New year's greeting to all.

Happy New year!

We have given another year full of God's goodness, may we use our God given ability to give Him back the Glory.

May this year challenge us to do more and excel in God's vineyard, ministry and Job. God Bless.

MAP

2012 Opprtuinities

Open door 2012, a fresh start this New Year for Missionary and Clergy interested to join MAP and want start a mission ministry. Interested? Send us an email.

Looking for a missionary?

Are you a community who is in need of a Priest or a congregation in need of a Missionary? Please contact us in our address posted at our webpage.

Affiliation

We welcome Clergy and Ministers who are willing to join our mission in the Anglican Church also Independent Evangelical and Pentecostal Churches interested to affiliate with MAP here in the Philippines and abroad.
Interested Clergy can call or send us an email.

Vatican stunned by Irish embassy closure

By Philip Pullella | Reuters

• 

  Parishioners and visitors attend mass at a Roman Catholic Church in Ireland in a …

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Catholic Ireland's stunning decision to close its embassy to the Vatican is a huge blow to the Holy See's prestige and may be followed by other countries which feel the missions are too expensive, diplomatic sources said on Friday.

The closure brought relations between Ireland and the Vatican, once ironclad allies, to an all-time low following the row earlier this year over the Irish Church's handling of sex abuse cases and accusations that the Vatican had encouraged secrecy.

Ireland will now be the only major country of ancient Catholic tradition without an embassy to the Vatican.

"This is really bad for the Vatican because Ireland is the first big Catholic country to do this and because of what Catholicism means in Irish history," said a Vatican diplomatic source who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

He said Ireland informed the Vatican shortly before the announcement was made on Thursday night.

Dublin's foreign ministry said the embassy was being closed because "it yields no economic return" and that relations would be continued with an ambassador in Dublin.

The source said the Vatican was "extremely irritated" by the wording equating diplomatic missions with economic return, particularly as the Vatican sees its diplomatic role as promoting human values.

Diplomats said the Irish move might sway others to follow suit to save money because double diplomatic presences in Rome are expensive.

It was the latest crack in relations that had been seen as rock solid until a few years ago.

DAMNING REPORT

In July, the Vatican took the highly unusual step of recalling its ambassador to Ireland after Prime Minister Enda Kenny accused the Holy See of obstructing investigations into sexual abuse by priests.

The Irish parliament passed a motion deploring the Vatican's role in "undermining child protection frameworks" following publication of a damning report on the diocese of Cloyne.

The Cloyne report said Irish clerics concealed from the authorities the sexual abuse of children by priests as recently as 2009, after the Vatican disparaged Irish child protection guidelines in a letter to Irish bishops.

While Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore denied the embassy closure was linked to the row over sexual abuse, Rome-based diplomats said they believed it probably played a major role.

"All things being equal, I really doubt the mission to the Vatican would have been on the list to get the axe without the fallout from the sex abuse scandal," one ambassador to the Vatican said, on condition of anonymity.

Cardinal Sean Brady, the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, said he was profoundly disappointed by the decision and hoped the government would "revisit" it.

"This decision seems to show little regard for the important role played by the Holy See in international relations and of the historic ties between the Irish people and the Holy See over many centuries," Brady said in a statement.

The Vatican has been an internationally recognized sovereign city-state since 1929, when Italy compensated the Catholic Church for a vast area of central Italy known as the Papal States that was taken by the state at Italian unification in 1860.

It has diplomatic relations with 179 countries. About 80 have resident ambassadors and the rest are based in other European cities.

The Vatican guards its diplomatic independence fiercely and in the past has resisted moves by some countries to locate their envoys to the Holy See inside their embassies to Italy.

Dublin said it was closing its mission to the Vatican along with those in Iran and East Timor to help meet its fiscal goals under an EU-IMF bailout. The closures will save the government 1.25 million euros ($1.725 million) a year.

(Additional reporting by Carmel Crimmins and Conor Humphries in Dublin; Editing by Tim Pearce)

Good News!!! ACP Clergy formation will start this month.

