Some people will never learn

Oh dear me. They are at it again.

The diocese of Los Angeles have have elected a new suffragan bishop, and she is not only a woman, but also openly gay.

Only, I do not mean them, or her. I mean an other party in the Anglican Communion. The Archbishop of Canterbury, predictably, has issued a statement observing that,
"The election of Mary Glasspool by the Diocese of Los Angeles as suffragan bishop elect raises very serious questions not just for the Episcopal Church and its place in the Anglican Communion, but for the Communion as a whole."

But the appointment is not yet finally ratified, and the folk who have to do that, he suggests, must make their decision very carefully (This is, I think, a coded way of telling them not to ratify anything) for he goes on,

"The bishops of the Communion have collectively acknowledged that a period of gracious restraint in respect of actions which are contrary to the mind of the Communion is necessary if our bonds of mutual affection are to hold."

Well, I have unbounded admiration for Rowan, and his generosity towards the folk in our communion who want to prevent women, and gay clergy entirely. Mutual affection? Hardly. I very much suspect that affection has only ever been moving in one direction: towards the fundamentalists.....

But really, there has to be a time when we stop letting the fundamentalist anglicans hold us to ransom. I wish to heaven that Rowan had just welcomed the lady's election, and told the folk who don't like it to grow up, get real and start trying to extend the same courtesy and tolerance towards others, that the rest of us extend to them. Giving in to blackmail never really works. Resisting it may well be costly; but in the end it is the only way that will make sense.