Continued from here.
Simple Massing Priest has The end of authentic Anglicanism.
Colin Coward has What the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Secretary General should really be doing.
An earlier news report published by ENS by Neale Adams CANADA: Hiltz supports Episcopal Church, echoes objections to proposed sanctions
Associated Press Anglicans cut Episcopalians from ecumenical bodies
Religion News Service Episcopalians Booted from Anglican Bodies Over Gay Bishops
Anglican Journal Facing the consequences: Anglican Communion takes action against The Episcopal Church (previously linked in our Canadian synod coverage)
3 CommentsENS has a report on what the Presiding Bishop said to the Canadian General Synod.
See Marites N. Sison Presiding bishop describes Canterbury’s sanctions as ‘unfortunate’
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has described the decision by Lambeth Palace to remove Episcopalians serving on international ecumenical dialogues as “unfortunate … It misrepresents who the Anglican Communion is…”
Update
A partial transcript of the press conference is available at the Anglican Essentials website, see Press conference with TEC Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts-Schori. Some excerpts:
Q: On the sanction imposed by the ABC on TEC for the ecumenism committee, the argument was that because of what has happened TEC doesn’t represent the faith and order of the communion. Is that fair? Secondly, how is it going to effect the work of TEC since you have a very strong interest in ecumenism?
KJS: Certainly our bilateral conversations will continue. I think it’s very unfortunate because it misrepresents who the Anglican communion is: we have a variety of opinions on these issues of human sexuality. People act as though one resolution from the 1998 Lambeth conference decided this for all time. If you look at the history of the Lambeth conference, they have gone back and forth: one in the 20s said that contraception was inappropriate and the next one said, yes it was appropriate and by the time you got 2 or 3 further down the road, it was the duty of families to plan. So our understanding about ethical issues evolves as it needs to, because our context evolves. For the Anglican communion to say to the Methodists or the Lutherans that we only have one position is inaccurate. We have a variety of understandings and, no we don’t have consensus on the hot-button issues of the moment.
and
4 CommentsQ: Has the ABC responded adequately to cross border interventions?
KJS: I don’t think he understands how difficult, painful and destructive it’s been, both in the ACoC and TEC. When bishops come from overseas and say, well, we’ll take care of you, you don’t have to pay attention to your bishop, it destroys pastoral relationships. It’s like an affair in a marriage: it destroys trust and I believe it does spiritual violence to vowed relationships. It is a very ancient teaching of the church that a bishop is supposed to stay home and tend to the flock to which he was originally assigned.
Q: you mentioned in your Pentecost letter – from the duelling Pentecost letters – “we note the troubling push towards centralised authority “ in response to Rowan Williams. Is not the resistance to cross-border interventions a similar push towards central authority on a smaller scale?
KJS: The resistance to cross-border interventions is for the reasons I’ve pointed out: it destroys pastoral relationships. It prevents any possibility of reconciliation; it prevents growth in understanding among people who disagree. The idea that one person in one location in the world can adequately understand contexts across the globe and decide policy across the globe, I think contravenes traditional Anglican understanding of local worship in a language understood by the people. This is what we were arguing about 500 years ago.
Doug LeBlanc has reported at the Living Church that the Letter Affects Five Episcopal Leaders.
Earlier he had written Archbishop’s Letter Could Affect 30 Leaders.
The Living Church also published an editorial, An Invitation to Grow Up.
At Episcopal Café John Chilton wrote Disinvitations raise constitutional questions.
Also Jim Naughton wrote The incredible shrinking Archbishop of Canterbury.
Mark Harris wrote What makes The Episcopal Church so “Special” in the Archbishop’s eyes?
Adrian Worsfold at Pluralist Speaks has written Someone Should Remove Williams.
And he also published Rounding Up: The Opposition Grows.
2 CommentsENS reports: Episcopalians removed from Anglican Communion’s ecumenical dialogues
Jan Butter, communications director for the Anglican Communion, confirmed that the membership change applies to all ecumenical dialogues.
Butter told ENS that the Anglican Communion’s secretary general, in consultation with the archbishop of Canterbury, appoints members to the ecumenical commissions and to IASCUFO. “He therefore can ask people to stand down,” he said.
Episcopal Church members who were serving on the Anglican-Orthodox Theological Dialogue are the Rev. Thomas Ferguson, the Episcopal Church’s interim deputy for ecumenical and interreligious relations, and Assistant Bishop William Gregg of North Carolina.
