Updated Friday evening
The American House of Bishops has considered the case of Bishop Duncan of Pittsburgh. ENS reports that House of Bishops votes to depose Pittsburgh bishop for ‘abandoning Communion’:
After nearly two days of prayerful and solemn closed-door sessions, the House of Bishops on September 18 voted by a two to one majority to depose Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh. The vote authorizes Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori to remove Duncan from ordained ministry.
The vote total was 88 to 35 in favor of deposing Duncan, according to Episcopal Church spokeswoman Neva Rae Fox. There were four abstentions…
The Presiding Bishop issued this statement:
The House of Bishops worked carefully and prayerfully to consider the weighty matter of Bishop Duncan. The conversation was holy, acknowledging the pain of our deliberations as well as the gratitude many have felt over the years for their relationships with, and the ministry of, Robert Duncan. The House concluded, however, that his actions over recent months and years constitute “abandonment of the communion of this church” and that he should be deposed. Concern was expressed for the people of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh in the face of leadership which has sought to remove itself from The Episcopal Church. In the days and months ahead, this Church will work to ensure appropriate pastoral care and provision for the members of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, so that mission and ministry in that part of Pennsylvania may continue in the name of Jesus Christ and in the tradition of the Episcopal Church.
The House of Bishops Daily Account Thursday, September 18 contains comments from different sides of the debate.
The Diocese of Pittsburgh has issued a press release, Diocese of Pittsburgh Maintains Course after Purported Deposition, the Standing Committee has issued this statement. Bishop Duncan himself has issued this statement.
The Anglican Communion Network issued Network, Common Cause Leaders offer Support for Bishop Duncan and the Convocation of Anglicans in North America issued TEC’s Unilateral Removal of Bishop Duncan.
Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh issued PEP Hopes Diocese Will Move Forward Gracefully After Duncan Deposition.
Episcopal Café points out that the Standing Committee statement is not unanimous, and has links to various other statements. And more background is here.
Friday evening updates
The Episcopal Café article titled Duncan deposed has been revised in a write-through. The remarks of Bishop Paul Marshall of Bethlehem (Pennsylvania) are particularly noteworthy.
Statements from other bishops can be found at Archbishops offer support to Bishop Duncan, Pittsburgh (Egypt, Sydney, Rwanda, Kenya, West Indies and Southern Cone), at Blogging bishops weigh in on the Duncan deposition and here (Fort Worth) and here (Western Louisiana).
And Stand Firm reports this:
5 Comments“As was resolved by resolution made at the Provincial Synod in Valparaiso last November 2007, we are happy to welcome Bishop Duncan into the Province of the Southern Cone as a member of our House of Bishops, effective immediately. Neither the Presiding Bishop nor the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church has any further jurisdiction over his ministry. We pray for all Anglicans in Pittsburgh as they consider their own relationship with The Episcopal Church in the coming weeks,” said Archbishop Gregory Venables.
Recently, the Anglican Communion Institute published an article written by Mark McCall, a lawyer, entitled Is The Episcopal Church Hierarchical? You can read this article as a PDF file here.
There was an introduction to it on the ACI website titled Constitution And Canons: What Do They Tell Us About TEC?
A Response to Mark McCall’s “Is The Episcopal Church Hierarchical? has now been published by Joan Gunderson, a church historian in Pittsburgh. You can read that article as a PDF file here.
There is an introduction to it published by Progresssive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh and titled Historian Exposes Flaws in Argument That Episcopal Dioceses Are Independent.
6 CommentsUpdated Sunday afternoon
The Bishop of Pittsburgh has issued a pastoral letter today. You can read it in full here.
In a letter to the House of Bishops yesterday, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori made it clear that there will be a vote this coming Thursday on whether to depose me from the ministry of the Episcopal Church. The charge is abandonment of the Communion of the Church, a charge initiated by five priests and sixteen laypeople of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. Much of the “evidence” in the case is put forward by the House of Bishops Property Task Force, drawn directly from the Calvary litigation. We have long suspected that a principal purpose in the Calvary litigation was to have me removed, by whatever means, before the realignment vote. Whatever the purported evidence, I continue to maintain that the House of Bishops “vote” will be a gross violation of the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church…
He then refers to a letter he sent to the House of Bishops on 24 August, and this letter is available as a PDF. This letter is also summarised in a Living Church news article.
