First, there is PEP’s Progressive Episcopalians See Review Committee Action As Providing Reconciliation Opportunity. Next, George Conger has Bid to depose US Bishop backfires. Read them both.
First, there is PEP’s Progressive Episcopalians See Review Committee Action As Providing Reconciliation Opportunity. Next, George Conger has Bid to depose US Bishop backfires. Read them both.
“Providing Reconciliation?” this is like Alice in Wonderland thinking where the Queen shouts “Off with Head!” Or the thinking of some of my relatives “I will make peace after I drink wine from your skull.”
I must comment on the PEP press release because it is so absolutely surreal. The very group of people that preferred the charges against Bishop Duncan issues a press release commenting on it as if they were responding to something someone else had done. It reminds me of the surreal propaganda releases of the Soviet press during the Stalinist show trials of the late 1930s. If Joan Gunderson thinks she is going to intimidate the conservative majority in Pittsburgh so that they remain in TEC she has been smoking something more than Marlboro Lights
“the Unsuccessful Inhibition”? I guess that’s one way of putting it. It sure looks to me like they declared Mr Duncan to have abandoned, intend to bring him up before the House of Bishops, and stopped just short of inhibiting him. The peculiar phrasing in the headline makes it seem as though he’s prevailed.
Earth to PEP, Ducan hasn’t been inhibited. I know you are giddy with anticipation but you still have longer to wait.
Comparing the PEP press release to Soviet press statements during the Stalinist show trials is so hyperbolic as to be silly. Nobody is going to shoot Bp. Duncan or send him to a gulag. Let’s get real.
The three senior bishops did not support the action so Bishop Duncan was not inhibited. The phrasing of the headline is not “peculiar.” The CEN headline went even farther.
Bishop Duncan has already been to the firing squad. The HOB regularly works him over as he is the only conservative who speaks who shows up. All their sweet anger gets taken out on him. If they are unified it is because they are unified against him. The “Windsor” Bishops turn the other way and say nothing. The other conservatives long ago gave up even going to these sweet meetings of togetherness “where all points of view are represented and heard” (except those of traditionalists, alas).
Slightly edited-ed.>
I find the Soviet comparison very apt.
Do we know how many of the three senior bishops refused to consent to inhibition? Was it one? Two? All three?
It’s not shooting people are commenting about – it’s the never-ending series of lies, distortions, and outright and deliberate mischaracterizations that flow daily from the offices of ENS and the so-called presiding bishop.
How the PB can seek to inhibit Bishop Duncan (God bless him!) and yet say with a straight face, in a Virginia courtroom, that there is no division within TEC…
I don’t know whether I’m reading about Oz or down the rabbit hole!
Dan Crawford, this is precisely why I believe half of what I read and none of what I hear coming from ENS without checking all of the facts first.
The persons in PEP, particularly those who have deliberately made their names public, should be brought under charges by the Bishop of Pittsburgh.
In any case, if I were in the Diocese of Pittsburgh, I would ‘shun’ them. I would ‘shun’ the clergy by ceasing to value their performance of the sacrements. I would ‘shun’ the laity by ignoring their ‘presence,’ whether it be in social encounter or within the church.
These people of PEP have, by their actions, said that they no longer want to dialogue, they just want to attack their bishop and his episcopal leadership.
Their ‘by passing’ of their bishop and essentially ‘stabbing him in the back,’ has set them apart from the episcopacy of their bishop. The ‘by passing’ clergy should be encouraged to leave and find another diocese.
The gauntlet has been ‘flung’ in the Dicese of Pittsburgh. It is time to pick up that gauntlet and defend “the Faith once given.”
Christ said that if we are to follow Him, then were should be prepared for strife, even within our own families.
Comment #13., please correct
“Christ said that if we are to follow Him, then were should be prepared for strife, even within our own families.”
to read
“Christ said that if we are to follow Him, then we should be prepared for strife, even within our own families.”