Bishop C. Franklin Brookhart of Montana had been a member of the Anglican-Methodist International Commission for Unity in Mission and the Very Rev. William H. Petersen, professor of ecclesiastical and ecumenical history of Bexley Hall, Columbus, was serving on the Anglican-Lutheran International Commission.
The Rev. Katherine Grieb, an Episcopal priest and professor of New Testament at Virginia Theological Seminary, was the IASCUFO member who has been invited to serve as a consultant.
Kearon said he has also written to Archbishop Fred Hiltz of the Anglican Church of Canada “to ask whether its General Synod or House of Bishops has formally adopted policies that breach the second moratorium in the Windsor Report, authorizing public rites of same-sex blessing,” and to Archbishop Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone, “asking him for clarification as to the current state of his interventions into other provinces.”
Some dioceses in the Canadian church have made provisions for blessing same-gender unions and Venables has offered oversight to conservative members of parishes and dioceses breaking away from the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.
No mention was made in Kearon’s letter of ecumenical commission members from other provinces — such as Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda – that are currently involved in cross-border interventions in the United States.
Another document which surfaced today is a set of talking points from the Office of Public Affairs of the Episcopal Church. There is a copy of this, with some additional notes, at Episcopal Café.
There is now an official website copy over here.
Updated Friday evening
Here are three:
Another version of this article is at Huffington Post The Real Reason for the Anglican-Episcopal Divide
Other news reports:
Religion News Service Daniel Burke Episcopal Head Lashes Out at Anglican ‘Colonial’ Uniformity
Reuters Tom Heneghan Church rejects Anglican pressure over gay rights and earlier Avril Ormsby Latest Anglican peace bid meets with skepticism
Friday evening update
Here’s a fourth analysis:
Living Church and Covenant Ephraim Radner Actions Now Have Consequences
11 Comments[Episcopal News Service] Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has issued a pastoral letter to the Episcopal Church, in which she refers to the Pentecost letter from Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and urges continued dialogue with those who disagree with recent actions “for we believe that the Spirit is always calling us to greater understanding.”
The full text of the letter is below the fold. It also deals with the proposed Anglican Covenant. The covering press release continues:
In his May 28 letter, Williams acknowledged the tensions caused in some parts of the Anglican Communion by the consecration of Los Angeles Bishop Suffragan Mary Douglas Glasspool and the ongoing unauthorized incursions by Anglican leaders into other provinces. Glasspool is the Episcopal Church’s second openly gay, partnered bishop.
Jefferts Schori acknowledged in her letter that “the Spirit does seem to be saying to many within the Episcopal Church that gay and lesbian persons are God’s good creation, that an aspect of good creation is the possibility of lifelong, faithful partnership, and that such persons may indeed be good and healthy exemplars of gifted leadership within the Church, as baptized leaders and ordained ones. The Spirit also seems to be saying the same thing in other parts of the Anglican Communion, and among some of our Christian partners, including Lutheran churches in North America and Europe, the Old Catholic churches of Europe, and a number of others.
“That growing awareness does not deny the reality that many Anglicans and not a few Episcopalians still fervently hold traditional views about human sexuality. This Episcopal Church is a broad and inclusive enough tent to hold that variety.”
Note: the error discussed in the comments below has now been corrected in the original ENS published copy, and therefore this copy has been conformed accordingly.
145 CommentsBishop Marc Andrus of California has written A response to Archbishop Rowan’s Pentecost letter.
Here is an extract:
40 Comments…When an Empire and its exponents can no longer exercise control by might, an option is to feint, double-talk, and manipulate. Such tactics have been in the fore with Archbishop Rowan since the confirmation of Gene Robinson as the Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003. The deployment of the Windsor Report and the manipulation of the Lambeth Conference, as cited above, are prime examples. The archbishop’s Pentecost letter is the most recent example.
In the Pentecost letter, it looks like he is disciplining errant provinces of the Communion, while only a little concentration shows that the underlying goal is to assert his power to be the disciplinarian. Archbishop Rowan is intent on a covenant with punitive measures built in. The bishops of the Communion expressed their distaste for a punitive covenant, and so the archbishop has stepped up to be himself the judging authority he has been unable to build into a covenant.
