Mercy and Grace, Ingham style

I haven’t given out a “hairy eyeball” in a long time, but this surely deserves one.

From here: (h/t to the Essentials blog)

METRO VANCOUVER — Neither side in a long, bitter war over Anglican Church property in Vancouver and Abbotsford expects any Christmas services will have to be moved elsewhere this December.

But Vancouver-area Anglican Bishop Michael Ingham began moving Tuesday to replace the dissident priests at four congregations that have failed to obtain legal control of Anglican Church properties valued at more than $20 million.

Since the conservative priests have already resigned from the Anglican Church of Canada to work for a breakaway Anglican organization, the diocese said in a statement, those clergy “will need to continue their ministry in other locations.”

After the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled Monday that the conservative Christians have no right to hold on to the four valuable Anglican Church of Canada properties, Ingham will be sending a letter to try to arrange a meeting with the parish trustees.

The diocesan statement emphasized that Ingham is not asking any regular members of the conservative congregations to leave the four church buildings.

Rather, it said the bishop hopes to “confer with the trustees to appoint interim clergy for the short term and [move] forward to work with trustees to seek new clergy to fill the positions of those who have left the Anglican Church of Canada.”

Well, that didn’t take long.  ANiC lost the appeal, and Ingham has moved against the ANiC priests, even though ANiC has 60 days to consider the verdict and decide what they are going to do.  These are the very same trustees that he tried to fire, and now he wants them to cooperate in replacing their priests??  Ingham emphasized that he doesn’t want the conservative parishioners to leave.  Well, of course he doesn’t.  They are the ones who pay the bills for the buildings, after all.  He doesn’t seem to understand that the people have also left the Anglican Organization of Canada.  I give it five years before the buildings are sold off.

Carleton Pro Life Club Decertified

The pro life club I wrote about two posts ago has been decertified by the students’ association of Carleton University.  I thought a university campus was supposed to be a place where you were free to speak your mind, and be exposed to other ideas?  I wonder how long it will be before it will be impossible to have a Christian club on campus?  From Lifesite news:

 

By Patrick B. Craine

OTTAWA, Ontario, November 16, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Carleton Lifeline, the campus pro-life group that made headlines last month after several of its members were arrested by Ottawa’s Carleton University, now faces decertification unless they renounce the pro-life beliefs expressed in the club’s constitution.

“We are being discriminated against because of our political and ideological values,” said Ruth Lobo, president of Carleton Lifeline.  “We have been a club for 3 years, so why now?”

Khaldoon Bushnaq, Vice-President of Internal Affairs for the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA), wrote the club by e-mail on Thursday saying they would not be recertified because their constitution violates CUSA’s Discrimination on Campus Policy, which purports to uphold “a woman’s right to choose.”

The offending paragraph in the club’s constitution, which Bushnaq quoted, states that the club “believes in the equal rights of the unborn and firmly believes that abortion is a moral and legal wrong, not a constitutional right. Therefore, Carleton Lifeline shall work to promote the legal protection of the unborn and their basic human rights to life.”

Bushnaq gave the club until November 18th to submit an amended constitution.

Carleton Lifeline’s lawyer, Albertos Polizogopoulos, wrote CUSA on Monday saying the Discrimination on Campus Policy is “incongruous in that it purports to protect individuals from discrimination but in effect, calls for the discrimination of some.”  He said the policy violates CUSA’s own constitution, university policy, and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms because it discriminates against the students based on their pro-life beliefs.

He also said that CUSA violated their own protocols in decertifying the club.  CUSA’s by-laws, he noted, require that they bring a motion and notify the students in writing ten days before the vote.

“Our constitution has not changed since our club was first certified in 2007,” said James Shaw, vice-president of Carleton Lifeline. “We have always received funding and status whenever we applied, and were always re-certified as a club from year to year.”

“We simply want the same status as other clubs without viewpoint discrimination,” stated club member Nicholas McLeod. “This decision clearly violates CUSA’s own procedures on certification and re-certification.  As a student, I am forced to give money to CUSA when I pay my tuition which means that I am paying CUSA to discriminate against me.”

“Our group is going to challenge this,” added McLeod.

LifeSiteNews did not hear back from Carleton University or CUSA by press time.