From Times Online (UK):
September 23, 2008
Last week Colin Bazley, former primate of the Southern Cone and now an assistant bishop in the Chester diocese, wrote an open letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury calling for the suspension of The Episcopal Church from the Anglican Communion and the creation of a new province for the conservatives. This was in response to the deposition of Bishop Bob Duncan of Pittsburgh, and which we covered last week. This is not going to go away. Even though Dr Rowan Williams is not planning to comment and has instead headed of to Lourdes with several busloads of Anglican pilgrims, hoping no doubt for a miraculous healing for his church, six of his bishops have today put out their own statement of support for Bishop Duncan. And as we report, one of those bishops, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali of Rochester, has in an interview with me today repeated the call for a new province first made by the Gafcon leaders at their conference this summer. I've always held out the hope in my own heart that the split would not come this side of the Atlantic. But I've recently spent a little time with some extremely senior laypeople in the conservative moment. They are not 'names' familiar to the blogosphere. But it seems there can be little doubt. What has happened there will happen here. Expect property battles and more in years to come. Read on for Bishop Michael's interview, and the response from Anglican Mainstream.
It has crossed my mind recently that Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is secretly one of the "orthodox". That can surely be the only reason that she has created a martyr who is now being venerated by evangelicals worldwide, and who is poised to become the sanctified leader of an orthodox movement that is demanding, and might well get, its own province.
Have we come so far from our Catholic tradition that we have forgotten the power of martyrdom, on which the Western church is built? Does no-one in TEC understand any more the meaning of sacrifice?
Because a martyr is what Bob Duncan now is. The Episcopal Church should not need a heretically catholic Anglican such as me to tell it that the next step up from martyrdom is sainthood. Bishop Duncan's office has been inundated with emails, phonecalls and letters of supportm since the ill-advised deposition. Since Friday, he has had personal messages from six primates, including ++Anis and ++Chew, indicating their intention not to recognise the deposition and to support the Pittsburgh "remnant". There have been all kinds of other ones as well from various bishops, clergy and laity all over the world. They are being catalogued on a new site, set up specially to venerate the deposed bishop.
And now in England, six bishops are pledging their support and saying they will continue to recognise him. Surely that is momentous enough to warrant an archiepiscopal comment? Or perhaps all pretence of episcopal collegiality has been abandoned.
This is what they say:
'As bishops in the Church of England, we are deeply saddened and shocked by the proposed deposition of Bishop Robert Duncan in the Episcopal Church, USA. We declare that we continue to believe that Bishop Bob is a bishop in the Church of God and a bishop in good standing in the Anglican Communion. We continue to pray for him and for his diocese of Pittsburgh.
+Nicholas Blackburn
+Peter Cestr:
+John Cicester:
+Michael Exon:
+Michael Roffen:
+Michael Winton.'
Dr Nazir-Ali kindly enlarged for me. In a telephone interview he said:
'We believe that Bishop Duncan is a bishop in good standing. We hope that our belief is correct.
'The first thing is to express huge admiration for Bishop Bob, because for so many years he has borne the brunt of the anger of those who want to make changes in The Episcopal Church. He has stayed loyally within that Church.
'I have quite often watched him in the American house of bishops or general convention, taking flak. So given all of that, I am very sad and very shocked that he's been treated in this way.
'Quite a few American bishops had come to Lambeth, knowing that nothing would change afterwards. I do not think we can take seriously what they agreed at Lambeth. This is of a piece with other meetings where they have beehn present, have agreed things and where nothing has happened afterwards.
'This does show that a structural solution is needed for the orthodox in the American church. There must be immediate relief. No talk about panels doing things in the future. We need, they need more importantly, immediate relief from this kind of action taken against them. I hope that a province in due course of the orthodox in America will be recognised in the Anglican Communion.
'Here are loyal Anglicans whose only fault is not wanting to change what they have received.
'We have been hearing for some time that they orthodox want to be recognised in America. I am not saying that there might be a province straight away. There may be steps to recognising the constituency first, in some way, providing for oversight, which is absolutely essential, and recognising Common Cause Partnership and its leaders as Anglicans in good standing.
'But in the end I cannot see how we can avoid recognising some kind of entity of the orthodox in the US. I hope [the split] does not come to Britain. That is something we have been working on, to keep the unity of the Church of England intact.'
The Church of England is doing well right now. We carried a report last Saturday about the latest offering of the rapid response prayer unit, to help us all cope with the credit crunch. And while Dr Williams is seeking succour in Lourdes with the Holy See's Cardinal Walter Kasper no less - he should be able to pick up a few tips from him on church unity - the Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu is flying off to New York where he will join Bill Clinton and Gordon Brown in promoting action on the Millennium Development Goals.
But a robust statement this evening from Bishop Wallace Benn of Lewes and others at Anglican Mainstream gives some indication of how serious the problems remain on the home front.
They said: 'The Jerusalem statement from almost 1200 confessing Anglican leaders urged the Archbishops of Nigeria, Kenya, Southern Cone, Tanzania, Uganda, West Africa and Rwanda to recognise a new Anglican province for North America.
'This has now become more urgent due to the aggressive liberal and unprincipled behaviour of The Episcopal Church house of bishops towards the Bishop of Pittsburgh whose currently moderator of the orthodox Common Cause Partnership.
'The behaviour of The Episcopal Church house of bishops shows that the promised moratorium at Lambeth is dead and their integrity in wishing to bring peace must now be questioned.'
My own view?
Let's all join in praying for a miracle at Lourdes. My own recent experience of visiting Lourdes this year, however, when I partook of the waters and became extremely sick, doesn't persuade me to hold out much hope at all.
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