Other examples in the Pentecost letter:
- All three moratoria are supposedly to be attended to, but the packaging of the letter on the Anglican Communion website makes it clear that it is Mary Glasspool’s consecration that has galvanized the archbishop into action.
- The archbishop says that primates of disciplined provinces are free to meet together. Surely these primates do not need the archbishop’s permission to meet together. This is another example of promoting the illusion of the archbishop’s power.
- By taking offending provinces out of the conversation with ecumenical partners, the archbishop subtly implies that such conversation is dangerous and contaminating, exactly as was done with Bishop Robinson and LGBT voices in general at the Lambeth Conference…
Jim Naughton has written an article at Episcopal Café titled The self-trivializing Anglican Communion.
…About halfway through weighing some of the issues that I’ve written about here before, I had a sudden realization: reflecting on Rowan Williams’ letter wasn’t a worthwhile use of my time; writing it was not a worthwhile use of his. The issues at stake have become so trivial — We are not debating right and wrong, we are debating whether there should be trifling penalties for giving offense to other members of the Communion.—that to engage them at all compromises our moral standing and diminishes our ability to speak credibly on issues of real importance.
This isn’t to say that we don’t have to make a decision about whether to accede to the archbishop’s proposal — and I suppose I think that we shouldn’t because it would only encourage him to make other such requests — just that whether we accede or not make very little difference to the world, to the Communion, to our ecumenical partners, to our church, or even to a Communion news junky like me.
Which is why I was of no use to the reporters I spoke to on Friday afternoon; because, God bless them, they had to write stories based on the mistaken notion that all of this stuff still matters, and increasingly, it does not. In attempting to ram through a covenant that marginalizes the laity and centralizes authority in fewer hands, Rowan Williams has unwittingly made it clear that the governance of the Communion is as nothing compared to the relationships within the Communion, and the relationships are beyond his control.
Last week, Jim also wrote a piece endorsing last week’s Observer article criticising Anglican silence on gay persecution in Africa, see Complicity is too mild a word.
29 CommentsAs Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams has not only been complicit in the persecution of gay and lesbian Africans, he has actively abetted the cause of the Anglican Communion’s most virulently bigoted prelates, and twisted the Communion’s moral calculus beyond recognition…
…Williams’ silence on these issues would be less troubling had he not so frequently and publicly criticized the Episcopal Church for treating gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgendered Christians as full members of the Church. He used an invitation to the Church’s General Convention last summer to urge worshipers — during a sermon — not to pass legislation making it more likely that a gay or lesbian candidate would be elected to the episcopacy. When then-Canon Mary Glasspool, a lesbian, received sufficient consents to be consecrated as suffragan bishop of Los Angeles, Williams expressed his displeasure in a press release emailed far and wide at the crack of dawn (in stark contrast to his tepid criticism of the Ugandan legislation). And he continues to warn about the “consequences” that the Episcopal Church will face for Glasspool’s consecration.
Williams’ behavior suggests that there is only one sin for which an Anglican leader can earn public condemnation, and only one act that merits exclusion from the councils of the Communion: repenting of the Church’s age old homophobia. Calling him complicit in the persecutions of LGBT people in African suggests that he acquiesced in the creation of a climate of intolerance within the Anglican Communion. But in reality, he is one of its architects.
As there are a number of people, even bishops, who have expressed criticism of this event, it may be helpful to link to the Order of Service that was followed.
It is in a PDF file, available here.
Direct links to the video recordings are also available from this page.
54 CommentsDoug LeBlanc wrote in the Living Church Lambeth Silent after Glasspool Consecration.
Tobias Haller wrote about The Pluperfect Mindset.
Savi Hensman wrote at Cif belief Mary Glasspool is ordained.
Jim Naughton asked at Episcopal Café What if we are asked to dis-invite ourselves again?
31 Commentsupdated again Monday morning
Diane Jardine Bruce and Mary Douglas Glasspool were consecrated bishops suffragan of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles yesterday.
Pat McCaughan reports this for Episcopal Life Online: Diane Bruce, Mary Glasspool consecrated bishops in joyous celebration in Los Angeles diocese.
Here are other reports, some reporting on the service and others previewing it.
