Have we come so far from our Catholic tradition that we have forgotten the power of martyrdom, on which the Western church is built? Does no-one in TEC understand any more the meaning of sacrifice?
Because a martyr is what Bob Duncan now is. The Episcopal Church should not need a heretically catholic Anglican such as me to tell it that the next step up from martyrdom is sainthood. Bishop Duncan’s office has been inundated with emails, phonecalls and letters of supportm since the ill-advised deposition. Since Friday, he has had personal messages from six primates, including ++Anis and ++Chew, indicating their intention not to recognise the deposition and to support the Pittsburgh “remnant”. There have been all kinds of other ones as well from various bishops, clergy and laity all over the world. They are being catalogued on a new site, set up specially to venerate the deposed bishop.
And now in England, six bishops are pledging their support and saying they will continue to recognise him. Surely that is momentous enough to warrant an archiepiscopal comment? Or perhaps all pretence of episcopal collegiality has been abandoned.
“pretence of episcopal collegiality” on the part of TEC.
We have been saying that for a long time. It was only up to TEC to prove our observations correct.
Don
Praise God for Ruth Gledhill, for she gives voice to us in the media and brings attention to our concerns.
As I responded on Ruth’s blog:
“This
“Have we come so far from our Catholic tradition …”
is quite rich, is it not, coming from one who herself supports WO? The answer is obviously “yes.”
I do like the suggestion that the Presiding Flaminica is secretly orthodox, though. However, I like my own suggestion, made over two years ago, better: that Rowan Williams is a Jesuit mole, recruited by “the Fathers” as a teenager and given the mission to remain in the Church of England, pretend to be a liberal Anglo-Catholic, and rise as high as fortune and the behind-the-scenes machinations of the Scarlet Woman can take him, and all the while do as much damage as he can to the the Church of England, the Anglican Communion and the credibility of Anglicanism as a form of coherent Christianity. I would say that he has been doing an absolutely splendid job of it so far, and far more effectively than the Feminazi Flaminica could ever dream of doing.
As to Bishop Duncan, I have a degree of sympathy for him, as he was clearly the victim of egregious treatment by one who clearly merits the abused term “Feminazi.†However, as I was reminded yesterday in two e-mails from friends, former Episcopalians and now Catholics, both of whom, as Episcopalians, were active in the “orthodox opposition†(in one case from the mid-1970s), many of the purported “oppressed orthodox†were themselves complicit in the marginalization, and in some case oppression, of those truly “traditional†and “orthodox†Episcopalians — I mean those who opposed (and in some few cases continue to oppose) WO from within TEC. These erstwhile oppressors certainly include Bishop Frey, as any acquaintance of the late Rev’d Dr Louis Tarsitano (then an ECUSA rector in Denver, later a Continuing Anglican) will be aware, and Bishop Duncan himself, as a priest in the 80s, was not behindhand in introducing priestesses into congregations where there was as much opposition as support for them. It is, in fact, IMO, a clear revelation of the incoherence of any purported “Anglican orthodoxy†that yesterday’s liberals (for such were and are the proponents of WO) can, without in any way repudiating their former liberalism, but rather cherishing it — it only appears “illiberal†because it has not kept up with the times and the Zeitgeist — become heroes of “the orthodox opposition.†I would have thought that Bishops Ackerman, Iker and Schofield, and their admirers and like-minded followers, would have been somewhat more restrained in their accolades for individuals who, from the perspective of truly “traditional Anglicanism†are living examples of the phrase “the measure ye mete shall be the measure ye receive.†Of course, from my “papist†perspective the idea that any form of “Anglicanism†can characterize itself as “traditional†is a historical nonsense …
I do wonder, though, whether my English Forward-in-Faith friends share the current “lionization” of Bishop Duncan as “a hero of orthodoxy” that their silly American counterparts have been expressing of late.
Posted by: William Tighe | 24 Sep 2008 12:46:52″
I can now add, that as a result of conversations with three of my English Forward-in-Faith friends, that the answer to the question that I posed in my final paragraph above is clearly “no.”
Why oh why are ++Wright and ++Sentamu silent on Bishop Duncan? Historians of the fall of Anglicanism will have a field day with the weaseling spinelessness that hides behind their pectoral figleaf of evangelicalism.
[i] Comment deleted. Off topic. [/i]