Jonathan Petre has an exclusive this morning in the Daily Telegraph: Anglican leader offers haven to US conservatives:
…Archbishop Gregory Venables is to allow conservative dioceses that are defecting from the pro-gay American branch of Anglicanism to affiliate with his South American province thousands of miles away…
…The British-born Archbishop, who is the Primate of the Province of the Southern Cone, told the Telegraph: “This is a pivotal moment in the history of the Anglican Communion.
“The new realignment demonstrates the depths of the divisions that already exist. “
Dr Williams appears to want to keep the Communion together at all costs, but Gospel truth should never be sacrificed for structural unity.
“Conservatives in America and elsewhere cannot wait in limbo any longer. They need a safe haven now.”
Archbishop Venables unveiled the decision of his bishops and other leaders after the plans were overwhelmingly approved by his provincial synod during a meeting in Chile last night…
Good…… faithful archbishops are responding to requests from TECUSA clergy given the lack of adequate response from TECUSA and the ABC. Many people (on both sides of the debate) are getting tired of the ABC’s inability to lead and make decisions……we have had 4 years of communiqués and responses and nothing much ever being done…….. the ABC is a brilliant man but he is making the problem harder than it really is because he wants to avoid the obvious conclusions. -Most of the AC stand by Lambeth 1.10; -Some clergy in the AC condone behaviour which most of the AC… Read more »
Why on earth is there a Province of the Southern Cone? I don’t think it covers former British territory, does it? Why do we need an Archbishop Venables at all? On TV, he always looks the most gloomy and uninspiring person one could imagine to lead anything.
Mark – great argument…disagree with the guy so question why we have a province in the Southern Cone……I am sure ++Venables will read your comment, a little light bulb will appear over his head and he will fold his province into the mighty TECUSA and accept all its innovations regardless of what scripture says……or maybe not.
So Archbishop Venables has decided to sink the proposed Anglican covenant and escalate the schism to another level by “welcoming” dioceses and their bishops who are unwilling to suffer the outrages of a female Presiding Bishop and a gay bishop with a partner. So be it. TEC has all the necessary constitutional and canonical authority to defend its integrity as a Church and the support of the majority of its bishops, clergy and laity to deal with this tragedy. We will recover our churches and our endowments and we will heal and move on. As people trying to act like… Read more »
I beginning to wonder why the h*ll TEC should WANT to stay in the AC and put up with all this, and so I have a proposal, which those with the ear of TEC can feel free to pass on: TEC should leave the AC and join the Old Catholics of the Union of Utrecht! The Polish National Catholic Church (which was the US presence of the Old Catholics) has left the Union over the ordination of women. The way is therefore clear for TEC to become the new US presence. The Old Catholic Churches of Germany, Switzerland, Austria and… Read more »
Great idea MJ
And more honest than staying in the AC and ripping it apart, telling half-truths to try and placate foreign bishops etc etc
“Many people (on both sides of the debate) are getting tired of the ABC’s inability to lead and make decisions….”
Maybe this is because the ABC isn’t supposed to be a leader in that sense. No matter what you may prefer, NP, he’s not the Pope. He’s first among equals, a position from which he can advise, cajole, maybe even push, but cannot command or order.
And can the liberal catholics within the CofE join them!
being serious, there is going to be a split eventually, and it clearly isn’t just about TEC but about theological differences across the communion – which really needs to be put to sleep ,painlessly if at all possible.
revkarenm writes “TEC was rejected by the C of E at its formation.” That isn’t strictly true, since the CofE had no independent means of doing that. Convocations were a dead letter, and effectively the church was subject to the Crown-in-Parliament in all things. Archbishop Moore worked very hard to get Parliament to permit the consecration of bishops without their swearing allegiance to the King so that provision for the former colonies could be made, taking them out of the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London. In the event, the tiny Episcopal Church in Scotland, decimated and persecuted following the… Read more »
The conduct of the Southern Cone in all this is almost beyond parody. This is a province which covers the countries of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. But it only has 27,000 members – not much to show for six nations. 27,000 would be a poor turnout at a single Premiership football match in London. The Diocese of Pittsburgh alone, which it proposes to “adopt”, has over 20,000 members. Assuming it takes in other US dioceses as well, Southern Cone is going to become more of a US church than a South American one. It will be a… Read more »
Three things here: 1. As +Pittsburgh, +Ft. Worth, +SanJoaquin, +Quincy, +Sprinfield and +Dallas reflect on this, they should consider the status of Recife Brazil and its relationship to Southern Cone and Canterbury. Cavalcante already made this move to So. Cone and was not invited to Lambeth. 2. This is presented as news but it has been expected for sometime. +Venables was the principle speaker at the August Common Cause Partnership meeting. He conducted a “bible study” that was little else than an incitement to those present in TEC to abandon it. +Duncan chose Venables for this keynote position for a… Read more »
The conservative congregations will find safe haven for their prejudicial beliefs. Those who have faith in the Spirit moving in the world will be rid of their hatred. The bumper-sticker Christians will not have to peel off their “God Hates Fags” notices, and the progressivists will be able to praise God for the gift of humility and love. The schismatics will form their own Pauline faith, and the remnant will remain true to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, loving God and loving their neighbors (meaning all neighbors and with true charity) as they would like to be loved themselves. The… Read more »
“faithful archbishops” As opposed to whom? And, Pat, I find it very interesting that those among us who most closely adhere to the folklore of the Reformation as “great day for freedom from foreign domination” are so avid in their desire to have central authority in the Anglican Church! I’m not being all that snide here, it just seems that we have groups with two different needs. One is very suspicious of central authority, indeed of authority in general, perhaps even to the point of mistrusting the authority of God. That’s essentially what Evangelicals seem to be saying about TEC’s… Read more »
Let’s “keep a calm sough” as they say in my part of the world. This is a time for steady nerves, and the very last thing we need is the American Episcopal Church also stomping off in a hissy fit. Thus far, the American College of Bishops has conducted itself with wholly admirable gravitas in responding to gratuitous nastiness; they should be an example to all of us. I think we really are at the tipping-point. The fundigelicals are now doing what they’ve been threatening to do at least since I was at university – and that was shortly after… Read more »
“I beginning to wonder why the h*ll TEC should WANT to stay in the AC and put up with all this, and so I have a proposal, which those with the ear of TEC can feel free to pass on: “TEC should leave the AC and join the Old Catholics of the Union of Utrecht! “The Polish National Catholic Church (which was the US presence of the Old Catholics) has left the Union over the ordination of women. The way is therefore clear for TEC to become the new US presence.”—MJ I raised this as a possibility last year, and… Read more »
What happens to clergy (or parishes) of Pittsburgh who want to remain Episcopalians? (OK, Duncan says they have to leave the diocese, but TEC says the diocese is part of TEC no matter what the bishop or diocesan convention says, but my question is what they need to do in practical terms) Re: the Union of Utrecht — so far the UU already (still?) is in full communion with the C of E (as is the Mar thomas Church of India) & the Archbishop of Utrecht actually presided at a Convention Eucharist in Columbus (one of those services the Bishop… Read more »
So that’s it with the Covenant then, given Venables’ role of looking both ways. It’s probably it for any sense of the Anglican Communion too – but this Archbishop of Canterbury should continue with his plans and let those who do not want to turn up form their own Communion. They can then organise whatever continuing Anglicanism they want wherever they want.
Of course it may well be that in these periodic realignments that Communions that made agreements then find they can come together more fully, as barriers of incompatibility elsewhere are removed by those who lead a schism away.
