Oversight plan 'silly,' Episcopal priest says

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PLANO, Texas -- One of the leaders of the conservative group that has challenged the Episcopal Church over the consecration of a homosexual bishop labeled a plan for oversight of conservative parishes as inadequate and unacceptable.

The Rev. Canon David H. Roseberry, rector of Christ Church Episcopal in Plano, issued a press release last night condemning the plan as "so inadequate and procedure-laden as to be just plain silly."

Mr. Roseberry said the plan was "like a broken ladder. It only looks useful, but it can't take you anywhere."

Dissident conservative Episcopalians met here earlier this year and formed a "network" -- a band of churches whose leaders consider the Episcopal Church USA too liberal in its teachings and practices, particularly the Nov. 2 consecration of V. Gene Robinson as the denomination's first openly homosexual bishop.

The Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes was chartered here in January. Although the group did not choose to split from ECUSA, it directed its followers to operate "and act together as bodies of believers in a faithless age."

Their eventual hope -- expressed by several at the two-day organizational conclave here -- is that the international Anglican Communion eventually would accept them as the American representative of Anglicanism and cast the ECUSA aside.

The plan from the ECUSA's House of Bishops announced this week was to provide pastoral oversight for dissenting congregations in dioceses.

Mr. Roseberry mentioned the Robinson consecration as well as the acceptance by the church of same-sex "marriages" and called them "fatal errors ... that cannot stand the test of time. God will not bless these actions that so flagrantly disregard the clear teaching of Scripture."

But, he added, "there is some good news, perhaps. It might be that this folly from the House of Bishops will reach the missionary ears of the Primates. This tragically broken ladder may actually convince the Anglican Communion that ECUSA needs a major repair or replacement."