I am sure Fr. [Mark] Harris is well aware that the articulation of TEC’s polity in the Bishops’ Statement is hardly novel, but has long been the standard understanding of our governance. See, for example, the widely-used series on “The Church’s Teaching” by Dr. Powel Dawley of GTS, the work by Dr. Daniel Stevick of EDS on Canon Law and the article by Dr. Robert Prichard of VTS, one of TEC’s leading historians, in the current issue of “Anglican and Episcopal History,” who reviews this history and my paper and concludes that my work is “cogent and based on good historical argument.”
Finally and most importantly, none of this should deflect attention from the Bishops’ Statement itself. It is what it is says it is: a statement by fifteen bishops of this Church, including a candidate for Presiding Bishop in 1985 (Bishop Frey), a candidate for Presiding Bishop in 1997 and one of the three Senior Bishops of the Church who exercise canonical responsibilities under Title IV (Bishop Wimberly) and the immediate past president of the Presiding Bishop’s Council of Advice (Bishop MacPherson). I urge Fr. Harris and others to focus on this Statement by fifteen distinguished Bishops rather than discuss obviously confidential emails that should never have been made public in the first place.
Sorry Mr McCall, but it’s all for nothing. Individual dioceses signing up just ain’t gonna happen. Period. How many other provinces want that kind of chaos popping up on their own doorstep do you think? Whatever ‘backdoor’ Dr Radner thought he’d slipped in for his CP mates will be quickly slammed by the ACC.
Ruth nails it:
[blockquote]“I’ve got some seriously bad news for them.
Apparently the sands have shifted. That letter to Howe was written in 2007. Now is 2009, nearly two whole years later. The covenant is in its third draft and there can be no doubt, reading it, that when it speaks of ‘church’, as it does many times, it means a national church, or a province.
Ecclesiastical polity is a many-layered complex thing. Even when we imagine we’re still in the land of Richard Hooker it is changing all the time. Yet on one level, that of true polity, it remains exactly the same as it was in Hooker’s day.
I have it on good authority that things are deemed to have moved on rather substantially, but some things cannot change, otherwise we truly will not be a ‘proper church’, not even an ecclesial community, but just a rather drippy federation.
There is absolutely no way the ACI bishops will be enabled to perform some sort of subtle non-schismatic ecclesiological split manoeuvre on The Episcopal Church, leaving their orthodox dioceses at the centre of a covenental Communion along with Cantuar and the conservatives, with the liberal pro-gay majority forced to dance around on the edges in some ‘outer circle’ of recognition.”[/blockquote]
http://timescolumns.typepad.com/gledhill/2009/04/sorry-folks-but-a-diocese-is-not-a-church.html
Is Ruth Gledhill really more cognizant of American canon law and history than Mark McCall and A.S.Haley? How is that? Is she also a juris doctor as well as a being the print parrot of the Anglican left? If she is cognizant of US law, non-canonical as well, do you think she has warned PB Shori of the small box in which Shori may have put herself?
By a very small box, I mean those small ones with locks and bars on the windows.
Markie does not want the Bishops’ Statement read. It makes sense. It is historically and verifiably correct. That’s why he wants to focus on the emails, it distracts from the truth. Remember that the goal is to distract from the truth so the party in power can accomplish it’s goals. Truth be damned. Therefore, do not read the Bishops’ Statement and all will be well. Hey, let’s read their innocuous emails and make up stuff to fuss about! That’ll distract folks.
Neither Mark Harris nor Ruth Gledhill have much idea, it seems, of what they are talking about. Of course, nothing is writ in stone about all these things. However: there are currently non-provincial jurisdictions in the Communion (I’m tired of pointing this out, and will let others look them up); they function in various ways. Nothing prevents — in theory — further non-provincial jurisdictions arising, adopting the covenant for themselves, requesting recognition from this or that INstrument, and being recognized. To be sure, they may not be recognized. And there are all kinds of reasons why they might or might not. Such non-provincial jurisdictions could arise from many origins, as I have said over and over — ecumenical partners, “continuing Anglicans”, formeraly estranged Anglicans, dioceses whose provinces are not wishing to covenant, and so on. I am not claiming that this or that will happen, but only a.) what the CDG was deliberatly leaving open and b.) what could, under the terms of the covenant draft, happen. If Harris and Gledhill think I am wrong about a.) and b.) let’s have some evidence rather than simple assertion and secret knowledge. Finally, let it be stated yet again: the ACC is simply one Instrument; they do not own the Covenant or its future. Their views are important, but they are not exhaustive of the Communion’s.