Presiding Bishop Venables is a weak leader and has little following in his own Province (I live at the Global “Latin American” Center)…his main “opportunity” appears to be his interest in offering a “selective Biblical solution” to hate-fear mongerers abroad (the same solutions that won’t sell at his home Province of part of South America) to build his “numbers”…on the positive side, any Diocese who wishes to affiliate with +Venables won’t have to worry about having a really “authoritive” figure to order them around…everyone can continue to “do as they like” while excluding, discriminating against and persecuting fellow Christians/Anglicans and… Read more »
Venables of the Southern Cone is another pirate among the primatial circus of the now defunct Anglican Communion. +John-David San Joaquin and +Jack Sp-Iker-land may soon aligned themselves with him if the Southern Cone Province will vow never to ordain menstruants to the priesthood and the episcopate and keep all gay clergy permenantly in the closet of denial of their sexuality
Am still puzzled by the reason – old man’s vanity is perhaps the most likely? – that Presiding Bishop Venables, his proper title, does not correct the broad misconception that he is an archbishop. Have yet to see a single TEC “reappraiser” upgrade the Church’s presiding bishop to “Archbishop Jefferts Schori”.
RESPONSE TO FR. MARK’S COMMENTS: COMMENT: Why on earth is there a Province of the Southern Cone? I don’t think it covers former British territory, does it? Why do we need an Archbishop Venables at all? On TV, he always looks the most gloomy and uninspiring person one could imagine to lead anything. Posted by: Fr Mark on Thursday, 8 November 2007 at 9:32am GMT RESPONSE: Regarding your first point, I would rhetorically ask why the Episcopal Church has dioceses in Mexico and Central America (both of which are predominately Roman Catholic). As to your ad hominem attack on ++Gregory,… Read more »
So the bishop of Buenos Aires, one of the most pro-gay cities on the continent with civil partnerships since 2003, decides to provide a safe haven for conservative dioceses in the USA, where even secular law in many states is not as progressive as in Argentina!
Shows how out of touch and eccentric Anglicanism can be!
Douglas Wilkie: I don’t think you would find me gloomy, and I hope not uninspiring either! Bp Venables is a great one for making ad hominem attacks on others on such irrelevant grounds as their sexuality, I seem to recall: he had a lot to say about Jeffrey John on that basis.
As I’ve observed elsewhere, Duncan, Iker, Schofield and their friends will eat Venables for breakfast (which is perhaps why they want to ally with him). He really is out of his depth.
I don’t think there is any need or reason to attack bishop Venables. It is clear that several American bishops are determined to break with TEC and will be deposed in the near future, there will be some clergy and lay people wishing to stay loyal to these bishops. Presiding bishop Venables has a proven track record of offering hospitality to these entities once separated from their National Church. Robinson Cavalcanti an erstwhile bishop and his supporters in the Brazilian diocese of Recife continue to function “under the Primatial authority of Archbishop Gregory J Venables” read about Chris Sugden’s visit… Read more »
All this talk of various other provinces who need to offer spiritual care for the put-upon TEC conservatives cleverly reframes and sidesteps the main point of our shared modern empirical and ethical discernment dilemma: Are the traditional negative condemnations true in a real world common sensical meaning of the words, about the condemned queer folks those narratives target as categorically and/or innately immoral? And, if this curious conservative categorical sense of immorality talks itself so finely and so often – into having to condemn people who are loving enough to make lifelong commitments to same sex beloveds, what in the… Read more »
“It seems that bishop Venables is performing a valuable service to the Church at large by offering his protection to those at the margins, as the arguments and legal actions get even bitterer – these people will need his ministry.” OK, who are you, and what have you done w/ Martin Reynolds? “protection to those at the margins”: protected from whom? At the margins of what? (What are they in danger of—having their pseudo-Biblical hive-mind challenged?) How is it a “valuable service to the Church”, to keep the HATEFUL within the AC—where they will continue sniping at us LGBTs *invariably*… Read more »
re the suggestion that the TEC should leave the AC and join the Old Catholics of the Union of Utrech I think you would find under the rule of law, that TEC could not do this AND retain all the property and endowment funds that have been accrued while it is Episcopal. That is also why they find the idea of being tossed out of the Anglican communion so frightening. You see if they lose the property and endowment funds, they have nothing to live on because whatever else is true about the numbers, the number of people who willingly… Read more »
If the Anglican Primates are forced to choose between TEC and fundamentalists, of course they will have to choose TEC and other such liberal churches. Why? Simply because all the signs are that the zealotry of Akinola, Duncan, Minns etc. is a losing cause, and that TEC more or less represents where Anglicanism, Christianity and the civilized world are going. Yes, the greatest pastoral patience and respect must be extended by those bruised by the lurch into modernity. But their calls for excommunication of the liberals must not be countenanced.
