Bishop Carranza speaks out

"THE TRULY ORTHODOX ANGLICANS"
By Bishop Assistant Sergio Carranza
From ANGELUS,the Los Angeles Clergy Newsletter

Here we are, just a few months away from the Lambeth Conference and we find ourselves in an impasse: the Bishop of New Hampshire without an invitation to attend the meeting, the poachers from the Global South hunting in the U.S.A. and Canada, the schismatics trying to steal TEC's property, the Nigerian post-colonial neo-crusader-in-reverse uttering threats, and the Archbishop of Canterbury giving the impression that he is willing to sacrifice the Episcopal Church in order to appease the radical conservatives and thus maintain the unity of an already fractured Anglican Communion.

These are perturbing, bewildering and irritating times for the truly orthodox Anglicans who want to preserve not only the identity, but the essence of Anglicanism, and refuse to accept the new religion crafted by some of the power greedy Third World hierarchs and the lunatic fringe of American conservatism.

The truly orthodox Anglicans reject the selective literalism of the biblical exegesis propounded by the new religion, as well as the hypocritical morality based on that kind of hermeneutics.

They reject the notion that lay people and priests do not have an equal share with the bishops in the governance of the Church.

The truly orthodox Anglicans reject the allegation that gay and lesbian people are not beloved children of God and cannot be fully included in the ordained ministry of the Church.

They reject the Primates Meeting pretension to define doctrine, to enact legislation and to impose discipline on the autonomous Provinces of the Anglican Communion, as the new religion would have it.

And the reason why the truly orthodox Anglicans reject all these enormities is because they disfigure Anglicanism and destroy its very being.

I do not believe for a moment that the Archbishop of Canterbury would be so naïve as to think that, by ceding to the demands of the Global South radical Primates, he will keep them in the flock and remain himself as the titular head of the Communion. This notion is wishful thinking, at best, since the new religion advocates have been increasingly disrespecting him and his office, and are already making plans to set up their own international ecclesial body. As we know, last December 26 the Primate of Nigeria and a coalition of his minions announced a conference in the Holy Land to chart the Church's future course, that will take place next June, just before the Lambeth Conference which some of them have said they plan to boycott.

The truly orthodox Anglicans, while respecting each other's autonomy, want to preserve the bonds of affection which have kept us together across the world, as well as to maintain the centuries-old concept of unity in diversity. The truly orthodox Anglicans uphold justice, because justice is God's passion and an inherent characteristic of God's Kingdom. And before I am accused of being an irate fellow, let me quote what St. Thomas Aquinas has to say about it: "He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust."