Anglican Archbishop John Hepworth Offers to Return to the Catholic Church

Controversial Anglican Archbishop John Hepworth has offered to drop demands for action over rape allegations against a senior priest identified in Parliament.

In exchange he would like help to return to the Catholic Church.

Adelaide Now has the news:

Archbishop Hepworth, the Primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion, said he would stop pursuing allegations against Brighton priest Monsignor Ian Dempsey if the Adelaide Archdiocese recognised he was raped by two other priests.

SA Senator Nick Xenophon used parliamentary privilege to name Monsignor Dempsey as the priest accused of rape in September, after the Church refused to stand him down pending the outcome of an investigation.

Archbishop Hepworth said “it wasn’t my will that the Dempsey matter become public” and he would gladly “drop” the matter if the Archdiocese recognised the other allegations.

He said he had no faith in a Church inquiry led by Michael Abbott, QC, and would ask Archbishop Philip Wilson to adjourn it if his other claims were recognised and the Dempsey accusation accepted “in good faith”.

That would allow him to join 31 other Traditional Anglican Communion priests who were recently approved for ordination back into the Catholic Church after high-level meetings at the Vatican.

Archbishop Hepworth has refused to cooperate with the Abbott-led inquiry because “I don’t know the terms of reference or ground rules”.

Archbishop Hepworth claims he was raped by the priests over a period of 12 years, starting when he was in the seminary in Adelaide in 1960.

He received compensation from the Melbourne Archdiocese for his abuse by one of the now-dead priests.

Archbishop Hepworth said he needed the Adelaide Archdiocese to acknowledge that abuse was the reason he fled the Church almost 30 years ago.

“In exchange for the diocese accepting the Melbourne report – and specifically the abuse in the seminary that caused me to leave the Church by (Ronald) Pickering and (John) Stockdale – and in accepting my good faith in accusing Dempsey and helping me in my approach to the Vatican I would be prepared to request the Archbishop to adjourn indefinitely the inquiry,” he told The Advertiser.

Senator Xenophon said the Archdiocese’s system for dealing with complaints had “completely failed John Hepworth”.

All this while a large number of his Bishops meet without him.

Oh and just who are these ‘31 other Traditional Anglican Communion priests who were recently approved for ordination back into the Catholic Church after high-level meetings at the Vatican’? Does anyone know?

 

Prepare yourself for: Occupy Christmas

Why? Because Christmas is ‘a homicidal force’:

Clowns.

Springs in Judean Hills Drying Up

From Haaretz:

Springs in the Judean Hills that were the basis for agriculture as far back as the Second Temple era are drying up due to successive drought years and have become polluted, according to a study carried out this year.

The study, conducted this spring by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority under the direction of the Water Authority, was the first of its kind in 30 years. It included 67 of the almost 90 springs in an area from Jerusalem in the east westward almost to Beit Shemesh.

Water quality and quantity, as well as the area surrounding each spring, were examined. The survey included the Sataf, Ein Hindak and Ein Lavan springs, all popular hiking spots, as well as the spring in the center of Abu Gosh.

The surveyors found water in only two-thirds of the springs. Of the springs with water, the flow rates were lower than in previous years and in one out of three springs the water quality was poor or fair.

The surveyors pointed to several consecutive low-rainfall years as the main reason for the low water levels.

Six of the past eight years met the criteria for drought years. Last winter, for example, saw only 60 percent of the average annual rainfall in the region.

The article also describes the impact of human activities on the springs and reports that last year the terraced fields of the Judean hills were recommended as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Source:   Bible Places Blog

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Spitting Attacks on Christian Clergy in Jerusalem

Becoming a daily occurrence:

Ultra-Orthodox young men curse and spit at Christian clergymen in the streets of Jerusalem’s Old City as a matter of routine. In most cases the clergymen ignore the attacks, but sometimes they strike back. Last week the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court quashed the indictment against an Armenian priesthood student who had punched the man who spat at him.

Johannes Martarsian was walking in the Old City in May 2008 when an young ultra-Orthodox Jew spat at him. Maratersian punched the spitter in the face, making him bleed, and was charged for assault. But Judge Dov Pollock, who unexpectedly annulled the indictment, wrote in his verdict that “putting the defendant on trial for a single blow at a man who spat at his face, after suffering the degradation of being spat on for years while walking around in his church robes is a fundamental contravention of the principles of justice and decency.”

“Needless to say, spitting toward the defendant when he was wearing the robe is a criminal offense,” the judge said.

When Narek Garabedian came to Israel to study in the Armenian Seminary in Jerusalem half a year ago, he did not expect the insults, curses and spitting he would be subjected to daily by ultra-Orthodox Jews in the streets of the Old City.

“When I see an ultra-Orthodox man coming toward me in the street, I always ask myself if he will spit at me,” says Narek, a Canadian Armenian, this week. About a month ago, on his way to buy groceries in the Old City, two ultra-Orthodox men spat at him. The spittle did not fall at his feet but on his person. Narek, a former football player, decided this time not to turn the other cheek.

“I was very angry. I pushed them both to the wall and asked, ‘why are you doing this?’ They were frightened and said ‘we’re sorry, we’re sorry,’ so I let them go. But it isn’t always like that. Sometimes the spitter attacks you back,” he says.

Other clergymen in the Armenian Church in Jerusalem say they are all victims of harassment, from the senior cardinals to the priesthood students. Mostly they ignore these incidents. When they do complain, the police don’t usually find the perpetrators…

There’s more here.

Gross!

HT