The incredible overreaction of The New York Times to the news that five or six percent of the members of a church that accounts for one percent of the U. S. population were leaving to found their own denomination continued to reverberate through the media world yesterday–and reporters continued to accept Bishops Bob Duncan and Martyn Minns extremely dubious claim that they represent 100,000 people, but glimmers of hope emerged for Episcopalians who are tired of the press treating their church like a punching bag.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori sat down with the editors of The Los Angeles Times, and clearly articulated the Episcopal Church’s views on the ongoing controversy in the Anglican Communion. Duke Helfand’s story is here.
Perhaps more importantly, Daniel Burke of Religion News Service has written the first story that displays any familiarity with the process a proposed province has to go through to gain admittance to the Communion. (Compare it to this morning’s Washington Post article which ignored the statement from Lambeth Palace yesterday about this process in favor of a great deal of speculation.) The proposed province faces numerous obstacles, and Burke is the first reporter to take a clear-eyed look at them.