Updated Friday evening
The Church Times reports on last Sunday’s service at Southwark Cathedral, in a sidebar to the story headlined Bishops criticise USPG cuts.
Doffed: the Presiding Bishop of the US Episcopal Church, Dr Katharine Jefferts Schori, was asked by Lambeth Palace not to wear her mitre when she visited Southwark Cathedral last Sunday. As a consequence, she carried it under her arm. In her sermon, she spoke of the fear of strangers: “There’s something in our ancient genetic memory that ratchets up our state of arousal when we meet a stranger — it’s a survival mechanism that has kept our species alive for millennia by being wary about strangers. But there’s also a piece of our make-up that we talk about in more theological terms — the part that leaps to judgement about that person’s sins. It’s connected to knowing our own sinfulness, and our tendency toward competition.” She urged the congregation to lose the “defensive veneer that wants to shut out other sinners”.
In a letter to The Times, a group of 15 clerics in the Southwark diocese, mostly conservative Evangelicals, criticised the invitation: “We seriously question the judgement of those who have not withdrawn their invitation to her after her recent consecration of Mary Glasspool,” a partnered lesbian. She also spoke at the Scottish Synod, where she talked of her Church’s “radical hospitality”. At the USPG annual meeting, she was upbraided by the Archbishop of Cape Town, the Most Revd Thabo Makgoba: the support for same-sex partnerships had communicated “a measure of uncaring at the consequent difficulties for us”
In a related story, the Church of England Newspaper has this report by George Conger Bishop Jefferts Schori rebuffs Dr. Williams’ call for restraint. It includes this:
The June 2 public letter follows upon private communications between Bishop Jefferts Schori and Dr. Rowan Williams about her continuing role in the councils of the Anglican Communion.
The press officer to the Secretary General of the Anglican Consultative Council has confirmed to The Church of England Newspaper that Canon Kenneth Kearon hand delivered a letter from Dr. Williams to Bishop Jefferts Schori at the April 17 consecration ceremony of Bishop Ian Douglas of Connecticut.
The chancellor to the Presiding Bishop, David Booth Beers, told bishops attending the May 24 to 28 Living Our Vows bishops’ training programme at the Lake Logan Episcopal Center in North Carolina that in this letter Dr. Williams had asked the Presiding Bishop to consider absenting herself from meetings of the Anglican Communion’s Standing Committee and the Primates Meeting in light of the Episcopal Church’s violation of the moratoria on gay bishops and blessings, those present tell CEN.
Speaking to a group of bishops during an informal after dinner session, Mr. Beers stated the Presiding Bishop had rejected the Archbishop of Canterbury’s suggestion, observing that he had no authority to remove her from the Primates Standing Committee as she had been elected by the North and South American primates. She also objected to Dr. Williams’ claim to have the authority to ban her from the councils of the church.
One of the bishops at the evening encounter told CEN that speculation on the future structures of the Communion was also shared by Mr. Beers with the bishops. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s press office did not respond to requests for clarification on Mr. Beers’ comments, while a spokesman for the Presiding Bishop declined to comment on “speculation and conjecture.”
Other reports:
Diana Butler Bass at Beliefnet Mitregate: The Anglican Crisis Over Women’s Hats
Maggi Dawn Mitregate: the latest church row
Friday evening update
According to the American Anglican Council in an article headlined Jefferts Schori: “We were not asked to withdraw” the following exchanges took place at the press conference following the Executive Council meeting in Maryland today:
Robert Lundy, American Anglican Council: Presiding Bishop, my question is in regards to the election of a new representative for The Episcopal Church to the Anglican Consultative Council. Was that new representative Bishop Ian Douglas and if so, will you and Bishop Ian Douglas be attending the next Standing Committee meeting of the ACC?
Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori: We expect those elections to happen this afternoon and yes I expect the representatives of The Episcopal Church to be present at that meeting.
President Anderson: We’re looking forward to the election. We have two candidates in both positions that are open. . .
David Virtue, Virtue Online: My question is for the Presiding Bishop. In light of events recently concerning the Archbishop’s Pentecost letter and the TEC being asked to withdraw several ecumenical leaders from the ACC, will the Presiding Bishop and Executive Council consider cutting the 40% budget of the ACC? Has that been discussed?
Jefferts Schori: Your first observation is not accurate. Members of Ecumenical dialogues were removed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion. We were not asked to withdraw. We were not asked to withdraw from the Anglican Consultative Council. There has been no discussion here of reducing our offering to the Anglican Communion Office.
Mary Francis Schjonberg, Episcopal Life: At the beginning of this presentation this morning, what was your general sense that the way he (Kenneth Kearon) sees things may not be the way The Episcopal Church sees things. At the end of the session, do you think there was any greater understanding on his part or on the Council’s part about the situation in the Communion?
