The Most Revd Gregory James Venables
Rioja 2995,1636 Olivos,
Province of Buenos Aires,
B1636DMG , Argentina
My Brother in Christ:
In this Easter Season I greet you in the name of our risen Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
It has come to my attention that you will be participating in the Anglican Network in Canada conference, “Compelled by Christ’s Love” taking place in Vancouver, B.C., April 25-26,2008. Your visit to Canada is without any reference to or consent from my office or that of the Bishop of the Diocese of New Westminster. This represents a breach in what is considered normative in protocol among Primates and Bishops throughout the Communion.
I brought this matter before the House of Bishops meeting in Niagara Falls, Ont., last week. While we recognized that your motivation may be pastoral, there was a strong consensus that your visit at this time will further harm the strained relations between the Anglican Church of Canada and the Anglican Network in Canada.
The Bishops believe that we have made adequate and appropriate provision for the pastoral care and Episcopal support of all members of the Anglican Church of Canada, including those who find themselves in conscientious disagreement with the view of their Bishop and Synod over matters of human sexuality.
As if +Venables caused the situation. Perhaps if the ACofC House of Bishops addressed the issues that parishes have had with the “adequate and appropriate provision for the pastoral care and Episcopal support” and the theological concerns that they have the bishops wouldn’t have had the need to feel so threatened, but it’s always easier to point to outside blame rather than correct a systemic problem.
I suggest you read a little in the canons passed at the Second Ecumenical Council, you know, the Council where the famed “boundary crossing canon†so beloved of Excus-ites and ACC-ites was passed: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/const1.txt
Particularly, read about Canon IV and the deposition of “Bishop†Maximus and the appropriate incursion of orthodox bishops into heretical dioceses when the bishops abandon the faith.
NOTE, too, that symbollically canon IV is twice as powerful as canon II. II x II = IV. That’s the deeper reading, you understand.
So the mugger says to the cop: “Pay no attention to this fellow’s cries for help. As you can see, I am armed and I am ensuring his safety from everyone else. You don’t need to come down this alley.”
There is a strong scent of fear emanating from Archbishop Hiltz…
++Fred is, to the say the least, somewhat selective in his use of the Windsor Report. This may just be me, but I also smell some fear coming from the Canadian HOB. Well if they have been at all observant about what is taking place south of the 49th parallel a little bit of fear might be a good motivator. Faithfulness to the traditions of the Church Catholic doesn’t seem to move them.
My Brother in Christ:
I ask you to not participate in Christ’s love; we do not permit Christ’s love here in Canada.
I hope you will prayerfully consider and gracefully honour my request.
In Him I am
Sincerely yours
Et c.
Some churches in Canada have not had confirmation in six or seen years. Alternative Episcopal oversight does not seem to have worked.
“The Bishops believe that we have made adequate and appropriate provision for the pastoral care and Episcopal support of all members of the Anglican Church of Canada, including those who find themselves in conscientious disagreement with the view of their Bishop and Synod over matters of human sexuality. This provision known as Shared Episcopal Ministry was approved by the House of Bishops in November 2004 and commended, in September 2006, by an international Panel of Reference appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. With this provision in place we believe there is no need for pastoral interventions by Primates or Bishops from jurisdictions outside of the Anglican Church of Canada.”
I get stuck here every time. Have we in TEC also not tried several alternate episcopal oversight options for conservatives? What is it about these options that reasserters find to be inadequate?
Alternative Episcopal Oversight was never brought in in Canada. Rather they offered Shared Episcopal Ministry which spins fairly well from a media and political standpoint, but failed to provide true episcopal ministry that could be received by the parishes in Canada (esp. New Westminster) which were in broken fellowship (communion, koinonia, serious theological dispute) with their now previous bishops. If true Alternative Episcopal Oversight had been allowed, we may not have needed the network in Canada.
Further, Hiltz says:
The notion that the issues at stake are simply matters of conscience, or adiaphora, is ridiculous. What has been happening in the ACC defies any normal person’s plain reading of Scripture and our received church tradition, not to mention the majority view of the most recent ACC general synod.
“We have made adequate provisions………..”
No, I’m sorry, you haven’t! You have failed miserably!
I don’t understand. Isn’t ++Venables going to visit those who have [b] left [/b] the Anglican Church of Canada?
If Venables were going to an Amway convention in Canada, would there be the same problem?
I seriously get confused when bishops prohibit other bishops from coming into their [i]country[/i] to do something associated with anentirely different oraganization than their [i] church [/i],
What power does +Hilz have actually to stop +Venables from coming?
Does he have any or can he do no more than request? If +Venables is coming to visit those who have left the church of Canada, why should +Hilz have any control over what he does? And that IS the case, isn’t it, that the Southern Cone is coming for the benefit of those who have already left? Is there any r eason why +Venables should accede to this request?
