can't we fake it until the children are grown?

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Sep 11, 2006

"Utility, economy, and apparent durability are the qualities to be sought for, I think."
-- Evelyn Waugh, Decline and Fall (Doctor Fagan's instructions on purchasing trophies for the school sports day.)

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There's a solemnity to the cynicism of liberal ecclesiastics that keeps it teetering on a kind of high-wire. Will reality ever soak through and force them to crack a smile, or not? Today, The Times' Ruth Gledhill reports on the possibility of a "two-church solution" to the current problems in the Anglican communion. The Archbishop of Canterbury has summoned a meeting of the chief belligerents which, says Gledhill, with no discernible irony, is part of a plan to "draw up a pact giving the appearance of unity, enabling a final deal to be hammered out at the Lambeth Conference in 2008." Not everyone is confident the bluff can be kept up for two years with a straight face.

The argument among the Episcopalians is expected to move beyond theology to matters of money and property. The wealthy US liberal lobby is expected to resist any compromise move by Bishop Griswold and Bishop Schori -- especially for conservatives to retain any of the substantial capital and pensions assets of the Episcopal Church.

"If it all falls apart," said [one senior source], "you could even see something quite radical happening." For example, insiders are talking of the liberal-dominated Episcopal Church leaving the Anglican Communion itself and seeking unity with a body such as the Old Catholic Church of Utrecht, which is liberal on the question of women and gays. Such a move would allow the Episcopalians to retain their Catholic identity.

To retain their what?