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The New Year 2006
-- We are in the process of updating our website, please check back frequently --
The New Year 2006 -- We are in the process of updating our website, please check back frequently --
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Local Angle on an International Story: Small Omaha parish sides with Anglican majority From its inception, St. Barnabas Parish has been swimming against the tide. Founded in 1869 as a catholic parish in the midst of a very protestant Episcopal Church, St. Barnabas first ran into difficulties with Bishop Robert Harper Clarkson. “The issue at that time was candles on the altar and the use of stoles in liturgical colors,” says the Rev. Robert Scheiblhofer, current rector of St. Barnabas. “Many of the things St Barnabas was once in trouble over later became standard practice in the Episcopal Church. The problem is, they eventually picked up the external observances of Catholicism, but never understood what was at its heart.” Fr. Scheiblhofer says this explains the recent actions of the Episcopal Church in the consecration of Gene Robinson, a divorced man currently living in a sexual relationship with another man, as bishop of New Hampshire. “They did the same thing with women’s ordination – acted unilaterally. If you say that you are part of the Catholic Church then you don’t act in a vacuum – you act within the framework of what is accepted by the whole Church.” Anglican Primates, or provincial leaders, meeting in Oporto, Portugal, pleaded with the Episcopal Church through its Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold not to proceed with the Robinson consecration. Weeks after Griswold signed the Oporto Agreement, acknowledging that proceeding with Robinson’s consecration would “tear the fabric of the Communion,” he went to New Hampshire functioning as Chief Consecrator. St. Barnabas holds tenaciously to its Anglo-Catholic roots as it sides with the majority of the Anglican Communion in rejecting the ordination of Bishop Robinson and other innovations currently making their way into Anglican provinces. “I fear that our parish is defined by others as what we are against. It is not that we are against things – it is that we are for orthodoxy of faith; the faith expressed by the whole church, as St. Vincent says, everywhere, always and by all.” The stand that St. Barnabas is taking has proven unpopular in certain parts of the Episcopal Church in the United States (ECUSA). Diocesan bishops have deposed or defrocked priests who stood in opposition to them and have made attempts to seize property belonging to parishes who wished to leave ECUSA for other Anglican jurisdictions. “We have been extremely fortunate here in the Diocese of Nebraska. Our current bishop, while he holds beliefs different from our own, knows exactly where we stand and has not challenged us over our opposition. In fact, he offered us the option of alternative oversight (having another bishop function sacramentally in the parish) which is called for by the Windsor Report.” The Windsor Report is the final finding of the Lambeth Commission, charged by the Archbishop of Canterbury to come up with ways to keep the Anglican Communion together. “This is a great first step,” says Fr. Scheiblhofer, “but it is only a stop-gap measure until a permanent solution can be found.” The Windsor Report states that unless Anglican Provinces can agree to stop acting unilaterally and to live under the authority of Holy Scripture that they may have to “learn to walk apart.” St. Barnabas Parish continues to walk apart from the majority of parishes in ECUSA but in harmony with the rest of the Anglican world. “It can feel pretty lonely out there sometimes,” says Fr. Scheiblhofer. “Fortunately, no Christian ever walks alone.” St. Barnabas Church
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