The Province of the Southern Cone has begun work to amend its Constitution and Canons to permit parishes and dioceses outside of South America to affiliate with the church.
In an address to the Diocese of Fort Worth on May 3, Presiding Bishop Gregory Venables of Argentina said his province had agreed to accept the diocese of San Joaquin into the South American church as a “pastoral” and interim response to the divisions within the US Episcopal Church. Work was now underway to alter the church’s constitution, removing language that limited membership to dioceses located in South America.
The “Anglican Communion in the United States has been hijacked,” Bishop Venables said, by a liberal clique that is less concerned with theological integrity than with power. They do not “mind what happens as long as they control it,” he said according to a report prepared by the diocese’s communications officer. Bishop Venables told Fort Worth that the question before them was “whether or not you can stand with a group of people who have denied that Jesus is the Son of God and that the Bible is the Word of God.”
He conceded that the invitation to the Diocese of San Joaquin made following its December decision to quit the Church and affiliate with the Southern Cone was irregular. However, “if we don’t do something,” he said, we would be “complicit” in their oppression.
[dripping sarcasm] Good Lord! Such wanton abandonment of canons. This can not go unchallenged! Obviously, none of the US or Canadian dioceses that ++Venables took in are there because this never could have happened.
Who has the courage to stand up for what is right?[/dripping sarcasm]
Actually, I’m glad to see this process. Perhaps GC’09 will validate past canonical ‘irregularities.’
“Perhaps GC ’09 will validate past canonical irregularities?” You mean like the attempted but failed “deposition” of Bishops Cox and Schofield? Or the election of a theologically barren and ill-qualified (with barely any experience) and so-called “Dean” of a non-existent “School of Theology” Presiding Bishop?
It seems to me that ++Venable’s confession that his activities to date are “irregular” removes any possibility of belief that his “missions” are in any way, or could be in any way, sanctioned by the Anglican Communion, and the members and leadership thereof are clearly not a part of the Anglican Communion. Not being part of the Anglican Communion they are clearly subject to and correctly deposed. There is no line of defense remaining, we can simply argue about whether the correct “method” was followed (but perhaps in the long run it will be found temporarily expeditious on the basis of mere irregularity). There is not the proverbial snowball’s chance that having altered his Canons to “regularize” this, the changes will be approved by the ACC who, after all, insist on adherence to the Tanzanian Communique and who approved the TEC House of Bishop’s response to the issues of that Communique. I think the point with respect to CANA/AMIA was already clearly made by the Rev Martyn Minn’s exclusion from Lambeth. It’s chilly in Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia this time of year but I am sure the deposed bishops will find peace there.
#3
It clearly wasn’t a confession in the sense that Martin implies but a recognition that these are unusual times and that an unusual decision was necessary. The canons don’t need to be changed to validate what was legally and unanimously resolved in the Provincial last November.
#4
I meant to write
“Provincial Synod.”
Doug (#3)
Have you forgotten this clause of the Dar Communique?
[i]32. Second, those of us who have intervened in other jurisdictions believe that we cannot abandon those who have appealed to us for pastoral care in situations in which they find themselves at odds with the normal jurisdiction. For interventions to cease, what is required in their view is a robust scheme of pastoral oversight to provide individuals and congregations alienated from The Episcopal Church with adequate space to flourish within the life of that church in the period leading up to the conclusion of the Covenant Process.[/i]
The key word here is robust. Granted this whole situation is a mess, but it could have been so easily avoided if APO had been granted and dioceses like mine (and San Joaquin) would have had a breathing space while the Covenant process worked itself out. I don’t particularly like the way the Southern Cone is handling this, but once again the fire engine analogy comes to mind.
Catholic and Reformed
Does anyone else get the sense that the liberals want to shuffle the deck chairs on the Titanic? We’re not talking about tea party rules, we are engaged in a doctrinal struggle that bears directly on our salvation.
Thank God that there are those like ++Venables who can sort the wheat from the chaff.
I for one am quite pleased with the way our archbishop and House of Bishops are handling the situation. If we had remained in TEC, what kind of justice do you think we would’ve received at their hands? Remaining would’ve amounted to submission on our part, and we were not then, nor are we now, prepared to submit to their authority!
I don’t particularly care if we remain in communion with Rowan Cantuar if it means being in communion with TEC…..which we’re not, by the way. Sorry to have to put it this way, but if the majority of the primates……which means ours and the rest of the Global South……are either in impaired or broken communion with TEC, and the Western Church, including TEC, is……then that relationship with Canterbury is not worth maintaining as long as Schori and Company retain such overwhelming moral, financial and political influence over the ACC and ACO.
I eagerly look forward to GAFCON.
I agree. Parishes and dioceses better act before GC 09. You can be sure the ability to move will be limited in that convention, which will be dominated by reappraisers. They will push their agenda through like a steam-roller. TEC has chosen to walk apart.
CharlesB, they may deny it that they have walked apart….and they undoubtedly will, but their actions speak far louder than their words.