Stand Firm has published the letter from the Presiding Bishop to which Bishop Duncan also refers. That letter is here.
And there is also a covering memo and then a lengthy memorandum from the Task Force on Property Disputes. The latter is a PDF file.
Sunday afternoon update
George Conger has reported at Religious Intelligence that there is Legal doubt over Presiding Bishop’s move to depose Duncan. The new issue is summarised thus:
30 CommentsHowever, the rules of the House of Bishops forbid modifying the agenda of a special session after the meeting has been announced, placing her plans in legal and canonical limbo. Whether the bishops will challenge her request is unclear, however, as her past legal missteps in the cases of Bishops John-David Schofield and Williams Cox provoked protests from bishops and dioceses distressed over what they perceived was her abuse of office, but no action followed.
The Episcopal Bishops of the six dioceses in the state of California have issued a joint statement calling for defeat of Proposition Eight, a ballot initiative approved for inclusion in the November 4 election that would amend the state constitution to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
Read the ENS report: California bishops call for defeat of proposition that would ban same-sex marriage which includes the full text of the joint statement. Here is an extract:
The group statement, signed by bishops of the dioceses of Northern California, California, El Camino Real, San Joaquin, Los Angeles and San Diego, said, “We do not believe that marriage of heterosexuals is threatened by same-sex marriage. Rather, the Christian values of monogamy, commitment, love, mutual respect and witness of monogamy are enhanced for all by providing this right to gay and straight alike. Society is strengthened when two people who love each other choose to enter into marriage, engaged in a lifetime of disciplined relationship building that serves as a witness to the importance of love and commitment.”
The bishops acknowledged that the Church is not of one mind on the blessing of same-sex unions, but said they are “adamant that justice demands that same-sex civil marriage continue in our state,” and noted that a resolution passed at the 2006 General Convention opposed any civil initiative that would make same-sex marriage unconstitutional on a state or national level.
The Los Angeles press conference is available online here. The Los Angeles Times report is here.
49 CommentsUpdated yet again Saturday evening
First, Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, said he has requested Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to facilitate a meeting between him, the primate of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, Gregory Venables, U.S. presiding bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, and the primate of Brazil, Mauricio de Andrade, to discuss cross-border interventions.
See the report by Marites Sison in the Anglican Journal Canadian bishops to ponder implications of ‘next steps’ after Lambeth.
The three primates – Archbishop Hiltz, Archbishop de Andrade, and Bishop Jefferts Schori – have repeatedly asked Archbishop Venables to stop meddling in the internal affairs of their provinces. Archbishop Venables has, on his own accord, been providing episcopal oversight to churches that are in serious theological dispute with their respective provinces over the issue of sexuality. Archbishop Williams has said he will do his best to facilitate the request.
There is some more detail on the background, with links, in Canadian primate asks Archbishop of Canterbury to convene interventions meeting from ENS.
Second, the Diocese of Fort Worth issued a Third Report from the Bishop and Standing Committee concerning The Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. There is a note which says:
On Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2008, the Executive Council of the diocese adopted and endorsed – with only one dissenting vote – the following report and recommendation of the Bishop and Standing Committee.
Third, Episcopal News Service reports that Presiding Bishop removes MacBurney’s inhibition after retired bishop apologizes. This is related to confirmations on behalf of the Southern Cone that Bishop MacBurney performed in San Diego.
Thursday evening update
The Toronto Star has Breakaway faction has switched allegiance to S. American bishop which includes this (h/t to the Café):
Archbishop Gregory Venables of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, however, says he would find it “difficult” to attend such a meeting.
“We had been talking about a private meeting, and it rather surprises me that it is now public,” Venables told the Star in an interview from Buenos Aires.
