What a courageous statement! No doubt, +Rowan would have made a similar statement about World War II: “The Archbishop of Canterbury has not in any way endorsed the Holocaust.” This is a statement about the Archbishop’s personal responsibility, not about the nature and future of the Anglican Communion. What is this man thinking?

Lionel Deimel

At the diocesan convention in Fort Worth, our special convention guest, Bishop Lyons of Bolivia, was invited to answer questions about the invitation to become part of the Southern Cone from the Archbishop and the synod of his province. Bishop Lyons stated that Archbishop Venables had presented this proposal to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and that Rowan Williams was in full agreement with this plan.
He repeated this at the convention in San Joaquin. Was Lyons lyin'?
Or had Williams fudged so much that Venables could have interpreted his statement as support? I fear the latter could well be the case, as Williams seems incapable of taking a firm stand on anything.
Katie Sherrod
Fort Worth

Oh, NOW he says something (through someone else . . . maybe)!

Rowan the Spineless,
Rowan the Feckless,
Rowan the Careless,
Rowan the Reckless,
Rowan the Useless . . .
Anyone care to add to his list of proper titles?

The officers of General Convention including Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori and others have some choices to make, and I pray for wisdom for them as they make them.

One choice is to follow the precedent of the General Convention during the Late Unpleasantness (as some call the Civil War) and do nothing. Call the name at General Convention and see who answers.

Another choice is for the "remain Episcopal" churches to call a special convention and reorganize. Delaware organized after the Revolution but the bishops of Pennsylvania served also in Delaware for a long time. And Bishop Seabury also served in Rhode Island for a time.

Another alternative might be for General Convention to expand the boundaries of one or more adjacent dioceses.

And another might be to depose and sue.

Tom Rightmyer in Asheville, NC

And, of course, the options Tom lays out are not mutually exclusive....

Still, how nice it would have been to have had this statement last Thursday.

Marshall Scott

The update's reference to Gledhill is followed up very well here:
http://frjakestopstheworld.blogspot.com/2007/12/canterbury-has-not-endorsed-southern.html

Once again, Ruth Gledhill is shown to have been wrong.

She always is.

There is no need of anyone to pay any attention to anything she says.

The business during the Civil War is in no way similar -- the Confederacy had declared itself a separate country. As far as I know Central California is still part of the US. Read Tobias Haller's comments here.

And here is one place where Lyons is quoted saying "sensisble way forward."

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_92524_ENG_Print.html

'Lyons also told reporters that Williams approved of the new affiliation and described it as "a sensible way forward."'

Kevin Montgomery to the contrary notwithstanding, I think the adjective most appropriate for the archbishop of Canterbury is "cautious."

Caution and letting others do the fighting has served him well thus far in his efforts to tamp down as much as he can the deeply destructive activities of the American schismatics and their foolish allies overseas. Why should he respond or react to every firestorm in the blogosphere?

My guess is that the archbishop is as preoccupied or possibly more preoccupied about what's going on in the Diocese of Harare than in the Diocese of San Joaquin. As he should be. San Joaquin is a pipsqueak diocese trying to trundle off to a pipsqueak province. Harare is ruled (and I use the word advisedly) by a venal, corrupt bishop in league with a monstrous dictator who together are destroying human lives by the thousands. It's over Zimbabwe, not California, that the archbishop of York has cut up his clerical collar.

The Episcopal Church is not the center of the universe, not even the Anglican universe.

Tobias suggests the adjective is "delphic" and that it's not constructive.

http://jintoku.blogspot.com/2007/12/entrails-of-primates.html

My advice to Rowan, if he wants it, is to set aside the Delphic mode for the Socratic, at the very least. If he wants to remain on the sideline as an umpire rather than as the quarterback, let him adopt the voice of one who issues challenging questions rather than proffering quizzical hints.

There are more constructive ways of sitting on the sidelines.

That said, I must agree that the situation in Harare ranks ahead of SJ. (It could even be argued that lancing the boil in SJ is healthy.) But how did the situation in Harare come to what it is?