Posted on 08/08/2006 5:06:33 PM PDT by sionnsar
The Network dioceses seeking alternate primatial oversight are going in together:
A single request for alternate primatial oversight consolidating the requests of the dioceses of Fort Worth, San Joaquin, Central Florida, South Carolina, Dallas, Pittsburgh and Springfield has been forwarded to the Archbishop of Canterbury, The Living Church has learned.
Overseen by the Bishop of Dallas, the Rt. Rev. James M. Stanton, the 14-page petition for relief was sent to Lambeth Palace last month after Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams requested the dioceses to consolidate their requests for assistance.
In his July 31 address to the third annual council meeting of the Anglican Communion Network, the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh, noted that after the individual requests had been filed with Canterbury, the “bishops of the seven dioceses worked together on a submission to Lambeth Palace which unified and developed the original requests.”
The prayer for relief was “transmitted in the week of July 16” to Archbishop Williams, Bishop Duncan said, noting he was “hopeful” but “not necessarily optimistic” about the success of the appeal.
Bishop Duncan, the moderator of the Network, told the Network meeting the seven dioceses were hoping for help in five areas. They wished for the archbishop’s assistance in “disassociation from an ‘innovating’ ECUSA” and for “spiritual cover” for the seven dioceses “through re-assignment of the tasks” to Archbishop Williams that under canon law and custom fall to the Presiding Bishop.
The petition also seeks “recognition of Communion standing from Canterbury as required in the ECUSA constitution” and a “commitment to accountability under the Constitution and Canons.”
But Frank Griswold had an announcement of his own.
Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold last week offered breathing room to The Episcopal Church by canceling the fall meeting of the House of Bishops. A spokesman for the Presiding Bishop’s office told The Living Church the meeting had been canceled because of its proximity to the recently concluded General Convention.
The cancellation of the meeting by Bishop Griswold postpones until next year, at the earliest, review by the House of Bishops of the case against the Rt. Rev. John-David Schofield, Bishop of San Joaquin, proffered by the bishops of California, San Diego, Los Angeles and Northern California. Bishop Schofield’s case will now be heard after the February meeting of primates in Tanzania and will fall under the supervision of Presiding Bishop-elect Katharine Jefferts Schori.
This is an astute move on Frank's part. It guarantees that ECUSA bishops won't do anything stupid or provocative until after the primates meeting and probably assures Schori of an invitation. But what if the primates demands are unacceptable to the Homosexual Party? What if they want something from ECUSA that Schori knows that she can't or flatly refuses to deliver?
If that happens, ECUSA can open up on Schofield at its leisure after the meeting, led by a much more hard-line Presiding Bishop and an Episcopal left-wing who will not, after B033, be inclined to be nice. Since the left will assume that the game is almost over anyway and if the Network gets even close to what it wants, then "abandonment of communion" charges will fly thick and fast against all the Network dioceses. And the war will begin in earnest.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. God Save the Queen and the Archbishop of Canterbury!
And may His righteous judgment fall on the sons of disobedience.
There. Fixed it.
Very good.
I believe it would take Divine Intervention to keep the ECUSA bishops as individuals from doing anything stupid or provocative.
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