“This makes it even more difficult for me to attend.”
Venables said he would make his formal response about the proposed meeting to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the spiritual leader of the Anglican church, who was asked by Hiltz to organize the meeting.
Friday morning update
I should have included earlier this Open letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates of the Anglican Communion by Bishop Don Harvey
5 September, 2008
After consulting with my Primate, Archbishop Gregory Venables, I report with great sadness that two Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) churches under my jurisdiction – St Matthews (Abbotsford, BC) and St Matthias and St Luke’s (Vancouver, BC) – received letters on 26 August 2008, informing them that the Bishop of New Westminster had taken action on 10 July 2008 to seize control of those parish properties. The letters also notified the wardens, trustees and parish councils that Bishop Michael Ingham had dismissed and replaced them and ordered the clergy to vacate the church buildings by mid-September. It is clear that our other two ANiC parishes in Vancouver, St. John’s Shaughnessy and Church of the Good Shepherd, will receive the same action in the near future…
Saturday evening update
The Living Church has an interview headlined Bishop Venables: Canadian Primate’s Proposal a ‘Publicity Stunt’.
15 Comments“I talked to Fred about this at Lambeth, but it never occurred to me that a private discussion would become public without us both agreeing first,” Bishop Venables told The Living Church. “It looks more like a publicity stunt than a serious desire for dialogue.
“What more is there to discuss? I told him why I was doing this and he told me how he felt about it,” Bishop Venables said. “Boundary crossing is not the primary issue. It is a secondary issue resulting from the communion-splitting action of blessing sexual sin by the U.S. and Canadian churches.”
First, see this earlier report about a legal action in which Calvary Church asked a court to appoint a monitor to “inventory and oversee property held or administered by the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.”.
Today, there was a news report in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Episcopal Diocese prepares for secession vote.
In response to a lawsuit led by one of its parishes, the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh has agreed to have a court-appointed neutral party inventory all of its property and assets as it prepares for a final vote on seceding from the Episcopal Church.
The agreement between representatives of the diocese and Calvary Episcopal Church, Shadyside, came after a hearing yesterday before Joseph M. James, president judge of Common Pleas Court. In 2005, he oversaw a settlement after Calvary sued the diocese to prevent the transfer of property from the denomination to individual parishes…
The diocese will pursue “a fair and equitable distribution of property” if the realignment resolutions pass, said its spokesman, the Rev. Peter Frank.
The diocese also agreed yesterday to permit parishes that oppose secession to divert diocesan support payments to escrow accounts that would remain in the Episcopal Church.
The agreement assumes that new leaders affiliated with the church will be elected for Pittsburgh if Bishop Duncan secedes.
“It is highly likely that Bishop Duncan and the other leadership of the diocese will purport to separate from the Episcopal Church, and it is our position that the court order of Oct. 14, 2005, addresses what will happen in that regard,” said Walter DeForest, attorney for Calvary.
“It is certainly the position of Calvary that the new leadership of the diocese will be in charge of those assets.”
And later in the day, a press release was issued by the Diocese of Pittsburgh: Statement on the Sept. 8 Court Hearing.
24 Comments“On Sept. 8, there was a hearing before Judge James in the Calvary litigation. Calvary took the position that the Realignment vote will violate the 2005 Stipulation and that Calvary was entitled to the appointment of a “monitor” to take over the financial affairs of the Diocese. Calvary first initiated this request in a July 2008 filing. Since July, we have documented with the Court the Diocese’s strong opposition to Calvary’s position, and the fact that Diocese has consistently complied with the Stipulation since it was signed, and will continue to comply with the Stipulation after the Realignment vote. The Diocese always has been, and remains committed to administering Diocesan assets for the beneficial use of all parishes and institutions of the Diocese, regardless of any parish’s position on Realignment.
