…and is immediately welcomed into the Anglican diocese of the Southern Cone.
I am following this with some interest, because when I was an Anglican discerning where I belonged in the Anglican Communion, I liked what the diocese of Pittsburgh stood for. I respected Bishop Duncan for standing with the multicultural Anglican Communion, standing up to those in the Episcopal church who decided to walk apart from the rest of the Communion. Now I see things differently, obviously, since I am Catholic, but I read the Exodus story today, and I can’t help but interpret the passage allegorically to see a justification for an exodus from a place hostile to classical Christian morality. Of course, I would consider affiliating with the strongly evangelical Southern Cone province to be like the wandering in the desert that followed the Exodus, but Pittsburgh Episcopalians are doing what they feel they have to do. It looks like some sort of re-alignment of the Communion, which was called for in 2003, is finally happening, as the diocese of Pittsburgh becomes the second diocese to align with a foreign bishop.
Rhology, in a comment below, wondered why this sort of realignment and shuffling doesn’t happen in the Catholic Church more often (if I understood his comment correctly). I think the reason is that, for the most part, Catholics have a stronger understanding of authority than Anglicans, something most Catholics know and accept before getting into positions of leadership. Also, you can have 3 Anglican bishops, one who believes Jesus is God, another who believes he was a good man, and the other who believes Jesus’ father was a Roman soldier, who are all bishops in good standing, all legitimately Anglican (at least in their own minds). I think this creates a dynamic where someone like Duncan feels a strong obligation to fight for his vision of the Anglican Communion, which (at this point) means leaving (TEC), but also staying (Anglican), whereas a disaffected Catholic bishop would probably just leave, realizing the Catholic Church, because of the way it is structured, isn’t going to change. It is late and I feel like I may not be making my thoughts too clear here…
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Well, that was kind of the point, actually, b/c you get Roman bishops in many cases who DON’T hold to essential Roman doctrine, and especially you get high-profile members of the church who are openly and wholeheartedly pro-baby murder. Why is nothing done about them?
In *my* church, we do something called church discipline. We ask them to repent in private, give them a couple of chances to do that, and then if they are still obstinate, we bring the matter before the whole church. The whole church then asks them thru individual contacts to repent. If they don’t, within a few months they are given the left foot of fellowship (excommunicated). One wishes the Roman (and Anglican) churches would do far more of that, clean house.
I don’t know…I met a high profile scholar of religion one time, a jesuit, who bragged to me that he had been disciplined by the vatican. It was a badge of honor, which is not a good thing, but something had been done. So that’s one thing.
The other thing is, regardless of what individual bishops or priests believe, there is no changing the teaching of the magisterium, which is the point made here. Sure, the priest down the street might think Jesus was just a good man but you aren’t going to find a vatican III council blowing with the wind of the holy spirit and making statements that embrace a range of understandings of Jesus, for the sake of diversity. In other words, the Roman church doesn’t throw every dissenter out of the fold because it just doesn’t have to do that. official doctrine is guarded by structures of authority that can’t be easily violated, even by a groundswell of heretical bishops. there’s nothing comparable in anglicanism, which is essentially congregationalist, first at the local level and then at the level of the provinces. Once you reach a critical mass of heretical congregations and bishops in a given province, the teaching and practice of that province begins to change and there’s nothing the rest of the anglican communion can do about it. Before you know it, you look around and realize you attend First Church of the Millenium Development Goals with a side of Evironmentalism. Who was Jesus, again?
Anyway. :)
the Roman church doesn’t throw every dissenter out of the fold because it just doesn’t have to do that,
1) Tell that to the laypeople who are being led astray by the unorthodox teachings of certain priests who should be disciplined/defrocked/excomm’d but aren’t.
2) Why doesn’t it have to do that? Jesus said the church should, so did St Paul.
First Church of the Millenium Development Goals with a side of Evironmentalism.
Well, if you don’t excomm dissenters, then you don’t end up with denominations, do you? You end up with a bunch of junk INSIDE the church, with the name on it but no real unity.
One wonders what the “best possible outcome” the Anglican traditionalists and “orthodox” factions are hoping for…
rhology, my point about the roman church is that the presence of whatever dissent there is hasn’t meant the same kind of shift in theology that you see in the anglican church. So when I say the roman church doesn’t have to, I mean they don’t have to in order to prevent that sort of shift at the level of official teaching. The official teachings of the church are sound.
I think I don’t know what you have in mind by unorthodox priests. They are a matter for their bishops. I couldn’t say how they should deal with them. I don’t think every priest who is unorthodox needs to be defrocked immediately, especially not if he can be led back in the right direction. If you do believe that there is no salvation outside the church, then kicking someone out is not a matter to be taken lightly.
in any case, I don’t think it even remotely compares to the situation in the anglican church, where there are bishops who openly disavow tenets as basic as belief in God.
Annie,
You have said it better than I could!