Martin: the only problem with your very charitable interpretation of Bp Venables’ actions as “performing a valuable service.. by offering protection to those at the margins” is that no-one is offering valuable protection to those at the opposite margins in places like England, where not a single bishop provides full public support for partnered gay people in the Church.
For all the anger above, what is missed is that ++Venables and +Duncan, +Schofield et al are perfectly acceptable to most in the AC…..nobody has had to call Primates’ Meetings to call on them not to tear the fabric of the Communion. Now, above, some hope beyond hope that the AC ends up being an institution which rejects those who have not deviated from the bible and agreed AC positions in favour of a small group which has condoned behaviour “incompatible with scripture” and has acted deliberately, against the calls of ALL the Primates of the AC to follow its… Read more »
NP: that’s fine by me. I’ll follow those who accept all God’s lovely creatures as they are, so that I can minister to them fully and effectively. I’m quite happy to leave you in your Holy Trinity Brompton bubble ministering exclusively to old-fashioned ex-public schoolboys and looking down on everyone else.
But the AofC is not going to throw out a load of CofE members which would be the GS demand – the CofE must come first, not the communion, which is largely redundant in any case. It would certainly be better without the premoderns of Uganda and Nigeria. Their demands are not feasible for the West. Let them go and form their own fundamentalist church if they wish, but they cannot dragoon us into their level of ‘thinking’ . We have, thankfully, moved on.
“For all the anger above, what is missed is that ++Venables and +Duncan, +Schofield et al are perfectly acceptable to most in the AC…..nobody has had to call Primates’ Meetings to call on them not to tear the fabric of the Communion.” Because those of us who think that gays are perfectly acceptable in all ways for all roles in the church weren’t interested in throwing those who disagreed with us out of the Communion. That’s what “tolerant” and “inclusive” means, NP–not just that we’re accepting from the left, but from the right, as well. This is what we keep… Read more »
“++Venables and +Duncan, +Schofield et al are perfectly acceptable to most in the AC” You know, NP, I’ve been wondering for a while now, what is your job? Pollster? I don’t undersdtand how you are able to speak for the entire Anglican communion otherwise. “some hope beyond hope that the AC ends up being an institution which rejects those who have not deviated from the bible” That ought to read: “some hope beyond hope that the AC ends up being an institution which rejects those who will not piously pretend they have not deviated from the bible while the entire… Read more »
“I think you would find under the rule of law, that TEC could not do this AND retain all the property and endowment funds that have been accrued while it is Episcopal. That is also why they find the idea of being tossed out of the Anglican communion so frightening.”—Margaret
Rubbish! The property belongs to the American Episcopal Church, not to the Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church may or may not belong to any number of international bodies, but that is legally irrelevant to the property ownership question.
There is no “agreed position” NP, only (several)dis-agreed.
(and I dis-agree with some of them too)
Positively Orwellian, Margaret.
But I think you will find that few is any of the endowments in question refer to the Anglican Communion at all, but rather to the Episcopal Church.
Conservative doublespeak won’t win you much at the end of the day.
