Well, when I say that my wife is not pregnant, I don’t mean that she is partially pregnant or capable of being pregnant….

C’mon John, you know better.

but I was grateful to see a far higher level of concern for the unity of the Communion evident throughout our meeting than I have ever witnessed previously.

Considering that the previous level of concern consisted of upturned fingers, this is hardly a quantum leap in the expression of affection for the AC.  The real question is, whaddya gonna do about it, Bishop?

“There is, however, an implicit acknowledgement that in some places private blessings are still being offered as part…”

Suppose the issue was one of the primates objecting to wiccan “blessings,” would the “implicit acknowledgement” by ECUSA’s bishops also be part of ‘the sense’ of the House of Bishops?

And, by the way, wiccan blessings are not a farfetched thing in ECUSA.  Look at the husband-wife priests in the Diocese of PA and the publishing of a wiccan rite on ECUSA’s web page.

Howe quite incorrectly states that the third DeS request is to halt litigation. Halting litigation was an aside to the third request, admittedly an important one. The third request of DeS was the very specific APV scheme.

Howe is a former lawyer. I expect from him precise language. This makes the misrepresentation of the third request all the more troubling. He has been named as “visiting bishop” in the warmed over DEPO plan of KJS. I take by Howe’s manipulative language that he endorses and intends to participate in the sad distortion of the DeS scheme.

Bishop Howard of Florida is a former lawyer, not Bishop Howe of Central Florida.

-Elf Lady

The Bishops made a distinction between “public Rites” and “private blessings.”  In many Dioceses permission to use officially authorized public Rites has been withdrawn, and the House as a whole has, indeed, confirmed that until or unless there is a “new consensus” there will be no such authorization.  There is, however, an implicit acknowledgement that in some places private blessings are still being offered as part of the “pastoral response” the Primates themselves said might be called for.

I thought the distinction being made was between approved Rites (the other side is very fond of that capital letter) and blessings using unapproved, ad hoc rites.  If they really are drawing a distinction between public and private as Bp. Howe says, we have reached a new level of sophistry.  In what sense is a blessing that is announced in the NYTimes “private”?

4. Robroy, +Howe is NOT a former lawyer.  You’re thinking of +Howard in neighboring Diocese of FL, perhaps?  Howe I believe went pretty much straight into the ministry.  He was born in 1942, ordained in 1967 at age 25.

http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/bishops/0131.html