Ecumenical News International News Highlights

First woman to lead Church of Norway bishops
Oslo (ENI 21.10.10). The (Lutheran) Church of Norway has for the first time elected a woman as its presiding bishop, although her tenure is for an interim period, the Norwegian News Agency (NTB) reports. Bishop Helga Haugland Byfuglien of Borg is to succeed Bishop Olav Skjaevesland of Agder, who has held the post since 2006, the bishops' conference in Norway said. Byfuglien's term will end in mid-2011, as the Church of Norway then will have its first permanent presiding bishop based in the country's ancient ecclesiastical capital of Nidaros or Trondheim as it is known now.

US Catholics approve baptism accord with Reformed churches
Baltimore, Maryland (ENInews/RNS 19.11.10). The U.S. Roman Catholic bishops on has approved a mutual agreement with four Reformed Protestant denominations to recognize each other's baptisms as valid, a pact that was six years in the making. Gathered here for their annual autumn meeting, the bishops voted 204-11 to approve the baptism agreement with the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Reformed Church in America, the Christian Reformed Church, and the United Church of Christ, Religion News Service reports. Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta, chairman of the ecumenical and interfaith committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, called the agreement a "milestone on the ecumenical journey."

A lesbian Reformed pastor ordained in Switzerland

On June 11, I published this item in Swedish on my multilingual blog, Kalles kyrkliga kommentarer. I was asked by a certain person to translate my text into English, and having done that I thought it best to publish it here, as well. Enjoy, or don't, as the case may be!

A little more than a year ago, the French-speaking Swiss Marianne Weymann (see picture) was ordained in Église protestante de Genève for work within Église évangelique réformée de canton du Vaud, a little further inland from Geneva. At present, she works in the congregation Terre Sainte (Holy Land) in Céligny.
What makes this interesting, and is the reason I wanted to blog about it, is that pastor Weymann is a Lesbian, and that the Church authorities have been aware of it all along. There are no skeletons in the cupboard here! Of course, this is the first time it happens, but that doesn't matter.
In Geneva as early as in 1988, pastor Weymann was engaged in founding the group C+H (Chrétien-ne-s et Homosexuel-le-s) for christians, homosexuals and combinations thereof. Twenty years later, the EPG had had a change of heart, and she could be consacrated (as the word is there. Well done! I wish God's rich blessings on pastor Weymann and her co-workers!