A simply hilarious series of posts by Andrus.

What a martyred drama he’s bleating to the world via news release.

And all because he didn’t show up in time for the interfaith procession and didn’t understand that the Greek Orthodox would be processing with the RC bishops anyway and weren’t “being seated” ahead of him—rather, the pre-service events were trundling forward and he missed his place in them!

Some of this, of course, is a bit of guilt and paranoia that he was being rapped on the knuckles for the silly bit of passive aggressive letter writing he did to his diocese of 8000 average Sunday attendance.

But you just have to laugh at the need for the attention.

Inappropriate as he previous remarks might have been, if indeed he was detained and prevented from taking part because of them, it demonstrates a profound lack of charity on the part of our RC brethren in SF. But I suspect more details will surface in the coming days.

“Detained” = grandiose rhetoric for “in a conference room with others waiting to be seated by the ushers but then he flounced away and scurried to his webmaster to issue a release.”

And oh yes . . . “basement room” = grandiose rhetoric for “a conference room under the Cathedral.”

What a hoot the man is.

I should add that I doubt very very very much that an Archdiocese of 444,000 members gives a fig about a bishop’s snipings to his own cute little TEC diocese of around 27,000 members [ASA of 8000 and steadily declining over the years]. “Indifferent” is probably the word to describe their thoughts—and I expect Andrus recognizes that.

. . . Hence the need for the drama and the public issuings of news releases about his being late to the procession prior to the Cordileone installation.

As I hinted, we should not rush to condemn the man until sufficient facts are available.

There are plenty of blogs and sites where people can find out further facts about his ridiculous behavior.  And I’m fine with others doing some research and catching up on the facts of the story before they then proceed to mocking Bishop Andrus’s actions and missives.

I wouldn’t want anybody to laugh until they had caught up on the story, of course.

Cennydd,

Now that some time has passed and we have more details, it is clear that the Archdiocese had a mix-up and Bishop Andrus left the premises before the cathedral staff could seat him.  From what I’ve pieced together, Bishop Andrus was in the room with the Orthodox clergy, not in the room with the clergy representing the Reformation communities.  When the time came for the Orthodox to process, the Reformation communities were already in the cathedral proper, and +Andrus was out of place.  The cathedral staff had to wait for an opportunity to seat him, but he walked out before that could happen.  It sounds like he had no idea and no one told him what was going on.

10.  Does it seem that +Andrus was either overreacting to a perceived brush-off?  Apparently, this appears to be the case, but I still don’t think he should’ve made such remarks, nor do I think he should’ve shown up in the first place, given his views on the Archbishop’s stance against something which he so fervently believes in.  I think he owes the Archbishop a personal apology…...though I doubt that will ever happen.

After the misunderstanding, instead of heading for his webmaster to fire off another opinionated letter, I believe that Bishop Andrus’ time would have been better spent being a shepherd. His diocesan stats are awful. The ASAs show that his leadership can’t attract 1/3 of his flock to show on Sundays. Better that he would remove the board from his own eye than attempt to be relevant to the Catholics who seem to be getting along quite well without his advice.

Apparently the archbishop’s people messed up and a friendly apology might make smoother sailing for the future. I doubt the men will become friends, but the archbishop has a lot going against him (hostile region and DUI), so it seems prudent to do what he can. Gentle courtesy its always a good policy.

Charles52—the archbishop/archdiocese said it was sorry almost immediately.

Nor is it apparent at all that “the archbishop’s people messed up.”  Bishop Andrus was late for the interfaith procession. Who knows why?  Maybe Andrus’s assistant messed up.  Maybe Andrus messed up.  Maybe the archdiocese messed up.

Who knows why, but Andrus was late, then issued a ridiculous, petulant, puerile news release about the consequences of his being late.

The procession with which he was supposed to process had already done so and was already seated.

And now, on top of being late, he’s behaved buffoonishly.

Nice.

He claims he was told to show up by 1:45 for a 2:00 liturgy.  That seems strange to me—I know that if I were planning a major liturgy at 2:00 with that many people participating, I’d want them lined up in place, vested, and ready to go by 1:45 at the very latest. ... more like 1:30 if I thought I could get away with it.  I certainly would not tell them to arrive at 1:45.

I suspect some miscommunication or misunderstanding somewhere along the chain of conveying that arrival time to Bp. Andrus.  That’s unfortunate.  Assuming it was a deliberate snub was… well.  Let’s go with “uncharitable.”  And then posting about it on the diocesan web site and his blog was not a classy move, even if it had been a snub.

From reading research on this on other blogs, here’s a plausible scenario.  Andrus’s assistant called someone at the Catholic Archdiocese.  That person misunderstood what sort of bishop Andrus is (Episcopal, not Catholic or Orthodox) and said he should be there at 1:45. But the Protestant ecumenical guests processed at 1:30, in fact.  The new Archbishop reached the altar in procession at about 2:10, according to the video.  It was at that point they could have retrieved Andrus and seated him.  He was already gone, in a huff.  Simply an organizational foul-up, not surprising for such a large event.  Not worth Andrus’s indignation—but also unworthy was his disrespectful letter of a couple of days before.  There’s no saying that Cordileone had even read that, however.

The AP should clarify that Andrus is the Episcopal Bishop for most of the Bay Area not “for Northern California”. Touch of sloppy journalism there.

I would add also that this has not been even a blip in the local news, even the outlets that covered the installation.

Lastly I pray that Cordileone serves his flock well. Some of the most faithful, most solid, most courageous Christians I have ever encountered, were young Catholics in San Francisco.