BETHLEHEM: Bishop challenges Archbishop of Canterbury to meet with House of Bishops
Episcopal News Service. January 17, 2007 [011707-01]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
A letter that Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem Bishop Paul Marshall wrote to his colleagues in the House of Bishops regarding conflict in the Anglican Communion has been posted on the diocese's website.
"If the Pope can go to Turkey, Can the ABC go to Texas? A Motion from the Rustbelt as our Meeting Approaches: Being sure the obvious is said" is posted as an expanded and revised version of the letter that Marshall sent in anticipation of the House of Bishops' next meeting. The letter, the introduction says, assumes that readers have a certain amount of context and background.
Marshall wrote that the subject of his letter is the "Archbishop of Canterbury, but only in the very limited sense of his functioning toward our house and to some extent our Church."
"I believe with all my heart that his intentions are at least as good as any of ours. I write of a perceived chain of mistakes in policy and deed; mistakes, not evil," Marshall wrote. "I have made perhaps more than my share of system mistakes, so I know one when I see one."
In reference to the letter's title, Marshall noted that "I am sadly impressed that my friend and neighbor Bob Duncan [bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh], peace be to him, and a few of his supporters, have had more time with Rowan Williams than has our entire House, or even our Church gathered in Convention."
By Williams' "actions and inactions," Marshall wrote that "the situation has for me now reached a proportion manageable only by the combination of prayer and surrender to the belief that God will work this out through the usual means -- crucifixion and resurrection."
"But before we get ready for life alone, we deserve to hear from him, in the room with us, an explanation of his distance and intentions," Marshall wrote.
The bishop wrote that he deplores the "shunning" of North American bishops and reported having been told by a "very highly-placed" figure in the Church of England that Williams had been badly advised in his treatment of the Episcopal and Canadian provinces of the Anglican Communion.
Marshall characterized the Anglican Covenant Design Group as a "virtual lynch mob" which will draft a "Covenant that will by all reports attempt to turn a fellowship into a curial bureaucracy in which the worst elements of the great and oppressive Colonizer and of the Resentful Colonized will meet as a scissors to the denigration of a significant number of God's people who were almost equal in Christ for one brief shining moment."
Marshall concluded his letter with a challenge: "If Rowan really believes what the Lambeth press office says he believes about us, it is past time for him to say it to our faces, and have the goodness to listen to the response of those who have to live with the results of his choices. This would be, I believe, fair play and look very much more like the New Testament."
The full text of Marshall's letter is available here.