An agreement between the Logos House of Theology (USA) and the Anglican Church in the Philippines (Traditional) was finalized between the two groups, to assist in training and equipping ACP's clergy and to have Logos House presence in South East Asia. It's goal was to assist in the establishment of the Anglican Theological Training Center here in the Philippines.

APA and ACA Inter-communion

APA Approves ACA Inter-communion Offer

National Office of Communications - 14 July 2011

The Provincial Synod of the Anglican Province of America (APA) has unanimously passed a resolution embracing an inter-communion agreement with the Anglican Church in America (ACA). The General Synod of the Anglican Church in America will vote on this resolution at its meeting in September. The agreement has already been approved by each of the four domestic ACA dioceses.

In part, the resolution stated “That this preliminary document will serve as a catalyst for the eventual reconciliation of our two jurisdictions, that it will encourage other continuing jurisdictions to seek greater unity and that it will bring to fruition the unity of purpose that God clearly intends for his people.” Each church body will recognize the catholicity and independence of each other, will welcome members of each other’s bodies to receive the Sacraments, and will recognize the validity of each others’ holy orders. The resolution also states that both church bodies will work toward a closer bond between the two jurisdictions. The resolution clearly stated that “possessing a common heritage and in recognition of our spiritual kinship, we acknowledge that we are members of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.”

The Anglican Church in America along with the Anglican Province of America of America are two of the largest traditional Anglican Church bodies in the United States. Both seek to uphold the Catholic Faith, Apostolic Order, Orthodox Worship and Evangelical Witness of the Anglican tradition within the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ. The Communion holds Holy Scripture and the ancient Creeds of the Undivided Church as authentic and authoritative, and worships according to the traditional formularies of the Church. The Eastern and Western Churches split in 1059 and the Anglican Church, which existed in the British Isles since the first century, joined with Rome in 664 and later separated from the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th Century.

In a statement issued by the President of the House of Bishops, the Rt. Rev. Brian Marsh said "The APA action reaffirmed what we have known in both bodies for a number of years, that in Christ and in each other, we are one Church, one body. I applaud Bishop Grundoff and the Synod of the APA for their actions to to which I am sure we will respond in kind in September."

ANGLICAN CHURCH IN AMERICA: Roman Catholic Offer to Traditional Anglicans Receives Lukewarm Reception

By the Rev. Jeffrey W. Monroe
June 27, 2011

A formal offer to the world's 90 million Anglicans by the Roman Catholic Church to join with Rome has been received with lukewarm interest by a large group of conservative Anglicans in the United States , the Anglican Church in America.

The formal offer was in response to several requests by various Anglican Church bodies for inter-communion which was sent to the Vatican several years ago. The Vatican 's reply, known as Anglicanorum Coetibus, prescribed a means by which Anglicans worldwide could become Roman Catholic but offered no recognition of Holy Orders nor guaranteed that Anglican Rites would be fully preserved.

"Our desire has always been to approach Rome on an equal footing," said the Rev. Jeffrey Monroe, Special Assistant to the President of the House of Bishops of the Anglican Church in America . "It seems that the concept of unity is more focused by our Brothers in Rome on absorption rather than equal unity." Nationwide, fewer than 15 parishes have indicated an interest in accepting Rome 's offer. "Our desire was to rejoin our Christian Brothers and Sisters in the Roman Catholic Church as equal partners in following the path our Lord set out for us that we all be one," continued Monroe. "We have a deep and rich tradition that dates back to the 1st century and we have found the provisions of the Roman Catholic response to be very challenging."

The Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Church, along with the Eastern Orthodox Church, make up the three branches of historic catholic (universal) Christianity. The Anglican Church in America is part of the worldwide Traditional Anglican Communion, with members in 44 countries, which seeks to uphold the Catholic Faith, Apostolic Order, Orthodox Worship and Evangelical Witness of the Anglican tradition within the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ. The Communion holds Holy Scripture and the ancient Creeds of the Undivided Church as authentic and authoritative, and worships according to the traditional formularies of the Church. The Eastern and Western Churches split in 1054 and the Anglican Church, which existed in the British Isles since the first century, joined with Rome in 664 and later separated from the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th Century.

