[edow] General Convention News

[Church House News]

Marshall legislation may take longer than supporters hoped

By Jim Naughton

Getting former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall's name into the
Book of Lesser Feasts and Fasts will take at least three years longer
than his supporters had originally hoped, if General Convention accepts
the recommendation of its Prayer Book, Liturgy and Music Committee. 

The committee this morning proposed sending Marshall's nomination to the
church's Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music. The proposal must be
adopted by the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies. 

If both houses concur, and the Standing Commission makes a positive
recommendation, Marshall's nomination would be voted on for the first
time at the General Convention in 2009, and could not be included in
Lesser Feasts and Fasts until it was endorsed by two consecutive
conventions. 

In making the referral, committee members emphasized their desire to see
Marshall's nomination succeed, but said that routing the proposal
through the Standing Commission was standard procedure.

Committee members also urged parishes throughout the church to follow
the lead of St. Augustine's in the District and Seabury-Western
Seminary, both of which have developed liturgies honoring Marshall.
Marshall was a parishioner at St. Augustine's, and his widow, Cissy,
still attends that church.  

"This isn't a bad thing," said Barbara Miles of St. Nicholas, Darnestown
who attended the hearing along with 12 other members of the diocese. She
said the diocese had hoped that by including propers and lectionary
readings in its resolution, it might be able to bypass the Standing
Commission and hasten the date of Marshall's inclusion on the church's
calendar. 

Darren McCutchen, a high school student and alternate deputy from St.
Timothy's, D.C., made a three-minute presentation in support of the
nomination. "I consider myself a witness to the work of Thurgood
Marshall," said McCutchen, who is African-American. Were it not to
Marshall's success in desegregating public schools in the United States,
"the chances that I would be standing in this place...delivering this
speech would be nil." 

McCutchen asked the committee to wave the guideline that suggests a
candidate for Lesser Feasts and Fasts be dead for 50 years. Brown v.
Board of Education, the landmark civil rights case that Marshall argued
before the U.S. Supreme Court, was more than 50 years old, he pointed
out, indicating that Marshall's Christian witness had already stood the
test of time. 

Among approximately 50 onlookers at the 7:30 a.m. committee meeting were
the Rev. Martha Clarke, rector of St. Augustine's; deputation members
Wesley Baldwin, the Rev. Joan Beilstein, Mary Dail, the Rev. Patricia
Downing, Iris Harris, the Rev. Elizabeth McWhorter, Karen Chane and the
Rev. Paula Clark Greene.

***  Further news from General Convention is available at www.edow.org
Jim Naughton, the diocese's director of communications, also is keeping
a convention Web log at dailyepiscopalian.com



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