“The relief Calvary sought — a court-appointed monitor who would effectively run the financial affairs of the Diocese — was not what was done yesterday. To the contrary, we proposed the appointment of an independent third-party (called a “Special Master”), who will have no role regarding the operation of the Diocese. Rather, the Special Master will review all Diocesan financial records and make recommendations to the Court regarding which property is covered by which provisions in the 2005 Stipulation (i.e., what is Diocesan property and what is parish property). The appointment of a Special Master has no impact on whether TEC or its representatives can make any claim to any property. These issues will be addressed at a later date. We have clearly stated our position that the minority who oppose Realignment are not entitled to seize the assets of the Diocese. If necessary, we will vigorously pursue this position in litigation…
Second, this press release GROUP ANNOUNCES PANEL TO ARGUE CASE FOR STAYING WITH EPISCOPAL CHURCH was issued by Across the Aisle. See this earlier report on that group.
One of the speakers on that panel,The Rev. Bruce Robison, Rector, St. Andrew’s, Highland Park, has written this Reflection on San Joaquin and Pittsburgh.
Ann Rogers has written Episcopalians weigh options as secession vote draws near in today’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
As a final vote approaches on whether the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh should secede from the national church, local Episcopalians who want to remain part of the New York-based denomination are meeting to plan for their future.
“A Hopeful Future for the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh: An Alternative Solution” will present reasons for opting to stay in the Episcopal Church.
It will also present what may happen with property, a new diocesan government and other issues if Bishop Robert Duncan and most local Episcopalians change their allegiance to the theologically conservative Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, which covers six nations in southernmost South America…
You can read more about this event here, or read the whole press release here.
More from the newspaper report:
…Across the Aisle has made a deliberate effort to include theologically conservative, moderate and liberal members. Another steering committee member is the Rev. James Simons, rector of St. Michael of the Valley, Ligonier, who was a staunch supporter of Bishop Duncan on all issues except the decision to leave the Episcopal Church.
Although Mr. Simons shares Bishop Duncan’s belief that many Episcopal leaders no longer uphold classic Christian doctrines or sexual ethics, he has said that he does not consider secession a good way to address problems in the church.
“We have reached ‘across the aisle’ in peace to those who are committed to Jesus Christ but who have different interpretations of scripture and events and who wish to remain part of one church,” Mr. Simons said.
Peter Frank, a spokesman for the Diocese of Pittsburgh, said that “people are free to meet to discuss their future … If they wish to no longer be part of the diocese [after a vote to realign], we will do our best to make that as painless and charitable as possible.”
More background information here.
Update Even more background information is at Episcopal Life Online here.
3 CommentsThe Bishop of Washington has some critical comments: The Lambeth Conference: The turning point that wasn’t.
The bishops of the Diocese of Dallas liked it a lot: Lambeth: Interview with the bishops.
The Presiding Bishop listened: Hearing the call.
1 CommentReaders will recall this item.
Several contributors to Covenant-Communion have written an open letter, which you can read at A Word in Time: An Open Letter to the Anglican Communion Also available as a PDF here.
It starts out:
28 CommentsWe the undersigned contributors to www.Covenant‐Communion.com believe that “a word in time” is now needed in order to assist the Communion to move forward in a constructive manner following the Lambeth Conference. We would like to speak such a word by specifically addressing the points Bishop Bob Duncan raises in his email to Bishop Gary Lillibridge, which has now been made public with Bp. Duncan’s permission…
Bishop Pierre Whalon, who is Bishop in Charge, Convocation of American Churches in Europe has written On polygamy, homosexuality, and generosity.
34 CommentsUpdated Wednesday evening
The authenticity of this email has now been confirmed and the original recipient identified as Bishop Gary Lillibridge of the Diocese of West Texas. See Bishop Duncan Shares Concerns on Windsor Continuation Group.
The following email has now appeared on several blogs.
39 CommentsFrom: Duncan, Bob [mailto:Duncan@pitanglican.org]
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 12:35 PM
To:*********
Subject: Windsor Continuation Group ConcernsDear *******,
It was very good to be with you at Lambeth. I especially appreciated the time we spent together looking at the relationship between the Common Cause Partners and the Communion Partners, as well as considering issues that are before the WCG.
