Are you aware of something called ACNA (Anglican Church in North America)? It was founded by Bishop, now Archbishop, Robert Duncan in 2009 because being part of the homogay Episcopal Church (TEC) became intolerable. Fair enough, but here's the thing, ACNA founders, Duncan et al, sat light to wymxn in the priesthood, though they couldn't stomach gays. No rainbow homogay for ACNA, priestesses OK, albeit up to individual dioceses and provinces to decide.
Got that? Gay sex not allowed, priestesses allowed but not compulsory. They'd argue, and I think still do, that illicit sex is a "salvation issue," and therefore verboten, but wymxn priestesses weren't. This, dear readers, all 21 of you, is amazing. Our Lord says, explicitly, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life within you."
There it is, the Eucharist or Mass, a salvation issue, and if wymxn aren't valid priests, if they don't consecrate the elements or oblation, well then, there's no life offered. Serious stuff and ACNA's hierarchs are apparently willfully blind or ignorant on this precisely salvation issue. I'll put it simply: They're Protestants in robes who don't believe in sacraments, but they're not down with gay sex. OK, the latter's more obviously egregious, there is that. Fast forward to today.
An ACNA bishop figure, the Rt. Rev. Charles F. “Chip” Edgar III, Anglican Bishop of South Carolina, concelebrated a yewkrist with The Rt. Rev. Ruth Woodliff-Stanley, Episcopal Bishop of South Carolina. They were commissioning some kind of school, apparently.
There's an issue here, and a serious one. If ACNA wants to claim validity as the true Anglican Church in the US, as a part of the Church professed in the Nicene Creed, in continuity with Apostolic faith, it must have sacramental integrity, ie valid sacraments, not least of the Altar. But it's precisely this which the latest South Carolinian excursus throws into doubt.
Here's a so-called "bishop," who clearly doesn't believe in the sacrament of Holy Orders concelebrating a Eucharist which he doesn't believe in with some woman who doesn't believe in any of it. What a mockery of the Faith. And here's the thing.
ACNA, TEC and everyone else has a decision to make. Are you part of the Church founded by Christ and handed down to the Apostles, the Church, which is the Ark of Salvation or are you part of some other thing. Bishop "Chip" has made his call, doubtless in charity. I say it stinks.
Yours,
LSP
PS. There is another POV, and not a bad one. Hail David Virtue.