Mitchell Landsberg in the Los Angeles Times L.A. region’s first two female Episcopal bishops are ordained
Arthur Hirsch in The Baltimore Sun Beyond the label
Gay Episcopal bishop-elect prepares for historic move to Los Angeles
Reuters U.S. Episcopal Church consecrates lesbian bishop
CNN Episcopal Church consecrates first openly lesbian bishop
Associated Press Episcopal church ordains its 2nd openly gay bishop
BBC US Church ordains lesbian bishop Mary Glasspool
Martin Beckford in the Telegraph First lesbian bishop to be consecrated by Anglican church in America
Jonathan Wynne-Jones comments in the Telegraph that Lesbian bishop proves that liberals have won the battle over gay clergy.
Updates
Giles Whittell and Ruth Gledhill in the Times Anglican rift deepens over Episcopalian ordination of lesbian bishop
Ruth Gledhill also has a Commentary article, For the sake of God, Anglican Church must put aside its differences.
13 CommentsThe previous report here was in late January.
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports that Anglicans hear legal fight details in Monroeville meetings.
And, direct from the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh:
7 CommentsParishes and Diocese Meet to Discuss Litigation
Leaders from all 55 parishes in the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh met with diocesan leaders to worship and discuss the current status of the litigation with The Episcopal Church. Archbishop Duncan read a prepared statement, which addressed financial concerns, timelines, and the way forward in mission. Bob Devlin, chancellor for the diocese, and members of the standing committee responded to questions and concerns from parish leaders. Parish leaders were also given various resources to guide them in moving forward with their mission.
To view Archbishop Duncan’s statement, click here. [PDF]
To view a Frequently Asked Questions sheet from this meeting, click here. [PDF]
The Fulcrum Leadership Team has published Where do we go from here? in response to the consents to the election of Mary Glasspool as bishop suffragan in the diocese of Los Angeles.
In response Matthew Davies at Episcopal Life has published ENGLAND: Conservative group denounces consent to Glasspool’s election in Los Angeles.
14 Commentsupdated Maundy Thursday
The US Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops has published a draft of the 95-page report titled “Same-Sex Relationships in the Life of the Church”. This is really two reports, one from the “Traditionalists” and one from the “Liberals”.
Episcopal Life has this story: Bishops’ theology committee publishes draft report on same-gender relationships which includes useful information of the report’s status. It starts:
The Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops, concluding its six-day retreat meeting at Camp Allen in Navasota, Texas, has posted a draft of the long-awaited 95-page report titled “Same-Sex Relationships in the Life of the Church” on the College for Bishops’ website here.
“For a generation and more the Episcopal Church and the wider Anglican Communion have been engaged in a challenging conversation about sexual ethics, especially regarding same-sex relationships in the life of the church,” Theology Committee Chair and Alabama Bishop Henry Parsley wrote in the report’s preface. “The hope of this work is that serious engagement in theological reflection across differences will build new bridges of understanding.”
A notation on the report’s table of contents page cautions that the report “has been edited in several places” following a discussion among the bishops on March 20. “The responses of several pan-Anglican and ecumenical theologians will be added to this study in the summer, along with some further editing, before a final edition is published,” the note concludes.
Episcopal Café reports this as House of Bishops posts same-sex report(s).
update
Bill Bowder reports this in the Church Times as US theologians have words over gay marriage.
44 CommentsUpdated Saturday morning and Monday morning
Both suffragan bishops recently elected in Los Angeles have now completed the process of church-wide consents.
Los Angeles diocesan announcement: Episcopal church consents to Glasspool’s ordination
Los Angeles Bishop-elect Mary Douglas Glasspool has received the required number of consents from diocesan standing committees and bishops with jurisdiction to her ordination and consecration as a bishop, according to a March 17 statement from Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s office.
Statements from the Los Angeles bishops-elect: Consent process complete for Bishop-elect Mary Glasspool
ENS report: Los Angeles Bishop-elect Glasspool receives church’s consent to ordination
Some initial press reports:
Los Angeles Times Episcopal Church approves ordination of openly gay bishop in Los Angeles
Associated Press Episcopal church approves 2nd gay bishop
New York Times Episcopalians Confirm a Second Gay Bishop
Update
Living Church Lambeth Regrets Consents for Canon Glasspool
…This is the full statement from Lambeth Palace:
It is regrettable that the appeals from Anglican Communion bodies for continuing gracious restraint have not been heeded. Following the Los Angeles election in December the archbishop made clear that the outcome of the consent process would have important implications for the communion. The Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion reiterated these concerns in its December resolution which called for the existing moratoria to be upheld. Further consultation will now take place about the implications and consequences of this decision.
