No Mass Departures to Rome, Western Kansas Bishop Resigns, ACC Synod meets
Date 2009/10/31 12:10:00 | Topic: Viewpoints
| The Anglican Communion crisis is not about Anglicanism in itself, but a crisis about faithfulness. --- The Rev. Charles Raven, Church of England vicar.
For Cranmer grace produces gratitude, gratitude produces love, love (not shame, fear or duty) produces repentance, repentance produces good works, and good works produces a better society. ---- Rev. Canon Dr. Ashley Null
The greatest hindrance. We claim to know, to love and to follow Jesus Christ. We say that he is our Saviour, our Lord, and our Friend. 'What difference does he make to these Christians?' the world asks searchingly. 'Where is their God?' It may be said without fear of contradiction that the greatest hindrance to evangelism in the world today is the failure of the church to supply evidence in her own life and work of the saving power of God. --- John R. W. Stott
Dear Brothers and Sisters
www.virtueonline.org
October 31, 2009
When Pope Benedict XVI unveiled his scheme to create an entirely new structure for ex-Anglicans last week, many believed that with the waters of the Tiber opening before them, there would be a rush to man the Anglican chariots and head through the parted waters.
Odd thing is that it hasn't happened. Apart from the Traditional Anglican Communion, an Australian based Anglican group of 400,000 Anglicans and some 38 bishops.
One Anglo-Catholic parish in the US - Good Shepherd in Rosemont, PA and a single Anglo-Catholic parish in London headed by Fr. Geoffrey Kirk, there has been no en masse departure for Rome.
The head of Forward in Faith, UK Bishop John Broadhurst says he is not going. He is joined by Andrew Burnham, Bishop of Ebbsfleet and John Hind, Bishop of Chichester who, after a heavily nuanced statement that got initially misread, announced that while he welcomes the offer he too is staying put in the C of E.
Evangelical Anglicans also have no intention of marching to Rome even with the waters of the Tiber now parted. They are not even vaguely considering the offer. As Bishop Martyn Minns (CANA) observed, "We had a Reformation ya know." Archbishop Robert Duncan (ACNA) politely reminded the Catholics that there were still a number of serious doctrines that Protestants can't buy so, thank you, but no thank you.
None of the 58 Anglo-Catholic jurisdictions in the US seem to be rushing forward to accept the Pope's offer either. Even the larger Anglo-Catholic groups like ACA, APA and APCK are strangely silent about it all.
Are they waiting to see what The Apostolic Constitution looks like before making the leap?
Over-excited commentators talk about the end of the Church of England. It's not true of course. While traditionalist Anglo-Catholics have been marginalized by women's ordination (since 1992), their departure now would hardly be noticed. The advent of women bishops does not seem to be driving them out of The Church of England.
Among the many problems is that there is no scheme which could effect the mass transfer of most conservative Anglo-Catholics, clergy and laity, in a matter of months with their properties intact.
Observed one commentator, "I can't see more than a handful of parishes voting overwhelmingly to accept the scheme in the short term - and, if they do, they will probably only be able to keep their parish buildings by borrowing them from the Church of England. Other Anglicans will take years to make up their minds. Many will never come."
Forward in Faith held its annual conference last weekend in London. The confused signals it sent out (unsurprisingly, given the short notice) have allowed opponents of the Personal Ordinariate to predict that this will be only a small-scale experiment.
Until the Apostolic Constitution is published, there's not much point in detailed speculation.
The biggest obstacle will be future married priests. Can an Ordinariate provide for the ordination of married laymen in other than exceptional circumstances?
There is also the largely unspoken issue that, until very recently, Anglican orders were considered null and void by the Pope. Will he automatically recognize those Anglicans who want to retain their particularities and now be Catholics and suddenly have their orders validated? The truth is there are more questions than answers, and no one seems to have any.
Presumably the traditionalist bishops who asked Rome for this pastoral provision do not see this as an insurmountable obstacle; otherwise they would not be making such positive noises about the plan now.
The Ordinariate is coming to England, US and Australia, but we do not yet know what it will look like or who will be appointed to run it, or how many people it will attract. I guess we will have a clearer picture once the Pope's text is released.
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The BISHOP OF WESTERN KANSAS, the Rt. Rev. James M. Adams resigned his episcopacy this week and will take a parish in the Diocese of Central Florida under Bishop John W. Howe. Bishop Adams wrote that the Domestic Missionary Partnership of $55,000 (from the National Church), begun four years ago, has changed and is no longer supporting the diocese's base budget, only ministries. It leaves the diocese financially vulnerable. Adams is an orthodox brother, but he has a lot of liberals in his diocese who don't care much for him. His departure could mean several things. If the diocese is in financial straits, will it juncture with another diocese? Will the Standing Committee run the diocese for the indefinite future? Will the liberals now kick in with wealthy supporters and push to elect a new liberal bishop more to the taste of Mrs. Jefferts Schori and TEC? Stay tuned.
