Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Latino Pravda?






















Jeff Walton has the scoop
here:
EpiscopalLife, the official publication of the Episcopal Church, has attempted to highlight an increasing Hispanic presence at General Convention. They’ve published a supplement to the Convention’s Daily, Perspectivas Latinas, printed in both Spanish and English. Today’s headline? “Latinos entienden D025 como una cuestion de justicia,” or, “Latinos understand D025 as a justice issue.”

“In regards to Resolution D025, most Latinos/Hispanics rejoice in its passage, and most of us might agree with our international guests from throughout the Anglican Communion, who were impressed with the respectful debate that was had around D025,” Perspectivas Latinas opined.

Nice words about the contentious subject of removing the effective moratorium on practicing homosexual clergy.

One problem: Most of the Hispanics in the House of Bishops didn’t “rejoice in its passage.” The Episcopal Church has a strong contingent in Central and South America, including dioceses in Honduras, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, as well as Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Of these overseas dioceses, all except Ecuador Central and Puerto Rico voted against D025 (Litoral Ecuador voted against). During House of Bishops debate on D025, Bishop Geralyn Wolf explained that the resolution was reported out of committee with a recommendation to reject partly because overseas dioceses were not in a place to endorse gay bishops.

Interestingly, for an article about a resolution on gay bishops, the article fails to use the word “gay” once. Quotes about “justice,” “respectful debate,” and “being human,” frame a photo of New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson marching with a Latina hotel worker during a labor protest from earlier in the week. Way to be fair, EpiscopalLife.
Read it all here. The original article from The Daily is here, page 9. Do note the photo attached to the article as well.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Episcopal Life has a story to tell and they can't allow mere facts to stand in the way...

Anonymous said...

I agree, Anonymous (#1). As Anonymous #2, I laud BB on writing a succinct post that brings to light the situation in which 5 of 7, at least, Spanish-speaking dioceses' bishops voted No on D025, and yet a Spanish-language publication is issued which forthrightly suggests "most Latinos/Hispanics rejoice in its passage..." It is implicit that the no-voting bishops then are on the wrong side of this so-called 'justice issue' and out of step with all the rejoicing Latinos/Hispanics. I had to read to BB's 3rd to last paragraph to get this, however, and want to suggest it could be more of a headline item, or else it may never be picked up.
Surely the No-voting bishops should be helped to discover that their ministry and attempts to represent their dioceses are being outright undermined in this way, right within GenCon. Since KJS is a Spanish speaker it occurs to me to wonder if she has any conscience at all - as a speaker of Spanish also myself, I know that in situations where it would be possible to mis-represent another's meaning or concern in translating, strong stabs of conscience have always prevented me doing so.