From this Sunday’s Church of England Newspaper. It’s subscription only, so I can’t post a link. I have removed a paragraph containing a description of a couple of the items in dispute:

The Church of England Newspaper
12 May, 2013

Cana­dian Bishop takes ac­tion against a trou­ble­some blog­ger

THE BISHOP of the Dio­cese of Ni­a­gara in the Angli­can Church of Canada has filed a law­suit against con­ser­va­tive blog­ger claim­ing “defama­tion of char­ac­ter”.

On 19 Fe­bru­ary David Jenk­ins, au­thor of the Angli­can Samiz­dat blog re­ceived no­tice that Bishop Bird had asked a court to shut down his blog, ban him from mak­ing fur­ther com­ments about him and to pay him $400,000 in dam­ages.

Mr Jenk­ins stated that he had been sur­prised by the law­suit. “Con­trary to what one might ex­pect in such cir­cum­stances, I did not re­ceive a cease and de­sist let­ter in ad­vance of the suit.”

The State­ment of Claim filed with the On­tario Su­pe­rior Court Jus­tice al­leged Mr Jenk­ins ma­li­ciously and falsely stated Bishop Bird was a “weak and in­ef­fec­tual leader and that his ac­tions were mo­ti­vated by avarice or fi­nan­cial gain”. He also claimed that the bishop was a “thief” and had a “sex­ual fetish”, and that he was an “athe­ist and heretic bent upon the de­struc­tion of Chris­tian­ity.”

[….]

The 31 posts cited in the com­plaint were sub­se­quently re­moved from his web­site. At the bishop’s re­quest other posts were also tak­ing down, Mr Jenk­ins noted, “as a ges­ture of good faith.”

“I have made of­fers to set­tle and meet/talk, but they have been re­jected,” he added.

Leave your comments here; I would be interested to know how long they stay up (or if they even appear):

Bishop Michael Bird of the diocese of Niagara has filed a defamation lawsuit with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice against blogger David Jenkins.

The suit alleges that, in his blog Anglican Samizdat, Jenkins has published comments about Bird that were injurious to his “credit, character and reputation…in his office as spiritual leader and Bishop of the Diocese and in his occupation as priest…”

Hamilton lawyer Graydon Sheppard, who is representing the bishop, told the Anglican Journal that the lawsuit was a last resort measure from the bishop. “He, and to some extent, his wife, have been under constant attack for more than two years by this blogger…” Jenkins, he added, “has gone beyond fair comment and debate about doctrinal matters.”