Last fall I got to attend our diocesean convention, although without voice or vote (but I was able to growl and snarl a bit). One of our churches proposed a resolution whereby their church could seek an alternative bishop’s oversight. Now this was not a last second resolution proposed on the floor. It also was not a surprise to anyone, I believe. The chancellor was given the mic and ruled that he believed the convention did not have canonical authority to vote on the resolution and it was thrown over to be “committee-ed”. The priest who proposed the resolution asked for the specific canons whereby the convention could not vote and was given sort of a bum’s rush with a bit of hand waving and mumbling and no clear elucidation of whereby they had erred in their request.
You should understand, I don’t really like this whole right wing movement. I also don’t like their fundamentalist bent on scripture and morals. I don’t like being lectured on what the Bible “really means”. But the way I see it, shoddy treatment is shoddy treatment. The parish deserved a straight answer, and the bishop and chancellor gave them less than that.
Now to more recent events. South Carolina strikes me as equally shoddy. Maybe that’s because I don’t have all the details, but it seems to me that with a few phone calls, a fax or two or three, each of the “sub-standard” consents could have been qualified. I may not like it, but the democratic voice has spoken. I don’t like the weasel words of the bishop-elect. I also don’t like the post-results posturing going on that claim that the right thing has happened and we all must move on. I am ashamed of the actions taken in this case.
For shame… bad dogs!
Update: from the Admiral of Morality’s blog:
The president of their standing committee, the Rev. J. Haden McCormick, says on the diocesan website that Lawrence has been “persecuted” and that his failed election should “be a wake up call” to the “conditions” in our church. The Dioceses’ director of communications, Kendall Harmon, opines that Lawrence’s failed bid “speaks volumes that a double standard is used for conservatives.”
Lawrence himself says that the failed election reveals a “theater of the absurd” in our Church, and that those who oppose him are “berserk” and “apoplectic.”
The statement from the president of the standing committee, which must bear the brunt of responsibility for failing to do what every standing committee is charged with knowing, uses language ringing with anger and notions of martyrdom.
Well, perhaps I had the wrong people behaving badly. It sounds like perhaps SC and Father Lawrence were the dogs spoiling for a fight here… the onus was upon them to insure that this close election would be completed to the letter of the law. Surely they knew it would be close. Surely they had their chancellor nearby to certify the legality of the election. These current tactics do nothing to uphold the church or make friends. Such namecalling can only represent what was their intent in the first place, and I dare to say that should Father Lawrence be elected once again, the consent process will not be as close as this first endeavor.
Father Lawrence could have resolved this on his second response by opting for language similar to that used by Anglican women. Nothing can separate the church, not “my intention is not to separate”…
Bad dogs. Very bad dogs!
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