Ms Gyapong's Reaction

to my recent posts here is predictable. All I can say is that as I've learned more about the ACA and the TAC, my impression is like that of a clerical observer who e-mailed me not long ago: "They aren't just peculiar -- they're evil." I've said here, and others, including clergy, have agreed with me: I never would have gotten involved with the ACA-TAC outside of the Patrimony of the Primate, which in the opinion of the ACA Chancellors was not actually a TAC body, so I can breathe a sign of relief that I never was in it, strictly speaking.

I continue to believe that it was always, and continues to be, a profound error of judgment for anyone to become a member of a TAC parish. It is a tiny, splinter denomination, which is simply a bad sign on the face of it. Such parishes as they have in places like Des Moines, Iowa or Colorado Springs, Colorado, which should normally be centers of church interest and attendance, are struggling, located in prefab buildings, with memberships in the 15-25 range. This denomination is doing something seriously wrong, and it shows in its abysmal numbers.

Let's look at what else we've seen of the denomination, and its largest national franchise, the US ACA, in recent years:

• A majority of the TAC bishops who signed the Portsmouth Petition on an altar during mass have reneged on their signatures, calling their integrity into serious question.
• The TAC College of Bishops purged the Primate who is often regarded as the person most responsible for Anglicanorum coetibus. The ACA House of Bishops purged the bishop who was asked to provide episcopal oversight to those parishes who wanted to join the Ordinariates.
• Of the ACA's two diocesan bishops, one went to an unaccredited mail-order seminary; the other appears to have been turned down for Episcopal ordination, even though, in attending General Theological Seminary, he clearly embraced that denomination's more liberal stances.
• The bishops have repeatedly -- indeed, routinely -- violated the denomination's own canons, including Article XI, Section 1:

  No officer or agent of this Church, of any jurisdiction shall resort to any civil court against the parish, mission, school, or religious community for the purpose of enforcing any temporal claim against the same.

• The ACA routinely tolerates absentee parish priests, with curates designated to serve parishes, a practice that has been regarded as corrupt for nearly a millennium.
• The TAC routinely ordains priests whose formation would not be accepted by any mainstream denomination.

Ms Gyapong seems to think that distaste for such a tiny, corrupt organization is over the top. I have my own opinion of Ms Gyapong's judgment.