[blockquote] The “Windsor†Bishops turn the other way and say nothing. [/blockquote]
And for what good reason do the “Windsor” Bishops act thus? Should they not come to the defense of Bishop Duncan? The “Windsors”, by their abject and continuous silence, approve of what’s issuing forth from 815.
This just gets more bizarre by the minute! Both sad and incredible.
Reply to #16.
Yes, Nikolaus, it is a ‘theatre of the bizarre’ and the stage mistress is Ms Schori.
It wasn’t the traditional and orthodox Anglicans that precipitously started this mess, it was a ‘self-focused’ bunch of secularists who have managed to ‘take over the machinery’ of ECUSA.
However, to ‘cut some slack’ for Ms Scori, she’s inherited this attack upon “the Faith once given” from her predecessors.
They are all guilty of attacking that “Faith.”
Huge setback and potential PR nightmare for 815. (The level of bitter animosity against Windsor Bishops and +Wimberly also finds a complexity in this development in respect of Duncan, though I have seen no confession of that on SF).
The over-reach of 815 is now in the public domain. 3 Sr bishops did not concur (presumably the canon re: ‘abandonment of Communion’ never anticipated a situation when the obviousness of TEC as part of the Communion was itself is question!). Probably Lee and Wimberly failed to back the Review commitee up. As I read the canon, not being a canon lawyer nor wanting to be: 1. it assumes the HOB to be the decision maker and the cases to be self-evident, 2. it assumes that if the PB refers cases of inhibition en route to the HOB adjudication that this will happen in a straightforward way, 3. the canon manifests the reality of TEC polity, viz., the PB is a PB and not a Primate, and so is not in a position to act without three senior bishops saying her decision is OK; in this case, the unique (non Archepiscopal) polity of TEC manifests itself and backfires against the PB, showing the limitations of her office at a time when she is trying to make herself out to be, with Lawyers, not just an Archbishop, but more as well.
The inhibition phase has not produced a result that a PB wanted, in a polity that did not give a PB primatial authority anyway. So she is stuck.
Even should this be brought before the HOB for a vote, it manifests enormous problems. Maybe a vote could be summoned up against Duncan, but it would not be sufficiently self-evident to conform to the spirit of the canon being deployed against him; it would look like an attack and a hyper-extension of the PB office at a time when the peculiarity of the TEC polity probably should not be tested.
I judge this to be a nightmare scenario of 815: viz., one that will expose the polity limitations of the TEC PB at a time when they wish this to be other than the canons they are deploying will back up.
The decisions of 815 and the PB will likely backfire. They are overreaching with canons that will not support them.
Seitz-ACI
I think Chrisopher’s analysis is absolutely correct. Thanks for sharing it. It would be helpful to know whom, if any, of the three senior bishops supported +Duncan’s proposed inhibition and who were the minority on the Title IV Committee that did not support preferring charges.
David Wilson, DioPgh
#19 – there is far too much personalisation of matters on the blogs I have seen (excitement over condeming ACI, CA Bishops, Wimberly, etc). Instead of dealing with substantive issues, because this requires thought and prayer, we have a rush to judgment ad hominem and in extremis.
Personally, I would prefer that the issue remain on matters of polity and substance — esp when these show the PB and 815 to be vulnerable. Instead of fighting for TEC conservatives, that they have a right to claim as their own; there appears to be a concession on matters of polity unfavorable to traditional anglicans.
I think this is handing over a majority position in the Communion, and the polity of TEC written in conformity to that, to those who claim to be ‘TEC.’ They are overreaching and ‘leaving’ may assume the polity is theirs to win and claim, when the opposite should be urgently prosecuted before a majority Communion jury favorable to biblical, orthodox Anglicanism. TEC traditionalists should claim to be the ‘home team’ they are and not play an away game. TEC 815 is playing game that they cannot win and that their overreach will expose as defensive and nationalistic/autonomous. Anglicanism traditionally understood cannot support this understanding of catholic, scriptural Christianity.