I thought that you might appreciate hearing from me about concerns the approach of the WCG has caused for me and for all the Common Cause Partners.
The WCG proposes “cessation of all cross-border interventions and inter-provincial claims of jurisdiction.” There are at least four serious problems with the thinking surrounding the work of the Windsor Continuation Group in this regard.
The first difficulty is the moral equivalence implied between the three moratoria, a notion specifically rejected in the original Windsor Report and at Dromantine.
The second is the notion that, even if the moratoria are held to be equally necessary, there would be some way to “freeze” the situation as it now stands for those of us in the process of separating from The Episcopal Church. The three dioceses of Pittsburgh, Quincy and Fort Worth have taken first constitutional votes on separation with second votes just weeks away. We all anticipate coming under Southern Cone this fall, thus to join San Joaquin. This process cannot be stopped — constitutions require an automatic second vote, and to recommend against passage without guarantees from the other side would be suicidal.
The third reality is that those already separated parishes and missionary jurisdictions under Rwanda, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and Southern Cone (including Recife) will never consent to the “holding tank” whose stated purpose is eventual “reconciliation” with TEC or thevAnglican Church of Canada. (It was obvious to all at Lambeth that the majorities in the US and Canada have no intention of reversing direction.)
The fourth matter is that the legal proceedings brought by TEC and ACC against many of us have been nowhere suspended by these aggressor provinces, with no willingness to mediate or negotiate though we have proposed it repeatedly, not least since Dar es Salaam.
For your information, I have written to John Chew and Donald Mtetemela in a similar way. I have also written to the Global South Primates who signed the open letter dated 3 August.
I hope this finds you well. As I pledged when we saw each other, I will do what I can to keep you informed of thinking among the Common Cause Partners, and will do what I can to see that any solutions imagined include both the Communion Partners (on the inside) and the Common Cause Partners (most of whom are on the outside of TEC, or on their way out.)
Blessings to you and yours,
+Bob
Katie Sherrod reports this message was issued yesterday evening:
Sent: Saturday, August 16, 2008 9:42 PM
Cc: Bishop Iker
Subject: Ad Clerum: StatementTo the clergy,
The following statement has been released jointly by Canon Charles Hough, Fr. William Crary, Fr. Christopher Stainbrook, and Fr. Louis Tobola in reference to the document released earlier this week concerning a June meeting between them and Bishop Kevin Vann.
Bishop Iker and the Standing Committee have asked that it be conveyed to you via Ad Clerum. It will be sent to all convention delegates and alternates as well.
Suzanne Gill
+++++
From: Fathers Crary, Hough, Stainbrook, and Tobola
Date: August 16, 2008
To: The Clergy and People of the DioceseWe wish to emphasize:
1. That the documents and our conversation with Bishop Vann solely ever represented the four priests named.
2. In retrospect, we regret our choice of timing for starting these conversations.
3. We deeply regret the phraseology of the document which has caused hurt and division.
4. We remain fully committed to the goal of this Diocese, as plainly stated by Bishop Iker, to realign with an Orthodox Anglican Province.Respectfully submitted,
The Very Rev. William A Crary, Jr.
The Rev. Canon Charles A. Hough, III
The Very Rev. Christopher C. Stainbrook
The Rev. Louis L. Tobola, Jr.
To see the earlier document mentioned, go here.
And there is another interesting document on the Fort Worth website, titled FAQs on “Fiduciary Duty”.
15 CommentsBack in January, we reported on a letter published by a group of Pittsburgh clergy not associated with “Progressive Episcopalians…” who were not prepared to support the diocesan plan for “realignment”. See Pittsburgh: disagreement in the ranks.
Now one of that same group has published a Narrative Regarding the Signing of the January 29th Statement by 12 Clergy of the Diocese of Pittsburgh which contains a detailed history of how that statement came to be made.
Earlier there was The Case For Staying in the Episcopal Church.
More background on this is at Preludium where Mark Harris has written In Pittsburgh there are preparations for a storm.
