Do I See A Pattern Here?

The Rt Rev James Hiles is just the most recent example of what I think is a distressing pattern in the ACA, even more so than in "continuing Anglicanism" generally -- jurisdiction hopping among the highest leadership in order to escape from either formal deposition in The Episcopal Church (the case with Louis Falk and James Hiles) or what appears to be less formal edging-out, which appears to be the situation with the late Anthony Morello and the Rt Rev John Vaughan. (Morello's rapid promotion in the ACA, from newcomer assistant priest in 2010 to vicar general in 2012, suggests he would almost certainly have become a bishop if he'd lived a year longer.)

It's worth noting that Hiles had never expressed objection, at least in any sort of record, to the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, the ordination of women, or the election of the first woman suffragan in his own Episcopal diocese, over the two-decade period when these developments took place before TEC threw him out. This apparently more mainstream position might have made him a good candidate for the ACNA after 2007, and we can only speculate why he either did not choose to take his parish into the ACNA during the jurisdiction-shopping he must have done then, or why the ACNA may not have found him suitable.

Stephen Strawn and Brian Marsh were never ordained in The Episcopal Church, unlike those above -- Strawn attended an unaccredited seminary, while Marsh, despite becoming a postulant and then a candidate for holy orders in the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, for whatever reason was apparently not deemed suitable for eventual ordination there. As I said earlier this week, the fact that we know absolutely nothing of the Rt Rev Owen Rhys Williams is a matter for serious concern.

I'll next be addressing further information on the Rt Rev John Vaughan.

My wife and I pray daily for the people of the Anglican Church in America.