Bp. Schori: Bishop calls faith open

Sunday March 28, 2010
By Rick Ruggles
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

The Episcopal Church invites questioning, varied viewpoints and diversity in leadership and lifestyle, the presiding bishop of the church said Saturday in Papillion.

“We won't tell you what to think,” Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told about 140 people at St. Martha Episcopal Church.

In a speech, a question-answer session and an interview Saturday, Jefferts Schori repeatedly described hers as a faith that is open and not dogmatic.

She recalled an Episcopal ad campaign 20 years ago that said: “He died to take away your sins, not your mind.”

“I read the Gospel to say that Jesus invited everybody into His community,” she said in an interview. “He dealt with all the categories that were deemed unacceptable in His day, and He said, ‘There's a place for you at my table.'” the rest

She said Pope Benedict XVI's invitation to disaffected Anglicans (or Episcopalians) to join the Roman Catholic Church wasn't directed at conflict in the United States over female or gay bishops. England currently has a greater conflict over those issues, she said.