The Covenant is the topic of March 19 discussions following a plenary presentation by two members of  the document's international drafting committee, the Rev. Dr. A. Katherine Grieb, associate professor of New Testament at the Virginia Theological Seminary, and the Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner, a theologian who is rector of Ascension Church, Pueblo, Colorado. Radner is also a senior fellow of the Anglican Communion Institute, "a trans-national evangelical organization."

The day's agenda follows both Sunday sabbath time and Saturday lectures and workshops focused on theological, scientific, and practical aspects of environmental sustainability as one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Peace and justice work framed by the MDGs is the first of five 2007-2009 churchwide mission priorities designated by the General Convention.

"Hurricanes Katrina and Rita revealed more than our vulnerability to storm surge and hurricane winds," Louisiana State University environmental studies professor John Pine told the bishops on March 17. "These storms exposed extensive poverty, poor health care, inadequate education, and much human suffering to a national and international audience."

Pine assisted in briefing the bishops for their upcoming September meeting in New Orleans, where bishops and spouses plan to join in hands-on rebuilding efforts that continue in the hurricane-torn region.

Workshops followed on "environmental racism" and the distance it fosters between humanity's direct contact with creation; ecological issues in Southeast Asia; issues at the U.S.-Mexican border; and further aspects of environmental crisis and rebuilding in New Orleans.

Sharing in the border issues conversation were the Anglican Church of Mexico's Primate, the Most Rev. Carlos Touche Porter, and fellow bishops from the church's five dioceses who are guests at the House of Bishops' current meeting.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is chairing at the House of Bishops meeting, convened at Camp Allen, an Episcopal Church conference center. In conversations about environmental sustainability, Jefferts Schori has added her insight as a former oceanographer.

The Presiding Bishop has also made two presentations and facilitated a question-and-answer session on the recent gathering in Tanzania of the Anglican Primates Meeting, of which she is a member.

"We should care about the MDGs because they are an invitation to help us be more faithful participants in God's mission to 'restore allpeople to unity with God and each other in Christ,'" said the Rev. Dr. Ian T. Douglas, professor of world mission at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, quoting the Prayer Book Catechism in a paper delivered to the bishops on the morning of March 17.

Douglas's text, which provided a theological and missiological framework for engaging the MDGs, is published on the Episcopal Church web site.

As designated by the House of Bishops' planning committee, daily written news briefings will continue throughout the meeting. Bishop Peter Lee of Virginia will assist in providing the briefings on the March 19 sessions.