Leanne Larmondin of Anglican Journal unloads against all and sundry in her report on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s upcoming session with the Anglican Church of Canada's House of Bishops.  Her emotional roller coaster is something to behold.

She feels that The Most Rev Dr Rowan Williams has affronted the Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church by taking so long to pay his respects to their bishops.

The news was unexpected, since it had appeared for all the world that North America, as far as the archbishop was concerned, had been “sent to Coventry.”

No, not that Coventry – the other one. The term is used in the United Kingdom and Ireland to describe a state of exile, ostracism. A more apt term for Canadians might be “sent to the penalty box.”

Does that mean the Anglican Affray is like a big hockey game?

Next, she goes through perceived slights that the shunned excluded ostracised churches have endured at the hands of the evil thoughtless insensitive archbishop.

The first strong indication that this was the case occurred in 2005, when the archbishop declined an invitation to attend a joint meeting of the Canadian House of Bishops and some of their American counterparts in Windsor, Ont.

The invitation was issued well in advance and was made in good faith.

I am puzzled as to why she feels the need to specify that the invitation was "made in good faith".  What does that mean, exactly?  Has anyone suggested it was issued in bad faith?

Abp Williams isn’t the only bad guy in the Anglican Communion, moreover.  At their 2005 meeting in Dromantine, several primates snubbed ACC Archbishop Andrew Hutchison and TEC Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold.  It’s beginning to look like a vast right-wing conspiracy.

It was also at that meeting that the primates asked the Canadian and American churches to “withdraw voluntarily” from the Anglican Consultative Council for at least three years.

Now why would all those primates do a terrible thing like that?  Could it have something to do with Canadian and American actions following The Windsor Report?  Dunno: not a word about that from Ms Larmondin.

So, many in the two churches were understandably feeling wounded – regardless of how they felt about the issues that led to the primates’ request: namely, sexuality and the authority of Scripture.

"Regardless of how they felt about the issues"?  I think not.  Traditional Anglicans who support orthodox understandings of biblical authority, including biblical teachings on sexuality, were, as far as I’m aware, quite accepting of ++Rowan's decision not to meet with Canadian and American church leaders.  The theological and liturgical innovators, on the other hand, were far more likely to feel "wounded" that the Archbishop of Canterbury did not want to appear to lend his imprimatur to novel teachings and ceremonies.

Ms Larmondin now goes into paranoid attack mode.

The announcement is all the more surprising because many had believed Archbishop Williams to be taking great pains to appease the church in the Global South and some of the more combative conservatives in Canada and the Episcopal Church in the U.S. Any appearance of an olive branch being extended to the North Americans could be seen by some of the more militant agitators as a betrayal – not only of themselves but of the authority of Scripture.

When it comes to being “combative”, the primates got nothin' on Michael Ingham or Jim Njegovan.  “Militant agitators” indeed.

With each threat from that camp, he seemed to capitulate.

Examples of this alleged capitulation?  Well, there's only one, of which Larmondin presents a rather slanted picture.  ++Rowan invited three American bishops to the Tanzania meeting in addition to Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.  Larmondin bewails the invitation of The Rt Rev Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, moderator of the Anglican Communion Network, which represents beleaguered orthodox Episcopalians.  She raves on at such length, denouncing both Bp Duncan and Abp Williams’s decision to invite him, that the names of the other two invited bishops seem to slip her mind entirely.

So, it is a good thing that Archbishop Williams is coming to Canada, to speak to the church’s leaders and, hopefully, to listen and hear first hand about our experience and our realities. As he prepares to draw up the list of bishops whom he will invite to next year’s Lambeth Conference (a decennial gathering of all bishops in the Anglican Communion), he will at least be making an informed decision when he considers invitations to his Canadian brothers and sisters. Let us hope that the decision will be his and his alone.

Oh, dear.  If Abp Williams makes a determined effort to listen to all sides in the deeply divided Episcopal Church, and encourages his fellow primates to do the same, then, as far as Leanne Larmondin is concerned, that wasn’t his decision.  By implication, the only decision that she will regard as ++Rowan's very own is one that agrees with her biases.  How open-minded of her.

If Rowan Williams is so easily led astray, why care whether he speaks with the ACC’s bishops anyway?

I hope she is prepared for the eventuality that, in the course of his huddle with our House of Bishops, ++Rowan will spell out the implications of the Primates' Tanzania Communiqué for the Canadian church, which liberal Canadian Anglicans would find very disagreeable.  I wonder whose decision that would be.

h/t: Binky

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