Archbishop: No Change Over Gay Bishop

LONDON, United Kingdom (AP) -- The archbishop of Canterbury said Friday he will not reverse his decision to exclude a gay U.S. bishop from joining other bishops at a global Anglican gathering next year.

The office of Archbishop Rowan Williams said he also had not changed his mind about refusing an invitation to Martyn Minns, a traditionalist U.S. priest who was consecrated as a bishop in the Anglican Church of Nigeria to minister to disaffected Episcopalians in the U.S.

Williams, spiritual leader of the world's Anglicans, said he has recruited professional mediators in trying to reach greater understanding between the U.S. Episcopal Church and its critics both at home and abroad.

The Anglican Communion is a 77-million-member fellowship of churches that trace their roots to the Church of England. The Episcopal Church, the Anglican body in the U.S., caused an uproar in 2003 by consecrating the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

Anglicans are now on the brink of schism, and attendance at next year's assembly, called the Lambeth Conference, has become a focus of the tension. Theological conservatives and liberals have separately threatened to boycott the meeting because of who was and wasn't invited.

Williams dedicated his Advent message to the crisis. He said that just under half of world Anglican leaders have not accepted the pledges by the Episcopal Church that it won't confirm any more gay bishops for now or approve official prayers for same-sex unions.

"We simply cannot pretend that there is now a ready-made consensus on the future of relationships between (the Episcopal Church) and other provinces,"

A common misconception (perpetrated by Catholics) is that Henry VIII “created” Anglicanism. That is simply not true. Anglican Christianity dates to St Alban in the year 303. By the 16th Century, the Anglican Church had its own liturgical tradition- the Sarum Rite- apart from the Roman Rites used on the continent.

Henry VIII’s reforms amounted to nothing more than eliminating the Bishop of Rome from all affairs in England. All else remained the same (see Six Articles). Anglicanism as we know it today is a product of the Elizabethan Settlement and the Restoration.

While there have been (and currently are) some Anglican bishops and leaders whose actions and beliefs are questionable (to put it mildly), if their existence invalidates Anglicanism, then by the same reasoning Roman Catholcis and Eastern Orthodox are pretty much screwed.

“Anglicanism as we know it today is a product of the Elizabethan Settlement and the Restoration.”

The Elizabethan Settlement was purely political and was plainly good politics. It was terrible theology because it established a system whereby apostasy and heresy could with official approval co-exist within the same ecclesial body. In my opinion, this is where what we see today in Anglicanism became inevitable.

Your comments about the existence of an Anglican Church before Henry VIII are historically questionable, at least after the Council of Whitby. The fact that the Sarum Liturgy was used hardly means that The Church in England was somehow less than fully subject to Rome or that its bishops, from Cantuar and York on down, were not under the omophorion of the Bishop of Rome.

As to whether or not Anglicanism is defective on account of the actions of a few bishops, well the primary problem may well be with their position within the Apostolic Succession. It is a given that no woman can ever be a bishop, and yet Anglican bishops have consecrated them. It is well settled that bishops are to be celibates, or at least the husband of only one wife, yet Anglicanism celebrates the consecration of men with multiple marriages. The canons are absolute that priests may not marry after ordination, yet in Anglicanism this is a common occurrence. Issues surrounding practicing gay hierarchs aside, it certainly appears that the people who act as bishops in the Anglican Church care little for the canons and Holy Tradition of The Church and to that extent, the invalidity of Anglicanism, if indeed it is invalid either as a part of The Church or as a Christian ecclesial group, can in greatest measure be laid at the feet of the very persons who have been charged since Nicea to protect The Faith.

As with all matters religious in the 16th Century, the Elizabethan Settlement was highly political. However, among other issues, it established the use of the English service in the Book of Common Prayer (which were based on the Sarum Rite), married clergy, and Communion in both kinds. The 39 Articles were part of this. The Settlement successfully defended the historic episcopate and the sacraments against the machinations of the Puritans.

The Council of Whitby established union between the Celtic bishops of the line of St Patrick and the Roman bishops of the line of St Augustine Cantuar. On paper, the Bishop of Rome was still the senior prelate in the West, however he did not exercise real authority in England (or anywhere else outside Italy and the Holy Roman Empire). More direct Roman authority was not established until the Norman Conquest in 1066 when, in exchange for a Papal Blessing, Duke William agreed to oust the Saxon bishops and replace them with Normans beholden to Rome. This he did. The merger of the Anglican and Roman churches was effectively accomplished by force of arms.

Even after the Conquest, the Church of England functioned with a higher degree of independence than on the continent. The reason for this is that England was the only truly unified and centrally controlled state in the West. Her King was powerful enough to easily overshadow the Bishop of far-off Rome. The people of England enjoyed their Catholic Faith, but they also enjoyed their independence from the continent. When King John and King Henry III appeared to jeopardize that independence, the barons forced them to recant.

