The North American Anglican has not included me (wisely, some would say) in the official responders’ list to the above referenced post. But I would like to do so, and since I have this forum (and have commented on many of their posts in the past) I will do so on this one.
I only want to address one issue: the one of parallel jurisdictions. Colletti thinks he has an strong case, but there is one serious problem: the Roman Catholic Church. No one in the Anglican-Episcopal world AFAIK thinks that there is any problem with either their apostolic succession or the validity of their sacraments. As I had a little fun with in a novel I wrote a few years back:
“Is there any question about the validity of the sacraments of the Roman church?” Julian asked.
“There’s never a question there—it’s ours that seem to always be in doubt,” Desmond answered. The Bishop glared sourly at Desmond.
“No, dear Julian, there isn’t,” the Bishop admitted. “Why is that germane to this discussion?”
“Because she was raised as a Roman Catholic—she was both baptised and confirmed there, and I believe in the same church that you were in just now to witness Bishop des Cieux’ consecration.”
Turning to the issue of parallel jurisdictions, in my own experience when I decided to “swim the Tiber” fifty-four years ago I transferred from the Diocese of South Florida to the Archdiocese of Miami. The latter was underscored by the fact that the parish I did this at was housed in the chapel of the main seminary for same Archdiocese! The Episcopal Church itself has been running a system (too large, I think) of parallel dioceses since its inception, as the Roman Catholic Church in these United States dates back to Colonial times.
When the Reformation took place the Anglican and Lutheran countries simply kept the Roman Catholic Church out of these countries. The Reformed did similar things in places like Scotland, the Netherlands (sort of) and Geneva. When things started getting “mixed up” on both sides of the Atlantic we had parallel jurisdictions. Once you start such a trend, it’s hard to stop.
The problem with the Roman church is that it has lost its way on preserving the sacred deposit of faith, which was its “one job” in this world. The churches of the Reformation–direct and indirect–have attempted to fix this problem. In recent times many of them have lost their way too, this was the impetus of the ACNA. The ACNA has its issues and what’s going on is an appalling failure of leadership and comity within that leadership, in addition to having left WO unresolved in its establishment.
The fact that there are geographically overlapping jurisdictions between TEC and ACNA are really not the problem, any more than those of the RCC and PECUSA (and TEC and ACNA and…) On this issue, as we say in the hills, to bring this up is like closing the barn door after the cows have all left (or more elegantly as I put it in the title.) Whether the reconquista effort will succeed is not known, although church history is not encouraging in that regard. The concept of the ACNA was sound in its inception and it’s a serious pity that the church has gotten off track the way it has.
Positive Infinity 