..for those keeping their eyes on the Anglican situation, things just got hotter as the Very Rev. Mark Lawrence’s election as Bishop of South Carolina didn’t happen. I use the highly precise "didn’t happen" because it appears that even though the votes for consent were there, certain irregularities prompted the Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori to declare the election null and void. The link takes you to Chris Johnson at MCJ who puts thing in context.

And there you have it.  As Brad Drell put it, this is nothing more than a pocket veto.  Liberal dioceses now have absolute contol over who conservative dioceses can elect as their bishops.

Don’t like that orthodox candidate for bishop that Diocese A elected on the first ballot?  Then make sure your diocesan Standing Committee doesn’t meet or meets late or messes up the paperwork.  And if said orthodox candidate doesn’t make it, piously intone that it’s certainly your hope that "in future any diocese seeking consent to an election will use all possible effort to ensure that ballots are received in an appropriate form and in a timely manner."

I can honestly say that my contempt for the Episcopal "Church" has never been higher.  And if the Anglican Communion Network thinks it can reach any sort of accomodation whatsoever with that repulsive institution, it is too stupid to survive.  A split, a complete, total, absolute and permanent split, cannot come soon enough.

It is also a useful example, even with the all the flaws and problems of the current RC mode of making bishops, of holding up "election of bishops" as a pretty solution to all of those problems. Any process can be manipulated by those who really want to, and have the power to.

Captain Yips:

But it doesn’t matter whether this was stage-managed.  What matters is that ++KJS pulled the trigger because she wanted to pull the trigger.  What matters is that at a time that TEC is under the microscope, ++KJS took the least generous possible course of action.  What matters is that TEC has demonstrated for all to see that it is controlled by the Newark-Pasadena axis.  What matters is that ++KJS yesterday probably killed the Tanzania Communique, which can now be seen as an incredibly generous, if flawed, effort to heal TEC.  If, as I suspect, ++Rowan Williams spent a good deal of political capital to give this last chance, he must be feeling a little nauseous.  At a stroke, ++KJS has shown that conservatives have no place at TEC’s table, that the Newark-Pasadena Leviathan must be fed at all costs, and that TEC management desires no reconciliation.  Handy to have it all anatomized before the world, what?