The Queen’s Christmas message for 2018 – and other recent news

Posted on December 26, 2018 
Filed under News

Here’s is Queen Elizabeth’s Christmas Message.

In other news you might have missed the last few days:

Jesus shows how to lay power aside for the sake of the foreigner – Dean of Sydney, Kanishka Raffel, in The Australian Financial Review.

“The 2000-year-old story of the Middle Eastern family of modest means seeking a safe lodging place speaks to the weariness of the modern world with a surprising relevance. Because it is at heart, the story of the laying aside of power for the sake of the lowly. God comes to us, so that we may come to him. …”

Russell Powell, CEO of Anglican Media Sydney, had this published in the Letters section of The Sydney Morning Herald on December 24 – in response to Elizabeth Farrelly’s regular column.

“Farrelly states that the Synod of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney had ‘reaffirmed … the ban on divorced people – even women divorced after being abused by clergy – being remarried in church’. There has never been such a ban.

The link embedded in the online story shows the resolution carried by the Synod: ‘Synod, noting that it is the prerogative of the Archbishop or a Regional Bishop, in accordance with the laws of this Church, whether or not to approve the remarriage of a divorced person, requests the Archbishop and Regional Bishops to consider approving the remarriage of a divorced person, where that person has been abused physically or emotionally by their former spouse.’

The effect of the motion was simply to urge bishops to be vigilant on this issue. The fact that Bishops have permitted the remarriage of victims of domestic violence shows there is no ban.”