has been elected (elected, the British note) to be a suffragan bishop along with the election of the Rev. Canon Diane Jardine Bruce. It took seven ballots of the Convention to elect Mary Glasspool, chosen because she has extensive diocesan experience as a canon to the bishops of the Diocese of Maryland. It so happens that she is in a relationship with another woman and has been since 1988. The two are the also diocese's first women.As a gay woman she joins the until now isolated Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire and sort of evens up the sexes.
The question is whether the zipped up Rowan Williams (when it comes to real threats of State homophobia in Uganda) will have something to say against this.
Whoops! He already has!
He doesn't like to interfere in other Churches - except when they are North American. Graham Kings, who still refers to his nonsense about glaciers, has only such a bureaucratic response in keeping with the system comes first that these bishops seem to pursue. As for his reference to the Covenant, there isn't one, and may well not be, and as for his glacier, well many a glacier reaches warmer ground that melts the glacier as fast as it falls, and if Anglicanism has warmer ground below its cold and frosty leadership then no Covenant will be imposed from above - it just won't reach.
The two elected now must be confirmed by a majority of the national Church's bishops and of diocesan standing committees. Shouldn't be a problem. Perhaps Rowan Williams is having intense, private interventions trying to make it a problem. No he's not - he's made a public statement!
So no need to, say, put the phone to engaged and he can listen to a carol or two while he waits - it is back to double standards, back to the megaphone: meanwhile, fuck the Ugandans while he plays Church politics. Shocking.
Call his bluff, for once. This man is beyond any ethical stance on these matters. I can't believe it. Nothing, nothing, nothing about Uganda. One election of a gay bishop in the USA and the statement's out in a flash.
1 comment:
Adrian, their election must be confirmed by a majority of bishops with jurisdiction, not a majority of the bishops. The United Statesonians have many more bishops, suffragan and resigned, who will not be participating in the vote.
"The bishops of the Communion have collectively acknowledged that a period of gracious restraint in respect of actions which are contrary to the mind of the Communion is necessary if our bonds of mutual affection are to hold."
Please correct me if needed, but is this not a falsehood? When did the bishops of the Communion agree to this collectively? I only recall it being imposed on them from above by the ABC, in the manner of his friend in Rome, The Rat.
BTW, your comment about episcopal elections should only be directed to the English. The Anglican churches in Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland all elect bishops in some form.
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