It would be easier to let U.S. conservatives secede to join another Anglican province without a fight, said Jefferts Schori, “but I don’t think that’s a faithful thing to do.”
Episcopal leaders are stewards of church property and assets, protecting past generations’ legacies and passing them on to future Episcopalians, according to the presiding bishop. Allowing congregations to walk away with church property condones “bad behavior,” she said.
“In a sense it’s related to the old ecclesiastical behavior toward child abuse,” when priests essentially looked the other way, she said.
“Bad behavior must be confronted.”
But Jefferts Schori can be “heavy handed” in her treatment of conservative bishops and churches who’ve left or distanced themselves from the church, said the Rev. Neal Michell, canon for strategic development in the Diocese of Dallas.
Earlier this month, Episcopal leaders, including Jefferts Schori, charged two conservative bishops with “abandonment,” barring San Joaquin
(Calif.) Bishop John-David Schofield from active ministry and threatening similar action against Bishop Bob Duncan of Pittsburgh.
Both [Neal] Michell and [Kendall] Harmon also criticized the presiding bishop’s decision to become involved in a legal battle between the Diocese of Virginia and 11 churches that have split to join Nigerian Anglicans.
“To be so directly and explicitly and publicly and intentionally involved in these processes is terribly counterproductive to the church’s mission,” said Harmon.
I personally think that these stretched analogies of Schoris indicate that she is losing control of executing convention policies and her own agenda, in more ways than one. They indicate she is making up alternate realities.
“Allowing congregations to walk away with church property condones “bad behavior,” she said.
“In a sense it’s related to the old ecclesiastical behavior toward child abuse,” when priests essentially looked the other way, she said.
“Bad behavior must be confronted.””
What!!!???
A trained scientist knows when she is comparing ‘apples and oranges.’
This pure, cynical and despicable ‘mud slinging.’
I think she should be confronted on the child abuse analogy. How is that different from the “gays are like pedophiles in that….” analogies we hear from some of you all the time?
Her comments surely are unnecessarily inflamatory. That can’t help her win sympathies with fence sitters, many of whom will have to pay for legal maneuverings due to her policies.
I find KJS’s repeated invocations of her fiduciary responsibility to past generations to be incredible. I would guess that past generations of Episcopalians are spinning in their graves at about 6000 rpm in response to the present direction of TEC.
That headline is hysterical! Especially after her ””answering”” questions about the Dar Salaam Cominique.
Shouldn’t it read, “Presiding Bishop is completely ineffective trying to avoid questions during deposition?”
LOL!
Episcopal leaders are stewards of church property and assets, protecting past generations’ legacies and passing them on to future Episcopalians, according to the presiding bishop. Allowing congregations to walk away with church property condones “bad behavior,” she said.
Surely the PB jest. Could she possibly believe that the people from my generation would want the Church property saved for her and her generation. How could she possibly not know her history. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and yes, all the good folks to my generation would like to differ with her. She is educated right?
Roanoker [#7], perhaps you have some special channel that allows you to know what G. Washington, T. Jefferson, et al. would think? What brand of Ouija board do you use?
The time is coming when even the revisionists who support KJS will realize what a terrible mistake they made when they consented to her election and “consecration” as Presiding Bishop. Subterfuge and underhandedness will prove to be her undoing.
Apparently, though, it is good stewardship for the Diocese of Virginia to take out a $2 million line of credit, half of which has been blown through already, to pay for lawyers to sue for breakaway parishes’ properties, and then to sell diocesan property to pay back the loan. Doesn’t. Make. Sense.
8. D. C. wrote:
Roanoker [#7], perhaps you have some special channel that allows you to know what G. Washington, T. Jefferson, et al. would think? What brand of Ouija board do you use?