There is also a further stage in the legal dispute between the diocese and Calvary Church, see this ENS report from last month, PITTSBURGH: Parish wants court-appointed monitor to oversee possession, use of diocesan property.
0 CommentsUpdated Thursday evening to add link to ENS article
According to Episcopal Café:
The Standing Committee of the Diocese of Quincy is studying the question, “Shall the Diocese of Quincy separate from the Episcopal Church?”
It has distributed a 35-page document, “The Church in Crisis: A Resource for the Diocese of Quincy,” to every member household in the diocese. The standing committee says it contains “reliable information on the current situation.”
The document is a 2.3 Mbyte PDF file and can be found via this page (follow Download link to extract the PDF itself).
Episcopal Café has more analysis of the content of the document at Quincy studies separation.
Quincy, with an Average Sunday Attendance of 1105 in 2006, is not the smallest diocese in The Episcopal Church.
The Diocese of Springfield is next door to Quincy and has an Average Sunday Attendance of about 2400.
Detailed ten year statistics for all dioceses are available in a PDF here.
Update Wednesday evening
There are reports about this in the Living Church Quincy Delegates will Consider Separation in November and also Quincy, Springfield Plan Joint Meeting.
Update Thursday evening
Episcopal News Service has a long article, QUINCY: Diocese offers ‘resource’ for making realignment decisions by Joe Bjordal and Mary Frances Schjonberg
24 Comments…In a cover letter, the diocesan Standing Committee said that the 35-page document resulted from requests following a meeting last May attended by “all priests with a parish, mission or cure” and all elected officials of the diocese, clergy or lay. The reported purpose of the meeting was to begin “a discernment exercise where self-selected groups were asked to discern the following question: ‘Shall the Diocese of Quincy separate from the Episcopal Church? If so, why and how? If not, then why not?’”
Called “The Church in Crisis: A Resource for the Diocese of Quincy,” the document was included in a mailing sent to households on the mailing list of The Harvest Plain, the diocesan newspaper.
Also included in the mailing was a video recording of a presentation by Archbishop Gregory Venables, primate of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, to the Diocese of Forth Worth in March…
Updated again Wednesday morning
The Dallas Morning News has this report: Episcopal priests from Fort Worth may be looking at Catholicism.
A delegation of Episcopal priests from Fort Worth paid a visit to Catholic Bishop Kevin Vann earlier this summer, asking for guidance on how their highly conservative diocese might come into “full communion” with the Catholic Church.
Whether that portends a serious move to turn Fort Worth Episcopalians and their churches into Catholics and Catholic churches is a matter of dispute.
The Rev. William Crary, senior rector of the Fort Worth diocese, confirmed that on June 16 he and three other priests met with Bishop Vann, leader of the Fort Worth Catholic diocese, and presented him a document that is highly critical of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.
The document states that the overwhelming majority of Episcopal clergy in the Fort Worth diocese favor pursuing an “active plan” to bring the diocese into full communion with the Catholic Church…
The document was published yesterday by Katie Sherrod and can be found in full at So. How do you feel about being Roman Catholic?
Update Tuesday evening
Bishop Jack Iker has issued a statement, headed A Statement by Bishop Iker on Roman Catholic Dialogues. It reads, in part:
…The priests who participated in this meeting with Bishop Vann have my trust and pastoral support. However, in their written and verbal reports, they have spoken only on their own behalf and out of their own concerns and perspective. They have not claimed to act or speak, nor have they been authorized to do so, either on behalf of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth or on my own behalf as their Bishop.
Their discussion with Bishop Vann has no bearing upon matters coming before our Diocesan Convention in November, where a second vote will be taken on constitutional changes concerning our relationship with the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. There is no proposal under consideration, either publicly or privately, for the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth to become part of the Roman Catholic Church. Our only plan of action remains as it has been for the past year, as affirmed by our Diocesan Convention in November 2007. The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth intends to realign with an orthodox Province as a constituent member of the worldwide Anglican Communion…
Wednesday morning update
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has Episcopal priests propose aligning Fort Worth diocese with Catholic church.
