Almost Live: the Presiding Bishop’s Webcast

This is long. LONG. Here, why don’t you go get a latte, while I fulminate quietly to myself.

I almost missed the live webcast by the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, ++Katherine Jefferts Schori. Stupid time difference. Fortunately, it’s now available as a regular on-demand webcast.

There are specific issues I want to hear her address, but I’m a little worried that she’s just going to offer some delicious tidbits of Anglican fudge.

And now, the webcast. I’m not really clever or fast enough on the analytical side to comment seriously on it as I watch, but I’ll probably have a few comments to make as it plays.

Meta: Two women in clerical collars telling the church how it is. Attagirls!

Anglican Communion, Primates’ Meeting, Gay clergy

Moderator Jan Nunley is wearing a tasteful blue clerical shirt with a pretty patterened scarf. It’s a good outfit for TV, and she seems smooth and professional. The feel is like a PBS news and public affairs show.

If there’s a pledge break, it will seem perfectly natural in this setting.

PB ++Katherine is in normal bishop’s attire – purple shirt, with pectoral cross slung over to the side into a pocket, wearing a jacket or blazer and pants. The audience is a mixed bag of lay and clergy of various colors and backgrounds. A lot of collars are visible.

Opening statement reactions:

• Reminds us that change is a constant in the structure of the Anglican Communion. About a third of the primates in attendance reare new, and a number of current primates will be retiring in a few years. This is a reminder to be patient, I guess. (sigh)
• Reminds us that although in the Episcopal Church a majority of people are content to live with things as they are with respect to gays and lesbians in the church, or to move ahead toward fully inclusive presence of gays in all orders (clergy, bishops, the whole enchilada), this view is a minority in the Anglican Communion (although not a tiny one, I hasten to add. Hello, Canada and New Zealand). Thus, our tiny minority has majority backing out there in the rest of the world. The statement, such
  as it is, is pretty supportive of the “moving ahead” wing of the church, IMO.
• Reminds us that there’s diversity of opinion amongst the other primates – all of whom are male at this time – and that within their provinces, there is also a diversity of opinion regarding the issues raised by the presence of GLBT persons in the church. Nice way to remind us the rest of the Communion is still pretty male-dominated, ++KJS!
• Notes that primates from Western or “global North” provinces are in countries where homosexuality can at least be discussed or is becoming more and more acceptable as a way of being, and that civil unions for gays are certainly on the table or likely to become legal in many of those countries. They may not agree with our actions (guess that means sustaining the election of the good bishop of New Hampshire) but they see no reason to break communion with us, because they are tolerant enough of their own countries’
  positions on homosexuality.
• Reminds us that some primates are frustrated that we’re so focused on gays and want us to shut the hell up already about gays, who they don’t really discuss or want to hear about, and help them with issues much higher on their lists – poverty, AIDS, the Millenium Development Goals, and so on. They don’t really feel the need to break communion with us over our welcoming and including gays and ordaining them as priests or electing them as bishops. They just wish we hadn’t gone and done
  it in such a way that the next group could use it as a wedge issue.
• And now, reminds us of “those other guys in purple shirts,” who are (in my view) extravagantly intolerant and who live in countries where the local culture abhors homosexuals, and can hardly even discuss the issue without frothing at the mouth and gurgling on about sin and debasement and immorality. What she actually says is that the final group is “exceedingly exercised” over the issue, and it’s the only thing on their agenda. They see homosexuality as unscriptural and as making it difficult for them to evangelize
  in their countries – remember that article I found about the fear of Islam? They’re generally from countries where Islam is in competition with Christianity, but not always (that Southern Cone guy, for one, and the guy from the Caribbean for another).
• Oh ho, now she’s talking about the problem of the poaching bishops, who come in and swipe congregations uninvited. We’re reminded (I can’t believe this!) to assume that those bishops are acting in good faith, unless and until we have evidence to the contrary. Note: bishops who have oversight of formerly Episcopalian parishes and priests include +Akinola of Nigeria, the bishop of Rwanda, and a few others. I can’t believe she’s suggesting that we try to keep an open mind about their motives and the genuineness
  of their pastoral care. That’s one issue where the poachers always ignore the “teachings” in the Windsor report – not to cross boundaries uninvited.
• On the other hand, she does also remind us that the issues underlying “the current difficulties” date back long before gay clergy became the current hot point of contention – that minority conservatives have been threatening schism (or who have taken off for non-Episcopalian Anglican groups “in exile” for years. Like I’ve said before, 20 years ago it was women priests, 30 years ago it was the new Prayer Book, and 40 years ago it was civil rights. It’s no accident that many of the largest “dissident” parishes
  and dioceses are in former slave-holding states. More than 100 years ago, they used the Bible to justify slavery, too.
• Reminds us that we’ve been “asked” to refrain from making any more partnered gay priests bishops, and that we’ve been asked not to authorize same sex blessings. They can ask all they want, but the House of Bishops can’t answer without the input of the House of Deputies at a General Convention, something “they” always forget. On the other hand, reminds us that although a smaller working group had released a generally
  positive report on our response to the Windsor Report, “some among the primates were dissatisfied.”
• Alternative mechanism for pastoral care for dissenting parishes and dioceses. Want overseas bishops to withdraw from oversight.
• End of September is deadline. Meanwhile, the Anglican Covenant draft is moving ahead, which may be ready for discussion by Lambeth 2008. It would come to our GC2009. We’re supposed to be able to wrestle with our differences on “the current controversy.”
• The changing understanding of who may exercise authority: gender and sexual orientation is immaterial, which is a challenge to minority conservatives. Bishops and primates. Anglican Consultative Council (which we removed ourselves from). Lambeth 1.10 (the “incompatible with scripture” thing that’s being touted as a hard and fast teaching, not just a suggestion or an observation.