Pray tell me what Ouija board does the PB use to make her outlandish assumptions, that all of the generations back through the start of our Church would agree with the current direction she has taken the Church. You know, I have probably spoken too a thousand people or more from my generation, and got bundles of opinions from them. Maybe you should do the same if you know anyone from this era. This may help you to understand. Education, education. Would you like to use my board? :< )
The Madam PB said, “Bad behavior must be confronted.” I certainly agree with her. It is time we who believe in our Lord Jesus in the way accepted by the Christian Church for a couple of thousand years confront the bad behavior of those like Beers in her office and maybe Madam PB herself when she allows Bp. Spong to preach against the Gospel of the Lord without a word of admonition from her. Benison remains a bishop under a cloud of disgrace and Chane has little interest in anything not promoted as secular humanism. Seems to me that her idea of bad behavior only applies to those who disagree with her.
Perhaps the Queen in Hamlet said it best, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
It’s about 40 years late to begin challenging “bad behavior”. For 40 years “bad behavior”, up to an dincluding open renunciation of the doctrine, discipline, and worship, has been met with a shrug. Doesn’t Schori and crew (no pun) realize how foolish this sudden canonical fundamentalism makes them look? Do they care?
14- Bill the scary thing is that they do care, but they care less about how it looks than the property they are suing for and the sees they would like filled with useful idiots. The really scary time will come when they turn on themselves, just as Stalin turned on Trotsky after the Whites were beaten and the Tsar shot. Dialectically, the process is all about [i]making omelettes during which you have to crack eggs.[/i]
14- btw Bill, looking back to my #1 and #15, I don’t see Schori as being ‘Stalin’ in my analogy.
Reply to #14, who said,
“Doesn’t Schori and crew (no pun) realize how foolish this sudden canonical fundamentalism makes them look? Do they care?”
Bill,
“shame” is a concept that means nothing to people who have no “honor” and are often confused when others raise the issue of “honor.”
They beome angry when the term “honor” is used because within the very essence of “honor” is the concept of “personal accountability.”
The use of the term “honor” forces them to account for what they say and do.
Therefore asking the ECUSA elite to account for their “sudden canonical fundamentalism” and its contradictions with their unilateral disregard of the Anglican Communion’s synodic authority on issues of basic doctrine creates a dichotomy.
In order to address this dichotomy in a factual manner, ECUSA’s elite would have to admit, what is already obvious, that they have been acting in a dishonorable manner.
OK, perhaps I missed it but surely it’s important to point out that she herein compares the importance and value of children with that of church property? Perhaps that is what #2 meant with ‘apples and oranges’. Children, possessors of souls loved by God, are related by analogy to church property which she sees it as her duty to ‘protect for future generations’? Come ON. If that equivalency does not highlight moral corruption on the part of this individual entrusted with church leadership, what else could.
I find it odd when people use the word “fundamentalism” to talk about the canons. It’s a law.
if a cop stops me for running through a red light, I’m going to call him a fundamentalist.
There’s a way of changing the canons. Participate in the system. Run for office. Make your case. Its a democracy.
If comparing her church opponents to child abusers is “keeping her cool,” I don’t want to see her lose it.
Confront bad behavior….Will she have time, in her remaining years as PB to even begin to deal with the shacked-up clergy in her church? How about the laity? Not a problem, just concentrate on real e$tate.
So John (#19) what would you call it when after 40 years of progressive non-enforcement of canonical violations of significant theological import, TEC suddenly begins a vigorous prosecution, but only of those of a particular theological bent?
22 it is usually termed ‘capricious enforcement’.
#19. Its a democracy.
And that is precisely why participating in the “system” does not and will not work. What we need is a “Republic”. But what we really need is a total overhaul of the system – term limits for Bishops and elected individuals to the “system”, for one. Defrocking individual Bishops who have published books which explicitly states their disbelief in the divinity of Christ, is another. A consistent application of canon law is absent in TEC.
George, what you suggest has some merit. For example, the Archbishop of Canterbury serves, I believe, for a term of twelve years, so there is a precedent in the Communion. Some of the other provinces have similar limits, and therefore, the system should work in the American church. It certainly should be considered in any new Anglican jurisdiction.
Once a bishop always a bishop.