'We are in an uncertain time,' said Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold in opening remarks to the gathering. 'People are prickly, people are unsettled' by war and institutional failure--especially corporate malfeasance and the pedophilia scandals of the Roman Catholic Church. In such a time, Griswold said, it's useful to take stock of what's going on personally, communally and globally for signs and sources of hope.

He cited his own visits to the Gathering the neXt Generation (GtNG) conference in Indianapolis and the Episcopal Youth Event in Laramie, Wyoming, earlier this year as just such signs, and found himself 'encouraged by the spirit, warmth, generosity, eagerness and hopefulness' of the generations of Episcopalians following his own. He found signs of the diversity of the church, he said, in a visit to the Diocese of the Rio Grande, and signs of the church's 'diverse center' in an encounter with a group of five relatively new bishops at the House of Bishops meeting in Cleveland this fall.

Money for war, but not for AIDS

He also spoke of his disappointment at the drive towards an expensive war with Iraq by the Bush administration in the midst of pressing concerns such as the AIDS pandemic in Africa. Referring to a lecture by Stephen Lewis, special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, presented at the bishops' fall meeting in Cleveland, Griswold said that 'the rich nations could take care of [the AIDS pandemic] but do not.'

'It is horrifying that we spend a billion dollars a day on war and none on AIDS,' he said, adding that an entire generation of Africans between the ages of 25 and 44 is 'disappearing' because of the disease. When he attempted to address that and the humanitarian crisis in the Mideast at a meeting with Bush's national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, in September, Griswold said he was 'struck by her response'--not disinterest, but a clear sense that the administration's 'attention really is turned elsewhere.' He said he found it disturbing that the US will 'focus briefly on something, we unsettle it and then we move on to something else,' and cited the Afghanistan conflict as an example.

Party spirit condemned

House of Deputies president George Werner had conflicts in the church on his mind in his opening remarks. Recalling a recent gathering at which he was asked to speak to seminarians about his years in ministry, Werner said he realized that 'more than half my ordained life has been spent in the toxic atmosphere of a party spirit' in which 'you spend time looking at others to find fault.' Such a spirit 'tells the truth but never the whole truth,' he argued. Werner went on to blast what he saw as a redefinition of orthodoxy in the Episcopal Church by partisans who 'shoot first and paint the targets later.' 'It excludes me and others,' he said, 'and that hurts.'

At its meeting, the Executive Council endorsed statements by both Griswold and the House of Bishops urging the Bush administration and Congress to 'pursue resolution of the present crisis regarding Iraq in company with our allies and with other nations, resisting the use of absolute force until the need for a military solution has been unmistakably established.'

Council also passed a resolution opposing HR-2357, 'The Houses of Worship Political Speech Protection Act,' introduced by Republican representative Walter Jones of North Carolina, which will be coming up for a suspension vote in the next few weeks. Current federal law states that houses of worship, like other 501(c)(3) organizations, cannot legally engage in partisan political activities and retain their tax-exempt status. The Jones bill would allow houses of worship to use their tax-exempt contributions for political purposes and to endorse candidates.