brown, has reported in detail on what the determination actually said in a story that, while not actually launching cruise missiles, comes as close as one dare come in the newspaper. The Church Times also has expressed its editorial opinion. Dr. Neary has written a letter to the editor of The Times, which you can find in the Letters section of its 19th December 1998 edition should you wish to brave the horrors of The Times' web site.

15 DECEMBER 1998: The Most Rev. Henry McAdoo, Archbishop of Dublin from 1977 to 1985, died on 10 December at age 82. His obituary, well worth reading, is published in the Obituaries section of The Times for 15 December 1998. If you have responded to our observation that The Times is a triumph of content over form by not bothering to become a subscriber, this obituary is a good reason to take the next step,

14 DECEMBER 1998: In this world of spin and counterspin you knew that it was just a matter of time until the BBC and its friends replied to +St Albans' comments that we mention below. First Independent columnist Andreas Whittam Smith opined "let them eat new channels." Then Ernest Rea, BBC Religion editor, exercised his Right of Reply to post a letter to the editor of The Independent which was published Friday 18th December.

12 DECEMBER 1998: The Bishop of St Albans has come down hard on the BBC for being Godless at Christmas. A letter to the editor of The Independent, a story in the UK News section of The Independent, and a story in The Times, in the Britain section, reports opinions expressed by both English archbishops as well..

10 DECEMBER 1998: The Neary/Carr decision is in, and the finding is in support of Dr. Carr's sacking of the organist Dr. Neary. You should probably start your exploration of this topic by reading the primary materials, the Statement issued by the Lord Chancellor's Press Office, and then the information on the Abbey's Web page. We are delighted at how well a venerable institution like the Abbey is using such a modern contrivance as hyperlinks.

Next read the reporting of that material by The Independent, The BBC, The Guardian, The Church Times, and (sigh) The Times. Then go read the sidebar about Dr. Neary in The Independent and the sidebar about Dr. Carr in The Independent, an analysis by Ruth Gledhill in The Times, and an analysis in The Guardian and a later reflection on the whole affair, both by Madeleine Bunting. The Times has an editorial on the matter in their issue of 10 December, and a news story about it in the Britain section that day. Their editorial prompted a letter of reply from Dr. Carr in the Letters section of 12 December 1998.

You may wish to read the Church of England's stand on this whole issue; it has good background information and commentary. Then read the Archbishop of Canterbury's speech on the topic. Finish your reading with some historical perspective: the essay by Eric James in the Church Times, an article in The Guardian about recent church disputes. You may also be interested in a press release from the Industrial Society (Great Britain) about best practices in the handling of cases like this one.

6 DECEMBER 1998: The Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia, the Most Rev. Keith Rayner of Melbourne, has written a letter in reply to the news coverage of the homosexuality issue in Australia. Covered by Anglican Media Sydney, whose always-delightful Southern Cross publication has just released its December issue. A story about the Archbishop attending church as an ordinary person, in-depth coverage of the Hong Kong province created recently, and various other news and features of Anglican interest. Go read it.

6 DECEMBER 1998: The December issue of Canada's Anglican Journal is out. The lead story is about Bishop Michael Ingham and the homosexuality issue. A new Canadian hymn book has been released. And don't miss the editorial by David Harris on the relationship between the church and the media.

5 DECEMBER 1998: The Most Rev. Frank Griswold, presiding bishop of the ECUSA, has just lost his mother. Louisa W. Thomson, a resident of Wayne, Pennsylvania, USA, died this week of cancer. Obituary in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

6 DECEMBER 1998: The drama of conflict between the Dean of Westminster Abbey and its organist/choirmaster has dragged on for so long that most people have forgotten about it. We last mentioned it in late November. Today's (6 December 1998) Sunday Times contains an article in the Britain section that suggests that when the still-secret verdict is finally released, Dr. Wesley Carr, Dean of the Abbey, may soon find himself asking people "do you want fries with that?" We can guide you through the tedious process of finding articles in The Sunday Times. We feel compelled to mention that Westminster Abbey has violated one of the very first rules of web page design: they have put a link to their press releases as the very first item on their web page. Dear Webmaster of Westminster: if you are reading this, please remember that almost nobody cares about press releases, and that nobody but nobody goes looking for press releases by reading web pages.

5 DECEMBER 1998: The World Council of Churches' assembly has opened in plenary session, and more than 5000 people are in attendance. We at Anglicans Online will try to digest all of the news stories coming out of the WCC assembly and draw your attention to some number of them as appropriate. If you would like to read the raw output of the press machine at the WCC, then read the wire at Worldwide Faith News. Your News Centre editor is going to be in Spain all this coming week and will probably not have time to assimilate all of these stories this week.

4 DECEMBER 1998: This story has nothing to do with the Anglican church, but it goes to show that sometimes when you go trolling the news looking for the string "Archbishop of Canterbury" you come up with some amazing stories. This is proof that one needn't be smart in order to become rich, though in thinking about it, perhaps being smart would help one remain rich.

3 DECEMBER 1998: The World Council of Churches is holding its eighth assembly, fifty years after its first, in Harare, Zimbabwe from 3 to 14 December, 1998. The WCC's smart new web site contains a detailed announcement of this upcoming event. As the master WCC computer is in Switzerland, North American readers will likely get better service from the North American mirror site of the WCC homepage. In a largely unrelated story, Canada's , a superior online publication, reports on a recent speech in Halifax by the head of the WCC.

2 DECEMBER 1998: Our faith in the perfection of the BBC was shaken when we learned they had quite bungled the story of the Archbishop of York's All Saints' sermon. Now we read this from Nigel Hawthorne. Maybe CNN isn't so bad. Speaking of the BBC, they have weighed in this week with a story on a fresh new topic, namely sexuality and the church.

2 DECEMBER 1998: Ruth Gledhill has noticed the Church of England's new web site and has written about it. Sometimes the reigning queen of Anglican journalism is just too subtle for us. Addendum on 6 December 1998: The Independent has noticed it too, mentioning it in an editorial that also mentions, we think for the first time in a national newspaper, the COIN mailing list.

2 DECEMBER 1998: Your News Centre editor is trying to emulate the master in her abovementioned subtlety, so we will tell you that the new Church of England's web site has a News section. Its most recent article reports that Mr. George Mudie gave an undertaking to meet with Church of England leaders to tackle the alienation of young people.

