Bishop Wantland Speaks to VOL
David Virtue has published an interview with the Rt. Rev. William Wantland, retired bishop of Eau Claire and present assisting bishop of Fort Worth. Bishop Wantland is a well-regarded canon lawyer and orthodox churchman, so this interview is well worth reading. Two highlights:
"Simply put, orthodox Episcopalians no longer have a place at the table of the ECUSA, their day is done and separation is the only way forward and the whole communion knows it." As a result of GC2006 there are now eight dioceses asking for APO and that is going to happen. Make no mistake about it. It's a done deal, he told VOL. ...
Griswold keeps saying that the ABC doesn't have any right to interfere in any part of the Anglican Communion and in individual dioceses, but it will happen. The African archbishops at Kigali set the wheels in motion by setting up a steering committee. The ship has set sail. The Primates Committee meet in February 2007 in Tanzania and unless matters are resolved between now and then, there will be a primate appointed for the eight American dioceses, at that time it will all come unraveled for The Episcopal Church.
"Simply put, orthodox Episcopalians no longer have a place at the table of the ECUSA, their day is done and separation is the only way forward and the whole communion knows it." As a result of GC2006 there are now eight dioceses asking for APO and that is going to happen. Make no mistake about it. It's a done deal, he told VOL. ...
Griswold keeps saying that the ABC doesn't have any right to interfere in any part of the Anglican Communion and in individual dioceses, but it will happen. The African archbishops at Kigali set the wheels in motion by setting up a steering committee. The ship has set sail. The Primates Committee meet in February 2007 in Tanzania and unless matters are resolved between now and then, there will be a primate appointed for the eight American dioceses, at that time it will all come unraveled for The Episcopal Church.
posted by Texanglican (R.W. Foster+) | 1:17 PM
1 Comments:
"The Primates Committee meet in February 2007 in Tanzania and unless matters are resolved between now and then, there will be a primate appointed for the eight American dioceses, at that time it will all come unraveled for The Episcopal Church."
If it happens this way it will be much, much messier and more contentious than it needed to be. There are no juridical or canonical structures in place yet for the Communion or the ++ABC to respond officially to such a development, probably leaving the requesting dioceses facing presentments and such from 815 without the benefit of Communion support -- the very suppport that the Covenant process would have provided. Whatever ad hoc endorsement that the primates might give the new North American primate, how will that endorsement carry weight in the US when the Communion itself is yet without the means to endorse him officially?
How long will that mess take to untangle? There will be property and other such disputes in the civil courts, ecclesial and apostolic disputes in the HOB and Executive Committee, and in the meantime the Communion will set about trying to rethink the foundation of Anglican ecclesiology in all that tumult.
Again, how long will that mess take to untangle? Longer than the organized exodous under the Covenant process that the ++ABC and the Anglican Communion Institute have been recommending? We'll probably never know.
These developments look more and more like that run-on-the-bank scene in It's a Wonderful Life, with the ACI, the ++ABC and a few others playing Jimmy Stewart's role, standing at the door trying to keep everybody from panicking. I doubt they'll be as successful, but it didn't have to be this way. This is not going to be pretty.
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