The Dissolution of Institutional Episcopalianism: Defending the Indefensible

http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=8388

TEC Bishop John Howe writes:

Common Cause is a confederation of Anglican-style entities that are not recognized by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and in my opinion, will not hold together. Their fatal flaw is their disagreement over the ordination of women. Common Cause cannot and will not recognize as valid the priesthood of Valerie Balius. It is not a Communion solution.

The characterisation/epithet of 'Anglican-style' for the bodies and organisations comprising the Common Cause Partnership is provocative and surprisingly dismissive. Is the Bishop calling CCP bodies vagantes? Many have thought that the Bishop of Central Florida was sympathetic to the CCP, but that is clearly no longer the case. What is clear is that he is a firm supporter of women's 'ordination' and perceives the CCP as a threat to the preservation or recognition of that innovation. Bishop Howe is, however, quite correct about the communion-dividing problem posed by the ordination of women, and indeed that obstacle does seem to be the potential origin and harbinger of a future break-up of the CCP. Unless the question of women's ordination is finally settled one way or the other to the satisfaction of all involved, it threatens to polarise and ultimately divide the CCP as it irrevocably split the Anglican Communion itself.

In leaving The Episcopal Church the options before you are to ally with a Bishop who is not recognized as such by the Archbishop of Canterbury. He alone defines who is and who is not "Anglican."

The Anglican Marian exiles of the sixteenth century, the British Catholic Church of the Non-Jurors, the faithful Anglican remnant during the English Commonwealth and Interregnum, the Anglicans of South India after 1947, the Continuing Churches past and present, and a fledgling American Episcopal Church after 1776 would all vehemently disagree with this sweeping over generalisation and assertion. It is flatly unhistorical and erects a disturbing precedent. The Archiepiscopate of Canterbury is not an Anglican Papacy, not has it ever attempted to define Anglicanism beyond what is canonically stipulated in the Church of England as allegiance to Catholic Faith and Order and the authority of the BCP, Ordinal and XXXIX Articles of Religion, and maintenance of communio in sacris with those Churches which have historically comprised the Anglican Communion. Bishops William Sancroft, Francis Turner, William Lloyd, William Thomas, John Lake, Thomas Cartwright, Thomas Ken, and even Robert Kilgour, Arthur Petrie, John Skinner and Samuel Seabury were all perfectly Anglican and orthodox, although they were certainly not always in communion with either the Church of England or the See of Canterbury.

It seems the apologia for TEC Institution has taken on a more desperate tone...