#4 is surely correct. There is the scent of real fear in this message. Hilz surely has everything to fear, that +Venables presence will catalyze into action those who only considered it before. Larry
Thank you drjoan! My question exactly.
T
What fools these mortals be!
The ACC Bishops, at least those such as this, are like so many of their TEC counterparts who are too deeply wedded to Earthly Power Politics to realize they have abandoned the message of Christianity.
Archbishop Hiltz, +KJS, and her band of 815 wolves, have accepted the “world, flesh, and devil†for so long that their agendas take precedance over Christ’s message. They are so afraid that us pewsitters will see their obvious “political agenda†over Christ’s message that they will do anything they can to prevent Abp Venables or anyone else from the outside..or inside..being heard.
As for me, I search the internet, including Kendall’s forum, to keep me believing that someday (soon I hope) Hiltz,+KJS, and other bishops will see the light of Christ and reject agenda politics.
[blockquote]
That commitment stated that the Primates will, “neither [b] encourage nor initiate [/b] cross-boundary interventions.”
[/blockquote]
++Hiltz, since English is presumably your native tongue, the above language you quoted from the Dromantine Communique should really not be that hard to understand.
If a Primate is [b] invited [/b] by a group [b] “in serious theological dispute with their diocesan bishop, or dioceses in dispute with their Provinces” [/b] (the language of Dromantine), then they are [b] NOT [/b] encouraging or initiating — they are responding. Since he was invited by these good orthodox believers, there is no violation by ++Venables.
And oh, by the way ++Hiltz, since you’re so hot on compliance with what the Primates agreed to in the Dromantine Communique, you might want to remember these paragraphs:
[blockquote]
17. In reaffirming the 1998 Lambeth Conference Resolution 1.10 as the present position of the Anglican Communion, we pledge ourselves afresh to that resolution in its entirety, and request the Anglican Consultative Council in June 2005 to take positive steps to initiate the listening and study process which has been the subject of resolutions not only at the Lambeth Conference in 1998, but in earlier Conferences as well.
18. In the meantime, we ask our fellow primates to use their best influence to persuade their brothers and sisters to exercise a moratorium on public Rites of Blessing for Same-sex unions and on the consecration of any bishop living in a sexual relationship outside Christian marriage.
[/blockquote]
Or have you forgotten that part?
Does anybody wonder why Tony Burton is getting out?
I think the “disconnect” here is that ++Hilz believes we are still operating on the ‘gentleman’s agreement’ system Many of my fellow revisionists discount the seriousness of the reasserter positiobn. I admit that I find it hard to imagine that any Canadians are in any true “spiritual danger,” however I do realize that ++Venables believews they are in spiritual danger and that is what informs his actions. This request doesn’t recognize that and will not succeed because of that fatal flaw.
8, it is inadiquate for the tyrant to assert that he or she is assuring the rights of the minority. That is for the minority to determine. To suggest that the oppressor can determine that he is not oppressing is absurd.
For any alternative to have worked the diocesan bishop would have had to give up theoretical and practical oversite and they have steadfastly refused to do so. Accordingly we have the entry of bishops outside the diocese.
That is what happens when an episcopal church breaks up.
Hanks #15 asks whether they have forgotten parts of Windsor. Like the shopping cart hermeneutics of the Bible, they simply ignore inconvenient parts of Windsor. Jill Woodliff has this interesting quote of Stand Firm:
[blockquote]
Archdeacon Feheley in Dec 2007 (after the synods of Ottawa, Montreal, and Niagara had passed resolutions calling for ssb’s):
[blockquote] He said the Canadian Church’s interpretation of the Windsor report was the moratorium forbid [sic] any bishop from giving any additional parishes the right to perform same-sex blessings.
In New Westminster, eight parishes were given permission by the diocese, but after the report was released in 2004 no additional parishes were given that authority. Those original eight churches continue to perform the rite.[/blockquote]
The Windsor Report, para 144:
[blockquote]Because of the serious repercussions in the Communion, we call for a moratorium on all such public Rites, and recommend that bishops who have authorised such rites in the United States and Canada be invited to express regret that the proper constraints of the bonds of affection were breached by such authorisation. [/blockquote]
[/blockquote]
Truth challenged revisionists.
This is up there with Jimmy Carter that when he went to dictatorships he only had to talk to the dictator.
Gentleman’s agreement?
Sorry.
Only gentlemen can engage in a gentleman’s agreement.
One’s word must mean something first.
The Archbishopric of Canada has determined that the Holy Scriptures are no longer applicable, and that Anglicans in the Archbishopric are now bound by a new faith, a new creed, and a new understanding. They have a new revelation, you see.
What a shameful display!
Brother in Christ? Not.
Well, I’ll try again. What power does ++Hilz have to stop ++Venables from coming? On what authority? He is coming to visit churchs no longer a part of the Canadian church. Over these ++Hilz can have no authority, can he? Larry