FR JAKE ANSWERS BISHOP CAMERON

You must read Fr Jake's riposte to Bishop Cameron's letter. Fr Jake doesn't write often on his blog these days, but when he writes, his words are always worth reading.

Jake takes apart the worst of Section 4 of the Anglican Covenant, the objectionable, punitive section, piece by piece, and demonstrates why adopting the covenant will not be a good thing, despite Bishop Cameron's advice to all of us to please calm down and stop the scaremongering.

Says Jake:

Use whatever snarky names you can imagine, Bishop Cameron, but, regarding the signing of any current or future Anglican Covenant, this is one Anglican whose response must echo that of Bartleby the Scrivener; "I would prefer not to."

And they all said, "Amen"!

And while I have your attention, why not go vote on the Church Times Question Of the Week,: "Should the Church of England reject the Anglican Covenant?" Look for the link to the question in the upper left hand corner.

LAND OF THE FREE

From Elizabeth Wurtzel, who is American, but the article is in the Guardian, which, last I heard, was a newspaper in England:

Hard to say precisely what it is that people – "folks", as President Obama likes to call them – are so darn exercised about, but they say things that show that their command of any words with more than two syllables is completely questionable, like: "The president is a socialist", or "healthcare reform is unconstitutional". Of course, what they want to say, and what they should say, is something to the effect that they hate this man that those people elected president and they want to kill him – but only people like me, elitists with Ivy League degrees – people who actually have read Das Kapital and who have studied constitutional law – talk trash like that.
....

Look, America is a very sad place right now, which is what the Tea Party movement and the midterm elections are about. I could analyse the particulars, but then I would be no better than the whole 24-hour media machine – which, given that unemployment is at 9.6%, is lucky that no one has noticed that they don't exactly do their job. If the news outlets were actually reporting, they would tell us the honest and awful truth: the United States is a post-industrial empire in decline, like England or Belgium or worse (is there worse?). There is no next. We are at next.

And truthfully, it would not be so bad, if we could only come to terms with who we are: we are an amazing country still, but not in the way we believe. We are, in fact, kind of nerdy. We decry elitism, and yet it is precisely the high-falutin' stuff that we are good at. We still have the best research universities on the planet – every world survey puts Harvard, Berkeley and Stanford at the top – and we still have companies like Apple and Google that no one else on earth can come up with. And, of course, our creative industries – movies and music – are still our biggest import, even if piracy is deflating their value.
....

Yes, the United States is still the great meritocracy it's always been; but now, if you aren't brilliant or beautiful or both, there isn't much to do, because they can do it cheaper in Shanghai or Mumbai. The Tea Party people should enjoy their rallies, because the rest of it is, indeed, quite bleak.

For the first time in American history, then, social mobility has been replaced with class struggle. Europeans have always been mystified that poor people in this country don't rise up and throw potatoes at Donald Trump – instead, they make him a reality TV star. But that's because everyone here us sure they are going to be rich like him someday, too. Maybe tomorrow.

And yes, you should read Wurtzel's piece in its entirety, despite the fact that it's published in a foreign newspaper. She's mostly right. I wonder if she could be published in a major newspaper here in the US. Her truth-telling may paint far too bleak a picture for consumers of the "news" over here. In truth, not a few of Wurtzel's fellow citizens might label her as downright un-American.

Disclosure: I say "folks", too.

Thanks to Cathy for the link.

WHAT GOD WANTS

Tobias Haller had his own lovely post exclusively for three days, but today I had to have it.

"LITTLE ENGLANDERS"

Bishop Gregory Cameron (left), and Archbishop Derxel (sic) Gomez brief the press on a draft text of the Anglican Covenant, in May this year

Pictured above are two completely non-partisan bishops, well one bishop and one archbishop, who played major roles in drafting the Anglican Covenant, Bishop Gregory Cameron of the Diocese of St Asaph in the Church in Wales and Lord Archbishop, Metropolitan and Primate of the Church of the West Indies & Bishop of the Diocese Of Nassau & The Bahamas (Including the Turks & Caicos Islands).

A BISHOP has compared two groups opposing the Anglican Covenant to “an ecclesiastical BNP”. They are “latter-day Little Englanders”, he says.

The Bishop of St Asaph, the Rt Revd Gregory Cameron, formerly secretary to the Anglican Com­munion Covenant Design Group, was responding to the full-page advertise ment placed in the Church Times last week by Inclusive Church and Modern Church (formerly the Modern Churchpeople’s Union).

In a letter to this paper, he accuses them of using tactics of “misinformation and scaremongering about foreigners and outside influences”.

Bishop Cameron compares IC and MCU to the British National Party, the facist political party in England, even as he accuses them of scaremongering.
...............................

Sorry, I suffered a momentary brain disconnection. I'm all right now.

The Anglican Covenant was prompted in 2004 by the election of a gay bishop in the United States, the Rt Revd Gene Robinson. It attempts to define the relationship between the provinces of the Anglican Com munion, holding them to mutual accountability and consensus.