In a statement issued by the President of the House of Bishops, the Rt. Rev. Brian Marsh "urged all Christians to continue to pray for unity as our Lord has asked of us. It is our hope that the three great branches of Catholic Christianity can someday find the avenue to set aside their own traditional differences and seek God's will in coming together as equals."

The Rt. Rev. Brian Marsh is President of the ACA House of Bishops

Provincial Synod of APA in Dunwoody this coming July 2011.

Anglican church leaders to gather in Dunwoody in July.

Posted by Joe Earle on Jun 16 2011. Filed under Brookhaven Community,Buckhead Community, Dunwoody Community, Sandy Springs Community. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Anglican clergy and leaders from across the country are scheduled gather in Dunwoody in July.

About 150 delegates will take part in the gathering, called a synod, scheduled for July 11 through 15, said Bishop Chandler Jones of St. Barnabas Anglican Church in Dunwoody. During the synod, clergy and church leaders conduct church business.

“A synod is basically the ecclesiastical legislative body of the church,” Jones said, “but it’s also a family reunion. This is really an opportunity for people to come together.”

Most of those attending will come from the eastern United States. But Anglican clergy and lay delegates from as far as Arizona and California are expected to take part because the gathering will include representatives from the Diocese of the Eastern United States, the Diocese of Mid-America and the Diocese of the West, the three dioceses that cover the U.S., Jones said. A delegation from the Philippines also may attend, he said.

“Our meetings are really devoid of any controversy,” the bishop said. “We’re looking at strengthening our ties with Anglicans worldwide.”

The group will meet at the Holiday Inn, Perimeter and at St. Barnabas, Jones said.

The meeting will be held in Dunwoody, Jones said, because St. Barnabas is one of the larger Anglican congregations in the country. Also, Jones was installed as a bishop, the Anglican church’s youngest, last year.

St. Barnabas hosted a similar synod in 2001. One reason for the return this summer, Jones said, is that the church sanctuary and nave have been renovated since that 2001 meeting.

The Dunwoody congregation, founded in 1979, calls itself “a traditional Anglican Church” that bases its services on the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. Anglicans split from the larger Episcopal Church in the 1970s because they believed the American version of the denomination had become too liberal and strayed too far from its original teachings, members say.

Church Planting

Let us plant churches that Reproduce and grow.

Season of Lent

Lenten season

Time of cleansing , purification and spiritual rejuvenation.
We fast during this season from the things that gratifies the flesh.
We also examine ourselves and know the condition of our souls and spiritual life.
We journey thought the scriptures that speaks of Christ great sacrifice, suffering and even the death on the Cross, these purifies us from all sins and lustful desires of the flesh and bring us to a new level of spirituality, rejuvenated by His Spirit. When we go through the cross we go through spiritual renewal and refreshment.

Priest Who Left Catholic Church Finds Love In Family Life

First Posted: 01/ 4/11 07:35 PM Updated: 01/ 4/11 07:35 PM

By Kevin Eckstrom
Religion News Service

(RNS) The Rev. Albert Cutie saw a lot of things in his 14 years as a Catholic priest while church officials looked the other way: priests who got caught with prostitutes, priests who lived with their gay partners, and men of the cloth who kept one bed in the rectory and another with their mistress.

"In the Roman Catholic Church, a scandal is not really a scandal until it becomes public," Cutie writes in his new book, Dilemma: A Priest's Struggle with Faith and Love, which hits stores Tuesday (Jan. 4).

Yet when he was caught by paparazzi canoodling with his girlfriend on a Miami beach in 2009, Cutie was booted from his rectory, dropped from his insurance plan and told he would no longer receive a paycheck.

The global television ministry that had earned him the nickname "Father Oprah" and legions of fans across Miami and Latin America, was over, he was told.

