The standing committee of the Anglican Diocese of Quincy announced that the Rt. Rev. Edward H. MacBurney, Bishop of Quincy from 1988 to 1994, had agreed to serve as an assisting bishop for the diocese on a temporary basis.
Last fall, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori charged Bishop MacBurney with abandonment of communion and inhibited him for performing sacramental episcopal acts at an Anglican Church that formerly was part of The Episcopal Church in the Diocese of San Diego. The inhibition was lifted and the charges were dropped after Bishop MacBurney wrote to the Rt. Rev. James Mathes, Bishop of San Diego. In a brief interview with The Living Church, Bishop MacBurney denied that he had apologized or agreed to stop performing sacramental episcopal acts for breakaway Anglicans.
Good news! Amd God bless this fine bishop.
A fine choice!
Perhaps the apology that Bishop MacBurney gave was simply to Bishop Mathes for his failure to secure local episcopal approval before the disputed San Diego confirmations.
Now is this development going to open Bishop MacBurney to further charges in TEC?
TEC — specifically 815 — needed to save a little face in the MacBurney incident last time. They’ll come out guns blazing again, anyway.
Difficult to see how the abandonment canon (IV.9) prohibition against performing episcopal acts would apply in this case, since the diocese in which he is performing such acts is part of a Church (Southern Cone) in communion with “this Church” (TEC).
Of course, in the land of the Red Queen and Humpty Dumpty anything can happen!
The Anglican Church in the Province of the Southern Cone of the Americas is in communion with The Episcopal Church, so how can KJS claim that our bishops have “abandoned the communion” with her Church? They are just as much in communion with TEC as the bishops of the Church of England are, the last I heard.
My understanding is that the likeliest offense is purely geographic. If the good Bishop MacB travels to Kansas and confirms Anglicans there, without getting permission from the local TEC bishop, then he has offended that local bishop’s jurisdiction, and will face charges of abandoning TEC discipline. This is what got Bishop MacBurney in trouble in San Diego.
On the other hand, if he flies off to Kenya, and assists in consecrating the next Kenyan Anglican archbishop to America, as part of a larger Anglican missionary effort, No Problem: There is no local TEC bishop in Kenya whose jurisdiction is offended.
So, when Bishop MacBurney conducts Anglican confirmations in Peoria for the Diocese of Quincy, is there any local TEC bishop whose permission he failed to secure? That depends on how quickly the PB and 815 can secure designation of a provisional bishop for the Quincy remnants; that provisional bishop will then be able to file charges against Bishop MacBurney, just as Bishop Mathes did in San Diego.
To the extent that Bishop MacBurney visits, preaches and speaks at, or presides at Communion or weddings at local Anglican parishes, he may be OK, but if he ordains or confirms, then 815 will be out to get him. But I think the issue is geographic — you need a Rand McNally more than a copy of the Thirty-nine Articles.
But I cannot leave this thread without adding that Bishop Edward MacBurney, perhaps moreso than most of the younger conservative leaders, is a real hero to longtime faithful Episcopalians/Anglicans. His faithful witness has been constant and quiet; he has been a true blessing to the Church.