As I prepare to return to the diocese after participating in the House of Bishops Interim Meeting in New Orleans since last Wednesday, I am attaching hereto the communiqué that we have adopted in response to the requests of our partners in the Anglican Communion. Please read it carefully and know that it was written over a lengthy period of days and adopted by a very broad consensus of your bishops.
I believe that this communiqué represents a considerable spirit of compromise and collegiality in the House of Bishops, which I am pleased to see. There were only two voiced votes against its adoption and no minority report or open dissent. The communiqué will be “spun” in different ways no doubt in accordance with the biases of the press and the desires of different factions in the church. I lament this, but it is the way of the world in which we presently live. I was particularly disappointed by the inaccuracy of the New York Times article which appeared in the Birmingham News today. Let us not be misled by negative and ill-prepared comments.
Read it all. Is it not a bit humorous to see all these Episcopal leaders so critical of the New York Times? Weren’t they the same ones who quoted Bishop Parsley in the article before the meeting?
ECUSA functionaries don’t like the internet, do they?
and no minority report or open dissent
Apparently the dissent was kept behind closed doors.
Not so humorous? Seeing the fact that there was “no minority report or open dissent” used in this way.
This is exactly why there have been such pointed questions directed at the former Windsor Bishops over the past day and a half, and why so many members of the laity feel betrayed by them.
The New York Times is starting to figure these guys out. Bet they don’t like that.
I echo #3’s comments. There’s little excuse for the lack of preparation or unified response by the Camp Allen bishops who worked so hard before-hand to get a clear and unambiguous response. The feeling I get is that they got steamrolled, and didn’t have a plan to respond if they didn’t agree. KJS and 815 did a good job of dividing this group and making them ‘feel’ included while, in the end, their voices and agreement were carefully excluded. Now Parsley (have no doubt, Alabamans, which side he’s for) is driving home the point that there was virtually no dissent and no lack of clarity in the response. You can bet that Jim Naughton, Ian Douglas, and all the rest of the ENS PR machinery will also try out this new spin whenever possible.
The “spirit of compromise” says volumes. The HOB sees everything as negotiable. The primates in DES do not.
#5: “…they got steamrolled, and didn’t have a plan to respond if they didn’t agree. KJS and 815 did a good job of dividing this group and making them ‘feel’ included while, in the end, their voices and agreement were carefully excluded. ” That is indeed the crux of the matter. Amen. George+
When different bishops can carry away such different interpretations of what happened at the end of the session, it suggests that the way the House of Bishops operates is messed up.
This “nuanced” statement might be technically correct if read very precisely in a lawyerly manner, but it does not seem to square with other reports.
Were there two voiced votes against adoption? One? More than two? Nobody can say definitively. The most that can be said is that there were very few.
No mention is made of Salmon’s private speech.
The lack of strong or any opposition in the public part of the meeting allows Parsley to make claims like this, which seems similar to the 95% claim by Jefferts Schori.
How is this marginalization of conservative dissent different than the marginalization of any other minority in the Episcopal Church?
How is this marginalization of conservative dissent different than the marginalization of any other minority in the Episcopal Church?
It’s not. It’s just that we are the “other” to the TEC leadership, so they can’t embrace us – the “other” that they embrace isn’t really “other” at all. Despite much verbiage, this isn’t about “tolerance” and “justice.”
Blatant institutionalist run amok. Should be PB for actual equivalent of average HOB member. Mr. Truthiness award for blatant misrepresentation of reality seen through specialty lenses. Ability to dissumulate award for approximating +JJ Bruno on the national level, “What!? SSB’s in ECUSA?! Not on my watch! (wink).”
Absolutely correct #3. I can’t for the life of me understand what they (the Windsor Bishops) were thinking when they meekly assented to the HOB statement.
You know, what the ECUSA bishops really need is a Magesterium to produce authoritative documents. Maybe a Supreme Anglican Commander, ECUSA. Admiral Katherine. Then no one will ask so many questions. “Kate has spoken, the matter is closed”.
See, they’re really Anglo Catholic after all!
Some have blamed this miserable failure of the Camp Allen bishops on the few that left for the Common Cause meeting. Bishops Iker and Duncan announced their plans months ago, so that rings very hollow.
It is my understanding that many of the so called Camp Allen bishops not only did not dissent but actively participated in this travesty. Are the so-called Camp Allen bishops who were named as “visitors” going to repudiate the DEPO-warmed-over plan, or are they going to participate? I understand that some were surprised to be named, but I have not heard any distancing of those named.
May I respectfully point out that there already IS a magisterium, one which is faithful to the faith received from the apostolic fathers and to the Scriptures generated by that faith?
In faith, Dave
Viva Texas
## 3, 5, 7, etc. The “Minority” report is being written at Common Cause.
They are done being an “internal minority” and are becoming what they are: an authentic Christian Church
I’ve read in previous reports that there was only one dissenting vote (Bishop Howe). Does anyone know who the second was?
Yes, Dr. Harmon, the situation with the New York times is quite amusing. So often blatantly biased in other reporting, its reporter here, Ms. Banerjee, did a good job and got it more nearly right than any other major report I have seen. She seemed to have read the Primates’ communique and the response and drawn the obvious conclusions, and she quoted both liberal and conservative reaction.
What this bishop’s complaint means is that he doesn’t like the blunt truth getting out there. Thanks, for once, NYT!
OT here – but maybe it can be headlined on this site, as a relief from all this dreary HOB stuff – an excellent piece on the ignorance and inadequacy of N T Wright’s cartoonish forays into political theology:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=14158
Rick,
I thought it was Bennison who was the LONE dissenting vote? (I think I read that the reason was that it gave up too much.)
No 17, Every now and then some real journalism crawls out of the New York Slimes.
I read the NYT article, and it squared with the facts as we knew them at the time. If anything, it was generous in that it did not point out +Bruno’s dancing around the truth.
Randall
Definition of [b] obfuscation [/b] :
1. Bishop Parsley
Speculation is usually useless, but maybe the “Windsor Bishops” saw the writing on the wall that any dissent would be useless, the deck stacked against them (again), and so decided NOT to raise a fuss, and let things take their course?
Just thinking ‘aloud’.
It has become clear that any bishop who has anything positive to say about the HOB Statement is going to be keelhauled by most of the commenters on this blog. Or, to use another phrase from war of the sea, “No quarter.” It is, as Bp. Parsley said, “the way of the world in which we live.”
I remember reading somewhere (possibly on SF) that weeks ago Bishops Iker and Duncan, and their allies, said they planned to attend the New Orleans fiasco only while +++Rowan was there, as a matter of respect to him, and to then leave for their more important meeting which they are in now.
In faith, Dave
Viva Texas
INSTITUTIONALIST: Stodgy Progressive. “Bishop Radisch is a classic institutionalist: he calls himself Orthodox, dissents feebly, and serves 815 meticulously.†—From the Revisionist Dictionary
I hope not, Bob, as that would not be fair. They did do better than last time on the first request, but then they ruined that by putting in their own terms and keeping the expansive language of b033 instead of the precise language of windsor. And it seems there was more candor than in previous meetings.
Kendall, you think the Fall HoB response to alternative oversight is better than the Spring? In the Spring they only addressed the alternative oversight. In the Fall, they offer a warmed-over-DEPO that in no way fulfills the request of DeS. I prefer the clear and resounding no of the spring Mind of the House resolution. I thought you were calling for the end of obfuscation?
Robroy, calm down and read what I said. I was talking about the first request on election and confirmation of bishops. i am not talking about other aspects of the document.
Their offer of oversight is not only poor, but pitifully put together in that they didnt consult the people it was supposed to be for.