(Living Church) 20 Bishops Gather for Springfield Consecration

Twenty bishops from such far-flung dioceses as Albany, Hawai”˜i, South Carolina, Utah, and Qu’Appelle participated in the consecration of Daniel H. Martins as the 11th Bishop of Springfield. The service, held March 19 at First United Methodist Church west of downtown Springfield, attracted about 800 people.

The Rev. Anthony F.M. Clavier, a fellow priest in the Diocese of Northern Indiana when Martins served there from May 2007 until December 2010, preached the consecration sermon. Clavier, onetime archbishop of what is now the Anglican Province of America, sometimes turned toward the gathered bishops when joking about the episcopate.

Read it all.

Posted in * Anglican - Episcopal, Episcopal Church (TEC), TEC Bishops

19 comments on “(Living Church) 20 Bishops Gather for Springfield Consecration

  1. Sarah says:

    Heh.

    RE: “Clavier invoked the Rt. Rev. Philander Chase, who became Bishop of Illinois before that diocese became part of General Convention . . . ”

    What a sweet [i]sweet[/i] turn of phrase.

    A very nice touch.

  2. Northwest Bob says:

    Hmm! Don’t see any mention of Her Most Reverndship in this article. Sarah, what is the story here? 🙂
    YIC,
    NW Bob

  3. David Wilson says:

    #2 Maybe its because Doug LeBlanc wrote the article and I don’t think KJS might not be still on Doug’s Christmas Card list. BTW the ENS article has a picture of the gathered purple. It’s hard to picture Peter Beckwith, Mark Lawrence, Bill Love and Jim Stanton all chummy with KJS and her crew.

  4. Sarah says:

    RE: “Peter Beckwith, Mark Lawrence, Bill Love and Jim Stanton all chummy with KJS and her crew.”

    Yeh — but they all needed to be there in order to make sure the consecration was valid.

  5. evan miller says:

    #4
    THAT was very sweet, Sarah!

  6. A Senior Priest says:

    Dan’s real mission is to get people out of the world into the Church.

  7. evan miller says:

    Amen, Senior Priest!

  8. Rob Eaton+ says:

    I would love to see someone take the photos from +Dan’s blog and identify each of the bishop’s seen in a caption or comment. I could identify most but not all.

  9. miserable sinner says:

    Fr. Tony’s full sermon text is up at the Covenant site:
    http://covenant-communion.net/index.php/site/articles/consecration_sermon/

    Prayers for Bishop Martins, his family and the Dio of Springfield,
    -ms

  10. Already left says:

    Does anyone know how the voting went for Bp Martins?

  11. miserable sinner says:

    #10: If you mean the Sept 18th, 2010 diocesan election synod results, they are here –
    http://www.episcopalspringfield.org/ElectingSynodBallotResults.html

    Peace,
    -ms

  12. Milton says:

    Clavier’s full sermon is well worth the read. Full of very pointed zingers that must have had any revisionists in attendance squirming in their seats or looking daggers at him.

  13. Hursley says:

    The comment in the sermon about prophesy is very interesting. I agree; when bishops say they are prophets, the result is almost always the same: conformity to the world.

  14. Jeremy Bonner says:

    The link for the sermon may be found [url=http://afmclavier.wordpress.com/2011/03/20/sermon-at-consecration/]here[/url].

    As Milton (#12) notes, it is well worth perusing.

    Among the gems (slightly edited):

    [i][Philander] Chase was succeeded by a bishop suspected of being sympathetic with the South in the Civil War – You Dan know something of this from your confirmation as bishop process – who was one of the Canadian and Americans who, in 1867, together with our then Presiding Bishop, John Henry Hopkins, wanted to make the Archbishop of Canterbury a Patriarch, much to the distress of that shy, retiring, scholarly Archbishop Longley and to the fury of the Archbishop of York, whose hobby was demanding that his primatial cross be carried before him in the Province of Canterbury. Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.[/i]

    [i]I hear there is a long line of new bishops in our church applying for the charism of Prophet, a smaller line applying for Priest, while no bishop in the US has applied for King since 1776.[/i]

  15. wvparson says:

    I saw no daggers at all, indeed everyone seemed appreciative. Mind you I was behind a concrete wall lol,, not! No one even attempted to release the breaks on my wheel chair. I was an equal opportunity “zinger”.

    Tony Clavier

  16. Douglas LeBlanc says:

    The Presiding Bishop was missing from my report for these reasons:

    — I wanted to cover the story concisely, which meant focusing on a few details.

    — I knew that including portions of Fr. Tony Clavier’s sermon was crucial.

    — As I began writing the story, I was convinced that the most important detail was the geographical and theological variety represented by the assembled bishops.

    I found the Presiding Bishop a friendly and pastoral presence during this service, and I was thankful to see it all firsthand.

  17. wvparson says:

    I would agree that the PB was very cordial and gracious and I saw her chatting with bishops who may not be on her kissing cousins’ list at the pre consecration reception without signs of discomfort on either side. Indeed there was an extraordinarily good atmosphere of good will and I attribute much of that to Bishop Dan’s hard work in seeking to get people to listen to each other, often in the most difficult of circumstances.

  18. David Wilson says:

    All those bishops were justing chatting and having a Rodney King moment together without any signs of discomfort. I’m gettig all jiggly just thinking about it. Makes me wonder why did I never become a Presbyterian

  19. Sarah says:

    You know, I don’t take either view regarding the bishops being all chatty.

    If opposing trial lawyers in the most bitter of trials can be cordial, then certainly Episcopalians can. It is one of our hallmarks after all.

    I don’t think it means anybody’s “listening” to one another [beyond, you know, folks listening to one another like normal human beings use their ears], or “having a Rodney King moment” either.

    I don’t think for a moment that Bishop Lawrence et al do not understand just how apostate [not to mention skin-crawlingly pretentious and grossly abusive] the PB is . . . nor does that have anything whatsoever to do with behaving amicably at a public social setting.

    I could make pleasant — and smiling — conversation with an adder, and so could also participate in the same farce with the PB at a christening or funeral and most certainly would. We know, of course, that it *is* a farce since such behavior in a public social setting bears not the slightest connection to the behavior of the PB in actual settings such as depositions, plots with her lawyer, Beers, regarding Lawrence, and various other maneuverings, sermons, public little essays, press conferences, and on the record memos — and nor would it bear the slightest connection to my opinions concerning her interest in Jesus Christ, her character, or her personality.

    It’s just what surface-civilized people do in public social settings.