Archbishop of Canterbury rips decision, urges repudiation of vote
News Analysis
By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
12/7/2009
In a cliff hanging election that took seven ballots, the Diocese of Los Angeles elected an avowed lesbian to be the next Suffragan Bishop of the ultra-liberal diocese, setting off an ecclesiastical fire storm around the Anglican Communion that we have not seen since Gene Robinson, a non-celibate homosexual, was elected Bishop of New Hampshire.
The Rev. Canon Mary Douglas Glasspool, 55, who now serves as a canon to the Diocese of Maryland bishops, will be the second elected outed homosexual bishop in The Episcopal Church, an act that is being seen as further isolating and clarifying the theological differences between The Episcopal Church and the vast majority of Anglicans worldwide who are orthodox in faith and morals.
Almost immediately, the Archbishop of Canterbury issued a statement saying that the election of Mary Glasspool raises very serious questions, not just for the Episcopal Church and its place in the Anglican Communion, but for the Communion as a whole.
He urged that the election not be confirmed saying it should be rejected by diocesan bishops and diocesan standing committees, and citing "very important implications" if it did.
"The bishops of the Communion have collectively acknowledged that a period of gracious restraint in respect of actions which are contrary to the mind of the Communion is necessary if our bonds of mutual affection are to hold."
Katharine Jefferts Schori, The Episcopal Church's Presiding Bishop, told VOL that she never comments on episcopal elections and that it is keeping with her policy...it is in keeping with her established practice. There is speculation that the phone lines are running hot between Lambeth Palace and New York.
When he was confronted with a replica situation in 2003, then Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold told The Anglican Church's Archbishops that he would not lay hands on a homosexual bishop. He proceeded to do so three weeks later arguing that how a diocese voted was not in his control and he could not step back from his responsibilities as Presiding Bishop. It is expected that Jefferts Schori will argue much the same thing. In Lebanon, PA, recently she denied, when questioned, that there had been any moratorium on non-celibate bishops elected to high offices in the church.
Bishop Jon Bruno
The bishop who is pushing hardest for bishops and Standing Committees to give their full consents to Canon Glasspool is the Bishop of Los Angeles, J. Jon Bruno. He announced what amounted to a declaration of ecclesiastical independence, if not war. He was so outraged at the thought that the Church might deny her consents that he angrily wrote, "If by chance people are going to withhold consents because of Mary's sexuality, it would be a violation of the canons of this church.
"At our last General Convention, we said we are nondiscriminatory. They just as well might have withheld their consents from me because I was a divorced man and in my case, it would have been more justified than someone withholding them from someone who has been approved through all levels of ministry and is a good and creative minister of the Gospel.
"I would remind The Episcopal Church and the House of Bishops they need to be conscientious about respecting the canons of the church and the baptismal covenant to respect the dignity of every human being."
Then he took a swipe at the Archbishop of Canterbury. "To not consent in this country out of fear of the reaction elsewhere in the Anglican Communion is to capitulate to titular heads."
According to a canon lawyer, Bruno can bring presentment charges but in the history of TEC it has always been understood that the giving of consents was a right of the Standing Committee and Bishops and could not be re-examined.
But the group most affected by his verbal onslaught is the Communion Partner bishops, those orthodox bishops still remaining in The Episcopal Church. Should they endorse Dr. Rowan William's stance not to go ahead and give consents, they could face presentment charges should Bruno and a quorum of bishops decide to do so. Mrs. Jefferts Schori would have no recourse under the canons not to charge the bishops with failure to live up to the canons of The Episcopal Church.
It would be an unholy mess made more so because these bishops are Windsor compliant. They have said they would support a Covenant, if and when all the Archbishops and bishops of the Anglican Communion ever sign one. That is not going to happen any time soon. Other groups supporting the election of Glasspool include the unofficial gay Episcopal organization Integrity which promptly saluted her election and urged her confirmation by bishops and Standing Committees.
Glasspool duked it out with the Rev. Irineo Martir Vasquez, an Hispanic candidate and rector of St. George's in Hawthorne, over multiple ballots. At times it looked as though he would win. The laity held out for Vasquez, but then folded on the final ballot.
"I can't say it surprises me," said the Rt. Rev. Mark Lawrence, bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina, which has begun withdrawing from some of the national church's councils to protest the policies on gays. He said the split in the church is likely to endure, "Is there anything that can be done to bridge it? No one has come up with it yet."
The Chicago Consultation, a group of Episcopal and Anglican bishops, clergy and laity supporting full inclusion for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people, heralded the Los Angeles elections.
Overseas the response to the election has been swift and mostly condemning.
The Rev. Rod Thomas, the leader of the conservative evangelical group Reform and a member of the General Synod, said, 'I feel deeply ashamed that this is happening in the Anglican Church. "I think a schism is absolutely inevitable."
Anglican Mainstream, a UK-based evangelical group responded to the election of Canon Mary Glasspool with Dr. Chris Sugden saying, "We are saddened but not surprised by this announcement from TEC. Unless their diocesan bishops and their standing committees decline to endorse the election, it will confirm that TEC have no intention of respecting the mind of the Communion and halting their current trajectory.
"That is why tens of thousands of Anglicans, in order to witness to the Communion's common basis of faith, and particularly biblical teaching on Christian marriage, have had to leave TEC and form the Anglican Church of North America.
"For any who doubted whether that action was justified TEC's latest announcement, made in full knowledge of its negative effect on the Communion's Covenant process, will confirm that TEC, rather than wanting to remain within the Communion's bonds of affection, is determined to walk away and follow its own path," concluded Sugden.
[Archbishop Peter Jensen] Sydney Archbishop Peter said it was sad but not surprising. "Confirmation of this election will make clear beyond any doubt whatsoever that the TEC leadership has chosen to walk in a way which is contrary to scripture and will continue to do so.
"It confirms the rightness of GAFCON in producing the Jerusalem Declaration and establishing the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA)."
He then said this gives the Archbishop of Canterbury every reason to act decisively and dissociate from the Episcopal Church and to recognize the Anglican Church of North America.
An orthodox Episcopalian in the Diocese of Los Angeles told VOL that he predicts the next wave of orthodox and traditional refugees from the LA diocese will leave a real financial dent in Bruno's house of cards.
"I believe that this travesty of the LA Diocese is true prologue to the ultimate demise of TEC and not the consecration of Robinson."
Parallels with the Northern Michigan rejection of Thew Forester are not apt. Forester's sins were his practice of Zen Buddhist meditation diluting his commitment to the Christian faith. His sermons and writings along with a revision he made to the Episcopal Church's baptismal liturgy got him nixed by the HOB. This is not the situation with Glasspool. Sex outside of heterosexual marriage is now acceptable to the majority of TEC bishops, clergy and laity; therein lays Glasspool's likely consent by the HOD and HOB.
She also has some support from overseas. St Paul's Cathedral's Canon Chancellor Giles Fraser, a leading UK liberal, said, "This is another nail in the coffin of Christian homophobia."
Perhaps, but it leaves unanswered who are the homophobes and why hasn't the alleged homophobes in Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda bothered to respond to Glasspool's election? The answer is that they have already disassociated themselves from The Episcopal Church; so, why bother. If they do respond, it will only be to reiterate the words of Sydney Archbishop Peter Jensen.
If consents are obtained, there is no doubt that Jefferts Schori (like her predecessor Frank Griswold) will proceed to be the chief consecrator at her ordination.
[Archbishop Rowan Williams] The sad figure in all this is the Archbishop of Canterbury. He procrastinated over offering a safe place for traditionalists in the Church of England and the Pope swept in to rescue them.
Evangelicals have condemned the actions of the Diocese of Los Angeles. While they are in some disarray in England with several factions, they are ultimately on the winning side. They have a gospel to proclaim that Williams does not. They will grow even as liberalism and revisionism dies in The C of E and in TEC.
ACNA Archbishop Robert Duncan could be forgiven if he has an "I told you so" take on the whole thing. He is not at all surprised at what has happened.
Bishop C. FitzSimons Allison (S.C. ret.) had this to say, "The election of the lesbian Mary Glasspool to be a bishop in the Episcopal Church is only the latest in a series of presumptive and unilateral acts against the repeated warnings and request of the Archbishop of Canterbury, against the stated position of the 38 Anglican Primates and against the explicit teaching of the '98 Lambeth Conference. The response of Archbishop Rowan Williams is also only the latest in a series of Chamberlain-like equivocations in the face of serious attacks on the unity of the Anglican Communion." He suggests that this election "raises very serious questions" about TEC's role in the communion. Really?
In the face of this new provocative action, he asks Episcopalians to "refrain from provocative acts" and maintain a "period of gracious restraint" in order not to violate our "bonds of mutual affection."
To substitute the inane and sentimental "bonds of mutual affection" for "bonds of Anglican faith and doctrine" leaves the English leadership guilty of what Bishop Stephen Sykes called "a church without any specific doctrinal or confessional standpoint." (Page 19, The Integrity of Anglicanism).
Fortunately there is a leadership in Anglicanism that is not in denial of the Episcopal Church's apostasy. It is not Canterbury.
The Primates representing a large majority of worldwide Anglicanism have already declared themselves out of or in impaired communion with The Episcopal Church. For them, it is not merely a matter of "raising serious questions", but a matter of discipline, obedience and loyalty to the faith as this church has received it.
END
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