Bishops for Everyone!

Sadly not every parish is as blessed as we are to enjoy the presence of our own personal pet Bishop, but a wonderful report from Rwanda shows Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini is doing everything he can to help redress this problem by appointing three new Bishops to serve in Big Pete Akinola’s least favourite competitor, the Anglican Mission in the Americas. This brings the number of faux-Rwandan prelates in the U.S. to nine, as well an additional quasi-purple pretender with specific responsibility for pseudo-East Africans labouring under the delusion they are in fact Canadian.

Now getting details of the precise number of Rwandan congregations in North Amerca isn’t easy, since the AMIA website only lets one view parishes on a state-by-state basis. However as there was nothing else to do around here except listen to Bishop Quinine complain of his morning sickness and how the rumbling in his nether regions has nothing to do with the previous evening’s case of burritos and beer, but is actually the first sings of little baby Venaballs kicking, I decided to spend a bit of time crunching faux-Rwandan numbers, and the results are truly inspiring!

On face value +Kolini has 91 U.S. congregations, and 18 Canadian ones. That translates to 10.1 and 18 “bishops” per congregation respectively. But, as anyone who’s ever tried to do business in a country like Rwanda well knows, the figures are always a bit more complicated when you start looking at them more closely.

Firstly, the U.S. pretend-prelates are also parish Rectors, which means a marvelous 9.9% of U.S./Rwandan congregations now have their own bishop-in-residence, although Canada lags behind somewhat at 5.6%. Yet as 13.2% (Canada 22.1%) of parishes are described as “Emerging Works” this figure starts to look really impressive indeed.

I’ve got to admit I’m not sure exactly what the is meant by “Emerging Works”, since I couldn’t find any definition on the Reasserting Rwandans' site, and +Kolini’s staff aren’t exactly reliable when it comes to returning emails, but in my experience terms like “emerging” only ever mean one of two things: either it’s a group meeting in a trailer led by someone calling himself “Father Randy” whose only qualification is a correspondence certificate in square-dance calling obtained during his last prison sentence, and who realized founding a church would be a great way around the Parole Board’s order that he not approach Girl Guides; or it’s part of the “Emergent” movement, which means it comprises two skinny young men with goatees and a girl giving thanks she’s no longer cutting now Jesus permanently healed her three weeks ago (although things could turn nasty in another few days when one of the guys says the Spirit’s shown him they shouldn’t get married after all, but instead “just be brother and sister in the Lord”). Either way, it’s a safe bet that these “churches” aren’t being run by senior ministers - meaning that when it comes to satisfying the purple itch lurking just beneath a great many clergymen’s skin, pretending to be Rwandan is probably the most effective strategy with almost 11% of U.S. (6% Canada) senior clergy having received the big hand-laying.

All of which shows things are right on track for the ultimate goal: the prelacy of all believers. Or at least the prelacy of those who pee standing up - +Kolini wouldn’t want to break with tradition now, would he?

I’m Father Christian and I teach the Bible.