Category: Anglican News

One of the neat things about being an Anglican in the United States is that you get a free legal education with your faith!

Take the case of the Diocese of Ft. Worth, Texas. It was created in 1983 after it was decided that the Diocese of Dallas had become too large. Because the Diocese of Ft. Worth is a legal instrument, papers of incorporation were drawn up and signed, a bishop appointed and a board of trustees selected to run “the Diocese of Ft. Worth, a legal corporation”.

However, the conservative diocese, led by Bishop Jack Iker, voted on November 15, 2008 to leave The Episcopal Church and come under the jurisdiction of the province of Anglican Church of the Southern Cone (which covers Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay).

Continue reading “Ft. Worth “Wins””

Blockbuster news: the Roman Catholic Church has announced that it will now accept conservative Anglicans as full members. Groups would be able to join “personal ordinariates”, which would have distinct Anglican traditions (possibly including the Book of Common Prayer) and, since Anglican priests would be allowed to join, that would allow for that rarest of all creatures: the married Roman Catholic priest.

This news comes as a mixed blessing to me. Certainly, it’s always nice to have options, and many Anglo-Catholics would prefer switching to Rome before losing their cherished traditions. On the other hand, for folks like me this is a nightmare. Any Anglo-Catholics who have not joined the Roman Church already will probably do so now instead of joining the ACNA, thus making ACNA just “The Episcopal Church minus the gays”. So ACNA loses an important wing of Anglicanism, and I’m stuck holding my nose about joining Rome. What a choice!

Sigh.

Think I’m the only one unhappy with the overall direction of the Anglican Communion? Think again:

According to informants quoted in The Catholic Herald, the Queen has “grown increasingly sympathetic” to the Catholic Church over the years while being “appalled”, along with the Prince of Wales, at developments in the Church of England.

The usually well-informed newspaper adds that the Queen, who is the Supreme Governor of the C of E, is “also said to have an affinity with the Holy Father, who is of her generation”.

In July, The Sunday Telegraph disclosed that the Queen had told the heads of a traditionalist group, formed in response to the liberal direction of some parts of the Anglican Communion, that she “understood their concerns” about the future of the 80 million-strong global church.

Read the whole article here. It doesn’t contain any bombshells or clues as to what the Queen might do, but you just know that the Archbishop of Canterbury is getting an earful!

Sorry for the lack of Anglican updates lately. Things got awfully quiet on the Internet after GC 2009, mainly because there wasn’t much to say: TEC went their way and the ACNA went its way.

But here are a couple of stories of interest. The first is that St. Andrew’s Church might leave TEC (possibly to join ACNA):

One of the largest congregations in The Episcopal Church, St. Andrew’s Church of Mt. Pleasant, S.C., may by December become one of the largest congregations to renounce its Episcopal ties.

On Oct. 11, St. Andrew’s will begin a 40 Days of Discernment program to discuss whether it should sever ties with The Episcopal Church. The congregation will vote on Dec. 9-16, after spending a week in prayer and fasting.

The second story is that Rowan Williams says that TEC could face some form of “reduced status” in the Anglican Communion:

While “there is no threat of being cast into outer darkness,” Williams said, certain churches, including the Episcopal Church, may have to take a back seat in ecumenical and interfaith dialogue because their views on homosexuality do not represent the larger Anglican Communion.

Whether Rowan is doing this out of the goodness of his own heart (unlikely) or because he can count (much more likely) in unknown.

via One of the largest Episcopal congregations takes steps to sever ties with The Episcopal Church and Rowan Williams: Episcopal Church could face reduced status.

Sad (but not unexpected) news from Baltimore:

BALTIMORE, Maryland, AUG. 31, 2009 (Zenit.org).- On Thursday, a community of Episcopal nuns and their chaplain will be received into the Catholic Church by the archbishop of Baltimore.

Ten sisters from the Society of All Saints’ Sisters of the Poor will be received into the Church by Archbishop Edwin O’Brien, along with Episcopal Father Warren Tange, the Baltimore archdiocesan newspaper reported last Thursday.

Fr. Tanghe was the rector of The Church of Our Saviour in Atlanta, the church I was confirmed in on April 15, 1995. I’m sad to see him leave the Anglican Church, but, given how orthodox the good father is, it’s not very surprising.

Read more about it here or here, or read one of the many articles Fr. Tanghe has written here.

Archbishop Duncan has written an open letter to the Anglican Communion. Read it all here (seriously, read it now). Here’s just one glorious excerpt:

There are times in the history of God’s people when the prevailing values and behaviors of those then in control of rival cities symbolizes a choice to be made by all of God’s people. For Anglicans such a moment has certainly arrived. The cities symbolizing the present choice are Bedford, Texas, and Anaheim, California. In the last month, the contrasting behaviors and values of the religious leaders who met in these two small cities made each a symbol of Anglicanism’s inescapable choice.