#20 I agree in principle about the nature of personal attack on many of the blogs – both progressive and orthodox. My desire to know who was for inhibition and who was against it was based not on a desire to condemn but because I think it is cowardly to hide behind the ananimity of the group when making individual decision. I think full disclosure, each one should owning how they have ruled in the matter is the most honest, open and transparent approach. And the msot healthy too.
Unbelievable! The PB says there is no campaign to marginalize traditionalists, when she herself makes odious comparisons of “the orthodox” and urges their eradication. Is there any honesty and integrity left at 815?
“Urges their eradication”???? Bill Matz [#22], go read this NY Times article about the vicious smears being spread in South Carolina about John McCain — claiming that he sold out other POWs to save himself; that his daughter, whom McCain and his wife adopted from a Bangladesh orphanage, was a black child he had fathered out of wedlock; etc. To claim that +KJS is trying to eradicate the orthodox from TEC amounts to much the same thing.
Clarification: The McCain smear about his daughter was from the 2000 campaign. The POW sell-out smear is from this year.
On the subject of polity, I’m not familiar with the instrument called “Communion jury”. Is that an instrument or a good idea?
#6, according to the documents earlier posted on this blog, Bp Duncan was found to have abandoned his position. As I understand it, Bp. Duncan will come up before the House of Bishops, for examination and a vote on his actions, and may well be deposed. To describe this in the headline as “unsuccessful inhibition” struck me as implying that Bp Duncan had somehow passed a challenge, rather than being headed from the frying pan to the fire. If the “CEN” you mention refers to the Conger article, his headline is just plain wrong, as no deposition has ordered and therefore has not backfired.
#18, while I certainly respect your knowledge and position, I think the failure of the PB to obtain an inhibition approval is a mere technicality. As soon as Diocese of Pittsburgh has the second vote to leave TEC, the inhibition indictment will come down immediately, just like it did for San Joaquin. What the 3 bishops are saying, to me, is that Bp Duncan has abandoned communion by supporting and encouraging the first vote, but he has not done anything yet to warrant inhibition. After the second vote, when Pittsburgh will officially set itself apart from TEC, Bp Duncan will have done what is necessary to warrant an inhibition. The PB was obviously attempting to cut Bp Duncan off at the pass before that second vote could be taken, with the hope that a substitute bishop, appointed by her, would keep the second vote from occurring.
#26: The PB’s means -of -choice- pre-approved Inhibition- is the quickest and “cleanest” choice. This other way, I believe, will give Bp. Duncan a sort of “day in court” which direct Inhibition does not.
So: from a PR standpoint, and from the standpoint of ultimately prevailing, this is a set back for Ms. Schori. However, the group-think influenced HoB may well follow the party line and depose Bp. Duncan. Unneccesary and revealing.
#28, 18: Just to understand the process, is it correct that both Bp Duncan and Schofield will come before the HOB because of the certificate of abandonment? And both will be voted on in much the same manner? It seems from reading the canons that the certification of abandonment — not the inhibition — is the trigger for the HOB vote, and the inhibition only applies (or not, for Bp Duncan) in the interim.
#27–very perceptive. #28–the certificate means a HOB vote. If 815 overreaches anymore, the matter could get complicated at vote stage. If I were +Schofield, I would have written a letter of resignation from being a TEC Bishop, had Southern Cone enclose me on their Roster. This makes it difficult to say he personally abandoned communion without calling into question the character of a transfer being at issue (which happens all the time). To say that someone has renounced the worship and discipline of the BCP etc is trickier, since that is what is being argued is at issue in the case of TEC! A vote may end up revealing things 815 never anticipated would be revealed…
#27 — you’re absolutely right. Bp Wimberly just released a statement saying exactly that; so far I only see it on the Lead at Episcopal Cafe.