Month: April 2012

Holy Week

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In a wrap-up to the ‘renunciation of orders’ saga, this morning I received a very gracious email message from the Bishop of Chicago, acknowledging that the terminology should be refined, and thanking me for my ministries back in the States. So that’s sorted.
 
This week Margaret and I have arranged a complicated pattern of attendance and participation. She has grown into the life of our local parish, St Bride’s, after starting out with me at the cathedral. We expect to go each to our own services tomorrow night; then each of us is participating in Good Friday services, I reflecting on John 19:8-12, and Margaret on the Last Word ‘Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani’ (we were hoping we’d get the same assignments so that we could devise a reflection together, but it was not to be). We’ll go to the evening Easter Vigil at St Bride’s, and the Easter Morning service at the cathedral. The Glasgow Rocks basketball season is winding down, and I wasn’t fired up to go last week when game time came around, so it’s either the Easter Sunday match-up against the Essex Pirates or 22 April against the Durham Wildcats.
 

On Orders and Renunciation

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In a curious development pertinent to my recent post about being obliged to ‘renounce my orders’ so as to serve in a different province of the Anglican Communion, the House of Bishops of the Province de l’Église Anglicane au Rwanda has had to instruct some its member bishops about orders and jurisdiction as well, though apparently with different terminology.
 
For the benefit of anyone who’s interested by the topic, but unfamiliar with the current state of play among Episcopalians/Anglicans around the world: some US Episcopalians are disaffected because of doctrinal/disciplinary matters in the US Episcopal Church (most prominently involving sexuality), such that they no longer can acknowledge the spiritual authority of bishops whose teachings and practice seem (to these disaffected Episcopalians) to fall culpably short of the standards for bishops. Some clergy among these US Episcopalians have been consecrated bishops by the Rwandan province, so that they can minister as bishops to other alienated US Episcopalians. A number of these Rwandan-US bishops recently withdrew from the authority of the Rwandan Anglican Church (for reasons to which I am not privy).
 
Now, I read that on 29 March, the Rwandan House of Bishops has advised these (separated) missionary bishops that

there are only three ways that we may “release” clergy affiliated with us:
 
1. By transferring them to another jurisdiction within the Anglican Communion;
2. By their voluntary renunciation of orders;
3. By formal ecclesiastical discipline.

 

So, at least in Rwanda’s understanding of canon law, ‘renouncing orders’ is categorically different from ‘transferring to another jurisdiction within the Anglican Communion’.
 
Obviously Rwandan canons don’t affect the canon law or interpretation of the US Episcopal Church — but this interpretation of ‘orders’ and ‘transferring’ appears to make more sense. The bishops in question must (on this interpretation — I’m not arguing anything about their side of the disagreement) have a canonical relationship with one or another Anglican province, but that’s a separate question from whether their orders as bishops are valid. If on the other hand they have no relationship to another recognised Anglican body, the status of their request to withdraw from the Rwandan Church is canonically intelligible only as a request to be removed from the roll of actual bishops. If my situation were interpreted on this basis, we would say that I wish to move (‘transfer’) my vows of obedience and allegiance to the Diocese of Glasgow and Galloway and the Scottish Episcopal Church — not to renounce my orders altogether.
 
If I understand the interpretation of canon law from the US Episcopal hierarchy, my priesthood is not in question — they’re interpreting my ‘orders’ as sort of ‘the ordered relationship that binds me to my bishop and the doctrine, disciple, and whatever of this [US Episcopal] Church’. On their account, then, it would be possible for me to maintain my ordained status without having a canonical relationship with a particular Church (and, by extension, so would the US-Rwandan bishops, if in fact the US Episcopal Church recognised their episcopal orders in the first place) — though I would not be authorised by any Church to exercise that priesthood. The Rwandan interpretation (again, if I understand it correctly) is that apart from a relationship with a particular Church, the idea of ‘orders’ is incoherent; the validity of orders depends on a living relationship of authority and accountability with a Church.
 
Of these two, I had been operating on premises closer to those expressed by the Rwandan bishops than those I’ve been instructed to observe by the relevant US authorities. I see elements of soundness in each. Ordination confers a grace that isn’t itself dependent on temporal authorities, or geography; but on the other hand, ‘orders’ outwith a relationship to a Church are gravely problematic.
 
I’m not usually very interested by canon law — but these developments point toward intriguing theological and political (in the sense of ‘church polity’) nuances. In all of this, I emphasise that I’m cooperating with my understanding of US policy, not repudiating anybody’s authority or rebelling against them. “Dissenting about what I think is a good idea’, maybe; but not rebelling or repudiating.
 

Not Fair At All

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An Ode for Him

Ah Ben!
Say how, or when
Shall we thy guests
Meet at those lyric feasts
Made at the Sun,
The Dog, the Triple Tun?
Where we such clusters had
As made us nobly wild, not mad;
And yet each verse of thine
Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine.
 
My Ben
Or come again,
Or send to us
Thy wit’s great overplus;
But teach us yet
Wisely to husband it;
Lest we that talent spend,
And having once brought to an end
That precious stock, the store
Of such a wit the world should have no more.

                  — Robert Herrick
 
Four years ago today, my Dad died.
 
   What’s good ?
   Life’s good –
   But not fair at all
         — Lou Reed
 
I’m remembering him, and thinking of how wonderfully my internet friends reached out and helped me along. Thank you.
 
And thanks, Dad.
 

Franciscans Sue Starbucks

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ROME (CNS) In an unexpected move, today the Franciscan Order filed suit against the Starbucks chain of coffee houses, enjoining them to refrain from using the name “cappucino” to identify their cream-topped espresso product.
 

 
Friar Roberto Pascattio, spokesman for the Order, explained that the Franciscans like a good cup of espresso as much as the next person.
 
“But ‘cappucino’ is a description based on a brand that the Franciscans have been cultivating for centuries.” Cappucino is so named after its resemblance to the cowled, brown-robed monks of the Capuchin Friars, a branch of the Franciscan Order. The name of the coffee drink derives either from the brown color of the monks’ robes, or the pointed crown of steamed milk that resembles the Capuchin hood. “After we’ve spent centuries building up the name recognition of our spiritual movement for simpler living, these people pirate our name and our trademark pointed hood and the goodwill associated with them, just to identify an over-priced cup of coffee.”
 
The Capuchins are a branch of the Franciscan Order. They were founded in the early sixteenth century as a reform movement among the Franciscans, dedicated to returning to strict observance of St. Francis’s ideals. They adopted a long, pointed hood in contrast to the close, rounded hood that more relaxed Franciscans wore. The people among whom the reformers worked nicknamed them for their hoods — “Scappuccini” — and that nickname became part of their official designation as a religious order, the Order of Friars Minor, Capuchin.
 
Prominent Capuchins in history include St.. Bernard of Corleone, and Padre Pio, who was recently canonized by Pope John Paul II.
 
In Seattle, Starbucks lawyer Thomas Billingsgate soft-pedalled the suit. “Starbucks has a latte good will toward these spiritual seekers, but everyone knows you can’t make intellectual property claims on varieties of coffee, apart from Frappucino®, Caffè Verona®, and other proprietary formulations.”
 
Br. Roberto indicated that Starbucks was only the first in a series of possible trademark enforcement targets for the Order. “Next, we’re looking into negotiations with those monkeys.”