God bless you, Archbishop Duncan!

Thanks to Stand Firm for the tip!

If you wonder why I consider myself “Anglican” and not “Episcopalian”, look no further than this idiotic post from Dan Thomas Edwards, Bishop of Nevada. Normally quoting a single line from a long post is a sign of weakness on behalf of the quoter. It smacks of taking something out of context, much like how commercials for bad movies only have single word quotes from movie reviews. But this one small quote is all you really need:

The journalists are exclusively interested in our actions dealing with the inclusion of partnered gay and lesbian couples in the life of the Church. We passed two such resolutions. I voted for both of them. Some of you may think we went too far. Others may think we did not go far enough. That is perfectly ok. As Episcopalians, we are free to hold different beliefs about issues of doctrine. [emphasis mine]

No, good sir, we are not. Doctrine is fundamental – that’s why they call it doctrine. I believe the word the good bishop should have used is “adiaphora”, which is something “not regarded as essential to faith, but nevertheless as permissible for Christians or allowed in church” (Wiki). That the bishop of Nevada could be so wrong about something so basic is just mind numbing… or at least it should be. Nothing TEC does surprises me any more.

First, a brief history lesson: the Church of England was created when King Henry VIII split the Church in England away from the Roman Catholic Church. It’s important to understand that Henry only wanted to get rid of the rule of the pope and the College of Cardinals when he created this “new” church. So while he wanted to get rid of the church’s “foreign” leadership, he didn’t want to change much about the church’s theology or organization.

When Henry died, his son Edward VI took over, and during this time the Church of England became much more Protestant. But then Edward died, and Bloody Mary took over, and the Church of England rejoined the Catholic Church. But then Mary’s sister, Elizabeth, became Queen and the Church of England finally settled somewhere between Catholicism and Protestantism.

Around this time, the Age of Exploration took off, and soon English people were traveling the world, opening trading routes in some places, and making colonies in others. And of course, they brought the Church of England with them. Over the next two centuries, most of these colonies would get their independence and the English would go home… but the Church stayed, and so what had been the “Church of England in America” became the “Episcopal Church”, the “Church of England in Canada” became the “Anglican Church of Canada” and so on.

These churches are collectively known as the “Anglican Communion”. And for decades, they all existed happily with each other. Towards the end of the 1960s, however, the Episcopal Church in the United States (TEC) has become progressively more and more liberal. In 2003, TEC nominated Gene Robinson, a practicing homosexual, as Bishop of New Hampshire. And this created a giant mess for the Anglican Communion.

Although each national church is independent of the others and can act in (almost) any way it sees fit, the consecration of Gene Robinson alienated most of the Global South, the staunchly conservative members of the Anglican Communion in Africa and Asia. And this is a problem because the Global South constitutes a large majority of the Anglican Communion. Where TEC has less than 2 million members, the Church of Nigeria has 40 million… and they’re not happy with TEC.

Continue reading “What now, Rowan?”

When I created the Anglican News category, I kind of just dived right in to it. If you have no idea what’s going on in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion and why I’m occasionally posting such dire news about the it, check out this post at the Wall Street Journal:

For a decade now, the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) has been bitterly divided over the issue of ordaining openly gay clergy. The matter reached a new intensity this past week when the church’s triennial convention ended the ban on gay candidates serving in ordained ministry. After years of protesting ECUSA’s liberal policies and doctrines, seceding conservatives have now organized a rival church — the Anglican Church in North America, or ACNA — which claims 100,000 believers, compared with two million in ECUSA. This week’s dramatic decision is sure to widen the rift even further, causing what church historians might officially label a “schism.”

The presiding bishop of the mainstream Episcopal grouping, Katherine Jefferts Schori, predictably condemns ACNA, protesting that “schism is not a Christian act.” But it is not wholly clear who is seceding from whom. In approving gay bishops, ECUSA is defying the global Anglican Communion, which had begged Americans not to take a move that could provoke believers in other parts of the world. The Anglican Communion, though noticeably “progressive” in its American and British forms, is a world-wide church of 80 million. Indeed, the majority of Anglicans today live in African and Asian countries where progressive views are not so eagerly embraced. For American conservatives, it is Bishop Jefferts Schori’s church that has seceded from global Anglicanism.

Let me know if the article ends up behind a paywall – I have the complete text and can post it here.

As always, from BabyBlue:

Kendall Harmon reports that the first motion for the Church of England to recognize the Anglican Church of North America has picked up six Church of England bishops and at 121 sponsors. According to the London Times, this will “guarantee it a place on the next Synod agenda in February”.

Interesting times. I doubt this will go anywhere, but you never know.