from Midwest Conservative Journal
The Episcopal Organization’s Executive Council met with Anglican Communion Secretary General Kenneth Kearon today and Mark Harris lists some of the questions the Council planned to ask him. Here are three of them:
There is a covenant being considered that has in it certain processes, some of which have caused great concern for some of the provinces on how fairly they would be applied. For example, the Province of New Zealand gave only partial approval to the covenant, with members of its General Synod noting that Section 4 could “get into a situation where we sanctify a process of exclusion or marginalization” and that it might be implemented in ways that are “punitive, controlling and completely unAnglican.” Do the recent actions of the Archbishop of Canterbury give credence to these concerns?
There are always consequences to living authentically as Christians. Within relationships among Christians, however, we ought to have opportunity to question those consequences, lest all end up walking on eggshells. Is there such a process now? And, do you foresee a season of such sanctions or is the removal of ecumenical committee appointees from The Episcopal Church an isolated event?
You have stated that The Episcopal Church does not “share the faith and order of the vast majority of the Anglican Communion.” Given the place of the Chicago Lambeth Quadrilateral in our common life as The Episcopal Church, how was it determined that The Episcopal Church does not share this faith and order?
Harris also heard from a Canandian female bishop who was allowed to wear her miter in Southwark Cathedral.
For the record, I celebrated and preached at Southwark Cathedral on November 9, 2009 with the permission of the Powers-That-Be in the C.of E. in the presence of the Diocesan Bishop and fully vested including mitre. It was a public service to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the ordination of women to the priesthood in the C. of E. The only restriction place on me was that I was not to “perform an episcopal function”. As I was not planning either a confirmation or an ordination this was not a big deal, though the whole process was aggravating. To my mind this makes the insult offered to the Presiding Bishop even more gratuitous.
An Executive Council member named Lelanda Lee live-tweeted the Kearon meeting and from the sound of some of these posts, the mood was tense bordering on hostile.
Kenneth Kearon asked for “private conversation” but ExCoun declined. So staff & press are present.
Kearon emphasized this is a “conversation” & “from my perspective” & admonished ExCoun when we speak it’s also “from our perspective.”
Kearon says he’s member of Irish church not of C of E. Don’t blame him for ABC’s remarks. Kearon interrupted his vacation to speak w/ExCoun.
+++KJS has told Kearon to cut his comments. He’s run overtime. He says that puts him in dilemma. We ask to go forward with Q&A.
Kearon says our L.A. elections the TEC must admit, puts us out of step with the communion. “Sadly, you don’t see it that way.”
Ballentine, “ABC’s actions were precipitous.” Kearon says ABC had private conversation w/PB prior to such actions.
Lee Crawford: As a lesbian priest in a civil union - removing reps by executive action contrary to ABC’s Pentecost ltr re value of inclusion
Kearon: one form of exclusion for faith and order issues not same as other form of exclusion.
+Wendell Gibbs: C of E in communion w/Church of Sweden which has out lesbian presiding bishop. Logic? How compare to removal of TEC?
Kearon: (pause, stammer) - there are different types of full communion. And sticking point is representing Communion vis a vis faith & order
Simon Sarmiento points out that Mrs. Schori once preached at Salisbury Cathedral and got to wear her pointy hat. And Geralyn Wolf also got to preach in Britain without any apparent millinerial sanction or difficulty.
Episcopal News Service already has a report on the Kearon meeting up. Here’s a short example of its general tone.
The Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Communion, told the Episcopal Church’s Executive Council June 18 that when Diocese of Los Angeles Bishop Suffragan Mary Glasspool was ordained as the church’s second openly gay, partnered bishop, the church ought to have known that it would face sanctions.
However, he said that in the recent removal of Episcopal Church members from some Anglican Communion ecumenical dialogues “the aim has not been to get at the Episcopal Church, but to find room for others to remain as well as enabling as full a participation as possible for the Episcopal Church within the communion.”
Kearon claimed that the communion’s ecumenical dialogues “are at the point of collapse” and said that the last meeting of the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, of which Jefferts Schori is an elected member, “was probably the worst meeting I have experienced.”
