When was the last time the election of a bishop in the dwindling (2.3 million-member) Episcopal Church made page 1 of both the New York Times and the Washington Times?
And when in church history has any bishop-elect ever made so incredible a statement as the Rev. Canon V. Gene Robinson, who announced after his election: “I plan to be a good bishop, not a gay bishop”.
Does this mean he will now take a vow of sodomist celibacy, by moving out of his home in Weare, N.H., where he has been living with his homosexual lover, Mark Andrew?
Since none of the news reports from Concord indicate any such announced intentions, how on earth will he not be a “gay” bishop?
Bishops in the worldwide Anglican Communion, which includes the Episcopal Church, approved a resolution in 1998 calling homosexual sex “incompatible with Scripture.”
But Robinson, and a retired prelate named Otis Charles (one of the denomination’s top kooks, who “came out” after he retired) apparently do not give one hoot in hell what the rest of the world’s bishops believe.
This especially applies to Africa, where the Anglican (or Episcopal) Church is so very much larger and more rapidly growing than in North America, where the Episcopal Church, which included most of the Founding Fathers has lost more than 1 million members since the 1960s.
Immediately following his election, reports the New York Times’ Laurie Goodstein:
“Robinson came to the front, stood before the altar rail and embraced his two grown daughters, his son-in-law and his partner.”
There was no Times report that the bishop-elect kissed his male sex partner on the lips. And while that is a miniscule relief, there was no report of his embracing his former wife, to whom he once pledged to God “to love and to cherish until death us do part.”
Unless the General (national) Convention of the Episcopal Church, meeting next month in Minneapolis, votes to confirm his election, Robinson cannot become a bishop.
That possibility may save the 78 million-member Anglican Communion from splitting apart – which potential calamity the New Hampshire electors must have known about – much as they either know (or ought to know) the Old and New Testament’s absolute abhorrence of buggery.
Just possibly, some of them were aware of the June 1 news report from Melbourne, in the daily newspaper the Australian:
“The Catholic archbishop of Melbourne, George Pell, yesterday denied Holy Communion to 50 gay and lesbian Catholics and sympathizers. His refusal to grant the sacrament to the silent protesters significantly raised the stakes in an ongoing feud with the Church’s vocal gay lobby.
“While Dr. Pell offered other blessings to the protesters who sported rainbow colored sashes, he categorically rejected their requests for communion at a mass in his Melbourne diocese to celebrate Pentecost Sunday.
“At the end of the service, Dr. Pell took the unusual step of defending his actions and criticized the demonstration as ‘inappropriate.’ ‘I deeply regret that such people who profess the Catholic faith would choose to mount an ideological demonstration during Mass and especially at communion time. This is inappropriate. The Church’s teachings on homosexuality cannot, will not change. And the path to heaven and happiness for a Catholic does not lie in seeking to reinterpret what is right and what is wrong.'”
If the New Hampshire Episcopalians were not aware of this Australian Christian worship-disruption by the sodomy lobby, they surely were aware of a similar disruption of Sunday mass at Boston’s Catholic cathedral.
But apparently neither of these disruptions of Christian worship made any difference to their voting, which may well shatter the 78 million-member Anglican Communion.
What if, say, 500 devout Irish-Catholic anti-sodomists decide to engage in a church protest where and if Bishop-elect Robinson is consecrated?
