Leak From Lambeth Report Indicates Griswold In Deep Trouble [Episcopal]

Virtuosity ^ | 10/10/2004 | David Virtue

[sionnsar]

The Chancellor to the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, David Booth Beers, has called for a special meeting of all the ECUSA Diocesan Chancellors, and has set the date for October 20 in Orlando, Florida at the World Center Marriott two days after the Lambeth/Eames report is due out in London.

According to an orthodox bishop who spoke to Virtuosity on the grounds of anonymity, Beers will be doing "damage control" for his boss Frank Tracy Griswold. Several sources told Virtuosity that this is the first meeting of all chancellors ever.

"It looks like Griswold is in serious trouble," said the bishop.

Griswold has already seen the report as he will post his response to it immediately after the report is released on October 18 and he has apparently set in motion wheels to prevent wholesale departures from The Episcopal Church.

"He knows it is bad news for him and he wants to get ahead of the orthodox and his revisionist bishops to tighten down the Episcopal Church," said the source.

Clearly Beers has one objective. He will use his position as national chancellor and Griswold's personal attorney to strike fear into diocesan chancellors. What he will say is this. If you don't hold the line on the properties of fleeing priests who think they can take their properties with them, be assured I will come down on you like a ton of bricks and invoke the Dennis Canon and sue you.

...

[topcat54]

As a young college grad, I was all in favor of "priestesses" in the ECUSA - but personal experience changed my mind.

Isn't this precisely why the ECUSA and other mainline denoms are in such bad shape -- "personal experience" and personal opinion rules the day. No objective standards outside the hierarchy.

[bonfire]

The Dallas Diocese has some exceptional woman priests. We have had the opposite experience. The only bad experiences I've had are with male priests....so far.

[altura]

Well, I can't totally agree with you.

I'm in the Episcopal Church, although a conservative. I've seen many years of the evolution of women priests.

The first wave consisted mostly of the sort of women you mention--they were more political than religious and very liberal.

We recently spent a year with a woman interim priest. She was wonderful. Then (to my admitted dismay) the vestry called another woman to be our rector.

She is the best preacher we have had in 30 years, very spiritual and wonderful in all ways.

On her first Sunday I was sitting sullen in my pew (I'd wanted a good looking man - ha -

When she walked down the aisle in procession, I had a road to damascus experience...it was like she had an aura. I felt right about her, and I've had no reason to change my mind.

There is nothing inherently wrong with being a woman, or a woman priest. It depends on the person.

[BelegStrongbow]

Well, you make a good case that your preference is for a woman with whom you can discuss issues. Nothing wrong with that, but it is not the criterion for priesthood, as you might well be aware. Your post, however, neatly avoids any theological or ecclesiological reasoning, opting rather for a statement of personal comfort level.

Having a woman priest is simply wrongful as a matter of doctrine. The reasons are manifold and the only way one can evade them is to ignore them. Do so, if you wish, but then content yourself to be forever separated from any diocese I could be expected to doctrinally support and swear allegiance to. And remain aware that it was the insistence that women could be priests which originally cleaved the Church of England and her daughters from each other and from the wider Catholic communion. Twas this which caused the breach, not homosexuals and certainly not those who simply continued the doctrine their fathers bequeathed them. To endorse female priests is to break faith and it has led to so much additional pain and breakage one pauses to continue.

It does bear repeating, however.


Thanks.

[altura]

That's apparently a widely held point of view, but it is not mine. But thanks for caring.

[sionnsar]

Amen.

[megatherium]

I also believe that there's nothing wrong with women priests, indeed it's one reason why I would be reluctant to leave the Episcopal Church to go to the Roman Catholic Church (even though there is much I find attractive about the RCC). I've never found the theological arguments against women in the priesthood convincing.

I'm not that old (this last St. Francis' Day was my 45th birthday), but I remember the controversies when women entered various "male" professions. I remember it was controversial for women to wear slacks. In my profession, academia, there are many women, many of whom are outstanding scientists and professors. Christians should be very conservative (slow to change) on matters of theology or discipline, but I believe in this instance, change is a good thing.

