Posted on 02/23/2008 6:29:34 AM PST by sionnsar
I'm going with the "72-hour rule" on this one. I'll believe this when I see it:
Dr Rowan Williams has held confidential talks with senior American bishops and theologians who oppose the pro-gay policies of their liberal leaders.
A handful of hardline American dioceses are already defecting from the Episcopal Church, the American branch of Anglicanism, and transferring their loyalties to a conservative archbishop in South America.
Dr Williams is desperate to minimise further damage in the run up to the once-a-decade Lambeth Conference this summer which could be boycotted by more than a fifth of the world's bishops.
His recent comments backing aspects of sharia law have heightened tensions by further alienating Africans who are struggling with militant Islam in their dioceses.
According to insiders, Dr Williams has given his blessing to the plans to create an enclave for up to 20 conservative American bishops that would insulate them from their liberal colleagues.
The scheme would allow them to remain technically within the Episcopal Church but under the care of like-minded archbishops from abroad.
The Primate of the West Indies, Archbishop Drexel Gomez, a moderate conservative, has agreed to participate, and other primates could be recruited.
However, the initiative is likely to infuriate liberal leaders of the Episcopal Church, who will see it as an attempt to undermine their authority and interfere in their affairs.
''Why are the African and Global South provinces encouraging local parishes to disaffiliate with apostate Dioceses and losing their property when the Bishops themselves are unwilling to break communion with the apostate provinces?... Sounds like very expensive hypocrisy to the exiled local parishes."I tossed the question to an Anglican (still Episcopalian, apparently) blogger and received this:
I'm starting to get a tiny bit squeamish about that myself. If they continue to string this along and don;t make a decision and make it soon, soon being somewhere around the upcoming Lambeth Conference, I'm moving on.I suspect others are thinking the same. (For my part, I'm glad to be out -- going on 25 years now.)
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. The African parishes could probably press for a local or national law protecting their property rights if they split against the English church. Pass it on . . .
Thanks for the PING
*SIGH*
LOL, I doubt that would be necessary. The “property rights” issue, asserting that the diocese, not the parish, owned the property was created by the American church’s “Dennis Canon” in the 1980s in an effort to stanch the bleeding that started in the late 70s. It does not apply elsewhere.
Not comforting to think that only the American churches use property to try to trap the laity in false teaching.
As for timing, thing have always moved more slowly than I would have chose, but at this point, they need to wait for Ilker and Duncan to complete their process.
I was minding my own business perusing the net when a headline from the UK Telegraph caught my eye:
Secret Plan to Avoid Church Gay Split
. . . and since your PP hasn't lobbed any grenades at the gay priest thing in a while, I thought this might serve as a launching pad; so I looked it up.
Imagine my disapointment when it had nothing to do with the Catholic Church; and, since your PP is an Eastern Catholic priest, Priestly Pugilist nomrally confines itself to what's going on in the Eastern and Western Catholic Churches; but I decided to read the article anyway. I'm kind of glad I did, because it confirmed for me a thesis I had explored in a series of posts last year (3/30/07 & 3/31/07), in which I made a connection between homosexuality and liberalism in the Catholic Church, and the resultant alienation of priests who don't "play along" and who are labeled as "rigid" and "uncaring," when all they really are is straight.
The Archbishop of Canterbury is backing secret plans to create a "parallel" Church for American conservatives to avert fresh splits over homosexuality. Dr Rowan Williams has held confidential talks with senior American bishops and theologians who oppose the pro-gay policies of their liberal leaders.
A handful of hardline American dioceses are already defecting from the Episcopal Church, the American branch of Anglicanism, and transferring their loyalties to a conservative archbishop in South America. Dr Williams is desperate to minimise further damage in the run up to the once-a-decade Lambeth Conference this summer which could be boycotted by more than a fifth of the world's bishops.
Isn't it interesting how it's the dioceses defecting over pro-gay policies which are labeled as "hardline"?
His recent comments backing aspects of sharia law have heightened tensions by further alienating Africans who are struggling with militant Islam in their dioceses.
I can't imagine why ( ! ! ! ).
According to insiders, Dr Williams has given his blessing to the plans to create an enclave for up to 20 conservative American bishops that would insulate them from their liberal colleagues. The scheme would allow them to remain technically within the Episcopal Church but under the care of like-minded archbishops from abroad.
First it's a "plan," then, one sentence later, it's a "scheme." Something tells me we should have our seat backs and tray tables in their upright and locked positions.
The Primate of the West Indies, Archbishop Drexel Gomez, a moderate conservative, has agreed to participate, and other primates could be recruited.
I wonder what a "moderate conervative" is? Anyway, here comes the money shot . . .
However, the initiative is likely to infuriate liberal leaders of the Episcopal Church, who will see it as an attempt to undermine their authority and interfere in their affairs.
Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori, the head of the Episcopal Church, has been cracking down on any diocese or parish that seeks to leave, and numerous legal actions are under way.
This is what I thought was interesting. I thought religious liberalism (and moral liberalism, for that matter) was a rebellion against authority. I thought "cracking down" was something that only mean-spirited, fascist conservatives did. I thought that the operative method of liberalism was to "live and let live," and let each find his own way, free from the tyranny of rabid judgementalism. Since when does an honest, free-thinking liberal, who wants nothing more than to let the poor oppressed gays find a home in her Church without anyone telling them how to live their lives, decree that she's infallible and everyone just better do what she says or else they'll be hell to pay? Am I missing something here?
Look up the word "liberal" in your dictionary. I think the last one died somewhere around 1930.
by Priestly Pugilist
Still no protection for someone like my mother who while in a conservative church is in a liberal diocese.
As for me I got out 20 years ago.
I suspect that the problem lies in a theologically and ecclesiologically defective, no, better said, unworkable, notion of what it means for one hierarch to be in communion with another or one synod to be in communion with another synod. Anglicanism’s notions of communion, like its notions of what it means theologically and ecclesiologically to be a part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church are a product of the Elizabethan Compromise and while that might have worked fine in a traditional Anglo Saxon milieu for several centuries, it simply fell apart as the Anglo Saxon world started coming apart after WWI.
In a vacuum, the heresiarch Williams’ idea of a covenant of some sort might be a good one, but, as noted, the man is a massive heretic. Nothing coming from him will lead anywhere good and in any event, its far too late for a new deal on what Anglicans believe. Seems t me the best route is for the whole sorry ediface to simply break into pieces with some becoming purely pagan/gnostic, others pretty much universalist and still others smaller local versions of the Episcopal or Anglican Churches of say, spring 1914.
I’ve been clean and sober now from Episcopalianism for ten years.
But sadly, I think you're right on all counts, K. "Defective" is the original condition that led to the "unworkable." For a while now it's looked to me like the Elizabethan Compromise has been coming apart, never to be put back together.
The amount of splintering, particularly in the USA, is an unpleasant effect but I think over time we'll see the splinters coalesce. At least among the anglo-catholics it's happening already with a few smaller jurisdictions merging into larger ones, and a developing public cooperation between the ACC, UECNA and APCK.
Isn’t Rowan Williams the guy who preached on our ‘disposable’ society on Christmas Eve?? (E.g. reduce, reuse, recycle - oh and value our relationships too because they’re not disposable... or something like that.)
I don’t recall.
Back in my more liberal college days my "open mind" just couldn't help but begin to wonder about questions of this nature. :)
No one so intolerant as a modern liberal.
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