Vultures Resent Rousting From Roost

Over at DallasBlog, there's a post which begins:

The Anglican Bishop of Rochester, England, has warned that the decision of U.S. Episcopalians to select a woman bishop to lead the U.S. branch of the Anglican Church may lead to a schism in the Church.

So far, so unexpected. But it gets more bizarre quickly:

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali of Rochester, England, told the Daily Telegraph that the selection of Katharine Jefferts Schori to lead the American branch made the divisions between liberals and conservatives within the Church "so profound that a compromise was no longer possible."

Wait a minute -- I'm supposed to consider this opinion as news from a Bishop with that name? Speaking to that publication? And this post was written by Tom Pauken, far-right-wing-nut embarrassment disowned by his own Republicans?

It's nice to see the remnants of the only church ever Established by law in the American South (as opposed to Texas, where Mexico once required Catholicism by law) demonstrate that there really is more of a difference than just a minor quibble of papal succession. It would be just fine with me if they all blew apart over an issue of treating human beings as equal, just as Methodists, Baptists, and so many others split up between North and South before the U.S. Civil War over slavery.

Color me unconvinced that Pauken, the Telegraph, or Nazir-Ali speak for any widespread sentiment in the American or British church outside of their own cliques sharing resentment over drinks at the gender-, preference-, religious-, and racially-segregated country clubs they frequent. Who Would Jesus Dehumanize? Damn that liberal troublemaker anyway.

"Don't answer, be silent. What canst Thou say, indeed? I know too well what Thou wouldst say. And Thou hast no right to add anything to what Thou hadst said of old. Why, then, art Thou come to hinder us? For Thou hast come to hinder us, and Thou knowest that. But dost thou know what will be tomorrow? I know not who Thou art and care not to know whether it is Thou or only a semblance of Him, but tomorrow I shall condemn Thee and burn Thee at the stake as the worst of heretics. And the very people who have today kissed Thy feet, tomorrow at the faintest sign from me will rush to heap up the embers of Thy fire."
--The Grand Inquisitor to the Messiah, in Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov