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NEWARK, NJ: Liberal wing soars on inclusiveness
By Manya A. Brachear
Tribune staff reporter
November 14, 2006
NEWARK, N.J. -- Louie Crew lives with his male partner of 30 years in a suburban South Orange high-rise with a view of nearby Manhattan. But he worships in the heart of Newark's barren downtown in a "smells and bells" mass of the high church tradition.
On a recent Sunday, he stood in Grace Episcopal Church as the priests and acolytes paraded in, sprinkling holy water on the parishioners and perfuming the room with incense.
Crew attends the church because of its traditional style of liturgy, not because the rector happens to be gay. But if that mattered to him, Crew would have plenty of choices.
At least a third of the Newark clergy are gay--the legacy of former Newark Bishop John Shelby Spong. Between 1975 and 1999, Spong created a haven for gay and lesbian clergy, ordaining 35 and taking in dozens more who could not find jobs in other dioceses.
He also recruited clergy with a heart for AIDS victims, which attracted many from the gay community. That is what led Rev. Elizabeth Kaeton to become rector of St. Paul's Church in suburban Chatham, N.J.
Seated in her favorite corner booth at a Chatham diner, Kaeton recounted Spong's invitation to revive a dwindling congregation and take over an AIDS ministry in 1991. "He was irresistible," she said.
"It's given me so many opportunities to do ministry in a setting where I'm not always defending myself," said Kaeton, who has been with her female partner for nearly 30 years. "That takes up so much psychic and spiritual energy. Jack Spong made it so commonplace to be the best of who you are."
Current Bishop John Croneberger concurs with his predecessor: Encompassing varied views of Christianity has been the beauty of the Anglican way for more than four centuries.
"I don't think the future of our participation in the Anglican Communion is worth the price of sacrificing a whole group of people," he said. "Suggesting such a group of people might be excluded or told, 'No, you have to go on hold again,' it's just one more example of chasing people to the back of the bus again. ... I can't buy into that."
Croneberger speaks not only as the church father of 113 congregations but as a father of five grown children, two of whom are gay.
"My cry in the House of Bishops is that I'm part of a church who has adequate role models for all my children," he said.
Rev. Mark Beckwith, a Massachusetts priest ordained in Newark, soon will replace Croneberger, who plans to resign in January to care for his wife, Marilyn.
Beckwith defeated a gay candidate also on the ballot but is expected to maintain Newark's liberal status quo.
While there are conservative clergy in Newark who do not agree with Croneberger, only one parish has requested alternative pastoral oversight, a plan bishops developed in 2004 primarily to comfort conservative congregations in progressive dioceses.
Rev. Brian Laffler, rector of St. Anthony of Padua in hardscrabble Hackensack, describes the majority of the U.S. church as "post-Christian" and relies on the leadership of Bishop William Skilton of South Carolina.
"St. Anthony's gets pulled into the public eye quite a bit because we have walked with the rest of the Anglican Communion, but we're a pretty ordinary church," Laffler said.
But less than a mile down the street at Christ Church parish, Rev. William Parnell said his neighbor is out of step with the rest of the church.
"I've come out of the closet," said the priest, who is gay. "And frankly the Episcopal Church has come out of the closet too."
mbrachear@tribune.com Copyright (c) 2006, Chicago Tribune
