A snippet from Matt Kennedy’s live blog of tonight’s press conference. Please remember this may not be word-for-word accurate (as Matt+ says, this is live not memorex). A few typos corrected by the elves.
NPR: to Bruno, do you see any possibility of TEC reversing course with regard to sexuality issues
Bruno: I don’t believe we’ll ever turn back the clock. We are not responding to that right now. WE are responding to what has been asked of us. As to whether we are going to withdraw our support for gay and lesbian people in the church. no they are fully franchised. Are we going to exacerbate the situation no.
Update: there’s also this at BabyBlue regarding the rest of +Bruno’s remarks this evening. What was it Kendall wrote last week about Honesty vs. Obfuscation?
Update 2: Stand Firm has more on the question of +Bruno’s involvement in SSBs in Los Angeles. Note: Matt is now working from a *recording* of the press conference, thus +Bruno’s actual word’s, not a mere close approximation.
This is the second time I’ve heard a statement from this session about “not turning back the clock.” I can’t put my finger on where I heard/read it the first time–perhaps live during the first (non) press conference?
+Bruno conducted a union ceremony for the Rev. Malcolm Boyd, poet laureate of L.A., and his long-time partner. Are we to believe he did not officiate or attend the “wedding” of Susan Russell+, President of Integrity and “Claim the Blessing”?? She is a priest in his diocese. For him to stand there and proclaim ssb do not occur in his diocese with his permission is a lie….I wonder how those who have been “blessed” by him feel about his denial?
[blockquote] Bruno: You have asked whether we will continue the process of General Convention. The fact is that we have never authorized same sex unions.
NYT: it happens on the diocesan level all the time.
Bruno: [b]Not in my diocese.[/b] It does not happen without my permission.
NYT: But it happens in many dioceses on a private level. How do the questions of the communiqué differ from what conservatives want?
Bruno: I’ve answered it as best I can. If I were to answer it any more clearly we would break the promises we made in the house. [/blockquote]
Bruno must think we’re all mighty stupid, including the New York Times. Maybe Bruno hasn’t read the Sunday edition of the NY Times yet, which covered in its society pages a same-sex ceremony which just happened in his diocese on Saturday. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/fashion/weddings/23stanley.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
#1, Br’er — I don’t know about another instance today, but +Jefferts Schori has said something almost word-for-word to what +Bruno said today the summer of 2006. Will dig it up in a little bit.
And For the record, yet more commentary on this by Chip Webb.
http://anglicanaction.blogspot.com/2007/09/so-you-dont-have-your-dioceses.html
Elves,
[b]MORE[/b] commentary? I am having a hard enough time digesting THIS commentary… I think I need to go lie down for a bit!
Surely what Bp Bruno said was. SSBs happen do in his diocese but only with his permission. It’s public record, isn’t it that he officiated at the Malcolm Boyd ritual?
Of course these rituals are happening in other Anglican provinces also. cf. http://www.thurible.net/ where the dean of Glasgow Cathedral describes a Eucharist and blessing he just celebrated. Do you really think that the Communion must shatter just because two people pledge their faithfulness and love and pray together with their friends and families?
http://www.thurible.net/
Well, Mr Bruno, it’s later than you think. It just turned fall, and in just six short weeks we [i] are [/i] going to [b] turn back the clock ! [/b]
Ha!
No, Dmitri, but because they are the same sex…. and you, and others like you, bless it and try to make holy what God calls an abomination. It is the an adulteration of God’s creative intent and contrary to His moral law. The only way you could possibly find yourself believing it permissible is by ignoring Holy Scriptures and the Faith that has been handed down from the Apostles. —- It is not what THEY do that necessitates schism…but your arrogance and betrayal as a priest of Christ’s church (and a willingness of others to follow your example). That is why I, and thousands more like me, need to separate ourselves from you and what you stand for.
The souls of those two people whom you just performed a “union blessing” are on your head. As a man who lived much of my adult life in the gay community, I know what it feels like to live in disobedience. It is a miserable existence. And I intend to spend the rest of my life speaking to other homosexuals that walking a life of sexual purity is possible….being obedient is possible with the help of His Spirit and a faithful Christian community. I have no desire to be part of a “Church” or sect that is responsible for the spiritual suicide of its members…or a willing participant. Instead, it is my goal to minister to those with same-sex attraction issues from a redemptive Christian perspective….not help people feel better about how they sin.
God says, “If you love me, keep my commandments.”
“not turning back the clock.â€
It’s a favorite phrase of Susan Russell and Integrity.
Did you notice he also said we wouldn’t give up our integrity around the same time?