Anderson: I’d like to say in response to that one of the comments that Secretary Kearon made in his opening remarks struck me particularly where he mentioned that some of the issues that they have identified in the Anglican Communion and one of them, a presenting issue, is diversity. In the first place, I don’t think that The Episcopal Church sees diversity as an issue in the same way in which Secretary Kearon presented it of being seen from his viewpoint. I did not see any change in that by the time we had finished talking. I didn’t see any concrete evidence that there was a particular newly developed line of understanding becoming perhaps both ways.
Jefferts Schori: I think we look forward to the possibility of…upon further reflection that all participants in the conversation this morning they have had their understanding increased.
And two more #mitregate articles
RNS Daniel Burke It’s hats-off to female bishop, and not in a good way
Ruth Gledhill Mitregate: The Sequel
I expect Martyn Minns is to be banned from wearing a mitre on his visit to Cornwall.
http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/2010/06/17/acna-bishop-to-preach-at-portreath-cornwall-on-sunday-20th-june/
The worm has turned. The ABC has overreached himself by interfering in elected representation in which he has no vote. The period of restraint 2003-2010 during which TEC soaked up all the attacks and insults of others in the Communion did no good. TEC is going on the offensive. It will be formidable. It has energy and money. It also appeals to a sizeable liberal constituency in the CofE. Its values of inclusion for gay people and equality for women are the values of European societies generally, and appeal much more to British public opinion than the conservative extremes. Even… Read more »
Our PB is experiencing harassment through scrupulosity for having the audacity to accept invitations to function sacramentally in England.
We have a phrase for this. We call it being nibbled to death by mice.
You know, if I didn’t know better, I’d think they didn’t like us…
Like Liz (Badman) I am just gobsmacked at the sheer cackhandedness of this whole episode. The ABC and his cohorts seem to make it a habit, or perhaps a policy, of causing needless offence to those of us of ‘liberal’ opinions while bending over backwards to accomodate those who seek to exclude all whom they disagree with. I hope that badman is right to see that the worm turning. It is good to hear that ++Katharine has reminded Lambeth that they have no right to request her to withdraw from the various groupings to which she is elected by right.… Read more »
Minns, before leaving TEC, accepted every nomination for bishop he got in TEC – and, obviously, was never elected. Many of us speculated about how many pointy hats he had in his closet, all ready to wear.
I certainly hope that Lambeth has required proof of his orders, as well as requiring him to be mitre-less.
But I won’t hold my breath.
I note the Church Times decided to ignore the fact that Archbishop Thabo was equally critical of the border crossers.
Didn’t the Church Times used to have a reputation for competent journalism?
Cynthia, Lambeth will not be asking for proof of his orders because they do not recognise him as a bishop, ACNA orders were not recognised by General Synod in the recent debate (and would in any event require further steps before recognition from the Archbishop).
A couple of points. Asking ++KJS to function as a priest and not as a bishop is not only correct it is a requirement. Like TEC, the Church of England is occasionally tightly bound by its canons and constitutions, such as they are; and what might seem a straightforward expectation is frustrated. There are as many people in England ready to leap on Rowan Williams for acting unconstitutionally as there are in the USA wanting to oppose ++KJS on the same grounds. It is precisely because she is indeed recognised as validly a bishop that she is requested not to… Read more »
I commend the poster in this thread named “badman” for his enlightening and honest comments about the real issue here: The overreaching of “authority” by The Archbishop of Canterbury who has also been tagged Pope Rowan the First of late. As badman has stated so eloquently, it appears that the image of “ABC’s position as sexist as well as homophobic” is becoming attached to Rowan Williams the man. This is a shame. It also carries some truth that we probably do not want to admit. Human beings are fallible and when given some authority and power over others, it can… Read more »
Nope, sorry and all that, no slack for CoE while they struggle to work out their one home-grown sharp differences at the same time conservative British Anglican leaders are busy exporting trash talk, bad faith, and heightened conflicts to everybody else on the planet we share. Nopers, for using TEC as the most shallow-minded knee-jerk sort of scapegoat at hand – while repeatedly coming across as petty, anti-women, and – gasp – antigay to boot. All That goes right along with taking lots of TEC cash to pay for nominally big tent Anglican stuff, which then actually gets used to… Read more »
Um, just a couple of points: 1. All visiting clergy from overseas need the Archbishop’s licence to officiate under the terms of the Overseas Clergy (Ministry and Ordination) Measure 1967. It is entirely normal for such clergy to provide letters of orders. This is the point of having letters of orders. 2. The question of women in orders to which women cannot be ordained in the Church of England is a difficult one. Prior to the ordination of women to the priesthood in England women priests from America were allowed to officiate as deacons, but not priests when visiting England.… Read more »
The verification of KJS’s orders and the business about the mitre are all silly efforts by the ABC to exert some authority over our PB. +Rowan is acting as though KJS has never been to England before and functioned in an official capacity. Photographs shown on several websites give lie to this position.
