Perfect. Anglican Communion Ambassador to Rome is a Resurrection Denier.

Archbishop Cranmer is among those provoked that an open Resurrection denier has been appointed Interim Director of the Anglican Centre in Rome, which is effectively the embassy of the Anglican Communion to The Vatican. Hence its Director is in effect the Ambassador of the Anglican Communion to The Vatican.

The said Resurrection denier is the Very Rev’d Dr John Shepherd, formerly Dean of St George’s Cathedral, Perth, and Chaplain of Christ Church, Oxford from 1980 to 1988.  For Easter, he has said the following and more:

The Resurrection of Jesus ought not to be seen in physical terms, but as a new spiritual reality. It is important for Christians to be set free from the idea that the Resurrection was an extraordinary physical event which restored to life Jesus’ original earthly body.
…
Jesus’ early followers felt His presence after His death as strongly as if it were a physical presence and incorporated this sense of a resurrection experience into their gospel accounts. But they’re not historical records as we understand them. 

There’s video, too:

But Happy Easter anyway!

One wonders if he would have been appointed if he were an open “Climate Change Denier.”  Heck, we wonder no such thing.  We know what would have happened.

But personally I am only mildly provoked by this appointment.  It is old hat really.  And, frankly, the Romans under Pope Franco deserve an insulting appointment like this.  The Vatican has a LibPope who enables and promotes abusing and abuse-enabling LibChurchers.  Really, The Vatican deserves worse than John Shepherd.  I hope Gene Robinson and Peter Ball were given due consideration.

This appointment is also appropriate due to the history of openly apostate bishops in the Anglican Communion, none of whom have been defrocked for fifty years and more if my memory is correct.  John Shelby Spong, David Jenkins, Shepherd, and no telling how many other allegedly Anglican bishops and clergy have openly denied and even mocked the physical resurrection of Christ.  How many have been defrocked? Hmmm?

That has provoked me for decades and still does. But with that history in mind, John Shepherd is a very appropriate appointment indeed.  Canterbury and Rome deserve no less.