Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Is he is or is he ain't???

Some discussion continues on the inhibition of the former Bishop of San Joaquin, John David Schofield ...


While +Schofield is on record (according to The Living Church) on not being "answerable" to Episcopal Church and therefore "ignoring" his January 11th inhibition by the Presiding Bishop, it is evidently not being "ignored" by the wider Communion ... at least not according to this page on the Anglican Communion Office website. (Thanks to Greg over at Stand Firm for the heads up on this.)
Meanwhile, I might note, there seems to be NO confusion at the Anglican Communion Office about who the Bishop of New Hampshire is!



So now that we're clear about THAT, what I'm still not clear about is how the ABofC rationalizes letting his invitation to the inhibited, former Bishop of San Joaquin to the Lambeth Conference stand and NOT revisiting his exclusion of the duly elected, consecrated and sitting Bishop of New Hampshire from the tea party.
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Doubtless there are conversations in progress about untangling this Gordian knot. And a question for +Rowan at this point might reasonably be: "Is he or ain't he" going to quit being blackmailed by the Reactionary Right and do the right thing by inviting ALL the ACTUAL bishops of the Episcopal Church. Stay tuned! Film, as they say, at eleven ... or with elevenses (for all you Brits out there!)
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UPDATE:
BabyBlue
has some interesting observations from "the other side of the aisle" on this one ...

8 comments:

Jon said...

Eh, the ABC would look rather silly if he disinvited Bishop Schofield and then (assuming he didn't get deposed at the next HoB meeting) had to reinvite the bishop. My guess, therefore, is that Archbishop Williams is waiting for the due process to finish before he does the same as he did to Bishop Cavalcanti formerly of Recife.

Jon

Elizabeth Kaeton said...

Is he is or is he ain't?

Easy. He ain't.

KT said...

Interesting that last week on the Anglican Communion's Provincial Directory:

Position: Bishop of San Joaquin
Name: Vacant

Jeff Diehl said...

It's also curious that the Anglican Communion Office website has taken pains to note the recent change in status for San Joaquin, but still hasn't brought El Camino Real or Olympia up to date, even though those positions have been filled for months.

John Deuel said...

They've updated the site again, relisting him, but giving his title as Bishop of San Joaquin (Inhibited).

And the pointer to the diocesan website is to the one run by those who left for the Southern Cone.

I'll be happy when all this is over.

Stephen Bentley said...

It's sort of unfair to continue to use the same unfortunate picture of the inhibited Bishop of San Joaquin. Despite the fact that it's accurate, there are more flattering shots of him on the Anglican Diocese website and I think we all can try to be a little generous in displaying a picture of him regardless of our feelings for him. (this is coming from someone within the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin who does not support him what-so-ever)

SUSAN RUSSELL said...

thanks, Steve ... I've changed the picture out and confess to having defaulted to the AP photo I had on file which does deserve to be retired at this point. Hope all is well with you!

Jim Costich said...

I don't agree that it would look silly if an inhibited Bishop were un-invited, became re-instated and had to be re-invited. It's the appropriate way to handle it. In this case, in particular he was inhibited from continuing to practice his job after having quit it. Imagine something like this in private sector business. You quit your job, convince fellow employees and customers to bad mouth your employer, take seige of the business branch while selling it to a new corporation and your old boss just gives you a warning that if you don't change your mind in two months he'll accept your resignation and try to take his property, employees and customers back.

Why was such a man made a bishop in the first place? How can the Episcopal church protect itself from ordaining people with delusions of grandeur and Napoleonic complexes in the future or FIRE them as soon as they begin to do the kinds of terrible things he's done?

Bishop Gene Robinson is the duly elected Bishop in good standing of New Hampshire. By not inviting their Bishop all the faithful in New Hampshire are refused representation. Why? Because Gene is threatening to leave the church and steal property and legacy? No. Because he has made a lifelong committment to live in love, care and intimacy with another man.

For loving. The Archbishop can not imagine a way that a duly elected Bishop in good standing could be present at a convocation of Bishops because he loves.

I think it is extremely important that we keep stating this. It is wrong to allow bigots to rationalize complexity in order to obfiscate their cruelty.