You and I would agree on the gay bishop and female bishop thing, as well as the remarriage issues. We would disagree on the episcopal celibacy rule (St. Paul the Apostle said a bishop must be the husband of one wife). But if you wish to write off Anglicanism because a minority of bishops (most of them American) choose to ignore historic church policy regarding bishops, then I could easily write off Roman Catholicism because a minority of its bishops (most of them American) choose to ignore divine policy regarding young boys. I do not do that because I can plainly see that what Cardinal Law and his ilk did in no way represents Catholic doctrine and discipline. Likewise you should be able to see that what Gene Robinson and his ilk have been doing in no way represents Anglican doctrine and discipline.

“We would disagree on the episcopal celibacy rule (St. Paul the Apostle said a bishop must be the husband of one wife).”

Not necessarily. A multitude of disciplinary canons changed what +Paul had to say and The Church never changed those canons. The question therefore is, by what right did the Anglicans change those disciplinary canons. If Anglicanism is in fact a particular English church, it is arguable that it could have the right to make such a change, but I suspect that if in fact that is the argument, the other particular churches would react by pointing out that the mind of The Church wasn’t there and that such innovation by one part of The Church was inappropriate, +Paul to the contrary notwithstanding. The same considerations of course apply to remarriage, open communion, women’s ordinations, etc.

“But if you wish to write off Anglicanism because a minority of bishops (most of them American) choose to ignore historic church policy regarding bishops, then I could easily write off Roman Catholicism because a minority of its bishops (most of them American) choose to ignore divine policy regarding young boys.”

But you know, to the extent that the Latin Church ignores and ignored what those priests and hierarchs did, it deserves condemnation, which it has received from Orthodoxy. This isn’t to say that Orthodox hierarchs aren’t liable to heresy. Heresy almost invariably comes from hierarchs, at least in the East and there have been cover ups of the actions of the “pink rasos” crowd in Orthodoxy too. But it isn;t widespread and in Russia where some priest celebrated a gay marriage, he was defrocked and the temple torn down so that not a stone lay on a stone. That reaction and the reaction (or non reaction) of the Latins, however, is of an entirely different order from that of, apparently, most of Anglicanism which either sits by saying nothing or actually applauds the notion that sodomy is no sin and the HS is doing a new thing. That’s what lead some Orthodox hierarchs and theologians to question whether or not Anglicanism is a valid part of The Church.

“I do not do that because I can plainly see that what Cardinal Law and his ilk did in no way represents Catholic doctrine and discipline. Likewise you should be able to see that what Gene Robinson and his ilk have been doing in no way represents Anglican doctrine and discipline.”

That’s not the point. One hopes they don’t. The point is that if substantial segments of a church publicly support sinful depravity on the one hand or cover it up on the other, without any consequences then those hierarchs who are “orthodox” must cut the heretics off. If the “orthodox” can’t or won’t do that, then they are equally responsible with the heretics for the destruction done to the Faithful and liable to the charge that the heretics do indeed represent the doctrine of the church or group.

You are correct that a substantial majority of the Episcopal Church’s members either wholeheartedly support the revisionists or simply don’t take their faith seriously enough to take action against them. That is why it is the orthodox who are walking out to meet in high schools (as my parish did) instead of the liberals. Some things are simply more important than stained glass windows. However, the Episcopal Church itself is a small minority in the Anglican Communion. Combined with Canada and England, they still constitute a shrinking minority in the Communion. Most of the Anglican hierarchs (especially the ones who do not ordain women) are certainly not sitting idly by while ECUSA carries on. Rather they are making a stand for the Truth, and if that means tossing the Church of England out of the Anglican Communion, then so be it. Remember, it was long before Gene Robinson that several overseas primates took the extraordinary step of sending their own bishops into the USA.

In 2003, it looked to some in other denominations that Anglicanism was finished and that there would be an influx of ex-Anglicans into their denominations. Now the unthinkable may happen- Anglicanism will survive and will be much stronger for it.

“Most of the Anglican hierarchs (especially the ones who do not ordain women) are certainly not sitting idly by while ECUSA carries on. Rather they are making a stand for the Truth, and if that means tossing the Church of England out of the Anglican Communion, then so be it. Remember, it was long before Gene Robinson that several overseas primates took the extraordinary step of sending their own bishops into the USA.”

At the Council of Nicea, +Nicholas crossed the hall and slugged Arius the heretic. For this he was expelled from the assembly but reinstated the next day after a number of the bishops were visited by the Most Holy Theotokos in a dream and told that +Nicholas was doing God’s will. If there is a Lambeth Conference next year and people like Schori and Robinson and Chane go over to have tea with the ArchDruid, do you suppose any “orthodox” Anglican bishop will have the fortitude and strength of belief to cross the hall and publicly slug, metaphorically or otherwise, those heresiarchs? I don’t.