NP – “as the AC will dwindle to less than a quarter of its current size if the ABC pushes the GS too far” What are you smoking (and inhaling), NP? This isn’t about numbers, and it isn’t about wealth either. You are arguing for a division of the Anglican Communion (well, you’re really arguing for a Calvinist single Anglican Communion, but that’s not going to happen) along the lines of: (A) the traditional and historical Anglican Communion, which would probably consist of most of Australia, Brazil, Canada, most of England, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, United States,… Read more »
Anybody else around these parts tired of the constant presuppositionalist weaponizing of scripture that simply typifies the conservative realignment campaign? Tired of this blindly self-righteous reading of scripture usurping the worship and discipleship that belongs, only, to Jesus of Nazareth as Risen Lord? Tired of these odd, distorted claims that only realignment believers are the purest of Anglicans?
Me, me, me, me … pick me. Whoooo.
Jerry, Ford et al….. sorry, you can pretend all you like that Lambeth 1.10 does not represent “the mind of the Communion” but – the liberal ABC has said so himself, -his Lam Pal bureaucrats know they would lose so they are not trying to have it overturned’ – TWR reinforced the position of Lambeth 1.10, -it is crytal clear that many non conservatives eg Fulcrum and +Durham are not doing to compromise and have condoned in the AC behaviour which is “incompatible with scripture”, – Rowan Williams has shown (eg J John, Tanzania) that when he is faced with… Read more »
NP: will you please stop, once and for, all this militant majoritarian language? You obviously cannot hear how bullying it sounds, and it is fatuous.
Your own church of HTB, which you vaunt ceaselessly here, lies bang next door to a much larger and more successful church, numbers-wise, Brompton Oratory. On your argument, you should be going there of a Sunday morning. Except, of course, it is Roman Catholic…
And anyway, NP, what’s this about the “mainstream” in England being conservative on the gay issue? What planet are you on? Planet HTB, I suppose. You certainly don’t have much of a grasp on grass-roots Anglicanism in England. Do you really think that all those “broad” village churches; city-centre-committed-to-diversity-churches; high church never-had-a-straight-vicar churches; moderate evangelical churches which care about equality and justice issues – which altogether make up the vast majority of C of E churches – do you really think they share your extremist anti-gay views? Dream on, but please do it quietly elsewhere.
“Ford et al….. sorry, you can pretend all you like that Lambeth 1.10 does not represent “the mind of the Communion” “
When have I ever said that? I’m just amused at the way you think that one part of a much larger document is the only part of it that has the force of law. I am also curious as to how you got the job of speaker for the Communion, as I should like to apply for it once the responsibilities of both that job and Judgement Seat Warmer get too much for you.
Mark – if you were right, Jeffrey John would be bishop of St Albans….
Reality check: even the liberal ABC has held the line on Lambeth 1.10 being the mind of the Communion and has not attempted to challenge or change it.
NP
Do try to keep up. The bishopric of St Albans was not the vacancy in question in 2003…
– he is Dean of St A’s (hence the mistake)
and not Bishop of Reading given there clearly was not enough support in the CofE for Harries and Williams to push that one through.
No NP: he wasn’t made bishop because he was treated shamefully (any other employer would be forbidden by law from discriminating against him on the basis of his sexual orientation, and it is scandalous that the Church is allowed to get away with such low ethical standards). He was treated shamefully because the ConEvos started screaming like kids throwing a tantrum – really, it is time they just grew up and dealt with real people as they are made by God.
Mark – the objection was his public (written) opposition to Lambeth 1.10 (the agreed position of the AC’s bishops)
Hard for a bishop to be a unifying figure in the diocese and to discipline clergy when he rejects certain discipline in public?
Whatever you say, the ABC and Lord Harries did not push through their friend’s appointment….because there was not sufficient support for doing so in the CofE.
Hi Fr Mark- Yes, it is true that this is the way that we are made by God. For example, it is undeniable that one meets gay babies every week. They are born that way. It is equally undeniable that they encounter no influences from environment (as opposed to genetics) between the ages of 0 and (say) 13. And as for the idea that around 13 is (by coincidence) also the time when people often first experiment with, and get addicted to, all kinds of other unpleasant things as well, such as smoking, alcohol, drugs…things that they may end up… Read more »