Anglican Curmudgeon: A Bandit Bishop?

Saturday, July 19, 2008

It is interesting that the Presiding Bishop should raise the issue of "standing." It was, of course, she who, without any "standing" to do so under the Constitution and Canons, intervened in the Diocese of San Joaquin to call a "Special Convention" on just seventeen days' notice, with no quorum, to confirm her uncanonical choice as "Provisional Bishop"---a man whom she had selected because he was willing to act as a puppet plaintiff in the lawsuit she wanted to be immediately brought. Her letter to Central Florida may show that she knows how to raise the topic, but her actions in San Joaquin demonstrate beyond cavil that she has no understanding of or respect for what it means.

(Note: I realize that Archbishop Rowan Williams is holding up as a model for inter-Church relations today the Desert Fathers, who were extremely critical of themselves and never judgmental of others. I am judging the Presiding Bishop harshly here not as a bishop per se, but as one who has the ultimate say, for better or worse, on Church canon law and what it means. Her obstinate persistence in refusing to undo her illegal actions---when she alone has the power to correct them---brands her as a fitting object for the scorn of those who have given their lives to the practice of law. Nothing arouses this curmudgeon's ire more than a bishop who defies (and thereby defiles) the canons.) the rest