The Failure Of Anglicanorum Coetibus: Leadership
Jeffrey Steenson, who was Episcopal Bishop of the Rio Grande from 2005 to 2007 , was the third US Episcopal bishop to resign while in office in order to convert to Roman Catholicism. The first was Levi Silliman Ives, who was Episcopal Bishop of North Carolina from 1841 to 1852. The second was Frederick Joseph Kinsman, who was Episcopal Bishop of Delaware from 1908 to 1919 . The differences between Steenson and his predecessors are remarkable, in part perhaps reflecting Steenson's character, but also showing how times have changed. Both Ives's and Kinsman's resignations and conversions were moderately important public events, and in consequence, both Ives and Kinsman published detailed apologias, Ives in The Trials of a Mind in its Progress to Catholicism and Kinsman in Salve Mater . (Kinsman is highly underrated as a writer, and since the book is on line, it's worth the read.) Both of those bishops addressed a general audience with an understanding of broad ...