Communion Partners Show Some Backbone

Maybe I began ignoring The Episcopal Church and the ACI crowd too soon.

As my readers know, Communion Partner bishops supported by the Anglican Communion Institute signed a Statement on the Polity of the Episcopal Church that basically says, in a scholarly way, of course, “Hey Schori, who made you Presiding Empress?” It asserts quite convincingly that dioceses and their bishops, not the General Convention and its Presiding Heretic, are the chief authorities in the Episcopal Church, not the other way around. In case people miss that, Section III is titled “Dioceses Are Not Subordinate to a
Metropolitan or Central Hierarchy.”

Baby Blue has a good summary of the brouhaha surrounding this statement. It’s quite the soap opera complete with the Episcopal Left screaming and making asses of themselves. (That’s redundant, but anyway . . . ) As Christopher Johnson observes, this statement has struck a nerve.

I am pleasantly surprised by the statement myself. Heck, I’m shocked by it and by who signed it, including Bishop Wimberly of all people. I practically fainted when I saw his name. I guess he wants to make a statement on the way out. (He’s retiring.) Good for him. I did not think he and a number of the other bishops had it in them. I am glad to say I was wrong.

And, yes, I have to tip my hat to the Anglican Communion Institute as well. I was fed up with them long ago for reasons I won’t rehash here. But they did good with this statement.

As for the Episcoleft, they hate it being pointed out that their empress has no canonical clothes, but what can they do? These bishops are loyal to a fault and have made it very clear they aren’t going anywhere. And they are grounding their stand on the history and polity of the Episcopal Church. There’s really no credible and legitimate weapon with which to attack the Communion Partners.

Of course, that means the Presiding Heretic and her minions could get even more incredible and illegitimate.

This could get interesting.

For a more scholarly take on this, Leander Harding is a good start.