Living Church Communion Partners on Bishop-elect Glasspool
Fulcrum Fulcrum Response to Consents being given to the Consecration of Mary Glasspool
Further update
31 CommentsFrom Los Angeles, we learn that Mary Glasspool has now received the required number of consents from standing committees of TEC dioceses. Consents from the bishops with jurisdiction are still awaited. See Los Angeles diocesan report here, and ENS report over here.
From South Carolina, there is news of resolutions to be considered at the 26 March diocesan convention. See the full text of these resolutions (also available as a PDF). ENS has a report titled Convention to consider resolutions on Episcopal identity, diocesan authority.
Hearings are due soon in lawsuits in both Fort Worth and Virginia:
The District of Columbia in the USA recently became the sixth jurisdiction in the USA to enact a change to its civil marriage laws, to permit same-sex couples to get married. The five others are New Hampshire, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts and Vermont.
The law went into effect this week, after the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court declined to order a delay.
The Bishop of Washington, John Chane issued this press release and these guidelines (PDF) for clergy. (The Diocese of Washington includes the District of Columbia and several counties of Maryland.)
Episcopal Bishop: Priests may preside at civil marriages in D. C.
Episcopal priests in the Diocese of Washington may preside at civil same-sex marriages in the District of Columbia under guidelines released today by Bishop John Bryson Chane. No priest is required to preside at such ceremonies.
“Through the grace of Holy Baptism, there are no second class members of the Body of Christ, “ Chane said. “We are of equal value in the eyes of God, and any one of us may be called by the Holy Spirit into holy relationships as well as Holy Orders.”
At its General Convention in July, the Episcopal Church granted bishops with jurisdiction where civil same-sex marriage is legal the discretion to “provide generous pastoral responses to meet the needs of members of this church.” Chane joins bishops in Iowa, Vermont and Massachusetts in permitting clergy to preside at civil same-sex marriages. Diocesan clergy in Washington have long been permitted to offer liturgical blessings to same-sex couples.
Chane’s guidelines do not specify what rites clergy may use when officiating at a civil marriage. “I would prefer to work that out in consultation with the clergy who will be performing these services,” he said…
For more background, see the ENS report by Mary Frances Schjonberg WASHINGTON: Priests may preside at civil marriages in D.C.
From a press release by the Los Angeles diocese:
The U.S. Supreme Court today announced that it has denied a petition to hear an appeal from a breakaway congregation seeking claim to the property of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church of La Crescenta, California. The court posted its action, together with dozens of other petitions denied, on its web site.
Meeting in conference on Feb. 26, the high court declined to hear the petition filed by St. Luke’s Anglican Church of La Crescenta, whose members voted in 2006 to disaffiliate from the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Los Angeles.
Go here to read a statement by the Bishop of Los Angeles.
ENS report: LOS ANGELES: U.S. Supreme Court won’t hear La Crescenta petition on property case
12 CommentsThe Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) website has published the text of some reports by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) concerning recent activities of Archbishop Peter Akinola.
See Law suits against traditional Anglicans demonic, says Akinola.
The full text of this is copied below the fold.
Scroll down even further for the full text of a second article titled Battle against unscriptural practices not over, says Akinola. Also copied.
So far, I have not been able to locate either of these reports at the website of NAN.
(h/t to Episcopal Café)
25 CommentsAudio recording of the whole debate
Text of lay Synod member Lorna Ashworth’s speech proposing her motion
anglican.tv video coverage:
Press conference held on Tuesday
Lorna Ashworth’s opening speech
Text of speech by Archdeacon Norman Russell
Text of speech by the Bishop of Winchester
Transcript of the Tuesday lunchtime presentations to synod members (press were not admitted to this event)
Reflections on Synod vote for C of E to be in Communion with the ACNA by Bishop Henry Scriven (written before the debate)
An article by A. S. Haley criticising the paper that I edited about ACNA: A Vestry Member Returns the Favor
A criticism written by Marc Robertson (no relation) of the paper by Canon Chuck Robertson.
Colin Coward The Future of the Anglican Communion – a Big Question and After a week of Big Questions – the Communion still survives
11 Comments