Wednesday, February 21, 2007

The Significance of the Primates' Communique

Everyone is pontificating on the significance of the Communique from the meeting of the Primates of the Anglican Communion which met this past week in Dar es Salaam. If I am to retain my membership in the Bloggers Union, I guess I should weigh in as well.

What is the significance of the Dar es Salaam meeting? I do not have a clue. Perhaps it will be the beginning of a revitalization (I’m way too Catholic to say “revival”) in The Episcopal Church; perhaps it will signal the final cleavage between TEC and the Anglican Communion; perhaps, by this time next year, nothing will have happened and everything will be about like it is today. If I were forced to make a bet, I’d go with option 3, but only under duress.

The fact of the matter is that I just can’t force myself to look with hope on anything that involves The Episcopal Church anymore. If an Episcopal bishop, Windsor-compliant or otherwise, were to walk up to me and tell me the sky is blue, I would feel obligated to go outside and check. I wouldn’t trust TEC to tell me my fly was open. I just plain don’t believe anything that anyone says in the church’s name, and whenever I hear them, I wonder what it is that they are trying to put over on me this time. Frankly, I have my found spiritual refuge, and can’t help wishing that TEC would just find the grace to be quiet and go away.

I am not advocating that state of mind. It is sad at best, and probably sinful. It clearly offends against charity, and it makes a hash of patience. Vocalizing it doesn’t do much for peace, meekness, or temperance, either. It is, however, my state of mind nonetheless. I hope God in His infinite power can use my Lenten penances to make something decent out of it – or, at least, something harmless. In the meantime, I will shut up about it and search for other topics.