Anglican Communion News Service - Digest News

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, sent a greeting to Jewish leaders and communities for the festival of Rosh Hashanah, marking the start of the Jewish New Year. In his greeting the Archbishop spoke of the "mutual and public support for the Millennium Development Goals" at the Lambeth Conference, and also paid tribute to "the way in which all the religions and their leaders can act together for the common good of humanity". 

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The Archbishop of Canterbury’s sermon at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes at the International Mass of 24 September 2008 (the feast of Our Lady of Walsingham).

The sermon text in full:

‘The babe in my womb leaped for joy.’ (Luke 1.44)

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Willams, has expressed profound distress at the extreme violence being used in Orissa following the murder of Hindu leader, Swami Lakshmananda Saraswati.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams has praised the generosity of contributors to the ‘Back-a-Book’ scheme, which encourages members of the public to sponsor the repair of books in Lambeth Palace Library, the principal library and record office for the history of the Church of England.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has welcomed A Common Word and provided a substantial reflection on it in a letter sent to Muslim religious leaders and scholars. The Archbishop's letter, entitled 'A Common Word for the Common Good', comes after a period of world-wide consultation within the Anglican Communion and across the Christian denominations, most notably in last month's meeting of Church representatives and scholars in London. Dr Williams has announced that, in collaboration with Cambridge University, he is inviting a group of Christian and Muslim leaders and scholars to a conference in October that will mark the anniversary of the publication of A Common Word.   In a context of scholarly engagement with the issues the gathering will seek to consider a programme of practical steps to deepen mutual understanding, action and friendships.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams and has wife Jane are visiting the Diocese of Bradford on 8 and 9 July.

The Archbishop will be preach and celebrate at a memorial service for Jane's father, the late Rt Revd Geoffrey Paul, who was Bishop of Bradford from 1981 until he died in 1983 - 25 years ago.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams has welcomed the release of a pastor who had been detained for five years without charge or trial in Equatorial Guinea.

Protestant pastor Reverend Bienvenido Samba Momesori was released on 11 June after being granted a pardon by the country's President Obiang on his 66th birthday. 

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Regarding St Bartholomew-the-Great

“We have heard the reports of the recent service in St Bartholomew the Great with very great concern. We cannot comment on the specific circumstances because they are the subject of an investigation launched by the Bishop of London.

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Church leaders have called upon Christians throughout England to use the period from 1st September until 4th October as an opportunity to put the environment at the heart of their worship. The ‘Time For God’s Creation’ initiative, which would run annually, follows a resolution made at the Third European Ecumenical Assembly in 2007, attended by representatives of Europe’s Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant churches, that the period “be dedicated to prayer for the protection of Creation and the promotion of sustainable lifestyles that reverse our contribution to climate change.”

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, welcomed His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Lambeth Palace last week as part of the his visit to Britain.

The Archbishop held a private meeting with the Dalai Lama before they joined other religious leaders from the main faith traditions for discussions on the priority of compassion. The Prime Minister also had a private meeting with the Dalai Lama at Lambeth Palace.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, is to award ten Lambeth Degrees this summer.

The Lambeth Degree is a real academic award. The candidates are exempted from the requirement to sit an examination: the awards are made on merit in recognition of their contribution to religious, academic and public life.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, is to convene the 7th Building Bridges Seminar in Rome next week. This is a unique annual series which brings together a range of internationally recognised Christian and Muslim scholars for an intensive study of relevant Biblical and Qur'anic texts.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, yesterday welcomed the members of the Good Childhood Inquiry panel to Lambeth Palace for a discussion about the emerging themes of the Inquiry's work.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, paid tribute to Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolare Movement, whose death was announced last week.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York will be making a joint visit to Cambridge on 20 -22 February 2008. During the visit Dr Williams and Dr Sentamu will visit the Oakington Immigration Detention Centre and the Emmaus Community at Landbeach.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury has hosted a study day with Chinese and British academics to consider the topic of "Religion and the Public Square”.

The study day, chaired by the Archbishop on Friday 8 February, brought together eleven academics from China and Britain, a combination of theologians, historians, sociologists and anthropologists. The discussion considered the ways that religion interacts with society both in China and Western Europe, and what role religion has to play in issues such as social cohesion in these different contexts.

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There has been a strong reaction in the media and elsewhere to the Archbishop of Canterbury's remarks of yesterday on civil and religious law.

The full text of the Archbishop's lecture at the Royal Courts of Justice 'Civil and Religious Law in England: a religious perspective', can be viewed on the Archbishop's website, here:

Archbishop's Lecture - Civil and Religious Law in England: a religious perspective

The transcript of his interview on yesterday's World at One programme can also be viewed online, here:

BBC Interview - Radio 4 World at One.

The Archbishop made no proposals for sharia in either the lecture or the interview, and certainly did not call for its introduction as some kind of parallel jurisdiction to the civil law.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, will tonight give the first lecture in a series of discussions ‘Islam in English Law’, part of the Temple Festival 2008.

In his lecture entitled ‘Civil and Religious Law in England: a religious perspective’, being given at the Royal Courts of Justice, Dr Williams will look at what space can be allowed alongside the secular law of the land for the legal provisions of faith groups, noting that “the issues that arise around what level of public or legal recognition, if any, might be allowed to the legal provisions of a religious group, are not peculiar to Islam: while the law of the Church of England is the law of the land, its daily operation is in the hands of authorities to whom considerable independence is granted." The issue also arises in relation to Orthodox Judaism.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury has called upon the government to look critically at the use of strip-searching and prison segregation units for children in the criminal justice system. Asking a question in the House of Lords, the Archbishop invited the government to agree that different standards in how society treats its children and how it treats those children that are in prison were "indefensible".

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, gave the James Callaghan Memorial lecture yesterday entitled “Religious Hatred and Religious Offence”. In his lecture Dr Williams outlines the problems with the present blasphemy laws, and also looks at the problems that society could face without any protection from religious offence.

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