Back in February the Anglican Primates met and requested that the American Episcopal Church be clear that it intends to affirm the Anglican standards on ordination and marriage. Last week the Episcopal House of Bishops met and by voice vote approved a “mind of the house” resolution that said they do not like the scheme that the Anglican Primates approved. To quote the official Episcopal article:
On the second to last day of the meeting, the bishops had approved a “mind of the house” resolution by voice vote. While affirming the desire to remain within the councils of the Anglican Communion, they said a proposed pastoral scheme recommended by the Anglican primates in February would be “injurious” to the church and urged Executive Council to decline to participate in it.
The full text of the three “mind of the house” resolutions can be found in another press release.
In addition, the Bishops have asked for a meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. As Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was quoted as saying in the article the meeting would be “about concerns around polity issues, how this church is governed, that we do not make decisions lightly or easily, but after lengthy conversation and deliberation through a very reasoned process.” She is also quoted as saying “I think there is some belief in this House [of Bishops] that other parts of the communion do not understand us very well.”
That Archbishop Williams would attend such a meeting is uncertain since it is also reported that he does not have a place in his schedule for it.
In related news, it is being reported that the it was recommended to the House of Bishops that the Rt. Rev. William J. Cox, retired Bishop Suffragan of Maryland, age 86, be tried in the church court for “illegally performing sacramental acts without the permission of the local Episcopal bishop.” Specifically, he participated in the ordination of two priests and a deacon at Christ Church in Overland Park, Kansas, under the direction of the Primate of Uganda. The primary source for the information is an article on The Living Church Foundation web site and it has been picked up by one of my regular reads, the Global South Anglican. (The comments on Global South Anglican following this article are interesting as well.) This news is reported as coming out of the March 16-21 House of Bishops meeting, but I have found no mention of it on the official news service, Episcopal Life Online. In a breaking development, The Living Church web site reported on Friday that Bishop Cox has informed the Presiding Bishop that he has left The Episcopal Church and has been received into the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone. The article quotes Bishop Cox as saying “I don’t want a fight among Christians,” and that he left to avoid financial and public relations problems for the Episcopal Church.
(Brief commentary note: The Episcopal Life Online web site is a brand new portal that went live last week. If you are a casual Episcopalian who is looking for info on what is generally going on in the church, it is probably good. If you are a news junkie who is trying to drill down into important or relevant news stories I found it to be a more clumsy and difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. In addition, at the present time the search function seems to be having problems. But that can be fixed I’m sure.)