Within weeks, the priest whose made-for-Hollywood good looks provided endless tabloid fodder left to become an Episcopal priest. He later married his girlfriend, Ruhama Buni Canellis, and on Dec. 2, the couple announced the birth of their first daughter, Camila Victoria.

As Cutie describes it in his book, his move to the Episcopal Church was not as quick and convenient as it appeared. In fact, he says his dissatisfaction with the Catholic Church had stewed for several years.

The scandal only intensified his disillusionment with a church he now describes as "incompetent," "inhumane," "merciless" and an "ideological dictatorship."

"The church doesn't need my help to tarnish its image," Cutie said in an interview from his new office at the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection near Miami. "The institution has done plenty to tarnish its own image."

The book contains few saucy details about the relationship that blossomed from friendship to romance over nearly a decade. Cutie writes that he was instantly attracted to the shy single mother and was grateful when he was transferred to another parish so he could focus on work.

But as Cutie wrestled with the loneliness and high expectations of the priesthood, he found himself stealing dates with Canellis at quiet restaurants or movie theaters where they would not be seen.

"My life was all about work, but there was something in my life that was missing, a big empty hole: intimacy," he said. "And I would ask whether (celibacy) was really God's rule and what God wants or a man-made rule and what the church wants."

The harsh treatment of priests who were ousted during the clergy abuse scandal that erupted in 2002 only fueled Cutie's disillusionment, and he knew that mandatory celibacy was part of the problem.

"This is one of the real scandals nobody wants to see in the church: good people, mostly good men, who are so lonely on the inside that they are often driven to satisfy basic human emotional and physical needs in all the wrong ways," he writes.

He also struggled with church teaching against homosexuality, divorce, women's ordination and denying Communion to non-Catholics. The priestly fraternity he was promised, he said, was actually a club of lonely ladder-climbers.

While Cutie protects the names of many in the church, he directs his harshest criticism at retired Archbishop John Favalora, who he describes as cold, rigid, arrogant, aloof and "disconnected and uninterested in my life."

"The spiritual fatherhood of a bishop ... was something I experienced through other bishops, but not from you personally," Cutie wrote in a lengthy letter that he never sent to Favalora.

Officials at the Archdiocese of Miami declined to comment about Cutie's book, and referred to a 2009 statement in which Favalora likened Cutie to the Gospel parable of the prodigal son who eventually "came to his senses."

Cutie, 41, actually began talks with the local Episcopal bishop years before the paparazzi pictures forced him out of the church, and said his transition was neither "easy nor quick."

"Yet the more I prayed and thought about the message of Jesus, the more I realized that his is a message of inclusion, not exclusion; a message of love, not rejection; a message of salvation, not condemnation," he writes.

Cutie readily admits that he broke his vow of celibacy, and still wrestles with the disappointment some former parishioners may feel. He says he didn't write the book to settle scores, but out of "deep-rooted disappointment" in an institution that he once believed held all the answers.

"I don't think it's anger," he said. "I think its disappointment, and sadness for the people who believe in an institution that isn't what it proclaims to be."

His new Episcopal flock in Biscayne Park has grown from 28 to about 300 and he's finding his footing in marriage, fatherhood and 3 a.m. feedings for his young daughter.

Marriage, he writes, has made him a better priest because "I feel more connected to humanity," and an infant daughter and teenage stepson have added a new understanding of the term "Father."

"I'm so blessed to be able to experience the gift of fathering a child, knowing that I had convinced myself that I wasn't going to be part of that experience," he said. "To be able to experience it, for me, is a double blessing."

From: HUFFINGTON POST

The Catholic Celibacy in crisis

Another Catholic priest and media figure has become the latest victim of the "celibacy crisis" in the Catholic Church. Fr. Thomas Euteneuer, former president of Human Life International, left that post abruptly in August without public explanation. He recently broke his silence and admitted that he left for "violating the boundaries of chastity with an adult female" who was under his spiritual care. He apologized profusely to everyone concerned.

