The Right Rev. Francisco J. Duque Gomez, Bishop of Colombia and the Standing Committee of Colombia have decided to withhold consent to the election of Northern Michigan bishop-elect Kevin G. Thew Forrester.

In an e-mail, Bishop Duque said the Colombian Episcopalians prayed a lot before reaching their decision, and said concerns about Thew Forrester’s theology and his changes to the Common Prayer had been raised at a House of Bishops meeting earlier this year.

Explaining his vote, he said: “I hope that we can continue to sustain the fundamenatal principles of our Christianity without mixing in [non-Christian teachings] that will mix us up…,” Rev. Duque wrote in Spanish.*

The current Standing Committee tally:
YES to the Bishop-elect of Northern Michigan: 25
NO to the Bishop-elect of Northern Michigan: 52
PENDING or UNKNOWN: 33

Thew Forrester must receive 31 of the remaining 33 standing committee votes in order to gain consent.

*Language translation is always a bit tricky. The word I’ve translated as “sustain” [conservar] can also be translated as to conserve or to keep. The word I’ve translated as “mix up” [confundir] can also be translated as to confound or confuse.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 29th, 2009 at 6:45 pm and is filed under Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.