1 DECEMBER 1998: On Easter Sunday a protester interrupted the ABC's sermon in Canterbury Cathedral. The British Courts are trying the case now. To those of us who have grown up in a country that has wide separation of church and state, this trial is an amazing mix of antiquated laws, bizarre politics, odd letters to the editor, commentary on the event by Clare Garner, on the defendant by Kathy Marks, on the trial by Will Woodward, on the sentence by Victoria Combe, and a copy of the evidence given by a member of parliament described by one observer as "as far left as one can get without falling off." To this American it all looks like what we call a "slow news day." We will tell you that it was covered in The Times in the Britain section on 2 December by Richard Duce, and also by Ruth Gledhill. You'll have to find them for yourself. Victoria Combe's article in The Telegraph has the best cross-references and links to other sources. This is web journalism the way it is supposed to be. Addendum on 3 December: Letters on the topic in The Independent including one from the ABC's secretary for public affairs, and several strongly-worded letters to the editor in The Times, q.v. Addendum on 5 December: Peter Tatchell's own words, Andrew Brown being Andrew Brown (despite the title he doesn't mention Tatchell until the last sentence, but you really must read his article, especially if you know who the Rev Ian Sweeney is).

1 DECEMBER 1998: The Vicar of All Saints Downshire Square, Reading is less than thrilled with the treatment his church got in the London press on the event of the wedding of Kate Winslet, star of Titanic.

1 DECEMBER 1998: Though they haven't had a formal debut party, the Worldwide Faith News computer service is more or less ready for prime time. This interesting effort seems to be funded with Trinity money and is actually implemented at IGC in Menlo Park, California, just up the road from Anglicans Online, which is best known for Peacenet, Econet, Labornet, Womensnet, and Conflictnet

30 NOVEMBER 1998: The Queer Intelligence Service reports that Peter Tatchell will stand trial at Canterbury Magistrates' Court today at 10:00 a.m. UK time. We expect that the UK media will have something to say afterwards. This is the first court case in more than two decades involving the privileged legal status of the UK church.

29 NOVEMBER 1998: It seems to be New Zealand week in the News Centre. The Christchurch Press has published a nice interview with Penny Jamieson, the first woman to be an Anglican diocesan bishop. A news story a few paragraphs below mentions a Roman Catholic bishop from New Zealand who gave the Vatican a talking-to. And Brian Reid, News Centre editor, has written a long first-person essay on what last month's Hikoi of Hope means to him. And if you don't care what it means to him, but do care what it means, you can just read the news story.

29 NOVEMBER 1998: Come back to Scotland; all is forgiven. The Rt. Rev. Richard Holloway, Bishop of Edinburgh and primate of the Scottish Episcopal Church, has urged gay clergy to leave England for Scotland. An article in The Telegraph covers the story and mentions the dissenting comments from his colleagues. We hear that there's a lot of space in Scotland for new residents up in Sutherland county, and in this era of Internet commerce a person can live pretty much anywhere...

29 NOVEMBER 1998: We've made a few jokes here in the News Centre recently about falling asleep in church. So we smiled to read that The Times Preacher of the Year award (Britain section of The Times for 28 November 1998) was won by the Revd Ian Sweeney, a 33-year-old Seventh-Day Adventist, with an American-born rabbi coming in second. I wonder if I lined up 6 or 7 of those Anglican kneelers in a row, how comfortable it would be......

28 NOVEMBER 1998: The Times is a triumph of content over form. Its web version is so awful, but it has so much quality writing that we continue to refer you to it. Don't miss Ruth Gledhill writing about Angels in the FAITH section of The Times for 28 November 1998. And on an utterly unrelated topic, don't miss her reporting in that same issue of the dispute over whether or not the Millennium Dome should have more Christian content; in the Britain section.

28 NOVEMBER 1998: The timing, coincidental with the release of the motion picture 'Elizabeth', must be an accident, but Christopher Morgan reports in The Sunday Times (Britain section, 29th November) that the Roman Catholic church is drafting an apology for the excesses of Bloody Mary. The scene in the film of Mary dying a painful death did not evoke any pity in those of us who knew how many people she and her cronies burnt at the stake.

27 NOVEMBER 1998: The Times (London) reports the death on 17th November of Canon Peter Boulton, former Prolocutor of York Convocation and Chaplain to the Queen. In the Obituaries section for 27th November. See our instructions for finding articles in The Times.

27 NOVEMBER 1998: The Most Reverend Leonard Anthony Boyle, a Roman Catholic bishop from New Zealand has confronted the Vatican on the issue of divorce in the Roman church. This was front page news in New Zealand this week, covered in The Press Online, and we mention it in this Anglican publication because divorce is one of the areas in which the Roman church and the Anglican church have significant disagreement.

27 NOVEMBER 1998: Last week we reported that the Bishop of Lincoln was worried about rural parts of England descending into paganism, and had proposed a solution. This week we note in the Church Times that perhaps this descent has already started, as an outshoot of the Nine O'Clock Service, or NOS. In the Church Times' web site until 3 December, and then after that you can read the article from our archives. For the second time in as many weeks, Ship of Fools (the magazine of Christian unrest) broke the story; see their writeup of it. We believe that the bishop's proposed solution would actually have worked in this case.

25 NOVEMBER 1998: Doug LeBlanc takes the high road, and his United Voice has been the gold standard of quality and respectability in conservative Anglican journalism. Anglican Voice replaces United Voice as the online publication of Episcopalians United. United Voice will continue as an occasional newsletter mailed to EU donors, and it will include highlights from Anglican Voice. As an online magazine, Anglican Voice will publish more material than space allowed in United Voice as a bimonthly newspaper.

22 NOVEMBER 1998: The feud at Westminster Abbey seems to go on forever; the Hundred Years' War played out in Internet time. The Sunday Times has a story (written by the same journalist whose interpretation of the Archbishop of York's All-Saints' service was so different from ours) "Blair holds sway in Westminster Abbey row" saying that the Abbey feud has been escalated all of the way to the Prime Minister. AO's sources in the mother country tell us that Dr Carey (the Archbishop) and Dr Carr (the Abbey dean) recently had a major argument involving flying bishops; it would thus not surprise us if the Archbishop failed to rush to the support of the Dean. We have a hunch that the quote in the Sunday Times article about "the highest level in the Church of England" could well be referring to some disgruntled person on Dr Carey's staff. In the Britain section of The Sunday Times for 22 November 1998; see our instructions for finding articles in The Sunday Times. It is now more than two weeks since newspapers promised a verdict "tomorrow".

22 NOVEMBER 1998: The Church of England is having its General Synod. You would not notice this if you went to the Church of England web site, and you have to look hard for any mention of it on the Anglican Communion Office web site, where normally one would expect to find press releases from the Anglican Communion News Service. We suppose that this is a welcome change from the absolute hurricane of press releases from Lambeth 1998.

21 NOVEMBER 1998: Your News Centre editor really likes national church synods and conventions, because they provide so much news about the church. Dominic Kennedy reports in the Britain section of The Times for 20 November that members of the Church of England are still forbidden from coveting their neighbours' oxen and donkeys and must stop their slaves from working on a Sunday. We cannot resist quoting the best line in the article, "Diana Webster from Finland, a lay member of the synod and a professional translator, felt there was little challenge for Church members to desist from coveting their neighbours' slaves. " Before you despair of the difficulty of finding articles in The Times, see our instructions for dealing with it.

