Algoma bishop gets worldwide media attention

Don't look now, Sault Ste. Marie, but you're famous again.

This time, you're really, really famous.

All around the world, Ronald C. Ferris, the Anglican Bishop of Algoma, is being cited in newspaper articles for his opposition to the ministry of a former Northern Ontario cleric who conducts church services as an Elvis impersonator.

As SooToday.com has previously reported, Rev. Dorian Baxter (shown) held inaugural services this past weekend in Newmarket, Ontario for his breakaway Grace-Land Independent Anglican Church.

Rev. Baxter started mixing Elvis into his ministry in 1983, when he was a parish priest in Thunder Bay.

At Bishop Ferris's request, Ontario's registrar-general revoked Baxter's licence to perform marriages in 1998.

Baxter, who performs as "Elvis Priestly," is now considered a priest "on leave" from Algoma diocese.

From Ireland to India

From Indiana to Ireland to India, newspapers this week have been referring to Bishop Ferris's view that mixing Elvis and church is irreverent.

"I feel the ministry is in bad taste, and I don't support it," the bishop says in USA Today.

"He shouldn't be doing this as an Anglican priest," the newspaper quotes Ferris as saying.

Reporters who seem to vary in their counting ability have cited attendance at Baxter's inaugural service on Sunday as being somewhere between 250 and 400.

To read coverage from around the world, please click on the links below.

Media circus

USA Today CNN Asia CTV News (includes streaming video) Irish Examiner Hindustan Times Toronto Star Anchorage Daily News Long Island Newsday ABC News South Africa Independent The Guardian (UK)