Oy. My neck hurts. I’ve got to take some painkillers. Back in a moment.

I’m really trying to listen, but keep getting caught up in the need to comment and, in spite of my woeful lack of critically analytical thinking, say something about the PB’s responses.

Meta: she really shouldn’t do the weird head-turning thing, looking sometimes at the camera, sometimes at the people in the live audience. It looks like she’s holding something back. This statement is smooth – it’s prepared, of course. She’s making the case for hanging on and trying to keep the relationship with the Anglican Communion.

And now, back to our show.

• We used to be able to live in tension or in diversity. Now, values are in competition – inclusion versus traditional sexual mores.
• We are being pushed toward a decision by impatient forces inside and outside the church. It is an anxious response from people who desire clarity. I saw earlier where Jim Naughton had said it was unhelpful when the powerful tell the powerless not to let their anxiety rule their actions. And that sometimes the loud expression of those anxieties is often the only way to get the powerful to pay attention
  to them (case in point, every crap scandal in politics in the last year got a lot of people to vote out the old guard, and the new guard is now on the hot seat, forced to pay attention to a lot of very unhappy constituents).
• And now, we’re getting to the heart of her argument. Using the Gospel reading from the last Sunday before Lent, ++KJS uses the image of the Transfiguration of Christ to show how transcendance needs nothing to spread the message of love, but we mere humans insist on trying to make it more comprehensible by building little structures of our own so that we can remain fixed in one spot and not have to get out there and do anything. And she reminds us that we are charged with getting out on the road and walking the
  walk, talking the talk, instead of building our piffling little shelters and staying in one place only. Actually, that’s a pretty good use of that reading. So now we’re told that “the impatience we are experiencing (significant pause) is an idol…a false hope, that is unwilling to wait on God for clarity.”
• So: shut up and be patient, because to agitate is to ignore the “real” divinity and the real calling to walk more closely with God. And wait for it…. wait for it… wait for the ultra-conservatives to retire or die off, while newer, younger leaders emerge and the rest of the Anglican Communion catches up with us in discerning the place of gays in the church and in the clergy? Can’t we go out ahead, ++Katherine? Man, I’m looking forward to the real-word questions she fields in the next segment.
• Fear not. Be not afraid. God is with us, and will continue to be with us. The message of the Angels is to wait on the Spirit. Yes, yes, but in 10 years or so, it will be something else we’re waiting for. And something else 20 years after that.
• Hee! Some bishops are described as “neuralgic” about their preoccupations with sexuality. Even there, some “listening processes” are happening. Nothing said where it might have been said about the coming anti-gay legislation in Nigeria.
• List, o list. Wait on the workings of the Spirit. In other words, we are literally enjoined to Stonewall the rest of the Communion until at least GC2009. She hopes for there to be enough time for us to find a way to live with one another’s differences,
• I’d love to know what “unexpected or even humorous” development may come to help us remain in communion with each other, progressive and retrogressive Anglican Christians. Perhaps she’s hoping that Dave’s Church Cartoons tickle a few funny bones and assist the stiff-necked fundamentalist evangelical wing in seeing the absurdity of their positions, the absurdities of our
  own positions here in the bleeding heart liberal wing, and come to the realization that we all are children of God, created as we are by God, and are totally pwned by God in the most loving of pranks, because we totally don’t get how He doesn’t care about our silly little man-made structures. He wants us to get off our duffs and get cracking. And the moderate centrists who are bored to sobs already by the endless squabbling will stand up and cheer, too.