21 NOVEMBER 1998: We here in the News Centre of Anglicans Online are big fans of Ruth Gledhill, so we're willing to bend our rules a little bit as to whether or not an article is about the Anglican Church (which is part of our beat) or about the mother country (which is not). In the "At Your Service" section of the 21 November 1998 edition of The Times, Ms. Gledhill shows us that she is a fine photographer as well as one of our favourite religious journalists, in an article entitled "Not quite forgotten" about a memorial for the homeless at St Martin-in-the-Fields, which hasn't been near fields for many centuries. "When a homeless person dies, there is no obituary in The Times."

21 NOVEMBER 1998: The Diocese of Newark consecrated the Rt. Rev. Jack Cronenberger as Bishop Coadjutor today. The consecration of a new bishop is one of the premier events in the one holy catholic and apostolic church. Besides the usual excitement and pageantry, this one was marked by the fainting of the Bishop of Newark, the Rt. Rev. Jack Spong, who has been battling viral meningitis since last summer. The event was covered by two local newspapers, the Star-Ledger and the Bergen Record. There are local copies of both of those articles on the AO site; the Star-Ledger article is here and the Bergen Record article is here. Later reports indicate that Bishop Spong has recovered from his fainting spell and that he is back on the job.

7 NOVEMBER 1998: The Rt. Rev. James Jones was enthroned as Bishop of Liverpool on 7 November 1998. We first learned of it from Ship of Fools, whose mystery worshipper attended the service and reported on it. We are so very excited by new bishops here at Anglicans Online, for we see them as the very core of our church. We spend a good deal of time every week looking for news stories about elections and enthronements of bishops. It is rare for a stealth enthronement to sneak by us like this, though, having known that it happened, we did find some references to it here and there using Alta Vista.

20 NOVEMBER 1998: The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America is having its annual national church council meetings and has at this year's meeting voted to revisit the issue of a Concordat of Agreement between the Lutheran and Episcopal churches in the USA. The official statement of the revised Concordat is on the ELCA web site at http://www.elca.org/ea/ccmintro.html

20 NOVEMBER 1998: The Rt. Reverend Robert Hardy, Bishop of Lincoln, told the Church of England General Synod that hobbyist priests who work for the Church of England in their spare time could save the nation from descending into paganism. We here at Anglicans Online are not priests, but saving the world from descending into paganism is a good way of summarising our hobby, which we manifest by editing these web pages for you in our spare time. So we think that Bishop Hardy may be on to something. Clare Garner reports what he said without judging it; in The Independent for a few more hours, and forever in our local copy of that otherwise ephemeral web page. Victoria Coombe has written about this same speech in The Telegraph. And should you wish to brave The Times' web site, Dominic Kennedy has written about it in the Britain section of 20 November 1998.

20 NOVEMBER 1998: Two opinion columns from The Independent worth reading during this time of the Church of England Synod. David Aaronovitch argues for modernisation, and William Hague, the UK Leader of the Opposition, gave a Wilberforce Lecture to the Conservative Christian Fellowship that was transcribed by The Independent and is served up on the web by us.

20 NOVEMBER 1998: Maybe it was Lambeth 98 that gave the Church of England an exposure to modern marketing, but all of a sudden everybody is thinking in marketing terms. Clare Garner reports in The Independent and Madeleine Bunting reports in The Guardian that the venerable C of E is looking to increase its once-monopoly market share in the lucrative burial business.

20 NOVEMBER 1998: Britain's Secretary of State for International Development told the Church of England synod that the Lambeth plan for the cancellation of Third World debt is simplistic, and urged it to rethink its strategy. Clare Garner covered it for The Independent; here is the article.

19 NOVEMBER 1998: The Archbishop of Canterbury spoke out at the UK General Synod against UK government plans to reduce the church's control of its schools. An article by Clare Garner in The Independent. There is also an article in The Times, but it is such a bother to read stories in The Times online that perhaps you shouldn't, except that it was written by Ruth Gledhill. In the Britain section of The Times for 18 November 1998.

15 NOVEMBER 1998: The Church of England is worried about competition in the funeral industry, according to a report in The Independent. But a later article suggests that the problem of funerals and burial may need some attention.

15 NOVEMBER 1998: Those pesky polyester vestments in Birmingham keep popping up in the news, and we keep looking for reasons not to report them. But this article in The Independent manages to combine the Anglican Church, Land Rovers, the famous Birmingham vestments, Prince Charles and Diana, and the expenditure of public funds all in one editorial. We're not quite sure what its purpose might be, but we're glad we read it.

14 NOVEMBER 1998: The Diocese of Chicago has elected a new bishop. You may recall that the Bishop of Chicago left last year to become the Presiding Bishop of ECUSA, and you may recall that in ECUSA the Presiding Bishop does not have diocesan responsibilities. Therefore Chicago needed to find a replacement, which they have done. Our article is a very short collection of links to the official information. We believe that this is the first instance of a diocesan web page scooping us in getting an announcement onto the web. We like this a lot: it shows that the official communications bodies within our church are adapting to this medium of the web. Now if only they would identify their webmaster so we could send him or her congratulations. (You would not believe how few of the 191 diocesan web pages out there actually identify the person responsible for its upkeep.)

13 NOVEMBER 1998: On 1 November the BBC reported a story, which we duly noted (see below) that the Archbishop of York had attacked the Church of England as being dull. Anglicans Online have now obtained a transcript of the good Archbishop's sermon, and we are now wondering if perhaps the BBC crew went to the wrong church by accident Look at the the BBC story, then read the sermon, and decide for yourself.

13 NOVEMBER 1998: You should read the Church Times every week. We do. Some of the stories from the dead-tree edition of the Church Times make it onto their web site, and when this happens we often refer you to them. Every now and then we consider that one of the Church Times stories is so important that we type it in and put it on our web site when it doesn't make it to theirs. This week there are no stories in the dead-tree edition of Church Times that we find so compelling that we are willing to transcribe them for you, but there are four URLs appearing either in news columns or advertisements in the dead-tree edition that we think you ought to see. http://www.princeofwales.gov.uk/about/princeswork/religion.html The full text of this page is reproduced on dead trees, together with a screen shot.
http://www.alpha.org.uk/ Yawn, but BIG BUCKS.
http://www.boms.dircon.co.uk/changingattitude/index.htm This site has some very good material on it.
And finally, we enjoyed the mention in Salon Magazine of Larry Wall, the creator of the PERL language, that, while being coyote ugly, is part of the sinew that holds our world together. See http://www.salonmagazine.com/21st/feature/1998/10/cov_13feature.html.