46 CommentsKatie Sherrod has written on her own blog, That Wild Uncontrollable Force.
Watching Lambeth unfold was like watching one of those foreground/background optical illusions where, as you stare at the picture, either the profile of a beautiful young woman moves to the foreground or the image of an old woman moves forward while the young woman’s image disappears. It is almost impossible to see them both at the same time.
Lambeth was the same-there were two Lambeths occurring simultaneously, one out in front, the other in the background.
The Lambeth of the Indaba and Bible Study groups was the one in the foreground most of the time. But at key points, the Lambeth of the Windsor Continuation Group [WCG] and the group writing the Reflections documents moved out of the background into sight…
Jim Naughton has written at Comment is free The archbishop’s hands are tied, not ours.
52 CommentsThe politics of the church make Rowan Williams act against his beliefs on gay marriage. We don’t have to do the same.
Extensive research has proven that I am not the Archbishop of Canterbury. Neither, in all likelihood, are you. These facts, in hand for some time now, acquired new significance yesterday with the revelation that Rowan Williams, who is the Archbishop of Canterbury, believes, what a great many Anglicans believe, namely: “that an active sexual relationship between two people of the same sex might … reflect the love of God in a way comparable to marriage, if and only if it had about it the same character of absolute covenanted faithfulness.”
I linked last week to three reports in London newspapers about what Bishop Cathy Roskam was alleged to have said about husbands beating their wives.
These reports all referred to the Lambeth Witness as the source of the quotes, rather than to any Episcopal Church news briefing.
The relevant issue of the Witness is available as a PDF here.
Bishop Roskam’s own response to the press reports can be found on her blog (scroll down to item 9) and is reproduced in full below the fold here (emphasis added).
14 CommentsPreaching to the converted
Gene Robinson is the Anglican church’s only openly gay bishop. He was denied an invitation to this week’s Lambeth conference but came anyway and on Sunday gave a dramatic sermon in London disrupted by heckling. What’s all the fuss about? Stephen Bates explains, while political sketch-writer Simon Hoggart, theatre critic Lyn Gardner and gay atheist Gareth McLean review the bishop’s performance.
Giles Fraser made his own comments earlier, in Here’s to you, Mr Robinson.
23 CommentsChristopher Landau of the BBC has a report Sexuality stance ‘embarrasses’ Anglicans.
Episcopal News Service has this report by Matthew Davies of her Sunday activities in Salisbury, Salisbury diocese welcomes Presiding Bishop, Sudanese bishops for pre-Lambeth hospitality initiative.
7 CommentsJim Naughton has published some further reflections on the event, at Live: the sermon, the protester, the press, etc. Part II.
He also corrects some misinformation elsewhere, viz:
1. It is true that many people in the Episcopal Church would like to get us out from under Resolution B033, the legislation passed on the last day of our 2006 General Convention which calls upon “Standing Committees and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.” This isn’t a secret. Numerous dioceses have already submitted resolutions to next year’s General Convention asking that the legislation be repealed, or superseded. If this legislation passes (a big if—I am not sure there are enough votes in the House of Bishops to get the job done) a gay candidate would have a better chance of being elected and confirmed. The notion that if the legislation passed we’d immediately elect another gay bishop is speculative. The notion that we’d suddenly have five or six is hallucinatory. At this point, it is not even possible to know for which dioceses will be electing bishops, which priests would be chosen as candidates, or how the internal dynamics of the dioceses would affect the elections. (I have gone on about this at some length because I have had calls from three reporters about this story this morning.)
2. Integrity has not provided cell phones for all of the Episcopal bishops attending the Lambeth Conference—or even for those sympathetic to its agenda. The Episcopal Church has provided cell phones for all its bishops—and their spouses, too, I believe.
Those who are not yet satiated with information about last night can find even more material here:
Full video of the sermon is here.
The Bishop of New Hampshire’s own blog is here.
2 Comments