Yes!!! The Church Times gets it right. No matter what folderol you hear about how the Anglican Daft Covenant came to be, it was originally conceived to exclude member churches which approve the ordination of lesbian and gay bishops and allow same-sex blessings or marriages. And which member church(es) would that be? Well, there was only one church with a partnered gay bishop at the beginning of the process to draft the covenant, namely the Episcopal Church in the US. And the Episcopal Church has been naughty again and ordained a partnered lesbian bishop and now permits same-sex blessings.

The Revd Jonathan Clatworthy, general secretary of Modern Church, said this week that the Covenant had come out of the debate in the Communion over gay bishops and the blessing of same-sex unions, but this had been “played down by the Covenant’s proponents”.

He denied the charge of scare mongering. Conservative bishops “have made it quite clear the whole point of the Covenant is to exclude the United States”, he said.

See? What did I say?

The former Bishop of Durham, Dr Tom Wright, told The Church of Ireland Gazette that the Covenant was the only means of keeping the Anglican Communion together, and provided “a framework within which you can have the discussion in a way which tries to keep all parties at the table”.

And I have this bridge....

Is it possible for former colonists to be Little Englanders? I suppose not.

BRAVO BISHOP BUCHANAN!

Nice alliteration.

Lesley Fellows gives us the text of Bishop Colin Buchanan's letter from last week in the Church Times.

Sir, — I have read your account of the Bishop of Fulham’s statement about his future (News, 22 October), and have heard him interviewed on the BBC’s Sunday programme. Am I right in my understanding of his position as follows?

He believes himself to be a true apostolic bishop ministering in the Church of England, and giving absolute assurance about the validity and efficacy of the sacramental ministrations he offers, which assurance, being of top priority for the life of the people of God, is guaranteed by the historic succession from the apostles, the preservation of that succession in the Anglican passage through the Reformation period, and in latter days the ensuring that the succession is sustained by male bishops only.

This assurance has not only been the key to all eucharistic celebrations by the Forward in Faith (FiF) constituency: it has also been visibly expressed in ordination by the Bishop of Fulham, in that in September he ordained a deacon (announced on another page) and, presumably, assured him that he was being truly ordained. All that is how I have read his present position.

At the end of the year, however, he will resign, and, in joining the Church of Rome, will acknowledge he has never been ordained, that his sacramental ministrations have been open to the highest level of doubt, and that the orders he has conferred (mostly, presumably, within the FiF constituency) have been fictitious. Does he in fact say this now, or is it simply that he will say it in two months’ time?

If I have got it wrong, I would be the first to acknowledge it and apologise for misrepresenting the position that I think I read. But I still have the dilemma that, if Rome is right, we have to go today; where as, if it is wrong, nothing that happens in the Church of England can make Rome right. Surely logic has some part to play in relation to integrity?

COLIN BUCHANAN

Splendid! I couldn't leave out a word. Thank you, Lesley!

The bishops and clergy in the Church of England who cross over to join the Roman Catholic ordinariates will be no more than mere seminarians, once they've made their swim across the Tiber. Fast-track seminarians, perhaps, but their Holy Orders once held by them to be precious, pristine, and unbesmirched by contamination from the likes of a woman bishop, will, in an instant, be declared, not only null and void, but never to have existed at all. What about the poor deacon? What about all the other deacons and priests the bishop ordained? What about the Eucharistic celebrations in which he presided?

What say you, Bishop Broadhurst?

Here's the link to the story of Bishop John Broadhurst's resignation in the Catholic Herald.

UPDATE: Earlier I pondered in the comments:

I wonder if (shall I call him Bishop?) Broadhurst presides at the Eucharist at the present time under his here-today-gone-tomorrow orders.

Bishop Broadhurst answered my wonderings in his pastoral letter:

My final act as a Bishop will be to celebrate the Mass at Gordon Square on the eve of Christ the King, Saturday 20th November at 12 noon. I hope to see many of you there.

Where is the logic here? How can Bishop(?) Broadhurst believe in the validity of his orders one day and believe them to be null and void the next day?

THANK HEAVEN FOR SMALL FAVORS

Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell were not elected.

Bye-bye, ladies. Perhaps you'll find seats on the Tea Party bus. Or, with Sarah Palin, you may consider grouping into the Republican Women Ex-Candidates Party. The name is only a suggestion. I'm sure you'll want to name yourselves.

BARBIE AND GI JOE

Wicked Paul the BB sent me the following joke from his equally wicked friend Kathy saying:

Clearly not blog material, but it is naughty and might make you chuckle.

The joke is naughty, and I responded with more than a chuckle on first reading, and second, and third. I've been pondering the joke for several days, because I was not quite so clear as Paul that the joke was not blog material. Today, following my discovery of the video for the Nissan commercial, I decided that my blog would not be child-friendly just for this one day - just this one day, you understand!

Here is the naughty joke:

A little girl clambered aboard Santa's lap and mumbled charmingly around a finger: "I wanna...I wanna a Barbie Doll and a...um...a GI Joe."

Santa was startled. "Well, honey, you know, GI Joe's are kind of for boys more than girls. Barbie comes with a Ken, not a GI Joe."

"No," she said firmly, pulling out her finger. "She only fakes it with Ken. She comes with GI Joe."