10 NOVEMBER 1998: Here in the colonies there is such an effective separation of church and state that it is always easy to tell whether a story is about the church or about the city or state or country. Back in the mother country, home of the mother church, things are not so simple, and we often have a hard time figuring out whether a story is Anglican, or is merely about something done by an Anglican, however notable. If a bishop wins a footrace, that is probably not Anglican news unless he is racing the Pope, but if the same bishop comments about the propensity of his flock to run in footraces, that may well be Anglican news. So when we draw your attention to comments by the The Right Rev John Gladwin, Bishop of Guildford, who said that the façade of wealth and prosperity in the stockbroker belt of Surrey hid growing problems of social need and poverty. A report is in the Britain section of The Times for 10 November 1998 (see our instructions for finding articles in The Times). Then in The Times of 14 November 1998, in the section called "At Your Service", Ruth Gledhill says "But, as so often in the Church of England, all was not as it appeared. All Saints, in Woodham, Surrey, is not only an island of Anglo-Catholicism in a sea of evangelicalism, but the apparent prosperity of the surroundings hides the kind of suffering more usually linked with inner cities."

9 NOVEMBER 1998: There is an ongoing drama around Westminster Abbey, whose Dean is in conflict with its organist and, it would seem, its queen. On 9th November The Independent carried a story that led us to believe that the Abbey Organist feud would soon be resolved, but here it is 6 days later and we have seen no resolution. We suspect that some journalists spend their entire career hoping for an opportunity to use a sentence like the one that ends this article: "Wesley Carr is 57; he has spent his entire adult life as a priest. Dr Neary is a year older, and has given himself to church music since he was a boy. One will be ruined; one will be triumphant."

6 NOVEMBER 1998: We reported on 20th September that the first members of the Church of England's Archbishops' Council had been named. Today's Church Times reports the names of the rest, which are not dominated by older Londoners, but include young people and residents of other parts of the country.

5 NOVEMBER 1998: The Bishop of Durham has called for England's Prince Charles to marry his girlfriend Camilla Parker Bowles. The tenuous Anglican connection of this, besides its being a public statement of a bishop, is that Charles could well be the person who appoints the next Archbishop of Canterbury. The BBC brings you this story. Britain's The Independent ran an editorial the same day suggesting that the church could be more unified in this kind of activity.

3 NOVEMBER 1998: There were some secular elections in the United States, and various politicians got re-elected to office. In California a new state law requires electronic disclosure of campaign finance information before the election, so that people can actually change their vote as a result of things that they learn about the funding of campaigns. While we have heard arguments that something like this was needed for Lambeth 1998, we also note that the total amount of money spent on the election in California this year was US$202 million, which money could perhaps have been used elsewhere more wisely.

1 NOVEMBER 1998: The Archbishop of York today attacked the Church of England as being "Dull". We aren't sure if he's right because the last time we were in an English church service we fell asleep and can't report on what happened. The BBC brings you this story

26 OCTOBER 1998: The U.S. Episcopal News Service reports that by unanimous votes, the U.S. Congress has approved a bill that would allow the United States to respond when persons in other countries are persecuted for their religious beliefs. To become law, the document now needs the signature of President Bill Clinton, who has declared that he would sign it. The legislation is the product of a bipartisan effort spurred by the Episcopal Church and other churches. There is a good discussion of the complex issues behind this law in The Oregonian, a newspaper in Oregon USA.

If our memory of history is correct, then it was exactly a thousand years earlier, give or take a week and some calendar reform, that an army summoned by Pope Urban II settled down in Antioch after succeeding on a mission that could be construed as similar, which historians would later call the First Crusade.

25 OCTOBER 1998: The big news today is the installation of the first Archbishop of the Province of Hong Kong, Peter Kwong Kong-kit. This made the front page of both of the major English-language daily newspapers in Hong Kong. The South China Morning Post carried the story online; here is a link and, to conserve bandwidth, here is a copy on our server. The Hong Kong Standard also carried the story online; here is a link and here is a copy on our server. We found it technically possible to enlarge slightly the photograph in the Hong Kong Standard, so we did this when we made our local copy.

The Hong Kong Standard's coverage focused on the historic nature of this event; it began "History was made twice in the Chinese Christian community yesterday. First was the establishment of the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui as the 38th Province of the Anglican Communion. Second was the installation of an archbishop, for the first time in the entire history of Chinese Christian believers.

The article in the SCMP began "The new Anglican archbishop formally installed yesterday is expected to lose control of a secretive, billion-dollar fund under sweeping constitutional changes within the church. The Bishop of Victoria Fund, the exact amount of which has never been made public but is estimated to run to billions, will be supervised by a private foundation to be set up within months."

The new archbishop is a graduate of Bexley Hall Seminary, which has kindly provided some nice biographical information about him.

23 OCTOBER 1998: An editorial in the Church of England newspaper has been published on the web by the Prayer Book Society of Canada. Entitled "Bribery Charges against African Bishops-- A response", it discusses assertions of conspiracy theories in the aftermath of Lambeth 98.

20 OCTOBER 1998: A sharp-eyed Australian has reported to us that the Sydney Morning Herald's coverage of the Anglican Synod on 17 October was in the features section. There is an article quite worth reading there about the possible effects and outcomes of the Archbishop's change of heart on the issue of the ordination of women. Anglican Media Sydney have informed us that the Morning Herald has run quite a number of articles about the Sydney Diocesan Synod, but most of them have not made it to the website.

The Morning Herald reported on 20 October that the diocesan synod went on record as opposing the Australian Primate as being "soft on homosexuality." It looks to us that, all over the Anglican world, people are going to spend an entire generation arguing about sexuality and homosexuality, and Sydney, known for its conservatism, is right there in the thick of it.

19 OCTOBER 1998: The Episcopal News Service, communications arm of the U.S. Episcopal Church, has adopted a bright new look and feel to their web site. Have a look.

17 OCTOBER 1998: New diocesan bishops elected in two dioceses in the United States. The Diocese of East Tennessee has elected the Rev. Charles von Rosenberg, and the Diocese of Eau Claire has elected the Very Rev. Keith Whitmore.

17 OCTOBER 1998: Don't forget the story, first reported in July by Anglican Media Sydney, that a Province of Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui will be created on 25 October. Dr George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury, is travelling to Hong Kong for the Inauguration Service in St John's Cathedral, Hong Kong Island. The installation services for the bishops of Eastern Kowloon and Western Kowloon dioceses have already happened, on 20 September and 18 October, respectively. One would assume that an event such as this is entirely joyful and positive, but there seems to be an undercurrent of pushback from Anglicans in Hong Kong. Because of time zones and language difficulties, we expect to report this event in the 8 November 1998 edition of Anglicans Online.

14 OCTOBER 1998: About one third of the Anglicans in Australia are in the Diocese of Sydney. The Diocese of Sydney is in the middle of its Synod. Anglican Media Sydney are reporting the events there. Highlights include the diocese's agreement to indigenous representation on General Synod, a tentative agreement by the Archbishop not to oppose Synod action to ordain women as priests. It is also obvious from reading these news reports that the Diocese of Sydney is getting serious about the call from Lambeth to do something about world debt. Go read their media releases. Actually, while you're in there, go read Southern Cross, their diocesan newspaper. It is breathtakingly well done, in a country whose secular press seems not to have noticed, by and large, that churches exist. The Sydney Morning Herald wrote a piece about the Synod that was published a few days before it began. We are intrigued that the Sydney Morning Herald issue for Saturday 17 October 1998 carried two articles about the most recent Papal Bull but none that we could find about the Anglican Synod.

11 OCTOBER 1998: Dean Godfrey Fryar of St Saviour's Cathedral Goulburn has been appointed as an Assistant Bishop in the Anglican Diocese of Canberra & Goulburn and will be based in Wagga Wagga. In addition to his duties as Bishop he will be the Rector of St John's parish, Wagga Wagga. We have copied the press release, added some hyperlinks the way one ought on the web, and reproduced it here.

11 OCTOBER 1998: It is always intriguing when there are news reports about news reports. Here is a news report about a media campaign. The Canadian Broadcasting Company has reported that the biggest billboard campaign in England right now is from the Church of England. The CBC has a short write-up of it, which includes a Real Video news clip of their television coverage. If you have never tried Real Video, this is a good excuse, and all of the instructions that you need are on the CBC web site.

11 OCTOBER 1998: There is a joke from John Cleese making the rounds of cyberspace, quoting an observation from the former Python about why England is better than the United States. Since the joke has utterly no Anglican content we will not repeat it here, but we will observe that the juxtaposition of two news articles offer evidence that Scotland is better than Wyoming. The Sunday Times reports today that the Anglican church in Scotland may become the first Christian body in Britain to support same-sex marriages; a group within the Scottish Episcopal Church is talking about approving a service to bless same-sex couples in church. Meanwhile, in Laramie, Wyoming, various newspapers report that a 22-year-old who dreamed of some day having his same-sex relationship blessed in an Anglican church was beaten nearly to death and quite literally crucified by two men and two women who found such ceremonies superfluous. The police are currently calling it a robbery, evidently because it is so common to crucify robbery victims after taking their belongings.

6 OCTOBER 1998: Westminster Abbey is not a cathedral or a parish church or even, any more, a place where monks or abbots live. It is a "royal peculiar," meaning that it is under the personal jurisdiction of HM the Queen. People in the know were quite agog when Dr. Wesley Carr, the Dean of that Abbey, tried to say "no thanks" to the annual gift from the Queen of a Christmas tree. Ruth Gledhill reports in The Times. In order to find anything in their peculiar web site, you'll need to read our instructions, and know that this article was in the Britain section on 6th October.

11 OCTOBER 1998: Legend has it that Merlin lived backwards, so pay no mind to the time sequence of these news items. Not only is Dr. Carr (the Dean of the Royal Peculiar) trying to sack her majesty's Christmas tree (see above), he did already, about six months ago, sack the Abbey's organist on what some consider to be a trumped-up charge. Should Her Majesty learn from the judicial hearing that there are no actual facts behind this charge, The Sunday Times writes, in an article in the Britain section, that the next to be sacked might be the Peculiar Dean. Do read our instructions about how to find articles in the Sunday Times' web site.

4 OCTOBER 1998: Greek Orthodox priests frumpy? Read what the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports.

2 OCTOBER 1998: Internet mailing lists, Internet plans, the real Lambeth story: Andrew Brown ruminates in the Church Times about all of it.

1 OCTOBER 1998: Rome and the drawing of lines round the Eucharist, as reported in the Daily Telegraph and The Times.

1 OCTOBER 1998: The concept of flying bishops in the UK is once again being questioned. Ruth Gledhill reports in the The Times (London).

28 SEPTEMBER 1998: In the US, where Anglicans Online is edited, we are quite accustomed to the ordination of women, but still get quite excited at the concept of real ale. So we were delighted to read in The Independent that when Sue Sheppard was ordained as a deacon, she was able to celebrate with a pint of Curate's Choice bitter, brewed by her husband to commemorate the event.

27 SEPTEMBER 1998: We have obtained copies of correspondence between Prof. Diarmaid MacCulloch and Archbishop George Carey, which was reported briefly in this week's Church Times. See our article for details and links to copies of the correspondence.

26 SEPTEMBER 1998: A group of Anglicans in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA have received permission from the Rt. Rev. Robert W. Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh, to have a pastoral relationship with the Rt. Rev. Wilson Turumanya, diocesan of the Diocese of Bunyaro-Kitara in Uganda. Our article outlines what has happened and what it might mean. See also newspaper coverage of this story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

25 SEPTEMBER 1998: Passing of bishops. In England, the Rt. Rev. Brian Masters, Area Bishop of Edmonton, died on the job; his passing was noted in The Independent and in The Times. (It is in the Britain section of the 24 Sep edition of The Times; see our instructions).

In Australia, the Rt. Rev. John Hazlewood, retired Bishop of Ballarat and former Dean of Perth, passed on earlier this month. His passing was best noted in The Courier, with articles on his death, the community's reaction, and his memorial service.

By all accounts, these were both extraordinary men who changed the world. Both fiercely opposed the ordination of women in the Anglican Church.

20 SEPTEMBER 1998: In May 1998 the Church of England advertised for members in an Archbishops' Council. See our story on this event. Today the names of the ten elected members of this body were announced.

20 SEPTEMBER 1998: This is not Anglican news, but we couldn't resist. Today's Philadelphia Inquirer reports that a religious structure in Garden Grove, California known as the Crystal Cathedral, will be building a "food court". The food court is a mainstay of North American shopping malls and airports, but this is the first one that we know of in a cathedral.

17 SEPTEMBER 1998: Those of you who do not live in California are probably feeling smug about the above-mentioned article, but before you get too smug, please read the feature article by the former Dean of Norwich in today's Church Times entitled "Why put on a poor show?", which suggests that to be successful in modern life, a church does indeed need to pay more attention to Hollywood. We cannot resist pointing out that the Diocese of Norwich is one of those in England that does not yet have a web page.

14 SEPTEMBER 1998: The Irish Times reported that Ireland's youngest woman priest, the Rev Lynda Peilow (24), was ordained at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, yesterday, during a service which involved clergy from 10 other denominations (not including Roman Catholic). The article contains a link to another story about a dissident Roman Catholic bishop ordaining a woman priest, though obviously this ordination will not be recognized by the RC church in this largely-RC country.

