+Paul Moore Jr.
1919-2003

The Rt. Rev. Paul Moore, Jr., the XIII Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, died Thursday, May 1 after a long illness. He was 83 years old.

"Paul Moore was a great man, who lived his whole life fighting for justice and for the rights of the oppressed," commented the Rt. Rev Mark S. Sisk, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York. "He was a man whose passion for life grew out of his love for people--a love returned by so many who cherished him deeply."

In many respects, Bishop Moore was a pioneer on a number of fronts. He advocated for social causes and peace until the last weeks of his life. He helped open the Episcopal Church to the ordination of women. He was known for his social activism, deep religious convictions and dedication to welcoming all to the church. He was also a war hero and the recipient of the Purple Heart, the Navy Cross and the Silver Star.

At the end of his life, when he was barely able to mount the steps of the pulpit in the Cathedral of St.John the Divine, Bishop Moore was outspoken against President Bush and the war in Iraq.

"Over and against that force of millions of people of all faiths is one solitary man named George W. Bush, alone in a room, telling his staff he needed to be alone for a few minutes of prayer," Bishop Moore said at an Evensong for Peace on March 23, 2003. "I think it's strange the whole world--literally millions of people, little children, people in the jungle, people in the city, people outside here, you--that your fate will be determined on the power of millions of people of all faiths against the war, and one solitary Texas politician being alone with Jesus.... This has to do with two different kinds of religions. The religion that says 'I talk to Jesus and therefore I am right,'and millions and mil- lions of people of all faiths who disagree."

When WWII ended, Moore, who had served with the U.S. Marine Corps on Guadalcanal, returned to New York City and studied at General Theological Seminary, graduating in 1949. He was ordained on December 17, 1949 and his first church as rector was Grace Van Vorst in Jersey City, NJ, where he served until 1957, when he was called as Dean of Christ Church Cathedral in Indianapolis.

In 1963, he was elected Suffragan Bishop of Washington, DC and was consecrated on January 25, 1964. He served as Suffragan for five years, continuing his work with inner city churches. He again came back to New York City when he was elected as Bishop Coadjutor in December 1969 and was installed as XIII Bishop of New York on September 23, 1972, succeeding Bishop Horace Donegan. Bishop Moore retired as bishop in 1989, but never slowed; he maintained an active interest in the church and other causes important to him.

Bishop Moore was the author of three books: a study on the urban work of the church, The Church Reclaims The City in 1965; Take A Bishop Like Me in 1979, in which he chronicles his ordination of a lesbian and describes the struggle for women's ordination and gay rights in the church; and his memoir, Presences: A Bishop's Life In The City in 1997.

In 1944, Bishop Moore married Jenny McKean, and they raised nine children. In 1973 Jenny died. In 1975, Bishop Moore married Brenda Hughes, who died in July 1999. Also predeceasing him was his first great- grandchild, Tallulah Moore Gerety, who died at two weeks of age in April 2003.

Bishop Moore's life epitomized dedication and service to a wide range of causes and institutions. He was a member of Yale Corporation and a trustee of GTS, Berkeley Divinity School, Bard College, and Trinity School, and served on the National Board of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

In 1968, then Bishop Suffragan of Washington DC, Bishop Moore answered a call from the Presiding Bishop to direct a project called Operation Connection. This interfaith coalition was aimed at involving black and white leadership in the area of urban economic development. In the summer of 1970, Bishop Moore led a peace mission to South Vietnam. In 1982, he was part of a delegation of the Institute for Policy Studies to Moscow to discuss nuclear disarmament with Society leaders. His international work included visits to Nicaragua and South Africa. He visited East Timor three times and served as chairman of the Timor Project, focusing on Human Rights. He was also a member of a committee to memorialize the battlefields of Guadalcanal. He was chairman of the project for Relations and Human Rights 1993-1994; member of the Legal Defense Fund of the NAACP 1956-1992; a trustee and adjacent professor at GTS 1957-1989; and served on the Advisory Council to the Anglican observer at the United Nations.

For his work for urban justice, he received the Social Science Award and the New York Urban League Award. In 1991, he was the recipient of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Freedom Medal honoring his lifelong commitment to social justice. He also received the Margaret Sanger Award of Planned Parenthood, the Alumni Medal from St. Paul's school and the General John Russell Leadership Award of the United States Marine Corps.

Bishop Moore watched over several Anglican religious communities, as Protector General of the Society of St. Francis and Bishop Visitor of the Order of the Holy Cross, the Order of St. Helena, and the Brotherhood of St. Gregory.

He was also president of the Episcopal Mis- sion Society, the social service arm of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, and honorary president of Seamen's Church Institute, the Youth Consultation Service, and chairman of the Governor's Council on AIDS. He served on the Asia Committee of Human Rights Watch, an organization concerned with human rights internationally.

He served as president of the national "Church and City Conference"and also co-chaired a special advisory committee on church and society, which was charged with the development of social polity and program for the Episcopal Church.

In the July 12, 1970 New York News he was quoted: "The ministry of unity and reconciliation is not an easy one. It's what put Christ on the cross. But if we can witness to this kind of unity within the church, then we would perhaps be giving the greatest possible example to a world that is torn."

