Women's "Ordination" a major factor in San Joaquin and Ft. Worth votes

Please, let us not be snobs. We turn our attention to a few points about current events in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion-those other Anglicans out there.

Earlier I reported how out of touch one blogger has proven to be in his declaration that women's "ordination" is a dead issue, and that "nobody cares" about it-to clean up the unacceptable language of Greg Griffith at Stand Firm. I know that a whole army of "conservative Episcopalians" believes that the realignment of one TEC diocese into the Province of the Southern Cone, and the move to do the same in Ft. Worth, is all about the TEC rejection of the Windsor Report, that is, all about the homosexual thing. In Pittsburgh, that is mostly true (though a deeper conviction about more than just one issue is involved there as well).

In the diocese of Quincy (which has delayed its first vote until their Diocesan Convention in 2008), where the leader of Forward in Faith North America (FiFNA), Bishop Keith Ackerman is the Ordinary, in the Diocese of Ft. Worth, and in the already (as of December 8th) realigned Diocese of San Joaquin, the foremost consideration that got the realignment ball rolling was their commitment to the principles of FiF, that is, to the all male priesthood of the Catholic Tradition as a theological belief, a conviction and matter of conscience. Because the rules of the Episcopal Church would make it impossible for any orthodox successor of these current bishops to be consecrated by the bishops of the Episcopal Church, it was necessary to leave TEC and seek realignment, in the words of Jack Iker, "with a Province that does not ordain women to the priesthood, or receive women priests." By "orthodox," Bishop Iker meant, specifically, someone who shares the theological conviction of FiF that only men can be ordained to the priesthood.

I will include more details about this and many other things in the upcoming issue of The Christian Challenge.

As much as it may grieve some of the people who think that only their one issue, the homosexual issue, has been driving realignment, the facts show that an orthodox understanding of the priesthood (and let us pray that a better understanding across the board of the Diaconate is forthcoming) was first and foremost in Quincy, Ft. Worth and San Joaquin, each of them committed to the principles we of the Continuum share with Forward in Faith. For now, anyone who chooses to doubt what I have written here can listen to the speech given by Bishop Jack Iker back in October, in England. I posted a link at the time in a piece called, "To Whom it May Concern."

Sorry G.G. You are simply out of touch. Women's "ordination" does matter to quite a lot of people, and right in your backyard where you fail to look.