12 SEPTEMBER 1998: We have for weeks been watching the story of the sacking of the organist at Westminster Abbey, Martin Neary, by its dean, Wesley Carr. While hardly up to the current international standards of intrigue, bizarreness, or relevance to world affairs, this story has had a certain oddness to it, and has reminded this American that the mother country, besides producing the Anglican Church, also produced the Page 3 Girl and the Ministry of Silly Walks. The Times carries in its Britain section on 12 September 1998 a story that begins "The Dean, the organist, his wife and their silks arrived in Downing Street yesterday for the climax of one of the most riveting disputes in the thousand years of Westminster Abbey." Since reaching The Times' web site, even if you know how, can be an uncertain proposition, we'd like to advise you to keep trying.

12 SEPTEMBER 1998: In September 1998 you cannot call yourself a journalist unless you run a story about Bill Clinton and his problems. Never mind that the people running Anglicans Online are a Public Relations specialist, a Computer Research Laboratory manager, and an Information Technology manager. We dabble in journalism, and you read what we write. That makes us journalists. So, here's our Bill Clinton story, but, since this is the web, all we're really doing is linking to one. It is a very nicely-done column by Paul Handley. But since the story ran in The Independent, famous for unlinking its stories just hours after putting them up, we've taken the liberty of making a local copy.

12 SEPTEMBER 1998: Nigel McCulloch, Bishop of Wakefield, has written a fierce piece in the Faith section of The Times. It seems to us that this section appears only on Saturdays, so you'll probably have trouble finding it even if you follow our directions.

8 SEPTEMBER 1998: Brave apologies offered to hardened ears. No, this isn't another US political story, it's Apologizing for the Crusades. Read our story about a group of Anglicans traveling to Beirut to apologize to the Lebanese for the Crusades.

7 SEPTEMBER 1998: The Rt. Rev. Penny Jamieson, Bishop of Dunedin in New Zealand, gave a gloomy report to her diocese at its synod this week. Read about it in The Press, a newspaper on the South Island of New Zealand.

7 SEPTEMBER 1998: No Anglican news down under. Every week we scour the world's online newspapers looking for Anglican stories, and every week we are astonished by how secular the Australian newspapers are, at least the ones that are online. Yo! Dioceses of Melbourne and Canberra and other places that we've never visited. We in the Northern Hemisphere are hungering for your diocesan newspapers. We read Southern Cross from the Diocese of Sydney, and we'd like to read yours too.

6 SEPTEMBER 1998: The Sunday Independent, UK, reports that the Church of England is about to launch a £500,000 advertising campaign to recruit new members into the church. The recruiting techniques, pioneered by fast-growing megachurch Holy Trinity Brompton, are not without controversy.

1 SEPTEMBER 1998: Anglican Journal, the fabulously high quality monthly magazine affiliated with the Anglican Church of Canada, has published its September issue. Almost every article is worth your attention.

23 AUGUST 1998: In our desperate search for Anglican news unrelated to Lambeth, we re-open last year's overexposed news topic, Princess Diana. Readers unfamiliar with the process by which the Archbishop of Canterbury is selected should read this short explanation, then read an article in The Sunday Times showing what Lord Coggan, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, has been doing lately.

21 AUGUST 1998: The Tablet publishes a letter from Canon James Rosenthal in response to the Ruth Gledhill article that we mention below. Since this letter appeared only in the print edition of The Tablet, we have transcribed a copy of that letter here at Anglicans Online, so that you may read it. Do read Ms. Gledhill's article first.

18 AUGUST 1998: Finally some news unrelated to Lambeth. The Guardian reports that the Church of England is coming under heavy pressure to divest itself of its investment holdings in GEC, Britain's second largest defence manufacturer.

14 AUGUST 1998: An article in The Tablet by Ruth Gledhill entitled "My Lambeth Hell" deplores the way journalists were treated at the Lambeth conference. As The Tablet's web site did not carry this article, we have taken the liberty of transcribing a copy of it here at Anglicans Online. Don't miss Canon James Rosenthal's reply.

8 AUGUST 1998: Our extensive coverage of the 1998 Lambeth Conference is stored in the Justus Anglican Archive. During this conference there was no other Anglican News, so none is recorded here in the document you are now reading.

19 JULY 1998: A press release from the Anglican Communion Office with unusually strong wording denies reports published in the British press of a problem with Lambeth-conference news dissemination.

19 JULY 1998: The primary news story right now is the Lambeth Conference, about which we have a dedicated page. Since almost everyone in the Anglican world who might be making news is in Canterbury now at the Lambeth Conference, there is not much else to report. We are intrigued to go back and read the news release about technology plans for the Lambeth Conference and compare it to what seems actually to be happening there.

12 JULY 1998: The Sunday Times reports, in an article by Christopher Morgan, that Parliament has demanded of George Carey (the Archbishop of Canterbury) that he curb the high salaries and extravagant living found at Westminster Abbey and the royal chapels. The article is in the Britain section of The Sunday Times; click here for a reminder of how to read stories online in The Times.

10 JULY 1998: Two press releases from the Church of Ireland, from the Archbishop of Armagh and the Archbishop of Dublin, on the situation at Drumcree. These two Archbishops more or less define what it means to be a Protestant in Ireland, and they have each made a very strong statement against the violence.

10 JULY 1998: A feature article in the Church Times analyzes the Pope's latest proclamation, Ad Tuendam Fidem. The perspective of writer Wilfrid McGreal is quite different from most other published Anglican analyses of it. Worth reading. The Church Times does not keep back issues online, so we have made a local copy of it.

7 JULY 1998: In the world of the Church, Canterbury is known for its role in the founding and life of Christianity in England. In the modern world of computers and cyberspace, Canterbury is much better known as the home of UKC, the University of Kent at Canterbury. UKC was for many years the only Internet path into the British Isles, and the students and faculty there have always been known as leading-edge innovators. The Computer Science Department at UKC has come through once again, bringing us "Bishopcam", which promises to show live Anglican Bishops on the Internet for the duration of the Lambeth conference. Were the developers of the Bishopcam only to check with Prof. Heather Brown, the electronic publishing specialist on the faculty there, they would discover that they should have said "show Anglican Bishops live on the Internet". The editor of the News Centre is an American living in California, who knows perfectly well that they did not mean "show lively Anglican Bishops on the Intenet", and he is glad to be able to avoid the potential accident of showing any dead bishops, should the camera accidentally stray to the graveyard.

7 JULY 1998: We update our Torres Strait article to include one new link, provided by the continuing church to which the Torres Strait people have gone. The updated text is in dark purple at the bottom of the page. There is no significance to the use of dark purple; it's an almost-black colour that even colour-blind people can tell has colour.

6 JULY 1998: The Times (London) reports that the General Synod has chosen to reject an updated version of the Lord's Prayer, which was to have been included in the next edition of the Alternative Service Book. We apologize to those readers for whom English is a second language for the use of such a complex verb tense in that sentence, but we don't know how else it could have been said. Click here for a reminder of how to read stories online in The Times.