Okay, took another break to read cartoons and grab some links. I’ve been drinking a potful of lovely tea, made properly in a stoneware teapot. The tea itself came out of a pretty posh little tin from Taylor’s of Harrogate, and when I opened up the inner packet, the tea was tiny black granules of concentrated alkaloid-and-antioxidant goodness. I brought everything upstairs on a tray – a plate of buttered toast, some black raspberry preserves, the teapot, and matching cup and jug
of milk. I’m still trying to get my neck to loosen up, but I suspect it’s partly to do with the sore throat, and partly to do with work tension, and mostly to do with the tense position I tend to hold while using the laptop. I really should be at my desk for this, but like being upstairs in bed. Because I’m sick, see? I have my bathrobe on and everything.

Time to listen some more to the end of the sermon, and then hear what questions are asked, and how they are answered.

• We are asked to watch and wait, as if with Jesus in Gethsemane, and to continue to do God’s work, and to listen for the still, small voice. There’s more but that’s the gist.
• Fast from ascribing motives of others, pray for those who suffer from wars or famine or disease or for the oppressed. Okay.

Questions: what about this line in the sand on September 30?

++KJS thinks it’s likely we’ll be excluded or sanctioned in some way. Fair enough.

Question from France: Could the Episcopal Church go it alone?

++KJS thinks we’re never alone. What would a re-aligned church look like? Wait and see, of course. Meh. She won’t speculate.

Question from the audience: the Archbishop of Canterbury is one of the Instruments of Communion … but in this era of alternative primatial oversight, is not this a division of the Instruments?

PB: a roundabout answer discussing how it works in a perfect world and how it’s an adaptation of her own idea. This is where the poaching bishops get legitimized in an agreed-on way to give pastoral care to parishes in conflict with their bishops. Also, the opposite is true – liberal parishes marooned in conservative dioceses would have a way to get the care they need from a more sympathetic liberal bishop. The irregular would be regularized. I’m actually satisfied with this as long as it’s done in a completely
fair and non-judgemental way.

Question from someone in Massachusetts: “Seems to me that we’ve let a vocal wellfunded minority to frame the conversation about the future of the Episcopal Church. This plays to the news media’s need for exciting news stories…” about the sexy schism. How can we re-frame the conversation more sensibly.”

++KJS reminds that she’s looking for the non-violent, unexpected and maybe even humorous response. Okay, launch the cartoons!

Question from a parishioner active in lay ministry – she is gay. Wishes that gay clergy’s voices could be heard more clearly by the rest of the Communion. “We want to be heard, there are lots of us.” The PB mentions that episcopal neuralgia in the Global South. Now, are those bishops in pain or they actually pains in the body of the church politic? Hee.

Question from an emailer: she is an Episcopalian in a Network diocese active in Via Media. Her daughter is “out” in a more open-hearted diocese and is broken hearted, because she fears for the church (and is also a candidate for ordination). Are the primates seeking to block the EC from ordaining ANY gays and lesbians?

++KJS says “That was part of the discussion and there are those who want it to be so…” but that’s not what’s been asked of us. Yeah, right, at the present time! And remember, if we turn our backs on gay and lesbian Episcopalians, we are turning our backs on a significant number of people who are hoping to find a church home with us, or who have called the Episcopal Church home for many years, after getting kicked out or hounded from their previous churches, sometimes by their own families.

Question: “you look pretty cool, but are you sweating inside” Okay, that was funny. Answer: yes, she was sweating it earlier as she made her way across Manhattan in order to be there in time.

Question: ABC seems to be on the side of the conservatives. Whose side is he on, anyway?

Katherine thinks he’s seeking a catholicity of being. Meh. He just wants to keep things together on his watch.

Question: primatial oversight again. How will the Primatial Vicar minister to parishes who agree with the majority of the Episcopal Church, but they are in a Network diocese? So far, the Primatial Vicar idea seems aimed at oversight of conservative parishes marooned in liberal dioceses (we have a few here in Chicago – the hardcore seem all to have decamped for the AMiA and oversight by a poaching bishop of Rwanda). Doesn’t this Vicar idea further division?

++KJS hopes interventions will cease. As far as liberal congregations, she thinks there would need to be equity or parity. It could be applied for by people at either end of the spectrum. She talks about this being a “container” for the church, perhaps in the sense of keeping the American church self-contained.

Question: Maryanne from Texas, in the Diocese of West Texas. Does our church still believe in obedience, sin and repentance? PB: Well, obedience comes from a word for listen. Of course, the church believes in all of those, but we may have different understandings. Etc. etc. theological definitions ensue. The question seems to be loaded. Perhaps Maryanne is satisfied with the answer, or maybe she’ll report back to her vestry that ++KJS trotted out the scripture, tradition, and reason three legged stool response
to the Biblical inerrancy, literalist point of view. It really has always been a tension between the people who believed that the Bible was inspired by God but needed to be interpreted in light of reason and tradition, and the people who use the Bible as a proof-text repository to support their views on anything they find objectionable,

Question: what message for gay young people in TEC whose self-esteem was comforted by the election of Gene Robinson as bishop, and who now fear a setback.

++KJS says we’re called to pause and not go backwards. Sees no desire to retreat from the position of inclusivity for all.

Question: From Jenny of New Zealand. You have many friends around the world including NZ who don’t believe there will be a schism, but a major realignment around mission goals… How do you think the church will be engaging most effectively in the 21st century? This sets up an answer about the MDGs, about dignity of all the baptized, and about calling people into conversation and conversion over issues like war and sexuality. Our voice is an important one in those struggles.

Question: Caller from Virginia. She asks she has read that PB said that Jesus is simply one way to God. She’s a priest and feels it undermines the cross. Could you please respond.

PB says “Jesus is our way to the cross. For us to assume that God does not act in other ways is to put God in a very small box.” This won’t satisfy the “one church, one way, one God” intolerables. I, however, often think our religious beliefs put too many constraints on who and what God actually is, and how He interacts with His people and His creation. Space… is really, really big.

Question: is TEC and her democracy really compatible with other provinces more authoritarian structures, Can we listen enough to make this work. My point: can those other provinces be bothered to listen to US?

PB responds that in some provinces, the Archbishop speaks ex cathedra, almost popelike in authority. Have to work at it. Meh.

Question: What is ABC’s role in the current situation.

PB thinks ++Rowan was excruciatingly even-handed. However, he also trotted out that “incompatible with scripture” bit as an official teaching of the Anglican Communion. It’s not – it’s a statement written by a committee made up of old men in pointy hats.

Question: There are those who argue that TEC/Anglican Communion is like a troubled marriage – that a divorce might be healthier. Others argue that the relationship is not dissoluable.

PB responds the understanding that some think we’re children running away from home. PB thinks we are called to be fully adult and to communicate as adults.

Question: Marlene from Cedar Falls IA with her partner Joan. It feels like to them that the answers are already specified for us that we must meet the expectations of the Primates. If we don’t do A B C this is what’s going to happen. It feels very harsh and there is not much faith or graciousness.

PB: Americans don’t like anybody telling us what to do. But we need to take seriously the needs of others. We are asked for a response for a season until the covenant process is completed. There may be gracious elements in what we are being asked. If we decide that it wants to be a partner at the conversation table, we have some expectations set before us. Meh. This does not answer the question – that the script has already been written and we have no recourse but to submit.

Question: from the Diocese of Rio Grande. If we lose our voice in the AC, will other national churches join with us “in exile” and form an alternative, liberal Anglican church association of some kind?

PB: I think it’s far too early to say – realignments would go on. The reality is that the AC is alive and well…. uh, some ties have already been cut, ++KJS. From both sides. However, there have been hopeful signs that some ties would remain, even where a bishop in Africa is not happy with our stance – they need our help too much.

Question from someone whose church was destroyed during Hurricane Katrina: Can the national church help us? All the other national denominations have returned except us to St Bernard Parish? PB says “Why haven’t services been held in homes? Where are the new and creative ways to respond?” Also Jan says “contact your diocese.” This story sounds odd. Also, it sort of sounds like “You’re on your own.” The church is St Mary’s, in St Bernard Parish, and their building was destroyed and apparently, the land cleared.

Wonder what the deal is? There are initiatives to try and re-establish congregations in Louisiana, too. Why isn’t the leadership leading, I wonder? Maybe they were an older parish and were completely gobsmacked by the destruction of their building? I think I can relate, but I did run across a reference to help offered by the youth group of Truro Church via the St Mary’s warden to school-age teens in St Bernard Parish. Methinks
this might have been a loaded question, too. The news item is on an AAC church‘s website, based in Baton Rouge, where the Diocese of Louisiana’s Office of Disaster Response.

It seems the Diocese of Louisiana is not unaware of their situation. On that website, note that only St Mary’s is not holding any kind of alternative worship in rented or borrowed structures or in homes. They seem to be waiting for someone to come along and do all the hard work and make it all better. Meanwhile, older and more historic churches were also destroyed, and they’re well underway with
rebuilding plans while worshiping in rented trailers and putting up “in exile” websites, and running relief programs and housing volunteers in what’s useable of their properties.

What’s wrong with this picture? A picture tells a story – there are no “rebuilding” or “refurbishing” pictures on that site from St Mary’s, and if they have no resources at all, they certainly don’t seem to be doing anything with the diocese or for themselves to find resources. The blurb says it all: “Engineers need to be hired to assess the structural soundness of the church buildings.” If they haven’t
even gotten that far, they’ve got bigger problems than a destroyed building. Or, they’re completely out of communication with their Bishop. Probably both.

Back to the show. That was an interesting excursion, though.

Question: You’ve asked us to dial down the overreaction. Will TEC dial down its lawsuit for certain churches’ properties in Virginia? Big, uncomfortable laugh from the audience.

PB: It’s premature for us to do that now until the process is clear. No answer.

Question from San Miguel. Bart says he thinks Katherine is sincere in that she’s trying to hold AC together and move forward. Concern is timing. Confronted by bishops who are strategizing in the opposite direction. What is your feeling?

PB:I’m a Christian and I live in hope. I don’t think we can live anywhere else. Need to be wise as serpents and innocents as doves. Chuckle from audience. No answer.

