HOUSE OF BISHOPS’ PATHOLOGICAL WEAKNESS ON DISPLAY

The HOB showed their pathological weakness when confronted last year with how to deal with PA Bishop Charles Bennison and Pittsburgh Bishop Bob Duncan over the handling of Fr. David Moyer, the traditionalist priest in Bennison’s diocese. Presentment charges against Bennison for being a heretic went nowhere, and he too has said that schism is worse than heresy. The HOB wimped out and did nothing, sending a watered-down resolution off to a sub-committee where it sank and died without trace.

It is unlikely they have the collective will to punish these bishops, firstly because it could create more problems than it resolves, and secondly, as they are retired and have no dioceses in their control, any victory would be largely pyrrhic. There is a deeper fear Griswold must surely entertain: that if presentments against these bishops actually emerged from the Title IV Review Committee, it could trigger something truly horrible—a diocesan bishop threatening to pull his whole diocese out of the Episcopal Church. A more horrible scenario cannot be imagined.

At that point, all hell would break loose. And the word hell is used advisedly. There is no plain with Sufi Rumi to meet on that would satisfy all these parties—unless, of course, one deeply offends a pansexual practitioner, and then gay pain and liberal tyranny merge into one hemlock-filled silver chalice to be swallowed by the biblically orthodox on Frank’s command. You can read all the stories in today’s digest.