5 JULY 1998: Tumult in the Torres Strait. Anglicans Online have pieced together an article from various sources that begins to explain the very complex situation that has been reported only sporadically outside Australia.

4 JULY 1998: A very thoughtful article in the Sydney Morning Herald's weekend magazine Icon about the growing maturity of cyberspace religious communication. Well worth reading, and the Fairfax-operated web site has very good access from other continents.

2 JULY 1998: The big news this week among churches in Apostolic succession is the release by Pope John Paul II of Ad Tuendam Fidem, which so far has shown up on the official Vatican web site only in Latin and Italian. The story has been reported in most major newspapers worldwide; see for example coverage in the San Jose Mercury News (in Silicon Valley, California), The Telegraph (London), or the Sydney Morning Herald. The accompanying commentary by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and and Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone contains much more detail, and has an official excerpted translation into English. The more-abstract Papal bull is infallible; the more-specific explanatory note is not. The full text of Ratzinger's and Tarcisio's explanatory note can be found on EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network), a global Roman Catholic communications network. This commentary is of heightened interest to Anglicans because of the following paragraph:

With regard to those truths connected to revelation by historical necessity and which are to be held definitively, but are not able to be declared as divinely revealed, the following examples can be given: the legitimacy of the election of the Supreme Pontiff or of the celebration of an ecumenical council, the canonizations of saints (dogmatic facts), the declaration of Pope Leo XIII in the Apostolic Letter Apostolicæ Curæ on the invalidity of Anglican ordinations ...

The Apostolicæ Curæ to which this refers is a Bull by Pope Leo XIII issued more than 100 years ago; it is old enough that its text appears in the Catholic Encyclopedia. The Anglican reply, written in Latin jointly by the Archbishops of York and Canterbury, is available translated into English at the Old Catholic Resource Center.

The 5 July 1998 edition of The Boston Globe carried two evaluations of Ad Tuendam Fidem by two different theologians; online links to those evaluations has been augumented with some commentary by Boston correspondent Chad Wohlers for our article "Observations on Ad Tuendam Fidem"

2 JULY 1998: The Bishop of Shyira has made public the letter that he wrote to the Bishop of Arkansas on the issue of a parish church in Arkansas being part of the Diocese of Shyira. (Click here for our April 1998 story on this event.)

1 JULY 1998: The July issue of the Anglican Church of Canada's Anglican Journal is out, and it lives up to its reputation of being one of the world's best church-sponsored publications. Some of the best graphic design on the web, in addition. Do take a look.

28 JUNE 1998: Southern Cross, the publication of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, has revealed that on 25 October 1998, the new Province of Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui will be inaugurated. Dr George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury, is travelling to Hong Kong for the Inauguration Service. The Southern Cross story gives details.

28 JUNE 1998: Widely-read columnist Joan Smith writes in Sunday's The Independent that she is fed up with Bishops in the Bedroom, and wishes the church would find something else to do besides meddle in issues of sexuality.

27 JUNE 1998: Ruth Gledhill, religion correspondent for The Times (UK), has written an important piece in The Tablet, a Roman Catholic weekly newspaper, about Alpha, "The Magnet of Alpha." To read The Tablet online you must tell them your name, but there is no fee and no hidden commercialism. The structure of this web site is such that the article will likely disappear on 3 July 1998.

27 JUNE 1998: The Rt. Rev. David C. Bane, Bishop Coadjutor of the Diocese of Southern Virginia, was installed as its Diocesan. We cannot find any official or press coverage of this event, so we have pieced together an Anglicans Online news story about the occasion.

23 JUNE 1998: (ENS) The Essential Guide to the Anglican Communion and Lambeth Praise, a songbook, were both published in June by Morehouse Publishing and shipped to England for the Lambeth Conference in Canterbury. See the ENS writeup of these books, which tells you how you can buy your own copies for US $11.95 and $20 respectively (shipping not included). Morehouse Publishing does not yet have online ordering, and the only telephone number listed is the USA toll-free 800 number, which is quite difficult to ring from overseas, so people outside the US might have difficulty.

21 JUNE 1998: The Diocese of Pretoria has elected the Very Revd Dr Jo T Seoka as Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Pretoria. The CPSA E-News (Church of the Province of Southern Africa) carries the story online.

21 JUNE 1998: Archbishop of Canterbury takes a stand on English sex law. The Sunday Telegraph reports that the Archbishop of Canterbury has complained to UK Prime Minister Tony Blair about proposals to lower the legal age of consent for homosexuals in Britain to 16.

Dr George Carey, the Archbishop, said that he opposed the proposed change in the law and that he was ``in dialogue'' with Blair on the subject. The British parliament is expected to vote on this issue on 22 June. The change would make the legal age of consent to sex for homosexuals the same as it is for heterosexuals.

18 JUNE 1998: The Diocesan and Suffragan Bishops of the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas have released a formal reply to Bishop Spong's controversial "12 Theses", which he calls "A Call for a New Reformation." Our story simply quotes the West Texas bishops' reply exactly.

12 JUNE 1998: A concordat of Intercommunion was signed in Philadelphia by the Reformed Episcopal Church and the Anglican Province of America, marking an important coming together of traditional Episcopal bodies. Our story was compiled from a press release issued by the Anglican Province of America.

9 JUNE 1998: The Canadian publication Christian Week has published its review of the Canadian General Synod, and their conclusion is that the Anglican Church of Canada has reversed its recent liberalization trend and is becoming more conservative.

9 JUNE 1998: Arkansas and Africa, continued. We reported in April the formation in Arkansas of an Episcopal parish allegedly part of the Diocese of Shyira, which is in Rwanda. A story in the Charleston Post and Courier, a newspaper in Charleston, South Carolina, USA, continues the saga.

8 JUNE 1998: The Rev. Miguel Tamayo Saldivar was inducted today as the new Anglican Bishop of Uruguay in the Holy Trinity Metropolitan Cathedral in Montevideo. Our story is taken directly from ACNS press releases.

8 JUNE 1998: The Episcopal News Service has released its web page about the Lambeth Conference. There's nothing wrong with your computer; the picture in the second paragraph is just not there. This web page is one huge file with all of the stories in it, so be patient. The text of the stories are quite complete, in the best tradition of responsible print journalism. The ENS also announces on that web page that the photographs from last month's press releases are now finally online, but alas they are not actually there yet. We expect them to be excellent photographs when they do arrive.

6 JUNE 1998: The Diocese of Newark elected the Reverend John P. Croneberger as its Bishop Coadjutor. Fr Croneberger has been the rector of the Church of The Atonement in Tenafly, New Jersey, USA for 18 years. His selection ended weeks of speculation that perhaps the Diocese of Newark would elect a candidate with a controversial sexual orientation. But they did not. The story has been widely covered in U.S. national media, including most major newspapers, because of the potential for controversy.