They already did. They’ve done it by establishing episcopal jurisdictions of their own provinces in the United States and Canada without even asking ECUSA for permission. What would the Greek Church do if Patriarch Alexi flew to Athens and consecrated three men to be bishops of the Russian Church in Greece? They’ve done it by refusing to share the Eucharist with Schori, Griswold and crowd. What if the canonical patriarchs weren’t able to share the Eucharist at one of their gatherings? What if the College of Cardinals couldn’t celebrate Mass together?

Nobody is really sure what the Lambeth Conference will look like or if there will even be one. Will the orthodox bishops show up if the heretics are invited? St. Athanasius and the orthodox majority showed up at Nicea even though the heretic Arius was invited. They then put him and his heresies in their proper place. All of the bishops, including those who pretned to be bishops, may very well be in England this summer, but gathered in two different places with Archbishop Williams playing some sort of shuttle diplomacy. The heretics will not allow a format that will lead to a repeat of the 1998 smackdown, and the orthodox are not willing to spend money on another useless gathering.

I think you’ve got it wrong, bob. The Arians were springing up quite literally everywhere, especially in the East, but Visigothic Spain was infected too. It wasn’t a matter of jurisdictional claim jumping at all. The issue was, were these Arians heretics or not? Would The Church condemn them as such and cut them off utterly as no longer not simply “former” brothers but indeed as enemies of God! The Council at Nicea, as were so many of the later Councils, was a culmination of ongoing condemnations, ongoing accusations of heresy brought against the heterodox.

Every Anglican bishop should go to Lambeth to be counted among the sheep or the goats. Staying away is craven and an abdication of responsibility. The heresy of 1st World Anglicanism must be soundly, loudly and publicly anathemized along with its proponents. Lambeth should be no place for talking or, God forbid, listening! The heretics, beginning with that clown the ArchDruid, should appear and the orthodox condemn them for the demonic lickspittles that they are.

But Anglican bishops won’t do that. They’ll either stay home or they will “dialog” because the foundational Elizabethan Compromise is all about avoiding trouble and keeping everyone happy, even at the expense of The Faith.

BTW, what would the Greeks do if the MP showed up consecrating bishops in Athens? Probably the same thing the MP did about the EP doing that in Ukraine and Estonia, go into a mini, and not too long lasting, schism. This is not a theological matter, bob. Its about canonical jurisdiction in orthodox ecclesiology. Frankly, since the ECUSA bishops have not been anathemized by, say +Akinola, Shori et al are correct that what +Akinola et al are doing is uncanonical and the ArchDruid may well be correct in refusing to recognize bishops like Minns, though I think that is more problematical. All in all, bob, what the orthodox Anglican bishops have done thus far, while understandable, is likely uncanonical and doesn’t come close to anathemization of the heresiarchs in a council.

If you are looking for thunderous personal condemnations of Schori, Griswold, and friends, you will not find them in the words of +Akinola and his allies. The orthodox Anglican primates are not given to levying personal insults. “Kind but firm” is their modus operandi (think of the eastern litany “let a righteous man rebuke in kindness”). Rebukes of the heresies perpetrated in Western circles (this sickness is not confined to just Anglicans in the West) are aplenty. Gathering everyone together in Lambeth Palace and having the orthodox point fingers at the liberals and shouting “heretic!” might make for some good headlines, but will not be real progress. If the Lambeth Conference is to be a gab fest and photo shoot, Nigeria and the rest of Africa won’t show up. +Akinola said his church cannot afford an “expensive episcopal jamboree.” If real work will be accomplished on addressing the problems and establishing a Covenant, then attendance will be worthwhile. Remember, most of the Anglican provinces don’t have a lot of money and many are outright refusing the pieces of silver from New York. It’s not a simple matter to fly the entire Nigerian House of Bishops to England for a two week conference.

“Gathering everyone together in Lambeth Palace and having the orthodox point fingers at the liberals and shouting “heretic!” might make for some good headlines, but will not be real progress.”

Oh, I don’t know. Just think how great some well crafted anathemas would sound, and, frankly, how important those anathemas might be to a western world plunging headlong into damnation. It would sure make for some good history, as just such proceeding have seven previous times and for which times, I trust, we are all very thankful.

“He that saith not ‘Anathema’ to those in heresy, let him be anathema!”

“Anathema to those who spurn the teachings of the holy Fathers and the tradition of the Catholic Church, taking as a pretext and making their own the arguments of Arius, Nestorius, Eutyches, and Dioscorus, that unless we were evidently taught by the Old and New Testaments, we should not follow the teachings of the holy Fathers and of the holy Ecumenical Synods, and the tradition of the Catholic Church.”

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