A “Progress” Report from the Panel of Reference

The Panel of Reference just put out a :snicker: progress report, which illustrates well why we don’t allow children to write their own report cards.

The Panel began its work by considering progress so far.

Here, I immediately cracked up – which tells you something about the Panel of Reference and my warped sense of humor.

Review of progress so far has been therefore a vital matter.

Unlike actually doing something.

The second reference relates to the Diocese of Connecticut in the Episcopal Church USA, and to an appeal by six parishes against the oversight of their Bishop. In January of this year, however, civil proceedings were initiated in respect of matters connected with these situations. The Panel decided last year as a matter of principle that it should not normally consider references where civil cases are proceeding. . . . Civil proceedings should either have come to completion or be stayed if the work of the Panel is to have space in which to operate.

Oh my. We must have our space to operate.

Of course, what waiting for civil action to end means is the Panel of Reference is putting this matter aside for what could be years, after which the diocese could already have parish properties in hand and probably already sold one or more of them. Any Panel action then would probably be close to useless, in line with the character of said Panel.

The third reference is an appeal by parishes in the Diocese of New Westminster in the Anglican Church of Canada for alternative episcopal oversight. Consideration of this reference has been unable to proceed until March 2006 while the identity of the applicants who wished to be named to carry this matter forward with the Panel was established.

We wanted the names of the evil bigoted schizmatics so +Ingham can have his way with them applicants.

Since then, work has proceeded swiftly,

Pleeeease! I’m afraid I’ll laugh so hard I’ll rupture something more immediate than Anglican unity.

In particular, the Panel felt it needed to clarify any misunderstanding there may be of the mandate it had received from the Archbishop of Canterbury. . . .

And then there’s a lot of very proper blah blah blah, which I’ll graciously translate for you:

“Our mandate is not to do much of anything, and we’re doing it quite well, thank you.”