The competition for "Worst Catholic or Anglican Bishop" is tight, but the Anglican Archbishop of Harare, cancelled Sunday Services in his country so that everyone could celebrate his wedding anniversary, so he wins this month.

The Anglican Bishop of Harare has cancelled church services on Sunday to mark the occasion of his wedding anniversary and instructed clergy and congregations to contribute gifts and food to his party.

Bishop Nolbert Kunonga, a vocal supporter of President Robert Mugabe, will lead the day-long celebration of his 33rd anniversary. The party, at a sports centre, will be held at a time when many priests are barely able to survive the hardships of living in Zimbabwe, with its hyper-inflation and food shortages.

Times UK religion writer Ruth Gledhill remarks, in her blog:

It is extraordinary what this man has managed to get away with, not least sacking most of his lay and clerical staff and replacing them with his cronies and turning his church into a mouthpiece for Mugabe. It is unprecedented as far as I know for an Archbishop of Canterbury to intervene as he has and even call for such a senior churchman to be suspended, but needless to say Dr Williams’ plea has not been heeded.

Gledhill’s comment is in the context of a longer blog post in which she reflects on the current travails of the Anglican Communion. First, the main article in the Times on this week’s meeting:

Today’s meeting in New York City will consider a paper from the seven conservative and Catholic dioceses of the Episcopal Church that oppose the leadership of Bishop Katharine Schori and have appealed to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, for alternative oversight. The conservatives argue that there are already, in effect, two churches under one roof in the US and appeal for a special “commissary” to be appointed to look after them and enable a “ceasefire” until a peace treaty is reached at Lambeth.

Sources have told The Times that the aim is for Dr Williams to invite all 890 bishops and archbishops to the Lambeth Conference. That would include the gay Bishop Gene Robinson, whose consecration in 2003 triggered the crisis, and any other openly gay bishops consecrated since.

Although the Nigerian bishops are among those who have have pledged to boycott the conference if Bishop Robinson is present, sources hope that they might be persuaded to turn up if a settlement can be reached.

At today’s meeting of up to 12 US bishops — which takes place at the direction of Dr Williams — Bishop Schori and the ultra-liberals will share a table with the ultra-conservatives, who are headed by Bishop Bob Duncan, of Pittsburgh. “It is remarkable that they are even talking to each other,” said one senior source. “There is a seriously big go-wrong factor here. This is an internal meeting but it has huge external implications for the whole Church.”

("Today" was yesterday.)

Now from her blog:

But some, or much, of all this will depend on what happens this week in New York. "There is a big go-wrong factor here," my source told me, and it is not just the orthodox who might walk. Just as Rowan Williams is under pressure from liberals in his own church who believe he has sold out, some liberals in TEC are furious that Griswold intervened at GenCon06 in an attempt to keep TEC in the Communion and that he and Schori are taking part in this week’s meeting at all. If neither side is prepared to compromise at all, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that TEC could itself decide it has had enough and seek communion with another body, such as the Old Catholic Church of Utrecht. This church is in communion with Canterbury, and is liberal on women and gays. I can imagine a scenario where, should the whole thing become a much looser federation, enabling the Methodists among others to come on board, the Old Catholics could end up part of the wider Communion in any case.

Maybe it would just then become The Communion, TC, with separate bodies such as the Episcopalians, the Anglicans, the Methodists, the Old Catholics, the Lutherans and numerous others all included. Then all the other continuing churches that left over women could come back on board, should they wish to. Rowan Williams or his successor, probably Dr Semtamu if Dr Williams decides to head back to academia after working a miracle at Lambeth, would then become a kind of Pope, with little of the power but with an awful lot of authority.

Maybe it will all fall apart, and the constituent strands will separate, with some dying off and others surviving, but more marginal, more sectarian in their outlook and how they are viewed.