On Christmas two years later, Newsweek was his forum: "I still think the church should take the initiative whenever possible in social ethics. But right now there don't seem to be any well-defined movements which I can relate to except peace."

He shared his reflections concerning September 11, 2001 with the clergy of the Episcopal Diocese of New York: "We are still confused in our emotions about that day, and we may well have the grief revisit us for many years. It would be easy to try to put these feelings behind us, but please do not let them go just because they are difficult. It's important that we remain motivated to deal with the months and years ahead. It seems to me that we are called to proceed, step by step, in this difficult project ministry, with sensitive timing, to be sure, but with iron willed determination. For this is a ministry of love. Peace and Justice are Love distributed...I believe that most Americans are decent compassionate people as we saw here in New York in September. If they realize truth they will come around and eventually influence the foreign policy of the USA to become a true reflection of who we are."

Monica Furlong

author and equal rights advocate
1930-2003

Monica Furlong was a writer on spirituality, a committed and active member of the Church of England, a poet, novelist, biographer, travel writer and journalist, writing for The Spectator, The Guardian, and the magazine Truth, and then going on to the Daily Mail. From 1974 to 1978 she was a producer for the BBC.

All this time her interest in church matters and in feminism was growing; the two subjects intertwined, and she was moderator of the Movement for the Ordination of Women (MOW) from 1982 until 1985, where her voice was strong and influential.

From the time she became vice-moderator in 1981, she was always aware of the great gifts women could bring to Christian life. Her day-long "Festival of Women" at St. James' Piccadilly, with her After Eve-- A Happening, exposed both the cruelty and absurdity in the misogynist sayings of the early Fathers--and also familiar present-day sexist pronouncements.

Furlong introduced a witty encouragement which relieved those struggling to release women to be priests in the Church of England. Her first book, With Love to the Church (1965), had expressed her confidence that the Christian community had the resources of spirit and laughter to resolve its tensions. She embodied warm-hearted spiritual growth, able to discover new ways of dealing with disagreement, and her irreverent sense of humor was refreshing.

When her ideas became known in America, she was made an honorary Doctor of Divinity by the General Theological Seminary in New York in 1986.

She was considered a bold, often controversial writer on church and spiritual matters, and books of hers such as The Church of England: The State It's In (2000) ruffled feathers a good deal. Much of her writing on religion and spirituality, however, approached her subjects more obliquely, for instance, through biographies. Of these, her best known were of Thomas Merton and Teresa of Lisieux; and her Visions and Longings: medieval women mystics (1996) was in tune with the current interest in feminism, mysticism and the medieval past.

Not surprisingly, all her writing was imbued with her ideas on spirituality and the numinous, and it covered a wide field. There were three novels; a book of poems called God's a Good Man (1974); a reflective book called Flight of the Kingfisher: a journey among the Kukatja Aborigines (1996); and an attractive mem- oir called Bird of Paradise (1995). There were also several books with religious themes, often controversially treated: Puritan's Progress and Christian Uncertainties (both 1975); Feminine in the Church (1984) and Mirror to the Church (1988), both of which she edited; and Reflections on Forgiveness and Spiritual Growth (2001), which she co-edited. Her illumination of life as a journey, Travelling In (1971), was consid- ered by the Times Literary Supplement to be "well worth brooding over."

Her attitudes to religion were liberal and ecumenical: in the Eighties and Nineties she wrote and reviewed for the Roman Catholic weekly The Tablet, where her robust views were well liked. She also had some literary success. In 1995, Bristol University made her an honorary DLitt.

Furlong felt, in her words, "the despair and anger" of those barred from testing their vocation as priests. In 1987 she helped to organize the St Hilda's Community, meeting regularly at the Chaplaincy of St Mary's College, Mile End Road. There the congregation could experience the priestly ministry of a woman ordained abroad, and in 1991 Furlong wrote the introduction to Woman Included, a collection of liturgies brought together by the Community in which God is referred to as "She."

Furlong was a leader in organizing the "Thanksgiving for the Ministries of Women," in Canterbury Ca- thedral in 1988, and was disappointed that Archbishop Runcie, after initial encouragement, declined to attend. Later the Bishop of London brought a legal threat of trespass against the St Hilda's Community, though it was wholly composed of devout worshippers, so that Furlong transferred it to the Methodist Church across Bow Road, where it continued undaunted.

One of her last books, Act of Synod--Act of Folly (1998), was a broadside against the measures taken to preserve the unity of the Church of England after its 1992 decision to ordain women priests: the result, she believed, was nothing more or less than legalized division in the Church.

Her devotion and spirituality were lit by her intuition of the freshness of God. She could make gentle fun of church journalists who missed this. "Their claim is that we are out to wipe out God and replace him with earth goddesses, to destroy the Church and replace it with, if I read them aright, dancing in sacred groves and celebrating Beltane . . . The revolution I at least have in mind is a very different one, in which the Church might genuinely treat women as equals . . . allowed to stand at an altar and hold the Body and Blood of Christ in their hands."

At a MOW Service, Rowan Williams spoke about the possibility of fresh life for the Church in these terms: "The Church finds it so hard to believe that there can be a new future that is truly faithful to what has been already given. Yet that is what resurrection is." He was expressing Monica Furlong's deepest convictions.

[Times of London, January 16,2003]