Like the former Presiding Bishop, Frank Griswold, Bruno also blames the Internet in part for the divisions in the Episcopal Church. At Mrs. Schori's consecration, he said: "The sad fact is that the Internet primarily 'jacks' people up, gets them upset." It hasn't occurred to him that it is precisely the Internet (read VOL) that won't, any longer, allow him to get away with lies, spin and false teachings.

Bruno said he saw, as a setback, the General Convention's late adoption of Resolution B033, which urged the church to forefend the possibility of further gay bishops. He intended to do what he could to remedy this. His diocesan convention later rejected B033 as a violation of TEC anti-discrimination canons.

Bruno, an ex-LA cop, former professional football player and General Convention bouncer for his previous boss, has already worked over four clergy from two congregations, - St. James' Church in Newport Beach and All Saints Church in Long Beach, by repeatedly suing them for their properties. He lost in state courts. All these priests announced they had had enough of The Episcopal Church's theological and moral innovations. They bade the bishop, the diocese and the Episcopal Church farewell. They then came under the Diocese of Luweero in the Anglican Province of Uganda and became accountable to the Primate of the Province of Uganda, Henry Luke Orombi.

On hearing the news the bishop went ballistic. The ecclesiastical outrage ran for more than a 1,000 words, with the bishop invoking the weight of his office, the canons and constitutions, as well as the primacy of Frank Griswold and his office. His outrage included dashing off a letter to the Archbishop of Uganda and the Archbishop of Canterbury, no less, asking for the latter's intervention!

At the same time, the Los Angeles Bishop said he wanted to remain a full member of the Anglican Communion. He also said he would like to see the Archbishop of Canterbury take a firmer stand toward those he believes are trying to destroy The Episcopal Church.

"It's time for [Archbishop Rowan Williams] to stop being Chamberlain and start acting like Churchill," Bruno roared during a ministry fair in his diocese on March 24.

In an interview, Bishop Bruno said he told Archbishop Williams the same thing at a meeting of the Compass Rose Society last October, according to a report in The Living Church.

"[I would] like to see the ABC take a firmer stand toward those he believes are trying to destroy [TEC]", he says. Many orthodox Episcopalians believe that it is he and his ilk who are destroying the Episcopal Church.

Bruno then weighed in by saying what an insult and outrage it was that Dr. Williams had invited Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, ACN moderator; Bishop Bruce MacPherson of Western Louisiana;, and Christopher Epting, Bishop for Ecumenical Relations for the Episcopal Church; to attend the Primates meeting when ONLY Mrs. Schori should be there to represent the Episcopal Church.

"Mrs. Schori should not have to listen to competitive voices like those of Duncan from within her own province," he roared.

Bruno has a history of threats and personal attacks. In September. 2004, he threatened to file formal charges against the Rt. Rev. Maurice Benitez, the retired bishop of Texas, for ministering to two of three breakaway parishes in the Los Angeles Episcopal Diocese without his permission. Later he said he would not immediately file the ecclesiastical charges. After a closed door meeting of the 2.3-million-member denomination's House of Bishops, Bruno said he had decided to wait until mid-October before deciding whether to press charges against Benitez. He never did.

This past week Bruno launched into another tirade, arguing aloud that The Episcopal Church's House of Bishops stood for individuality and for self-differentiation when it wrote its recent three documents in Camp Allen."If we allow the Archbishop of Canterbury to set up a visiting Primate or a pastoral vicar, as he has suggested, for our presiding bishop, we would be undermining the power and the authority of Katharine Jefferts Schori," he said.

Fighting words indeed. Words that could yet lead Dr. Williams to disinvite Bruno, Schori and the other revisionist bishops from attending Lambeth in 2008.

Said Bruno: "The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori is one of the most articulate and capable women I've ever met in my life, and to undermine her authority would be a great disservice to our Church. Furthermore, to allow the Primates---who have no adjudicatory responsibility or power over The Episcopal Church---to have a steering committee that would look over Bishop Katharine's shoulder and see if she's doing things in a 'proper' fashion (according to them) would be an even greater disservice to our church."

Bruno then cited a book he has been reading, "A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, by Edwin H. Friedman." Bruno said Friedman's description of characteristics encountered in a "chronically anxious" family seems to reflect recent events and attitudes within the [Anglican] Communion.

