Category: Anglican News

Well, we all read the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Pentecost Letter and thought that there might be signs of ++Rowan finally growing a backbone… but it seems that that letter was only the public part of his campaign. The private part, consisting of a letter to +KJS asking her to withdraw from the Anglican Communion Standing Committee, has just gone public.

From Conger via BabyBlue:

The Archbishop’s Pentecost letter is the public half of a campaign to rein in the Episcopal Church, The Church of England Newspaper has learned, and follows a private letter delivered to Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori asking her to consider withdrawing from active participation on the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion.

A letter from the Archbishop is believed to have been given to Bishop Jefferts Schori at the April 17 consecration of the Bishop of Connecticut, Dr Ian Douglas. Neva Rae Fox, a spokesman for the Presiding Bishop said she could not comment as she was not present at the Connecticut consecration. Dr Williams’ office would neither confirm nor deny the story, citing its policy of not commenting on the Archbishop’s private correspondence.

Interesting.

via Conform or face the consequences, Archbishop says.

From BabyBlue:

In a unanimous decision, the California Supreme Court agreed today to hear St. James Anglican Church’s appeal that it has a constitutional right to continue its property rights battle against The Episcopal Church. By granting the St. James petition, the Court has acknowledged that this property rights dispute is far from over as the Episcopal Church has claimed, and that the Court must decide whether a defendant can be deprived of its property before it has had the opportunity to defend itself with evidence in a court of law.

Nice. According to the previous lower court ruling, it seemed that California law allowed people to have their private property taken away without legal recourse; it looks like the California Supreme Court fixed that.

Good luck St. James!

via BabyBlueOnline: California Supreme Court Unanimously Grants Review of St. James Church’s Petition.

Two quick updates from the wacky world of Anglicanism:

– St Andrew’s Church, the largest church in the Diocese of South Carolina, voted overwhelmingly on Sunday to leave The Episcopal Church and join the Anglican Church in North America. And by “overwhelmingly” I mean that: 703 church members voted in favor of leaving, while only 19 voted to stay… a 97% landslide! Of course, with what’s going on in South Carolina these days, the entire diocese might be next! Read more here.

– One of the basic tenets of canon law is that a bishop cannot enter the diocese of another bishop and preach or administer the sacrament without that bishop’s express permission. Bishop Iker had to remind “that woman” of that very fact when she once attempted to preach in Ft. Worth without his permission, and “that woman” has since used that same law to prevent orthodox Anglican bishops from visiting like-minded parishes in liberal dioceses. But it seems that Gene Robinson can preach in Dallas without first obtaining the permission of Bishop Stanton. I can’t decide which line to end this paragraph with: “hypocrisy, thy name is The Episcopal Church” or “The Episcopal Church has always been at war with Eastasia”. You decide.

The Episcopal Church has given up all claims to All Saints in Pawley’s Island, South Carolina… but not after taking some hush money:

After nearly a decade of legal and personal conflict, the issue of the All Saints Church property has been resolved, thanks be to God. Our Vestry and that of the Episcopal congregation have come to an understanding that ends the case forever and also provides a way for both churches to go forward into the future in faith and service to Christ.

As a result of our agreement, both sides recognize and accept the September 18, 2009, decision of the Supreme Court of South Carolina in which the Court determined that we are the rightful owners of the property and legitimate Vestry for All Saints Parish, Waccamaw. The Episcopal congregation has taken action to withdraw their Petition before the Supreme Court of the United States. As you may recall, the South Carolina decision was truly remarkable in that it clearly refuted any claim that the Episcopal Church might make on our property through the use of the so-called Dennis Canon.

In a desire to bless the work of God in the Episcopal congregation, our Vestry has made the offer of a financial gift of $375,000 to them to assist in their future ministry in our community. In addition, we have offered several items that represent their participation in the heritage of All Saints Church.

I guess TEC didn’t want to take on the Supreme Court of South Carolina.

Read more here.

Well now they’ve done it.

It seems that The Episcopal Church, in a cost-cutting move, has fired the unionized cleaning and maintenance company at the church’s Manhattan headquarters and replaced it with a cheaper, non-union company. This is a big-deal in union-friendly New York, and the move has angered people on both the left and right side of the church.

The left is angry that church leadership would turn its back on the working man, especially after TEC called upon other companies to use unionized labor. In fact, at the most recent General Convention, the House of Bishops took Disney to task for its union-busting policies… and now church leadership is doing the same thing!

