Re: [Mgdln] Glasspool redux

[Louie Crew <lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu>]

Navajoland technically is not a diocese, but is called "Navajoland Area
Mission."   It is not discretely geographic either; it includes Navajo areas
in the Dioceses of Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico.      I do not know whether
the Bishop of NAM exercises jurisdiction or serves on behalf of the PB and
the House of Bishops.   The HoB elected David Bailey the new Bishop of NAM
at its meeting in March; Bailey turned 70 that same month and therefore
faces mandatory retirement in only two years.  Whatever 'solution' Bailey
might be expected to bring to NAM, that's not a long tether.

+Steven Plummer, Bailey's predecessor, was consecrated in 1990 and died in
office in 2005.

Other important 'Area Missions' of TEC include those served by the Bishop
Suffragan-Elect of the Armed Services, Healthcare, and Prisons.

The "Convocation of American Churches in Europe" is also technically not a
diocese, though its status seems to be moving towards that of a diocese.
+Pierre Whalon, the current bishop, has the title "Bishop in Charge of the
Convocation of American Churches in Europe."   He does not 'exercise
jurisdiction; the Presiding Bishop does.

Bishop Whalon is the first bishop there to have been elected by the
convocation and not by TEC's House of Bishops.   His predecessors were often
identified as "Bishop Suffragan of Convocation of American Churches in
Europe."

The Convocation originally served primarily American Expatriates deployed in
Europe, and many of the convocations congregations began as chaplaincies to
American elite.    The Church of England has also sustained a parallel
Anglican chaplaincies to British Expats."   The Americans and the Brits find
themselves increasingly serving the indigenous populations.

They have been engaged in some of the same questions raised at this pub,
about how to reform structures so that they more effectively serve needs.
Played out globally, those discussions often suffer from big distractions
> from other conflicts regarding Americans and Brits in the Anglican
Communion.

== Why such a small diocese was created and why we allow it to persist? ==

The answer varies from place to place.   While there have rarely been enough
Episcopalians in Wisconsin to 'justify' three dioceses there, it was a
frozen and relatively undesirable part of the US when Anglo-Catholics staked
it out as their important mission area;  A few were wealthy; Anglo-Catholics
throughout the US took heart from having a whole state with three dioceses
where Anglo-Catholic was the norm, not the exception.   They were bolstered
by the presence of Nashotah House, the Dekoven Foundation.......      The
three dioceses held out for a very long time against ordaining women.

Am I correct in assuming that at the same time Anglo-Catholics took on major
commitments to the poor of East Anglia and at the same time gave more of a
power base of Anglo-Catholic bishops in the British House of Bishops?

The current structures have many glitches so old that most working within
them no longer know what the glitch was codified.  However, they have
sometimes acquired new stakes in keeping them the same.

The complexity of institutional structure does not recommend cookie cutter
solutions.    Rome, for example, could experience dynamic renewal were it to
ordain women and end celibacy as a requirement for all priests, and abandon
the doctrine of papal infallibility.    I doubt there is a 'neat' way to
effect those changes.

Louie

Louie Crew, 377 S. Harrison St., 12D, East Orange, NJ 07018 973-395-1068
http://queereye4lectionary.blogspot.com/  Queer Eye for the Lectionary