Question: Please elaborate on your image of the idol of impatience, and contrast it with worshipping the idol of unity at the expense of full inclusion. Philadelphia 11, Carter Heywood, and others were impatient, and we moved forward.

PB: Where is the will of the whole body that can be called on? I don’t think we’re there yet. Dammit – answer the question! Are we or are we not just as guilty of idolizing unity at the expense of the actual body of faith? How can we all be one if we tell members of the body of Christ “Right then, big left toe, you are GAY and you must be either excised, or shut up and stop throbbing in pain this instant! And take that pointy hat off, you look ridiculous.”

Question: something about a Biblical Hermeneutics Project that came out of the Primates’ Meeting. What role will this project play in shaping the discussion within the larger Communion?
PB: the least noticed piece of the Dromantine primates meeting was about Anglican education. Refers to a website.

Question: can you say more about the Covenant? We’ve never been a “confessing” church.
PB: She says it starts with agreed foundational principles, along with a vague process for discussing “neuralgic” issues and that it’s a work in process.

Question: about disagreements in interpreting Scripture. Might the office of the PB offer a process to all study the Bible all together. What are your thoughts on Scripture study in these turbulent times?

PB: mentions continuing ministries and will take the suggestion under serious advisement, mentions existing programs like Groundwork, and thinks is a really good idea.

Question: You spoke this morning of the gifts in the midst of crisis.
PB: it’s the gift of clarifying who we are. Christian living is about understanding who we are and Whose we are and how to live within that.

Question: your reaction to the Eucharist in the cathedral at Zanzibar, at the altar placed over the slave-trade whipping post.

PB: The Anglican church had a great deal to do with ending slavery in Zanzibar, both David Livingstone and the presence of the British Fleet in the harbor too. it was an incredibly profound change in the way Anglicans understood Scripture. Remember, the English profited from the rum-slave-cotton trade triangle for a long time.

Question: Richard in Los Angeles asks “During the Revolutionary War, we separated from the Church of England. How did we come back into the communiont, and [with that] precedent for leaving, what are the implications for today?”
PB: Groaning laugh. History! Yikes! But he’s perfectly right: we left before, and a sympathetic Scottish primus or archbishop helped us out when we couldn’t elevate our own bishops while we were cut off from the apostolic succession represented by the Archbishop of Canterbury (or of York). We wouldn’t have that problem now. Richard says he’s sorry about asking it. ++KJS notes that we didn’t have any new bishops for a while, and we often didn’t have enough priests, and so vestries ran the churches and
women were often the prime movers in funding and founding churches. That’s probably where our democratic polity stems from – almost unique in the AC I might add – and also our bicameral legislative branches and canon law are modeled on the structures laid out in the US Constitution. Out of crisis comes a creative solution, Katherine… “we emerged from the Revolutionary War ” needing to define who we were and how to continue as a church, and we needed bishops if we didn’t want to become something
more like a Presbyterian church. “Scotland took pity on us, and Zanzibar too…” We got our first bishop, and then “the Church of England changed its rules so that bishops there could consecrate bishops for us that didn’t have to [take oaths of fealty to the Crown [of England]. “Faced with new circumstances, the rules got changed by Parliament. “We may or may not be in a situation that’s equivalent, we’re certainly in a challenging time… a time when we’re being invited to examine who we are as a church
and continue to function and govern ourselves, and those are certainly effective parallels.”

Whew. So: no answer as to the implications, other than we’ve been through a lot worse before now, and it’s good to remember that we came up with solutions so we could continue as a church. I’m getting the strong impression that many in the body of the Episcopal Church is prepared to go a little further ahead than ++Katherine is currently prepared to go, although there’s no telling how strictly the emails and phone-ins are being policed as to whether they’re progressive or regressive in their point of view.

