| U.S. News

Her statements are the genocide of the vulnerable and murder say orthodox Episcopal Bishops.

NEW YORK, N.Y. (Virtue On Line) - The announcement that the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, MA, has chosen a lesbian, pro-abortion president to lead the seminary has sent shock waves around the Anglican Communion. The appointment of Katherine Hancock Ragsdale highlights a week that also saw TEC bishop-elect Kevin Thew Forrester replace a reading from the New Testament with a reading from the Quran at St. Paul's Marquette, Michigan.

One wonders what Episcopal boundaries and barriers have yet to be crossed that the dying embers of historic Christianity could possibly fan into life. That the Diocese of Massachusetts has a functioning transgendered priest complete with a sex change operation (he appeared at Lambeth 2008) mocks not only marriage, but any notion of what normalcy in sexual matters might mean in The Episcopal Church. Consider, too, that 19 of the 41 resolutions to be presented at GC2009 have to do with normalizing same-sex unions, proposing same sex rites and deep-sixing a resolution - B033 - that restrains further homosexual ordinations into the priesthood. They mock The Episcopal Church as a Christian denomination.

It is abortion, however, that hits the nerve endings of orthodox Episcopalians as it touches on the very issue of life and death itself. The shrill cry of Ms. Ragsdale that "abortion is a blessing" sends true believers into shock and is viewed as particularly heinous, not only for the church, but for the future of the human race. It is hard to imagine even the most hard-boiled pro-choice person advocating the tearing of life from a human body for no other reason than unmitigated selfishness. For them, endangerment of the mother's life, the fetus malformed, and extreme poverty et al might be reasons to abort. For Ragsdale there was no reason, just the unalloyed notion that abortion is not only a right, but a BLESSING. Here is what she said in a sermon recently:

"Let me hear you say it:

Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done.
Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done.
Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done."

Her outrageous statements hit a nerve with a number of Anglican leaders.

Abortion, except in the case where it is indirect and unintended, due to an operation seeking to save the life of the mother, is the unjust taking of an innocent life, The Rt. Rev. Dr. John Rodgers, former Dean of Trinity School for Ministry, told VOL. "It is therefore murder, which is forbidden to Christians by the will and express law of the Lord." Then he tore into Ragsdale: "Feminists such as Dean Ragsdale seem to believe, should the mother for some reason not be pleased with this human life growing in her body, that she has the right to kill the child. However the value of that human life is not grounded in the estimation of the mother but in the purpose and will of God, who called the child into being. Made in His image, the child is precious and is to be protected, nurtured, and raised in the nurture and fear of the Lord. We are to love our neighbors and even our enemies and with the exception of police protection and just warfare we are to seek to do them good and not kill them, much less murder the innocent in the womb.

"The same divine guidance and logic applies to euthanasia. It too is forbidden. The two are linked together in practice as the old saying goes, "The society that gives the mother the right to kill her children will one day give the child the right to kill her mother." Some states in the USA have already brought that to pass. I understand that Holland is far advanced in that practice. One can't help but ask how Jesus maxim, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" fits if one puts oneself in the place of the "other" i.e. the innocent baby waiting to be born. Surely there are other ways to cope with an unwanted pregnancy, given the shortage of children being offered for adoption. God will surely provide a way."

The President and CEO of The American Anglican Council, CANA bishop David C. Anderson told VOL that the leadership of the Episcopal Church (TEC) continues their culture of death by the appointment of The Rev. Dr. Katherine Ragsdale as the sixth and newest president of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts."Her public statements that 'abortion is a blessing' are the full equivalent of saying that genocide is a good thing, for her stand supports the genocide of the most vulnerable. Her statements and her life witness in this regard stand in opposition to the American Anglican Council¹s statement of faith, which says, 'All human life is a sacred gift from God and is to be protected and defended from conception to natural death.'

"Ragsdale and those who appointed her want to spread their false gospel and pro-abortion agenda to the future priests and bishops of the Episcopal Church. Although her selection ...