Well, there's been worse. But the Bishop Kate Schori interview in the NYTimes Magazine is gaining fast. Especially this part.
How many members of the Episcopal Church are there in this country?
About 2.2 million. It used to be larger percentagewise, but Episcopalians tend to be better-educated and tend to reproduce at lower rates than some other denominations. Roman Catholics and Mormons both have theological reasons for producing lots of children.
Episcopalians aren’t interested in replenishing their ranks by having children?
No. It’s probably the opposite. We encourage people to pay attention to the stewardship of the earth and not use more than their portion.
Well, I would respond to this but I'm afraid I'm going to occupied for the next few hours practicing reading the next Henry and Mudge book before I attempt to read it to my 5-year old. 'Cause it's really hard, you know. Oh, and then I'm going to go out and throw my 5th child's dirty diapers in the St. Joseph River. 'Cause I'm a Catholic.
Let's see. Catholics are dumber than a bag of Frank Griswold sermons and couldn't care less what happens to the earth. Those are the only reasons why they're a billion and change and our numbers are dropping like a brick. That'll go over well when Dr. Williams drops in on the Pope next week.
I guess this can be read charitably as a creative way to spin the Episcopal Church's dwindling ranks: "Our denomination is shrinking because we're better educated than those baby-crazy Catholics and Mormons! In fact, God wants us to shrink -- it's called stewardship!"
Of course, you put Flannery O'Connor on something, I'm there.
Banner or icon anyone?
(Comments open in the AM, after we take my car to the shop. If we can find our way back. If only the Pope were here to tell us what to do!)
Update: From Reader Tom:
As noted above, I sent a letter to Bishop Schori at 10:00am (EST), and recived a fairly lengthy and fairly complete response from Robert Goodfellow, "communications aide" who said that he was writing on the bishop's behalf.
Please write to them and ask for a reponse. Let's let as least Robert Goodfellow know how we feel.
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