The secretary general said that the Episcopal Church is free to make any decision that it wants to make but, he added, that the Glasspool decision put the church “out of step with the rest of the [Anglican] Communion” on same-gender issues.
“There is a logic which says if you do not share the faith and order of the wider communion then you shouldn’t represent that communion to the wider church,” he said.
Kearon’s remarks came during a 35-minute question-and-answer session with the council on the last day of its June 16-18 meeting at the Conference Center at the Maritime Institute here just outside of Baltimore. The secretary general’s visit was initiated by member Bruce Garner of Atlanta, Georgia, who suggested to Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori that she invite Kearon, who was vacationing in North America, to the meeting.
Garner told ENS afterwards that he had “never witnessed so much obfuscation in such a short period of time” in his entire life.
“We were polite,” he said, “but we asked him questions he could not or would not provide answers to.”
Two facts are becoming increasingly apparent. There has been a revolution in Anglican Communion thinking about the Americans. And the Episcopal/Anglican left does not comprehend the reasons for it.
Think about it. A month or so ago, it was conservatives like me who disdained Rowan Williams and thought “official” Anglicanism was a worthless bauble we could no longer afford. Now, it’s the habitués of the Jimi Naughton Experience and other places who can’t get execrate Dr. Williams too strongly and talk more and more of abandoning the Canterbury connection altogether.
What happened?
A commenter at Kendall’s gets at something important.
TEC is getting nervous because the ABC is leveraging the only thing they care about—legitimacy. As they are being relegated to second class status and stripped of ecumenical prerogatives they are diminished. The ABC understands that TEC doesn’t care about how they have damaged Anglicanism in ecumenical relationships with global Christianity. He understands that the Pope has offered a home to disaffected Anglicans and all that implies. So, he’s hit them with the only thing they respect—legitimacy. How legitimate can you be as a Province if you can’t be taken seriously enough to go meetings and represent the Communion?
As delphic as he is, I doubt that my gracious lord of Canterbury will ever come out and explain Lambeth Palace’s apparent volte-face. Since all we are ever likely to have is speculation, here’s mine for what it’s worth.
Whatever criticisms can be made about the Archbishop of Canterbury’s handling of this situation from 2003 to the present, and there are a great many of them, one thing is abundantly clear. Rowan Williams loves the Anglican tradition. And I think he has finally realized that the Americans do not.
Let’s face it. If people like Katharine Jefferts Schori, John Chane, J. Jon Bruno, Tommy Three-Sticks, Gene Robinson and the rest of the Episcopal left could have accomplished their goals inside the Roman Catholic or Orthodox churches, they would have. But those churches are permanently closed to them.
Which leaves the Anglicans. A connection to a Christian tradition with apostolic pretensions is absolutely essential for the religious left. After all, what does it matter if the Christian Church(Disciples of Christ) ordains women or the United Church of Christ ordains homosexuals and permits homosexual marriage?
But the fact that an “apostolic” church permits all these things carries considerably more weight for two reasons. Because it places in the public mind the idea that such innovations are legitimate “apostolic” positions to take. And it implies that perhaps the other two larger and far more influential “apostolic” churches might be, well, wrong.
As the Episcopal Organization’s hysterical overreaction to the extremely mild sanctions imposed by the Archbishop of Canterbury demonstrates, Dr. Williams’ newfound understanding about the Americans has suddenly endangered all that. The Episcopalians cannot accept any Communion sanctions, even mild ones.
Ever
Because the moment they do, they also accept the fact that their positions are not Anglican. And if TEO’s stances are no longer Anglican, they can no longer be considered to be “apostolic.” And if they are no longer “apostolic,” the church that promulgates them isn’t either, Episcopalians instantly become run-of-the-mill Protestants and Mrs. Schori is no more of an Anglican bishop than I am.
Hence the angry defensiveness of the Episcopal/Anglican left these days. Was Southwark a deliberate insult? Undoubtedly. It’s just too bad that the Anglican left cannot understand the quite legitimate reasons(and even the need) for it.
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