Editor’s Note: This is a crosspost from Beliefnet.com. It was composed by Rob Kerby, Senior Editor, Beliefnet.
The headlines coming out of the Episcopal Church’s annual U.S.
convention are stunning — endorsement of cross-dressing clergy, blessing
same-sex marriage, the sale of their headquarters since they can’t
afford to maintain it.
The American branch of the Church of England, founded when the
Vatican balked at permitting King Henry VIII to continue annulling
marriages to any wife who failed to bear him sons, is in trouble.
(Related: Episcopal Bishops Approve Trial Blessing for Gay Couples & Clear the Way for Transgender Ordination)
Somehow slipping out of the headlines is a harsh reality that the
denomination has been deserted in droves by an angry or ambivalent
membership. Six prominent bishops are ready to take their large dioceses
out of the American church and align with conservative Anglican groups
in Africa and South America.
“An interesting moment came at a press conference on Saturday,” reports convention attendee David Virtue, “when
I asked Bonnie Anderson, president of the House of Deputies, if she saw
the irony in that the House of Deputies would like to see the Church
Center at 815 2nd Avenue, New York, sold (it has a $37.5 million
mortgage debt and needs $8.5 million to maintain yearly) while at the
same time the national church spent $18 million litigating for
properties, many of which will lie fallow at the end of the day.”
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