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In the DIOCESE OF UPPER SOUTH CAROLINA where six candidates vie to be the eighth bishop, all six said they would not counsel a rector to proceed with blessing a same-sex couple. Four of the nominees are from orthodox dioceses - South Carolina and Dallas which might account for their stand. Two others, one from Minnesota and one from Texas, are not. So it is no surprise that the Very Rev. John B. Burwell (SC), Rev. Canon Dr. Neal O. Michell, canon to the Ordinary, Diocese of Dallas, and the Rev. David F. O. Thompson (SC) should vote against such blessings. The two liberal candidates, Jerre Stockton Williams Jr., (Texas) and the Rev. W. Andrew Waldo (Minn), both were opposed to it because General Convention had not formally authorized such blessings. One candidate has come through the petition process, The Very Reverend Dr. Philip C. Linder, Dean, Trinity Episcopal Cathedral Columbia, South Carolina. This diocese is your standard liberal diocese which has been in the hands of bachelor Bishop Dorsey F. Henderson, a decidedly pro-gay revisionist bishop. If any of the four orthodox candidates win, it will be a remarkable sea change for this diocese, but don't hold your breath. If any of the orthodox nominees do win, they will still have to pass the consent process. Unless they roll over to Jefferts Schori's understanding of mission and "gospel", they will get the same treatment as Bishop Mark Lawrence got. GC2009 passed two resolutions, D025 and C056 that are almost impossible for an orthodox candidate with a conscience to sign onto. We shall see.
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The DIOCESE OF MINNESOTA elected The Rev. Brian Prior, vice president of the Episcopal Church's House of Deputies, to be the ninth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota today. Prior, 50, rector of the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection in Spokane, Washington, won election on the fifth ballot out of a field of two remaining candidates. He received 153 votes of 233 cast in the lay order and 118 of 205 cast in the clergy order. An election on the fifth ballot required 117 in the lay order and 103 in the clergy order. His election avoids a potential disaster. A lesbian candidate, the Rev. Bonnie Perry dropped out after the third ballot clearing the way for Prior, a favorite, to win.
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The ANGLICAN CATHOLIC CHURCH (ACC) held its Provincial Synod this past week in Richmond, VA. Bishop McClean, Bishop of the Diocese of the Middle Atlantic States who received into their Orders three priests, including the well-known Canon Charles H. Nalls. All three were formerly APCK members who followed their Bishop, Rocco Florenza, when he departed to the ACA/TAC two years ago. At least one congregation and probably more will follow these three into that Diocese, VOL has been told. Bishop Florenza himself has asked to be received into the ACC from the ACA/TAC and the Bishops have received him in his Orders.
Ten priests and eight congregations in the Eastern Cape Province of the Republic of South Africa have left TAC and have joined the Missionary Diocese of Southern Africa. At the request of the MDSA's Officers and Council of Advice, the Provincial Synod gave its consent to the separation of the existing MDSA into two new Missionary Dioceses, the continuing MDNE to include all of South Africa and Lesotho except the Eastern Cape Province and the new Missionary Diocese of the Eastern Cape to include that Province (the second largest in South Africa) alone. (All of the new members just received are of one uniform ethnic background -- Xhosa -- and all reside within the boundaries of the Eastern Cape Province, which makes that a natural church jurisdiction as well.)
Both Archbishop Stephen Reber and Bishop Dr. Peter Robinson from the UECNA visited the Synod. The Secretary's Report indicated that the ACC can credibly claim more than 18,000 members in the Original Province, 15,000 of whom are in Sudan. In Africa, they have substantial work going forward at each end of the continent -- Sudan and South Africa, along with four mission congregations in the middle part (one in Kenya, three in Rwanda).
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A heated battle is expected in MAINE'S same-sex marriage vote on Nov. 3. For both sides, the ballot initiative, Question One, is seen as a crucial juncture. Opponents want to show that momentum has shifted to their side, building on last year's California vote to approve a ban on gay marriage. Supporters - with victories in Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Iowa - are eager to demonstrate that California was a temporary setback.
Some 500,000 voters, about as many as cast ballots last year in Sacramento County when the nation's most-populous state, California, repealed same-sex marriage are expected to cast their votes.
Voters in Maine, where the largest city, Portland, is roughly half the size of Oakland, will be the first in the nation to decide whether to overturn a law approving same-sex marriage after it was passed by a state legislature and signed by a governor.
VOL urges its 1,000 plus readers in Maine to get out and vote to defeat this legislation.