He cited five interlocking characteristics of chronically anxious individual families and their regressive parallels in the great American family of today.

They are: Reactivity, Herding, Blame Displacement, A Quick-Fix Mentality and Failure of Nerve in Leadership. He then cites five "evolutionary subverted processes": Self-regulation of instinctual drive; Adaptation toward strength; A growth-producing response to challenge; Allowing time for processes to mature; and All of the above.

The bishop then said lack of leadership, may be the link among them all. "For the first four all share two factors in common that always tend to compromise effective leadership: denial of emotional process and a devaluing of the individuality that is necessary for summoning 'nerve.'"

What Bruno is saying is this: those responsible for the problems in the church, namely orthodox Episcopalians like Bishop Duncan, the Network, the AAC, perhaps even the AMiA and CANA, are simply being "reactive" and more. In point of fact, their "reactivity" has been to oppose heresy in the church and the likes of Bishop Bruno who want to change the church's teaching to fit Gene Robinson's sexual proclivities, his consecration and his highly personal understanding of Christian morality which he would like to see the church adopt in its entirety.

As far as the failure of nerve in leadership, Episcopal Church leadership has been extremely pro-active in deciding and implementing what it wants and has done so incrementally at every General Convention this reporter has attended. The orthodox have been equally decisive in opposing it, while drawing lines in the sand in the vain hope that the TEC will reverse itself, which sadly it has not done and apparently never will.

As far as failure of nerve by Dr. Williams is concerned, few would dispute this. The Archbishop of Canterbury has been prevaricating, setting up all kinds of summits, dialogues, Reports, Alternative Pastoral Oversight, a call for a pastoral vicar and much more to accommodate both sides. The church's liberals have uniformly rejected them all. Now that the TEC, and quite possibly the Canadians, face a Sept. 30 deadline, the ABC will have to take action or Primates like Peter Akinola, Drexel Gomez, Henry Luke Orombi, Greg Venables, Emmanuel Kolini, Benjamin Nzimbi and Bernard Malango will act unilaterally, doing it for him. Perhaps the three-month book writing and vacation time he is taking will focus the ABC's mind in order to make such a decision.

In a final rip, Bruno says, "I desire nothing more than to remain in the filial relationship that we've had for so many years-a relationship that leaves us free to be open, creative and evolutionary Christians."

That is sheer nonsense. The preamble to the church's constitution reads: "The Episcopal Church . . . is a constituent member of the Anglican Communion, a Fellowship within the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, of those duly constituted Dioceses, Provinces, and regional Churches in communion with the See of Canterbury, upholding and propagating the historic Faith and Order as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer."

Bruno and the liberals can't have their cake and eat it, too. To stay in the communion means conforming to the Church's received teaching and not piling a lot of "evolutionary", post-Christian, doctrine-changing, feel-my-pain, I'm-a-sodomite-and-God-loves-me-just-the-way-I-am-and-
what-I-do-with-my-body-is-none-of-your-damn-business. It is precisely the church's business to tell us how we should behave with hearts, minds and bodies. It should be 180 degrees from what the world and Hollywood are selling, in addition to anything flaky coming out of the Diocese of Los Angeles!

Bruno puts the coup de grace on things by saying; "I pray that we can give a response that will allow us to be part of the Anglican Communion, but not in any way, shape or form dishonor the inclusive nature of our Church. For we cannot go backwards. We are not a church that will turn around and walk away from our decisions. I have commitments from all my bishops to support the people of this diocese, regardless of their sexuality, to support their baptismal covenant ministry and what God calls them to do."

The message is clear, Bruno will never accept that the TEC be reformed and returned to the faith of Holy Scripture and the Church Fathers. He wants a church that changes with the times and Mrs. Schori is just the person to carry the banner of a post-modern church into an uncertain future with MDGs in one hand and Robinson on the other with her chief mentor being Frank Tracy Griswold.

Bruno wants the TEC to remain in the Anglican club on its and his terms but not those of the vast majority of the Anglican Communion whose bishops spoke clearly and decisively (by nearly 90 percent) at Lambeth 1998 where they passed Resolution 1.10 stating, with clarity, that sex shall be reserved for marriage exclusively between a man and a woman.

Bruno's bombast may have won him all the friends he ever wanted in the House of Bishops, but his words only further alienate him from orthodox TEC bishops and Global South Primates who see in him an embodiment of their worst fears and nightmares.

END