Since she’s been there before, canonically all that should have been required of her — and that as a courtesy only — was contacting the bishop of the diocese in which she was going to function sacramentally to alert him of her coming.
“So whilst we try to get things sorted out here, properly and according to our canons and constitutions, d’you think you might cut us a little slack?”—ordinary vicar
You mean the same way that you have cut those of us in TEC “a little slack” while we have tried to respond to the very real spiritual and pastoral needs of our LGBT members? (Which, I will note, we have done according to our own canons and constitution…)
Why do I get the feeling that only TEC is required to “do unto others”?
OV inquires, “So whilst we try to get things sorted out here, properly and according to our canons and constitutions, d’you think you might cut us a little slack?” Apparently, OV, you have not seen the several news items reporting on female bishops who have previously worn their mitre on the territory of the C of E while preaching and/or presiding — including ++Katharine herself when preaching at Salisbury Cathedral in 2008. Assuming you are correct as to what your canons and constitutions require, they are nonetheless, it would seem, enforced only selectively — and so it does in fact… Read more »
As an Episcopal priest confirmed years ago in the Church of England, I am tremendously disheartened and angry. As a church historian I have said for years it was fifty years between Nicaea and Constantinople and we must expect chaos and conflict. But where is the equal discipline for the blatant and proven border crossing in North America? Where is the correction to the constant misogyny–a word I rarely use–aimed at our Presiding Bishop?
OV: I might be persuaded to accept the argument that ++KJS was asked not to wear her mitre because of canonical issues, were it not for the report from the Rt. Rev. Ann Tottenham, who was invited to preach and celebrate at Southwark Cathedral last fall with no such restrictions.
http://anglicanfuture.blogspot.com/2010/06/bishop-ann-tottenham-on-record-re.html
It seems to me that a number of contributors here need to be liberated from the memory of ++Rowan formed when he was an Oxford don or a Bp in Wales. People change, and not always for the better. It is a great shame (hardly an adequate description) that he now presents as an authoritarian sexist bully who believes that glb people are not quite right, and entirely dispensable in the cause of some greater good (a veneer of church unity). His choice of issues on which to speak publicly and the manner in which he has both remained silent… Read more »
There are some of us who didn’t know much of Rowan Williams before he became Archbishop of Canterbury. In judging him, we have little to go on other than the mistakes that he is making now. I say “now” but to those of us without Oxford-don impressions, it’s been obvious for several years that the current Archbishop of Canterbury cares more for the unity of “the Church” (that is, the ahistorical ideal) than he does for the spiritual well-being of actual Anglican churches’ living members. In short, he is trying to sacrifice people in favor of a revolutionary ideal. It’s… Read more »
“However much we’d like it to be otherwise, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and sounds like a duck, guess what it is.”
Someone who belatedly has realized what it means to conduct oneself as a bishop upholding (if only partially) the Catholic Faith?
If only he would go on to repudiate his support for the pretended “ordination” of women.
I like to attribute this to the benificent effect of his visits to the Holy Father, whom God long preserve.
I agree with “Jonathan in New Zealnad” who posted in this thread. It is time to recognize Rowan Williams for who he is TODAY and let go of who he WAS leading up to his enthronement at Canterbury. The progressive intellectual theologian has given way to the mind of a reactionary. It sadly is what it is. We need to move forward. Rowan is no longer the humble bishop from Wales. Power has corrupted him and moved him in directions that none of us would have ever imagined possible. People change and it sometimes happens when they become intoxicated with… Read more »
At last, we get down to the heart of the matter. +Rowan has demonstrated, for anyone who wants to see, why we do not want a “teaching of the Communion” (magisterium), a Standing Committee on Unity, Faith and Order (The Holy Office), a Covenant under the control of the ABC and the Primates, and an ABC with “enhanced authority”, (the Anglican pope). In April of this year, +Rowan “asked” +Katherine, in a hand delivered letter,to absent herself from the Primates’ Meetings and to relinquish her elected position on the Primates’ Standing Committee, no doubt to appease the militant homophobes among… Read more »
For heaven’s sake, surely there are more important things to squabble about than mitres! It is reminiscent of Anthony Trollope.