Paul's further commentary:

Kathy is very naughty this time and I told her I do not wish to think about how a little girl would know so much so soon.

Disclosure: My son works for Nissan.

UPDATE: Grandpère was rather shocked that I posted the joke. He said, "It's like something you'd find in Playboy." He could be right. I wouldn't know, because I never read Playboy.

"MY FAVORITE CHRISTMAS COOKIE RECIPE"

This recipe calls for Absolut vodka but if you don't have that, any vodka will do (I prefer Skyy). If the cookies come out as I expect them to, please mail me some. Trust me, read this all the way through....

Ingredients:

1 bottle Absolut vodka
1 cup water
1 tsp. baking soda
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 cup brown sugar
lemon juice
4 large eggs
1 cup nuts
2 cups dried fruit
4 cups flour

Sample the Absolut to check quality. Take a large bowl. Check the Absolut again to be sure it is of the highest quality. Pour 1 level cup and drink. Turn on the electric mixer. Beat 1 cup butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add 1 teaspoon of sugar; beat again. At this point it's best to make sure the Absolut is still OK. Try another cup, just in case.

Turn off the mixerer thingy, break 2 leggs and add to the bowl and chuck in 1 cup of dried fruit. Pick the frigging fruit off floor... mix on the turner.

If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaterers, just pry it loose with a drewscriver. Sample the Absolut to check for tonsisticity. Next, sift 2 cups of salt or something. Who giveshz a sheet. Check the Absolut.

Now shift the lemon juice and strain your nuts. Add 1 table. Add a spoon of sugar, or somefink. Whatever you can find. Greash the oven.

Turn the cake tin 360 degrees and try not to fall over. Don't forget to beat off the turners. Finally, throw the bowl through the window, finish the Absolut and make sure to put the stove in the dishwasher.

CHERRY MISTMAS!!!!!!

Thanks to the notorious woman known around the internets as Suzanne. It doesn't hurt to start gathering your Christmas recipes early.

IF I'M WRONG, I'M WRIGHT

From the Church of Ireland Gazette:

Speaking to the Gazette editor in an interview while visiting Ireland, Bishop Tom Wright, former Bishop of Durham and now a Research Professor at the University of St Andrews, has said that the Church of England should not proceed to the consecration of women as Bishops if the move were to create a large division.

He said: "my own position is quite clear on this, that I have supported women Bishops in print and in person. I’ve spoken in Synod in favour of going that route, but I don’t think it’s something that ought to be done at the cost of a major division in the Church."

Bishop Wright warned that if the Church of England were not able to resolve the matter "a ‘quick fix’ resolution" would be "a recipe for long-term disaster".

If Bishop Wright's "position is quite clear on" women bishops, why would he pull the rug from under them when controversy develops? Abandoning women when the going gets tough is hardly supportive. What good are empty words? And 30 16 years after the first women priests is a quick fix?

Asked to comment on what would happen if the Church of England rejected the Covenant proposal, Bishop Wright said: "That is always a possibility, and if that happens, then I suppose the thing would be dead in the water. but that’s a notional possibility which I don’t actually see as realistic."

That "the thing would be dead in the water" is my fondest hope. We can but try to shed light on the possible negative consequences for the Anglican Communion if the Daft Covenant is adopted. If Bishop Wright thinks "the kind of unstructured mess that we’ve had" is bad, then, very likely, he faces a far grander mess if his wish for a covenant comes to pass.

Bishop Wright is often good copy.

MY HOME LAST NIGHT

Pictured above is my room at the Sully Mansion in the Garden District in New Orleans. The gracious hosts at the Sully Mansion made me welcome and more than comfortable during my stay.

I attended a lovely reception and later a wonderful dinner, both in honor of Susan Russell and her wife, Louise Brooks. Both events were held in homes in the Garden District, one of my favorite places in New Orleans. At the reception, I spent a good bit of time talking to our friend Ormonde and his lovely wife, Kay.

I'd adore to live in the Garden District, but I'd have to give up my husband, my home, and living near two of my children. A house in the Garden District is, to me, a pearl of great price, but, in the end, I'm not willing to pay the price. But I can dream. If my dream came true, I'd wish to have a house like the one pictured below.



I'd met Susan at GC09, but I met Louise for the first time last night. Usually, I'm very bad at remembering names, but I'll have no trouble with Louise's name, because she shares the name of the famous silent film actor. Louise joked that Louise, the actor, was her grandmother.

I told Susan that she was a rock star in the Episcopal Church, and she demurred. I don't know what Susan's voice is like, but she rocks, and that makes her a rock star to me. Anyway, I had a fine time in such sparkling and stimulating company. Once again, our hosts in both houses were welcoming and gracious.

Apropos of quite a thin connection, below is a YouTube video tribute to Louise Brooks, with Josephine Baker singing "Bye-bye Blackbird".




Tomorrow evening, I'll be back in New Orleans to hear Susan speak.

COMMON GROUND AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

AN EVENING WITH THE REV. CANON SUSAN RUSSELL

Thursday, November 4, 2010
7:15 p.m.

Trinity Episcopal Church
Bishop Polk Hall