For their part, the right is angry that the church would try to save a few thousand dollars at a time when it’s spending millions suing its own parishioners. One traditionalist said last week that “[m]illions are spent on lawyers by 815 while nine cleaners are fired to save a few thousand dollars”.

Nice.

Read more here.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, C. Wallis Ohl, provisional bishop of the (Episcopal) diocese of Ft. Worth deposed (fired) all the bishops, priests and deacons of the (Anglican) diocese of Ft. Worth on Monday. While the move was expected, it just goes to show how very bitter and classless The Episcopal Church has really become. Ft. Worth was one of several dioceses to break away from TEC in 2008.

As mentioned in this post, the history of the Ft. Worth diocese is pretty unique, and the legal proceedings currently underway are intriguing. Basically, the Anglicans say that only their diocese (in the “legal corporation founded in the state of Texas” sense) is allowed by Texas law to hire attorneys to defend the diocese; the Episcopalians disagree, and want the matter to go to trial… which doesn’t make any sense. How could the matter go to trial if both parties claim to represent the same diocese?

To put it another way, let’s say that someone wanted to sue Microsoft, and when the trial begins, two sets of attorneys show up in the courtroom claiming to represent Microsoft. One group of attorneys can prove that they were hired by Steve Ballmer (or whoever Microsoft has appointed to hire legal counsel); the other group of attorneys cannot. These attorneys are pressing for the case to go to trial, while the first group presses for the other group to be dismissed because they cannot prove that they were hired by the people appointed by the by-laws of [Microsoft\the Diocese of Ft. Worth], a Texas corporation.

Read Ohl’s disgusting letter here (but why would you?)

Big news… or maybe not. The Church of England is meeting in Synod, and has adopted the following resolution:

That this Synod, aware of the distress caused by recent divisions within the Anglican churches of the United States of America and Canada,

“(a) recognise and affirm the desire of those who have formed the Anglican Church in North America to remain within the Anglican family;

(b) acknowledge that this aspiration, in respect both of relations with the Church of England and membership of the Anglican Communion, raises issues which the relevant authorities of each need to explore further; and

(c) invite the Archbishops to report further to the Synod in 2011.”

At first glance, it appears to be big news: the Church of England “recognizes” the Anglican Church of North America!

On further reading, this isn’t as awesome as it might appear. The Synod voted down a stronger worded resolution the day before, and this resolution says nothing about recognizing the ACNA as an actual province of the Anglican communion. It simply says that it “recognizes” that there are “Anglicans” in the United States and Canada that wish to remain members of the “Anglican family”, which, as someone else said, is a “nearly infinite source of nuance”.

And then there’s the old “explore further” chestnut, which means that in sometime in 2011 a vaguely-worded report may or may not be released that may or may not say anything of consequence by a committee that may or may not have a backbone (given the truly awe-inspiring power of Anglican committees, I’ll let the reader guess what I think the outcome will be. In all likelihood, such a report will, much like the verbal gymnastics of the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, amount to exactly nothing. Dozens of pages of fluff designed to not ruffle the (multicolored) feathers of the Episcopal Church*, while at the same time throwing a meager bone to Orthodox Anglicans in North America… and pleasing no one… especially the 95% of Anglicans in the rest of the world who don’t live in England or North America.

Read more about it here.

* – (multicolored) feathers? Confused? See this:

The funny thing about The Episcopal Church is that the more “inclusive” it becomes, the more orthodox Anglicans are literally kicked out of the church.

Well, the American Anglican Council has tracked all of the abuses by the current leadership of TEC and condensed them down into one easily-readable paper. You can read their press release about the paper here and the paper itself here (PDF).

The paper is very well done, and it clearly and concisely explains the pain that orthodox Anglicans are feeling under the “reign of terror” of the current TEC “leadership”.

If you’re new to this whole “Episcopal Church tearing itself apart” thing, or if you’ve heard about it but don’t know much in the way of detail, then this paper is an excellent resource for getting caught up.

OK, I know I’m a little late with this news, but inclement weather, holiday parties and football have kept me busy for the past few days.

The final version of the Anglican Covenant was released late last week, with controversial section IV restored. You can read the full text of it here, and read BabyBlue’s analysis of it here, complete with a video message from the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Perhaps His Grace has grown a pair after all.