But is this really the time to try and clobber our bishops? It seems - as I said over there to the one most wrought up about this - exceedingly insensitive.
Well, the bishops have a responsibility to care for the flock. If they are not properly exercising their care, then they are not doing what God called them to do.
There is no requirement that I know of for people to express care and concern through an inter-faith service. Rather, there are many avenues that they could have taken to publicly and consistently express their care and concern most effectively as ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
On one level, I do empathize with them. I do believe that they were honestly doing what they thought was appropriate to comfort people. The problem is that true comfort comes through Jesus, and as public ministers of the Gospel, they need to be about proclaiming that clearly.
If they clearly say that salvation and true comfort only comes through the great hope that we have in the great resurrection of all on the Last Day of whom Jesus has already arisen as the first-fruits of the dead -- the resurrection where only those who cling to Christ will live with him forever -- then I would have less of a concern with it though I would still consider such participation unwise and giving the appearance of a contradiction at the heart of the message.
[I just noticed that I constructed a sentence of which any German-speaker should be proud as it never seems to end...]