HOLOCAUST COMING FOR ORTHODOX; HOMOSEXUALITY COULD SPLIT CofE

"We are cataloging the horror stories and we will, in time, make those horror stories known. I see a season ahead when the persecution will get worse. If you wait for the Holocaust to come, it will be too late. Orthodox Episcopalians must band together under the AAC for their own protection. There will be no retreat from the realignment." — Canon David C. Anderson, AAC President.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The Church of England is now beginning to face, in earnest, what the American Episcopal Church has been facing for some time — the possibility of a split over homosexuality.

Recently a network of English Evangelicals called Anglican Mainstream met with Prime Minister Tony Blair at Downing Street to tell them of their concerns, and then they did a double header. They called on the Primates of the Anglican Communion to challenge the Bishop of St. Albans, the Rt. Rev. Christopher Herbert over the Jeffrey John appointment as Dean of the cathedral.

The Mainstream leaders said they want a conservative bishop to minister to their parishes.

"The Bishop of St Albans has shown contempt for the Archbishop of Canterbury's call for calm," they said. "It is breathtaking that the Bishop can make this appointment and simultaneously expect those who oppose it to submit to his Episcopal authority as a mark of authentic Anglicanism."

The Council, the governing body of evangelicals in the Church of England, argued that the Bishop's approval does not need to be sought for oversight. "This action is legitimate precisely because the abuse of power that has led to this crisis is illegitimate, and Provincial or Diocesan consent is unnecessary, and to a great extent undesirable, because it serves to legitimate the abusers."

The Mainstream stepped up the heat by calling the consecration of Gene Robinson "an abuse of power and an act of ecclesiastical tyranny."

Virtuosity has been saying for some time now that the pansexual agenda being pushed by revisionist bishops in the Episcopal Church would spread to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and, inevitably, the Church of England itself. It is a classic struggle between East and West, or the North versus the Global South.

Dr. Louie Crew, the Episcopal Church's most articulate homosexual activist layman, has some tough things to say about what might happen if ECUSA is ostracized by the world body.

There was a changing of the guard this week at the ACC when the Archbishop of Canterbury announced the appointment of a new Anglican Communion Secretary General. The position went to a sleeper candidate, the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, Director of the Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin, to succeed Canon John L. Peterson who steps down in December.

A source in London told Virtuosity that they went for Dr. Kenneth Kearon, an Irishman, because his thing is medical ethics and he doesn't appear to have made any pronouncements on the topic that dare not speak its name. Lambeth Palace contacted all the Standing Committee members before confirming who it was, including Nigerian Primate Peter Akinola. They went for someone neutral, said the source. Another source said Kearon was selected because he comes from the Eames School of Latter-Day Latitudinarianism.

There were a number of candidates who were in line for the job including Canon Gregory Cameron, who presently works in the ACC office as the ecumenical officer; Canon Bill Atwood, EKKLESIA head; and another American, a liberal, being pushed by Frank Griswold. In the end it went to an outsider that the Africans hope they can live with.

But the Church of England faces more problems. There is a proposal to divide the Church of England into two — one part with female clergy and one without — to avert an exodus of traditionalists when women become bishops. The Archbishop of York, Dr. David Hope, has said he believes such a scheme, although highly controversial, is probably the only way to hold the church together if it decides to consecrate women. He has privately won support from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, who agrees the options facing the church are limited. Both are worried that more than 300 traditionalist clergy could quit in protest, potentially costing tens of millions of pounds in hardship payments to those who leave. The diehards are demanding a "third province," a church-within-a-church with its own archbishop, bishops and training colleges operating in parallel with the remainder of the church, but with no female clergy.

In the U.S. things go from bad to worse.

North Carolina Bishop Michael Curry recently told churches in his diocese they were authorized to bless homosexual unions. He is not the first to do this as other revisionist bishops follow similar moves in Nevada, Utah, Los Angeles, Washington DC, and Vermont. American Anglican Council member Dr. Kendall Harmon, who serves as Canon Theologian for the Diocese of South Carolina, says Curry is the first southeastern bishop to okay same-sex blessings since the denomination's General Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

"It's discouraging," Harmon says, "because a lot of his diocese is opposed to his vote, and now he's not simply voted for the New Hampshire election, but he's going further than that. And it's going to further divide the diocese."

The answer is for Anglican conservatives to realign themselves with the AAC and the Network. One of the things that might happen once the Lambeth report is released is that the Network might be recognized as the legitimate voice of Anglicanism in the U.S., which will certainly be a humbling moment for ECUSA and Frank Griswold.

It won't come as a surprise that the Presiding Bishop opposed the Federal Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, his argument being that "questions of sexuality are far from settled."

In the Diocese of Pennsylvania things just go from bad to worse for Bishop Charles Bennison. The law firm of Drinker Biddle & Reath, home of Diocesan Chancellor William Bullitt, has announced it will not represent Bennison and the Diocese in the lawsuit brought by the Diocesan insurance company to cancel the Diocesan insurance for Father Moyer's lawsuit because of Bennison's fraud. The law firm cited an unidentified "conflict." The question now remains how Bullitt and his law firm can continue to represent both the Standing Committee and Bennison in view of the growing conflict between the Standing Committee and Bennison.

In the Diocese of Chicago a new parish has formed in Evanston, Illinois that will come under the AMIA. The new pastor is the Rev. Dr. Joe Murphy, who has agonized for months about whether or not he would stay in the ECUSA.

And in the Diocese of Eastern Michigan three orthodox rectors have resigned and one has renounced his orders. The revisionist bishop, Ed Leidel, voted for same sex blessings and for V. Gene Robinson. He is the first bishop of that diocese and will probably be its last.

The Network is looking for partner parishes. They want non-ECUSA "independent Anglican congregations or a congregation within another tradition entirely" to become a formal part of the Network. This is being actively encouraged. To do this the Network has established a category called "Partner Parishes." This is for non-ECUSA congregations which wish to become affiliated with the Network but which do not wish to become subject to the Constitution of ECUSA. Such Partner Parishes will have all the rights and responsibilities of Affiliated Parishes, but would retain the necessary legal distance from ECUSA. The Network itself makes no claim on the property of its affiliated parishes.

All blessings,

David W. Virtue DD

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