Posted on 06/11/2005 7:16:45 AM PDT by sionnsar
Sometimes Frank Griswold can blow me away. The Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Nottingham, England is coming up the week after next:
Listening is a priority as delegates and observers prepare for the Anglican Consultative Council’s 13th triennial meeting (ACC-13) to convene June 19-28 in Nottingham, England.
Participants in the international forum, whose president is Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, will exchange perspectives on issues of global concern, with emphasis given to the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals for the alleviation of poverty.
Understandings of human sexuality will be considered June 21 at the request of ACC leaders, who have asked representatives of the U.S. Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada to offer topical presentations. The U.S. Episcopalians will describe experiences around the 2003 election of an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire, and the Canadians will comment on the Diocese of New Westminster’s practice of blessing same-gender unions.
The presentations respond to specific requests of the Anglican Communion’s Windsor Report (paragraph 135). In further cooperation with the report and with last February’s meeting of the Anglican Primates (leading archbishops), the U.S. Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada have formally withdrawn their elected delegates from the ACC-13 proceedings. The delegates, three from each nation, will attend as observers by vote, respectively, of the Episcopal Church’s Executive Council and the Canadian Church’s Council of General Synod.
And Frank has high hopes for it:
"What I hope will evolve from the ACC is a greater respectfulness, a greater willingness to listen and honor the different ways in which the Gospel is articulated in different places," said the Episcopal Church’s Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold. "It is only through listening -- listening deeply with an undefended heart -- that we can hear the richness of God’s truth.... In spite of differences, in spite of tensions, the overwhelming reality of the church is people engaged in mission for the sake of the world. It is through listening that I hope we can become better partners across the Communion."
Wow. Just...wow. Frank's unbelievably good, I've got to give him that. If you think you can say something that sociopathic, try it some time.
Let's review, shall we? At its 2003 convention, the Episcopal Church confirms a practicing, unrepentant homosexual as a bishop, declares that bishops who allow same-sex marriages in their dioceses are operating with the bounds of common ECUSA life and changes its position on homosexual activity without any debate or discussion of any kind. Shortly thereafter, Frank attends a meeting of the Anglican primates in which they release a statement declaring that proceeding with Robbie's consecration will tear the Anglican world apart, a statement which Frank signs and promptly repudiates.
As a response to the crisis it caused, the Episcopal Church was asked by the rest of the Anglican world to stop same-sex marriages in its churches. It claimed that it doesn't allow same-sex marriages in its churches, it just doesn't do anything about bishops who permit them(or participate in them). ECUSA was asked consecrating practicing homosexual bishops. It replied by suspending the elections and consecrations of all bishops. It was asked to withdraw its members from the Anglican Consultative Council. It's going to send its members to the next meeting anyway; they're just not "officially" attending.
After all that, ECUSA's Presiding Pointy Hat hopes that this upcoming meeting will improve "our" listening. Because it is through the miracle of listening that "we" can "become better partners across the Communion." Oh Lord, I am really going to miss the man when he steps down next year. As Hamlet said of his father, "I shall not look upon his like again."
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. Ol' Foggy Frank really has stepped over the line into psychosis.
If he and the other heretic bishops are willing to play these sorts of games with the church (and their immortal souls), this back and forth between ECUSA, Canterbury, and the African/Southern Cone contingent could literally go on forever.
Each statement he makes convinces me that we did right in not waiting any longer for this collection of exhibits to DSM-IV to sort themselves out.
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