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FLIPPING THE ANGLICAN BIRD
by Christopher S. Johnson
Connecticut Episcopal Obergruppenfuhrer Andrew Smith stomps on the corpse of the Anglican Communion:
Plans for an international Panel of Reference to investigate divisions between traditionalists and liberals will not affect a key American diocese. The Archbishop of Canterbury's Panel of Reference has been warned that it will play no role in the battle for alternate Episcopal oversight (AEO) in the diocese of Connecticut, a spokesman for Bishop Andrew Smith told The Church of England Newspaper.
Bishop Smith's rejection of a mediating roll for the Panel in one of the flashpoints of division within the Communion, demonstrates its irrelevance, critics charge. Liberal American and Canadian bishops who have expressed willingness to work with the Panel have largely granted AEO to dissident parishes, while bishops who so far have refused AEO, will ignore the Panel with impunity, they claim.
Bishop Smith Bishop inhibited the Rev Mark Hansen, rector of St John's, Bristol, Connecticut, for failing to abide by the diocese's sabbatical guidelines -- and by doing so, the diocese claims, pastorally neglecting his congregation. On the morning of July 13, Bishop Smith, accompanied by lawyers and locksmiths, served notice on the parish secretary that Dr Hansen -- a staunch opponent of Bishop Smith over his support for Gene Robinson -- had been inhibited and would be deposed in six months unless he recanted. The bishop ordered the locks changed and a security guard maintains a 24-hour vigil at the parish.
Karin Hamilton, a spokesman for the diocese, tells us Bishop Smith has made no "mention of the Panel of Reference" and does not envision a roll for it in the present conflict as he wishes to resolve the present dispute "domestically".
This was to be expected as I pointed out here. Even though the affected parishes have appealed to it, participation with the Panel of Reference is entirely voluntary; nothing demands that Smith lets the P of R in. But it brings up two questions.
What are you going to do about it, Frank? Assuming you get invited to the next primates meeting, how are you going to explain the fact that one of your bishops has just spit on the rest of the Anglican world? Why shouldn't Anglican primates throw you out of the meeting as soon as you get there? It's called leadership; if I were you and I truly wanted to remain an Anglican, I would get on the phone to Hartford yesterday and lean on Smith hard. Failing that, I would publicly put as much distance between myself and Andrew Smith as I possibly could. Smitty's killing you, Frank.
Second question, of course, is what are you going to do about it, Anglican conservatives? You've got a clear case of an American Anglican who couldn't care less what the Anglican Communion says or does about anything. Are any of you, particularly any of you bishops of the Network, going to publicly demand that Smith back down? If he doesn't, are any of you willing to go into Connecticut and assume oversight of the six dissident parishes, the canons be damned? Are any of you willing to laugh to scorn the inevitable presentment charges?
And if you're not willing to do any of this, if you want to wait and let the process work itself out, why should any of us remain Anglicans at all?
Mr. Johnson is the owner of Midwest Conservative Journal in Webster Groves, Missouri.
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