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Bishop John Chapman of the DIOCESE OF OTTAWA has given one church in his diocese permission to begin offering a rite of blessing to same-sex couples who are civilly married. The Church of St. John the Evangelist could offer its first blessing as soon as a married couple, at least one of whom is baptized, asks.
"Same-sex couples who are civilly married and seek the Church's blessing of their marriage must be welcomed with the same care and solicitude that the church would extend to any other of its members;" Bishop Chapman wrote in his charge to the recent diocesan synod. "When the church blesses the marriage of anyone civilly married it does so recognizing that the couple is already married and that the blessing celebrates and deepens a reality that already exists," he added.
Unlike the diocese of Niagara, which, as of Sept. 1, decided to allow its clergy to bless same-gender couples who have been civilly married, the diocese of Ottawa chose just one church and did not develop a whole new rite. There is little doubt now where the whole Anglican Church in Canada is going. It is only a matter of time. There is no going backwards.
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The Kyrkomötet (General Synod) of the CHURCH OF SWEDEN approved a recommendation that the Swedish Church should conduct weddings in church for both heterosexual and same-sex couples last week. The marriage liturgy will be amended slightly to reflect this.
The changes will take effect Sunday 1 November. No individual cleric will be obliged to perform such a service, but every parish will be required to make provision for the liturgy, and to use visiting priests if necessary. The voting was 176 in favor, 62 against, and 11 abstentions.
In May, new civil legislation repealed the separate provision for registered partnerships which had been in force since 1995. It provided that same-sex couples should now have the same legal marriage status as mixed-sex couples (News, 17 July). Existing civil partners are able to convert their relationship into marriage if they wish.
The Church of Sweden has provided a formal liturgy for the blessing of same-sex registered partnerships since January 2007, although informal blessings approved by the bishops began in the 1990s.
The 14 Swedish bishops have a voice in the synod, but they are not voting members. Many of them spoke during the full day of discussion that preceded the vote. Afterwards, seven bishops published a letter that criticized the decision, saying that it "puts at risk the unity of the Church".
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A fact made its way into my intelligence this week. That fact is that CHINA is now one of the largest Christian nations on earth. While it is hard to gauge accurate numbers, the Chinese Government officially recognizes 14 million Christians, of which 4 million are in the Roman Catholic Church and most of the rest are Protestant. However, these numbers are only for the officially state-sponsored Christian Churches. There is a great underground population of Christians. According to China Aid Association, State Administration for Religious Affairs Director Ye Xiaowen reported to audiences at Beijing University and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences that the number of Christians in China had risen to 130 million by the end of 2006, including 20 million Catholics, although the Foreign Ministry officially denied those numbers. If China ever unleashes its Christians, watch out. When Chinese Christians are free to practice their religion publicly and to proselytize, the numbers are likely to grow dramatically. We are watching this with African Christian leaders slowly seeping into the West. The largest single church in England and the Ukraine are lead by Nigerians.
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For those who may ever have attended the Healing Ministry of Christ the King in the DIOCESE OF ALBANY, be aware that Nigel Mumford, Director of Healing Ministries, has been hospitalized with atypical pneumonia. The most recent reports indicate that Fr. Nigel is still critical but continues to be stable. He is maintaining his breathing levels, which is a positive sign in itself. He continues to battle a pesky fever which goes up and down. Although there are no huge improvements, the fact that he is stable is a welcome answer to all of your prayers, a spokesperson for the diocese reports. The Center is receiving hundreds of correspondence daily seeking updates on his condition. To help keep everyone informed, the Diocese will be posting an update daily at www.albanydiocese.org You may also get in touch with Brenda Reid. Her e-mail Brenda is breid@ctkcenter.org.
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ROSEMONT, Pa: The next hearing in the case of the Diocese of Pennsylvania versus the Rev. David Moyer and Church of the Good Shepherd is set for December 15th, when "preliminary objections" will be heard.
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To sue or not to sue, that is the question. After years of apparently fruitless litigation by parishes trying to keep their properties, we must ask should orthodox parishes just give up and walk away. Maybe, maybe not. I have taken a long hard look at the financial, emotional and spiritual cost of litigating and concluded that there are no clear answers. It all depends where you are, the past history of the parish and so many other factors. Needless to say, litigating will not soon end and there will be no peace in the valley until the last parish that wants to leave TEC does so. Legal costs could well exceed $50 million when all is said and done.
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This coming week will see yours truly speaking at a Conference for the Laity in Emmitsburg, MD, sponsored by the Anglican Laity Fellowship and the American Anglican Council of Washington D.C. If you can spare this coming Saturday and live within striking distance in cities like Baltimore, Harrisburg, and Northern Virginia, consider this beautiful retreat setting as a place to be spiritually refreshed and challenged by today's current events.
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In Christ,
David
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