Daniel Herzog the just retired bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany NY has converted to the Roman Catholic Church. Obviously this was not an easy decision and is one that is likely to add to the tremors now shaking ECUSA. It is interesting that this occurred in one of the most liberal Catholic diocese in the United States. I wonder if the Catholics are planning on trading Bishop Hubbard in return. As someone who lived in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany for several years (back before my own Eastward move) I would say the Catholics would be getting the better half of that deal.
Read more including lots of comments over at T-19.
On the one hand, it is a brave move on his part, since he was born and bred a Catholic and later became an Episcopalian -- which means that without a most unusual dispensation from the pope he couldn't be ordained a Catholic priest even if he wanted to be. On the other (and as a number of posters at T1:9 have pointed out) it was he who pushed women's ordination on the thitherto strongly Anglo-Catholic Diocese of Albany (well, his "volatile" predecessor, David Ball, ordained a couple of women at the end of his episcopate after having opposed the thing for many years, but it was Herzog that really crammed the priestesses into the diocese, with calamitous consequences for its general orthodoxy). I don't know whether i'd want Herzog for my bishop, if I were an Albany Catholic, but I'd willingly let the TECites have Hubbard as their bishop, mitre and all.
ReplyDeleteI did not know the history of Herzog. Most TEC types have labeled him as conssrvative. Which only goes to show how far TEC has strayed from orthodoxy. As far as Hubbard is concerned, I would put him on my top ten list of really bad bishops in the US. That's such a hard list to compose with so many worthy candidates.
ReplyDeleteClark of Rochester, Hubbard of Albany, Kelly of Louisville, Adamec of Altoona-Johnstown, Mahoney of LA; that's five of them. Who else meets their "standard?"
ReplyDeleteThough he is now gone I would definitely add former bishop Pilla to that list as also the current bp of San Francisco.
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