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NEWS:
Episcopal Rift
June 29, 2001 Episode no. 444
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BOB ABERNETHY: Dramatic defiance this past weekend of the authority of
the head of the 2.3 million-member Episcopal Church USA and the head of the worldwide
Anglican Communion, of which Episcopalians are a part. In Denver, two conservative
foreign archbishops, from Southeast Asia and Rwanda, consecrated as Bishops four
conservative American priests.
The new bishops join two others consecrated last year. They are part of a breakaway
missionary movement that has raised the prospect of Episcopal schism. Deryl Davis
has our story.
 DERYL
DAVIS: It was a familiar, and yet, unprecedented, ceremony. The consecration
of four American bishops, performed in America by archbishops from Africa and
Asia.
The four new bishops are part of the Anglican Mission In America, or AMIA, a small,
conservative breakaway movement from the U.S. Episcopal Church.
Thad Barnum is a newly appointed "missionary" bishop serving under the Archbishop
of Rwanda.
BISHOP THAD BARNUM: We're not doing anything new, we just got a new missionary
district -- it's called the United States of America.
DAVIS: Barnum and others formed the AMIA last year in reaction to liberal
movements in the Episcopal Church. They asked the two archbishops to make them
missionaries in their own country.
 BARNUM:
No longer do we have to hear from our seminaries and our bishops that they are
going to deny the person, the uniqueness, of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son
of God. We are now free to go coast to coast and plant churches, fully Anglican,
fully in America, and fully under those churches that we used to send missionaries
to and now they are missionaries to us.
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DAVIS: It is a missionary movement in direct contradiction to Anglican
policy, which precludes any bishop interfering in the activities of another bishop's
province. In this case, the territory of Frank Griswold, presiding bishop of the
U.S. Episcopal Church. Griswold strongly denies charges that the Episcopal Church
is in any way unorthodox, and he says he won't recognize the AMIA bishops.
 BISHOP
FRANK GRISWOLD: These bishops are not in communion with the Episcopal Church,
nor with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and therefore they are not counted as bishops
of the Anglican Communion or of the Episcopal Church.
DAVIS: George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the world's Anglicans,
says he won't recognize the consecrations, either. He sent a letter warning the
Archbishops of Rwanda and Southeast Asia that their actions could lead to schism
within the worldwide Anglican Communion. Griswold says he hopes the new AMIA bishops
and their congregants will find their way home. For Thad Barnum, that's already
happened.
BARNUM: Our archbishops have come, they've made a stand on American soil,
and we're going to make a difference.
DAVIS: So far, there are 37 AMIA Churches, compared to more than 7,000
Episcopal parishes in the U.S. But the AMIA say they are growing and committed
to creating a "Orthodox" Anglican province in America.
This is Deryl Davis reporting.
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