Canon Kendall I know you do not like to speak ill of people and can always see good things even in your worst “opponents”.
But I have watched both press conferences and read the live blogs and to me Bishops Jenkins and Bruno just seem like the most insufferable people. Have you ever encountered these men in a throughly positive way?
No. 10 – Some of the commenters on this site (not Kendall) seem pretty insufferable.
Bishop Jenkins is really, [i]really[/i] trying to help out in this untenable situation TEC has worked itself into. The other bishop you mentioned, rob k, is simply digging the hole deeper.
My apologies, rob k, you did not mention [i]any[/i] bishops.
Brer Rabbit – Thx. I do agree that the “other” bishop (not Jenkins) can be insufferable. I am sometimes in his diocese. I’m not sure what I’ll do if TEC does really go its own way, without regard for the putative catholic intrastructure of our church. I actually have some agreement with some of its issues, not, though, I assure you, with the silly heretical, Spongian attitudes intentionally or in theological ignorance verbalized by many in ECUSA. But I fear it is becoming a single issue church, all focused on “justice” seen through one particular kind of glasses. This is why so many articles of the faith seem to be secondary to many in TEC. Being an Anglo-Catholic, though, means that I will not be able to follow most of the reasserters, who seem determined to opportunistically use the present troubles of Anglicanism to reshape the Church into their Protestant dream of a Calvinistic redoubt. If I don’t stay in TEC, which I still believe to be, respectfully disagreeing with such esteemed commentators as Wm. Tighe, Catholic in structure, Rome will be the likely answer.
Rob, After 40 years in PECUSA (and I definitely claimed ownership of the “P”), my church made a move that placed me outside TEC. I have since vowed to holy orders outside the entire set of political machinations.
By the family of my birth, I was baptised into the One, Holy, Catholic Apostolic Church, which had charismatic origins. My mother, at 91, considers herself the last remaining survivor of that church in North America. My great-grandmother, shocked that my grandfather had no remaining church to go to, shook his finger at him and said, “Go to the Episcopal Church, because they’re the closest.” So I still follow, with sorrowful affection, the turmoil of my family’s church.
Anglicans will be one again, Rob, and without the likes of that bishop. The process may not start until 10 years from now, and it may take another 10 years to work that out. But our Lord may come before that happens.
Stand Firm has a round up of links about various bishops’ statements on same-sex blessings, and examples of SSBs. Here’s the link:
“Same Sex Blessings — Who Us?”
http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/6286/
Also, for the record, here is Susan Russell’s statement on her blog last night about the Dio. of LA “policy” on blessings:
[blockquote]As for the policy on blessings in the Diocese of Los Angeles (should inquiring minds want to know and given the number of press calls and emails I’ve gotten I assume they do):
My understanding is that permission from the bishop for the blessing of a same-sex union is not required in the Diocese of Los Angeles as we are understood, as presbyters, to be providing pastoral care to the couple under our pastoral oversight. That’s what happened at All Saints, Beverly Hills last week and that’s what will happen at All Saints, Pasadena next month (and lots of other parishes inbetween.)
Should the national church, through the appropriate process of consents by both houses sitting in General Convention authorize liturgical rites for blessing then that issue will be revisited by the Bishop of Los Angeles. In the meantime, flowers are ordered, organists arranged for, best men and women suited up and life goes on — the primates notwithstanding.[/blockquote]
http://inchatatime.blogspot.com/2007/09/lions-and-tigers-and-rumors-oh-my.html
#9: I am impressed with your testimony. There is courage written all over it. Without courage, Aristotle tells us, there can be no good character, for courage is at the root of all such character. Everything I have seen bears out this truth. But there is another parent, namely, self discipline, and I see this in your testimony as well. Be of good cheer. Christ Himself lived these principles. Larry
BR – I read the website of the Catholic Apostolic Church. I know there is a group in Hollywood that has had a parish congregation with a similar name, but I don’t know if it is the same. Thanks for the reference. Seems to be a mixture of Catholic ritual and belief (Real Presence et al) and some 19th century philosophical ideas. Is that a fair characterization? Let me know. I’ll be out of town for a week and away from the computer. Back next Tues. 10/2. Thx.
Rob, at its height the Catholic Apostolic Church had 200 congregations across Britain of Anglicans expelled from their congregations for practicing charismatic gifts. It developed its own high-church liturgy which was distinctly Anglican. Its demise was principally from its eschatological beliefs, which saw the events of John’s Apocalypse unfolding around them.
For more of this off-thread conversation, click on the [url=http://resurrectiongulfcoast.blogspot.com/]Briar Patch[/url], go to my profile, and send me an email.