The real battle in the Church, the one we should be most concerned with, is over the reality of the Resurrection and the divinity of Jesus Christ. I was attending an Episcopal parish some months ago, having returned to my Christian faith after years of doubt or agnosticism, but I was dismayed when the rector (a woman, by the way) brought in the infamous Bishop Spong for a lecture series. Good grief! I've now found my way to a parish that is by some odd coincidence the most conservative parish and the largest parish in the diocese. (And by the way, the assistant pastor is a woman. Not the best preacher, but she's orthodox and caring.)

[dixie sass]

Can't remember the name of the church my sister attends in Atlanta, but when speaking with her several weeks ago, she said the general concensus in the area was to live and let live and that we shouldn't be judging this man's life style.

I raised sand against doing away with the 1928 Prayerbook and other issues in the Church, I've seen my brother leave because of the attitude of the Episcopal priest in Ft Lauderdale, I don't like the changes that I have seen...

GOD must be crying "my children, my children, why hast thou forsaken me and my teachings".

[AnAmericanMother]

Aside from the doctrinal and scriptural problems with female priests (as opposed to deacons - there's certainly authority for that), there is a major practical problem. It has already played out in the Episcopal church.

In order to ordain a woman to the priesthood in a liturgical church such as ECUSA or the Catholics (as opposed to a primarily scriptural/preaching church such as the Baptists), you have to ignore not only the Biblical authority and the cultural prohibitions (and that's the sort of pantsuits/professions type of argument) but also the long-standing tradition and authority of the church. In the Eucharist, the priest is alter Christus, standing in the place of Christ as the Bridegroom of the Church.

In order to place a woman in this position, modern ideas regarding equality and progress etc. MUST prevail over tradition and authority. Once you allow that, you have just set the precedent that cultural, modern, politically correct theories of a woman's role have primacy over the teaching authority of the Church.

That opens the door for other modern theories to trump the tradition and authority - changes in the Bible and prayer book (because, after all, what is up to date and modern is more important than tradition or Scripture - even if you wind up denying the Resurrection or the Divinity of Christ), ordination of active homosexuals (because, after all, the modern ideas of equality of treatment for sexual preference are more important than tradition or Scripture), support of liberal political candidates (because, after all, social justice is more important than tradition or Scripture.)

And that is exactly what has happened in the ECUSA. Once you allow the popular political groupthink of the moment to veto church tradition, all bets are off.

[Mark in the Old South]

You go girl.
:-D

Sorry I just couldn't help myself. It seems so perfect for the moment.

[AnAmericanMother]

I am a reactionary, and I find myself becoming more so as I get older. :-D

Seriously, as I told a well-meaning Catholic layman who thought priestesses wouldn't be such a bad idea, it's a package deal. You allow the ordination of women, and all the other stuff comes in the door as well.

Amusing point: he was praising a local Episcopal female priest as a "good person" and so forth . . . I asked if he knew that she had left her parish here, been promoted to an administrative position in ECUSA, and had LED the ECUSA contingent, complete with banner, in the pro-abortion march on Washington this summer.

He did NOT know that. Sort of took him aback. (She was always a loony feminist crusader type . . . "goddess worship" and New Age crud abounded at her (small) parish.

[Siobhan]

You are simply brilliant.

[Mark in the Old South]

People only want to consider the superficial nature of a person. It makes it all the easier to see the "good" in someone if your only value judgment is if they are good at small talk over coffee after the morning service or at a cocktail party. A fine trait as far as it goes but a pastor or Bishop should be looking a little deeper. I think at the root of this sort of thing is deception or neglect on the part of most of these "leaders". We will have to look elsewhere for guidance because it isn't coming from them.

[torqemada]

For you I will modify my remarks....the Lutherans I refer to are the ones who're "in communion" with the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA). This is the ELCA, I believe, and they most certainly ARE going down the same pansexualist path that the Episcopalians have gone down...they're just a few paces behind. Can't speak to the Missouri Synod Lutherans or any other branches of the Lutheran Church.

[Mr. Lucky]

We agree on the ELCA.