Question from Amy via email: How would you counsel us to act in love when it seems that conversations of reconciliation have been cut off? Should we spend time mourning the loss, or continue with those who remain in order to continue to define our big tent that includes all?
PB: That’s a challenging question and the answer is probably different in different circumstances. Well, dang, that’s not an answer, but apparently loving people doesn’t mean liking them, it means treating them with dignity because they are made in the image of God. To be able to do that, God works in ways that can be unexpected. When people depart, there are ways to try to go after them, but sometimes we just have to let them go and bless their journey. There’s something unhealthy in continuing to
pursue, over and over again (this is something we’ve been through when Holy Innocents was declining, and there was disagreement among us over the issue of trying to stay in touch with people who left).

Question from the studio audience: you keep referring to “neuralgic” issues and responses. What exactly does that mean? Is that simply the pain of division, is there a pill we can take for it? Laughter. It’s meaning – pain. Nerves. Nerves that have been stretched to the limit and causing pain in the community. We have to keep trying to apply balm and healing and prayer, not to cut off the limb that is hurting just to make the pain stop. I personally think that some of the neuralgic bishops are just simply big
purple pains in the ass of the Body, but that may be a heretical stance.

Question: what is your definition of pastoral care, in the context of bishops coming in from outside TEC… hard to see what they are doing as pastoral and not as a way of heightening polarization.

PB: Has to assume that bishops that do this are sincere when they respond to her queries that they feel they are called to minister to people that don’t want their own bishop or ++KJS herself as their overseer. She mentions again that evidence to the contrary hasn’t been established. This begs the question – what kind of evidence would convince you that their motives are not altruistic? What more do you need to know about where they’d like to go with this? Remember that “road
map” that was accidentally leaked about the Network‘s and the AAC’s intentions?

Question: what is the scriptural authority on which the church bases its stance on same sex marriage? The questioner disagrees with the stance. It’s not exactly a hostile question, but it’s got a lot of rope with which the unwary can hang herself.

PB: God created us male and female, and it was good. The traditionalists see this as “het sex good.” She goes on to say that God created us in our diversity, and it is also good. Others question and search for other appropriate ways to share love. We haven’t articulated this well. Meh, ++Katherine, some of your argument is good – you’ve got to sell it better than that, though.

Question from a Canadian. The communique comes across as a strong mandate, rather than an invitation for communication. It seems it might violate the due processes of our two churches. Realistically the primates have no authority over either church. Can you comment on the perception of this authority?
PB: That’s one of the central challenges… the primates are assuming authority, that bishops have a teaching ministry and there’s a lot of authority in terms of overseeing this ministry. They have Lambeth 1.10 in their pocket and their briefcases as “established teaching.” As to whether they can continue to assert this… she thinks the ABC will respect the communique and that might be all that is necessary at this point.

Question: why is being in the Anglican Communion so important? Aren’t we in God’s Communion? And second, how’s your husband doing? Big laugh.

PB: Remains in communion with her husband. This is a truly funny and real response. I wish there were more of this. Maybe this is the “humorous” component of a response to the current unpleasantness. How important? We have opportunities for mission, companionship, etc. We have development and relief tools on the ground as an established network. Some of the people we’re in communion with are a challenge. It’s a gift – we exist as a communion, and this makes it possible to get relief on the ground quickly.

Final Question: William thanks her for this program. With all the squabbling with people on the ground suffering, what can we do to work together?
PB Join One Episcopalian, learn more about the One Episcopalians, build relationships in other parts of the world. Travel. Make contact. There’s no richer place to find the presence of God.

Okay, this post is a big long mess. A point I noticed – I think Louie Crew was front and center. I was kind of surprised that support for GLBT clergy and laity was not more strongly voiced by ++Katherine. Perhaps she’s left that to her bishops to do, while she walks a finer line. Still, I’m disappointed. I was hoping for a little more inspiration, and a little less diplomacy.

And dad-rat it! that was a lot of fudge! Less fudge, more spritual food that less fattening AND tastes great.