wfn.org | Anglican officials denounce consecrations

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Note #6727 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

as 'schismatic'
26-June-2001
01214

Anglican officials denounce consecrations 
as 'schismatic'

Conservative Episcopalian group ordains four priests as 'missionaries' to
U.S.

by Chris Herlinger in New York and Cedric Pulford in London
Ecumenical News International

NEW YORK CITY - Ignoring pleas by top Anglican leaders, two non-American
bishops have ordained a group of four U.S. Episcopal priests as missionary
bishops of the conservative Anglican Mission in America (AMiA).

	The priests were consecrated by Archbishops Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda and
Datuk Yong Ping Chung of the Anglican province of South East Asia during a
June 24 ceremony at a non-Episcopal church in Denver.

	The move was seen by church observers as a sign of the growing prominence
of a conservative church movement but was sternly criticized by Anglican
leaders as a severe threat to church unity.

	In London, Arun Kataria, press spokesman for the Archbishop of Canterbury,
George Carey, told ENI that he regretted that the consecrations had gone
ahead despite Carey's "strong but businesslike" appeal to the dissenting
bishops before the consecrations.

	The archbishop of Canterbury is the leader of the world-wide Anglican
Communion. The Episcopal Church is the official Anglican church in the
United States.

	Kataria told ENI that the new bishops could not be recognized by the See of
Canterbury unless they became reconciled with the Episcopal Church of the
USA's presiding bishop. In a letter addressed to the bishops before the
consecrations, Carey wrote: "What you propose to do is in blatant disregard
of our Anglican ecclesiology."

	The Colorado ordinations - which took place during a three-hour ceremony
attended by more than 1000 people - were the latest in a series of dramatic
and highly public moves by the conservative mission movement to establish
itself as an alternative to the Episcopal Church in the United States
(ECUSA) while still remaining tied to the world-wide Anglican Communion.

	AMiA supporters are unhappy with an Episcopal Church they say has abandoned
tradition on such issues as the ordination of women and openly gay and
lesbian clergy.

	They also decry the loss of membership in the past 30 years within the
Episcopal Church and other U.S. Protestant denominations and contrast that
with what they call the "extraordinary" growth of Anglicanism and
Christianity elsewhere in the world, including Africa and Asia.

	"The United States, who once sent missionaries to Africa and Asia, is now
becoming a mission field in the new millennium," the AMiA said in a
statement. In an unusual strategy, the AMiA has enlisted the support of
conservative bishops in the Third World who believe the Episcopal Church is
the errant "liberal" member of the more conservative world-wide Anglican
Communion. The AmiA strategy involves consecrating bishops as missionary
representatives of their Anglican provinces.

	The newly consecrated priests - Thaddeus Barnum of South Carolina,
Alexander Greene of Colorado, Thomas Johnston of Arkansas and Douglas Weiss
of California - remain within the Episcopal church. But they are under the
jurisdiction of the Rwanda and South East Asia bishops.

	Frank Griswold, presiding bishop of the Episcopal church in the United
States, also refused to recognize the consecrations. Archbishop Griswold
declined to comment after the Denver ceremony. But in a strongly worded
letter to the two bishops prior to the June 24 event, he criticized the
action, raising the specter of "schism," or church separation, and calling
the ordinations a deliberate attempt to circumvent church polity.

	By consecrating bishops in the United States, he said, the dissenting
archbishops "without informing me and certainly without my permission, are
planning to enter this province with the express purpose of acting contrary
to a basic principle of the Communion that no bishop is to perform Episcopal
acts in the diocese of another bishop without obtaining the bishop's
permission."

	The action, Archbishop Griswold said, was "a profound violation of what it
means to live in communion and could have drastic and negative effects
within our Anglican fellowship."

	Two other Americans, Charles Murphy and John Rodgers, were consecrated in
Singapore in January 2000 by Archbishop Kolini and Moses Tay, the former
primate of the province of South East Asia.

	Both Archbishop Carey and Archbishop Griswold had criticized those
ordinations, Carey calling them "at best irregular and at worst schismatic."

	Kataria, Carey's spokesman, told ENI that the Denver consecrations were
different from those of Rodgers and Murphy because they came after meetings
of Anglican primates in Oporto and Kanuga at which the issue of
extra-territorial consecrations had been thrashed out. It had been agreed
there that bishops were not to act in other provinces without proper
consultations.

	"The Archbishop [Carey] will reflect on this," Kataria said. "There are a
number of options open to him, but he will not let people know in advance
what he is going to do."

	Church observers have said the AMiA consecrations have far?reaching
consequences because the polity of Anglicans is expressly based on a
geographical diocese headed by a bishop. Some conservatives have also
criticized the action because of its threat to church authority.

	Earlier this month, three Anglican bishops in South East Asia disassociated
themselves from the actions taken by Archbishop Yong, saying they did not
believe he had the legal authority to perform the ordinations.

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