05/08/2004: "Take that, varmint!"

ECUSA Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold recently wrote a letter to his fellow primates (found here) that I didn't bother reviewing because it was simply standard Griswoldian boilerplate. Not so the reply Griswold received from Archbishop Greg Venables, Primate of the Southern Cone in South America:

You speak with clarity about your grief over the pain your actions have caused and yet you proceed with your relentless agenda. Do you not see that there is an enormous contradiction here?...

You indicate that the action of the General Convention was constitutional. Of course I am not an expert in the Constitution and Canons of ECUSA, but I do remember the commitment of your General Convention to initiate an "inter-Anglican and ecumenical dialogue on human sexuality issues which should not be resolved by the Episcopal Church on its own (B-020)." (A ten minute search of internet archives shows that!) Many colleagues have also reminded me that you were clear that the official position of ECUSA was parallel to that of Lambeth I. 10 at a number of Primates meetings. When was that changed, or was it just ignored? Of course there is pain when you moved ahead in violation of your own Convention decisions. In addition, I saw the broadcast of objections to Gene Robinson's consecration which were simply and totally ignored....

You have insisted on autonomy from the Lambeth resolutions, from the Archbishop of Canterbury's plea, from the ACC, and from the Primates to pursue an agenda that is absolutely scandalous to most Christians. That view of autonomy is the opposite of everything Anglicanism has always stood for. Why would you still want to call yourself Anglican? May I urge you either to live as an Anglican conforming to Anglican norms or admit that you have left us and closed the door behind you.

Venables speaks for most of the leaders of world-wide Anglicanism in this letter. Suppose Griswold has gotten the message yet?