5 JUNE 1998: The Bishop of Newark, John Shelby Spong, recently published 12 theses, part of his call for a new reformation for the Church. The Bishop of Rochester (UK) has taken up the challenge--and responded with 13 theses of his own. We link you to the primary source material.

3 JUNE 1998: Manistee, Michigan. An endearing tale of how a parish in the Diocese of Western Michigan coped with mishaps on Pentecost that were brought when there came from the sky a strong driving wind.

2 JUNE 1998: Lambeth Market Place plans announced. There has been a certain amount of hubbub in the UK press about the Lambeth Souvenirs, including a front page story in the Church Times edition of 5 June which did not make it to their web page. These stories might serve to distract people from noticing that the Lambeth Market Place is alive and well, and will be both a place and a series of events.

1 JUNE 1998: The always-excellent Greenbelt Anglican News drew our attention to a story that we overlooked in last month's Anglican Journal, and we think it's a sufficiently important story that the benefit of mentioning it now outweighs the embarrassment of publicizing our failure to note it last month. If this were ordinary print journalism we would rewrite their lead paragraph enough to avoid copyright infringement and run it as our own, but instead you should just click here to read the Greenbelt Anglican News report or click here to read the original Anglican Journal article.

31 MAY 1998: Separation of Church and State: The Telegraph (UK) reports that the Archbishop of Canterbury and some of the Bishops of the Church of England are organizing opposition to the announced plan of the UK Government to reduce the influence that the Church of England has over England's government.

31 MAY 1998: The Sunday Times (London) reports in the "Britain" section of its 31 May issue on another ruckus over the issue of sexuality in the Church of England. This time the issue is "transgendered" priests--those who have had sex-change operations or who are dressing as a member of the opposite sex. The same edition of the Sunday Times reports in a different story in the same section that attendance at Church of England parishes has fallen below 1 million people for the first time in history. Click here to find out how to read an online story in The Sunday Times.

29 MAY 1998: In a nine-day meeting in Montreal, the Anglican Church of Canada's chief governing body approved legislation bringing the church closer to Lutherans, opposing euthanasia and cloning, and expressing the church's support to partner churches in several oppressed or war-torn countries. The church also approved motions asking for government action on several social policy issues. Read the wrap-up report or look over the entire Synod 98 web site.

28 MAY 1998:The General Synod of the Nippon Sei Ko Kai, held in Tokyo, approved the Ordination of Women to the Priesthood without too much note or comment. Here is our report. Claire Debenham reports from that meeting that "This is by far the best of the three Assemblies I have attended. The atmosphere throughout has been good-humored and positive. The debate continues tomorrow on guidelines for pastoral care of those who cannot accept women's ministry, and there is also a proposal to introduce a quota system to ensure that half the lay delegates are women (so ensuring that women make up at least 20% of the Assembly). This will certainly fail to pass, but at least it will raise awareness of the problem - at this Assembly there are five women, three lay and two deacons, out of a total of 55. I believe this year's assembly is a really positive step for the church, and one that will be looked back on as a turning point in years to come.

22 MAY 1998: New Zealand's General Synod met from 10 May to 18 May. Our report on the New Zealand General Synod includes appointment of a new Presiding Bishop, abandonment of the title "Archbishop", and issuance of a report on sexuality.

22 MAY 1998: England's Church Times reports that two bishops with opposing views on homosexuality have drafted a paper which they hope could form the basis of a consensus at the Lambeth Conference this summer. Here is an Anglicans Online local copy of it, since the Church Times keeps no online archives. Greenbelt Interfaith News also reports this event, with links to primary sources. The issue of homosexuality will almost certainly be the most contentious issue at this summer's Lambeth conference.

21 MAY 1998: Canada's General Synod opens. There is extensive online coverage of Canada's General Synod; we will link stories that we consider to be of international significance. There is very good online coverage of the Opening Service.

17 MAY 1998: Korea's General Synod was held on 28 and 29 April at Hanhwa Condo., Suahnbo, Korea. The home page for the Anglican Church of Korea includes the full text of the Korean Provincial Newsletter of 17 May, which reports on the Synod and other news, including the installation in the Seoul cathedral of the first pipe organ ever made by a Korean..

17 MAY 1998: Three Bishops consecrated in Nippon Sei Ko Kai (the Anglican Church in Japan).

12 MAY 1998: A news report from California that while their parents are busy arguing about issues like sexuality and the historic episcopate, many teens will eventually use the Internet for their only religious experience. The findings of Barna Research Group (BRG) are based on phone surveys of 620 teens and 1006 adults.

10 MAY 1998: Various newspapers around the UK carried this startling advertisement seeking membership in a to-be-formed Archbishops' Council.

9 MAY 1998: (Canada) A report from the Diocesan Synod of the Diocese of New Westminster of the passage by a very narrow margin of a resolution calling for the church to bless same-sex unions.

3 MAY 1998: The Sunday Times reports that senior clerics have drawn up proposals for a betrothal ceremony for unmarried couples. The plans, which challenge Anglican doctrine on marriage, are likely to provoke a storm of controversy from traditionalists who regard sex before marriage as a sin. Click here to find out how to read an online story in The Sunday Times.

1 MAY 1998: The Times reports that conference organizers of the "bishops' wives' conference" at a meeting this summer of 600 bishops and archbishops of the Anglican Church have been forced to rename it the "spouses' programme" - because five of the bishops' spouses are men. Click here to find out how to read an online story in The Sunday Times.

28 APRIL 1998: The Telegraph reports in its edition of 28th April 1998 that the Church of England may expel rebel priests who do not accept the ordination of women.

27 APRIL 1998: The Independent reports that Peter Tatchell, the activist arrested and charged with violent behavior for interrupting the Easter sermon at Canterbury Cathedral, has announced that he will summon the Archbishop of Canterbury as a defense witness. Since The Independent has no online archives, you will just have to take our word for the existence of this article.

27 APRIL 1998: The Times (London) reports that Church of England bishops are to debate an Anglican Church report arguing that polygamous marriages can sometimes show both "faithfulness and righteousness". The report, Called to Full Humanity, is certain to arouse fierce controversy when it is debated this summer. Click here to find out how to read an online story in The Times.

25 APRIL 1998: The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported (but not in its online edition), a news story about a parish in Arkansas moving its affiliation to a diocese in Africa. Anglicans Online has made a copy of the article.

20 APRIL 1998: Trevor Huddleston, pioneer of the anti-apartheid movement against racism in South Africa, is dead at age 84. Story compiled from various news reports.

9 APRIL 1998: The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) has released a revised draft of the Concordat of Agreement.

The Anglicans Online News Centre began operation in its currrent form on 9th April 1998.