At one level: Yawn! There is nothing new about this basic story line. Literally, tens of thousands of Catholic priests have left the priesthood to marry since the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). Granted, Fr. Euteneuer's story has a special "twist" because he was a leader in the anti-abortion movement. One might expect him to have the added motivation of not wanting to father an unwanted pregnancy. But the basic story -- priest breaks vow of celibacy -- is nothing new.

As the host of Interfaith Voices, a public radio show heard on 76 stations nationwide, this recalled my recent interview with the now-famous Father Alberto Cutie. It airs this week. [http://interfaithradio.org/node/1598] He was a Roman Catholic priest well known as a radio/TV host, broadcasting in both Spanish and English across North and South America. His career ended when paparazzi photographed him on a beach near Miami with Ruhama, the woman he loved. Privately, he had long struggled with his vow of celibacy. After the beach photos became public, he married Ruhama and became an Episcopal priest. He told his story in a new book: Dilemma: A Priest's Struggle with Faith and Love.

In the course of the interview, he laid bare an open secret of the Catholic Church: a large percentage of Catholic priests, gay and straight, live as if celibacy were optional. Some have male partners; others have secret women friends and -- quite commonly in Africa and Latin America -- they have children. He noted that sometimes bishops even pay for the children to have a Catholic education. All this is tolerated if it does not become public and cause scandal.

Most likely, a good majority of Catholic priests keep their vow of celibacy, but there is no way to know for sure.

Cutie was careful to say that he did not have anything against celibacy, pointing to the tradition of religious life in both the Catholic and Episcopal churches. The problem, as he sees it -- and most Catholics see it -- is imposing celibacy where it is not integral to the vocation. A monk or nun chooses celibacy as part of their calling; a diocesan priest does not need celibacy to fulfill his calling. In fact, a priest who is a husband and a father (or someday: wife and mother!) might have decided advantages in understanding parishioners' problems.

For years, reform groups in the Catholic Church like CORPUS: the National Association for a Married Priesthood, and Call to Action have called upon the hierarchy to make celibacy optional for diocesan priests.

The case for change is compelling.

First of all, in a church that values tradition, optional celibacy is the tradition! For the first 12 centuries of Christianity, Catholic priests did, in fact, marry. Even today, Catholic priests of the Eastern rites can marry, and Episcopal and Lutheran priests who seek to transfer to the Catholic Church are welcomed with their wives and children.

Second, there is a severe and growing priest shortage. Bishops have dealt with it up to now by merging and closing parishes, with much weeping and gnashing of teeth among parishioners. Or they have imported clergy from other cultures. Despite good intentions, many of these priests have simply not embedded themselves in American culture and problems abound.

Finally, polls have shown for decades that the vast majority of Catholics favor letting priests have the option to marry. Catholics in the pews have been very accepting of married deacons for decades now; there is no reason to think that acceptance would not extend to married priests.

And, it's important to note: priestly celibacy is not dogma. It is simply a disciplinary practice, and could be changed literally with a flick of the papal pen.

So, why wait? I know the powers-that-be in the Vatican are comfortable with current arrangements, but it would seem that the needs of ministry and the availability of the Eucharist [only priests can consecrate the Eucharist in the Catholic tradition] should trump everything else.

For the life of me, I can't figure out what's taking them so long.

From: HUFFINGTON POST

Strenthening the Diaconal ministry in the church.

The Diaconate ... "in order to serve"

Deacons share in Christ's mission and grace in a special way. The sacrament of Holy Orders marks them with an imprint ("character") which cannot be removed and which configures them to Christ, who made himself the "deacon" or servant of all Among other tasks, it is the task of deacons to assist the bishop and priests in the celebration of the divine mysteries, above all the Eucharist, in the distribution of Holy Communion, in assisting at and blessing marriages, in the proclamation of the Gospel and preaching, in presiding over funerals, and in dedicating themselves to the various ministries of charity. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1570)