‘…the aim has not been to get at the Episcopal Church, but to find room for others to remain as well as enabling as full a participation as possible for the Episcopal Church within the communion.’ What a very odd form of logic there is in this statement. ‘I’ll throw you out so that the others can stay’. The fact is that the others have exhibited all the signs of schism, inhospitality, border crossing and general un-christain activity, while TEC remains true to its own cannons as well as to the much vaunted Anglican ethos of diversity and inclusivity. We… Read more »
“In her public response to the archbishop’s Pentecost letter, Bishop Jefferts Schori said Dr. Williams’ understanding of Acts 2 and Pentecost was insufficient. “Pentecost is most fundamentally a continuing gift of the Spirit, rather than a limitation or quenching of that Spirit.” – Church of England Newspaper – Bishop Katharine states here what one would have thought was a coherent theology of the Holy Spirit – continuing to guide and empower the Church to do the liberating work of Christ in the Gospel. With the rise of the charismatic movement in the Church, we rejoiced that the original doctrine of… Read more »
“If only he (the ABC) would go on to repudiate his support for the pretended “ordination” of women. I like to attribute this to the benificent effect of his visits to the Holy Father, whom God long preserve. – Posted by: William Tighe on Saturday – With all the respect that might be due to you, W.Tighe, I would like to suggest that even Rowan could not go back now on his intentional process of ordaining women. This is a fait accompli in the Church of England (and a burgeoning focus of dissent in ACNA). All that remains now is… Read more »
This post of Jonathan is one of the most valuable, helpful and essential to grasp, I have read in a long time vis a vis Rowan and our feelings about him. I do feel better for reading this sad and painful truth. Thanks Jonathan :— ‘It seems to me that a number of contributors here need to be liberated from the memory of ++Rowan formed when he was an Oxford don or a Bp in Wales. People change, and not always for the better. It is a great shame (hardly an adequate description) that he now presents as an authoritarian… Read more »
‘I rejoiced when +Rowan was appointed. I was so very wrong.’
Posted by: karen macqueen+ on Saturday, 19 June 2010
Me too. I rejoiced and I was so wrong. A terrible learning curve for me.
“For heaven’s sake, surely there are more important things to squabble about than mitres!” – SV2 As a matter solely related to whether one wears a mitre, or not, you are absolutely correct. As a matter related, instead, to equitable treatment and honesty (or lack thereof) on the part of Rowan I and his Lambeth Curia, you are sadly wrong. This issue concerns the reality of Lambeth’s hypocrisy and dishonesty, rather than whether all the purple shirts are dressed finely with copes and mitres, or instead wear the skins of wild animals and are unwashed. The true question is whether,… Read more »
I can just see in my mind’s eye a cartoonist’s rendering of Joe (the Benedict) Ratzinger entertaining Rowan Williams on his last trip to Rome. The Place: The Papal apartments at the Vatican. The caption might read: “Yes, Rowan, you can be the Anglican Pope if you repudiate your past beliefs on women’s ordination to the priesthood and episcopate. But you must also put those pesky gays, lesbians bi and transgendered people in their place and make them repent.” Rowan is seen just sitting there with dreams of grandeur on his smiling face. Farfetched? Perhaps, but my mind’s eye can… Read more »
OV, all.
Part of the reason ++KJS was asked to speak at Southwark, at least in my humble opinion is because of what she represents to the church, She’s pro-gay, WOMAN bishop (and a primate at that). She is as much a pawn as Rowan. Conservatives push Rowan and we liberals have our standard bearers. IMHO Rowan played into the liberals hands by his bluster. I feel for both of them. I just hope we don’t beat them up too much or suck the life out of them.
“…the pretended “ordination” of women. I like to attribute this to the benificent effect of his visits to the Holy Father, whom God long preserve.” – Posted by William Tighe God preserve us from anyone who pretends they are, or would propagate the belief that “the Holy Father” is, anyone OTHER than the First Person of the Trinity! **** I recall the motto of a institute I considered attending, the Irish School of Ecumenics, being “We Flourish in order to Perish” (a riff off of “unless a seed fall in the earth and die”, and direct reference to the idea… Read more »
I think this is a very good point. Sometimes I feel ashamed of my own tendency towards partisanship, narrowness and impatience – I know it means I feel threatened and small. But even so. ‘Part of the reason ++KJS was asked to speak at Southwark, at least in my humble opinion is because of what she represents to the church, She’s pro-gay, WOMAN bishop (and a primate at that). She is as much a pawn as Rowan. Conservatives push Rowan and we liberals have our standard bearers. IMHO Rowan played into the liberals hands by his bluster. I feel for… Read more »
More sanctions!? Has Lambeth palace thought of resorting to the “comfy chair”?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSe38dzJYkY