Venables and Schofield

I take it as part of my job to "patrol the blogosphere," and part of that job requires my checking out what they're doing at TEC-hating sites like "Virtue" and StandFirm.

Imagine my hilarity when I found this tonight at Virtue. David Virtue writes, after the San Joaquin vote:

I spoke with Archbishop Venables in the Argentine [sic] by phone this week and he seemed very humbled by it all. There was not a hint of pleasure or one-upmanship in the whole discussion. He was, in fact, somewhat saddened that what he was doing was what needed to be done. He is NOT trying to upstage the Archbishop of Canterbury or send him any "message". All he is doing is rescuing flocks from false shepherds -- out of necessity.

Help me understand this.

Back in October, Archbishop Rowan Williams wrote to Episcopal Bishop John Howe that as long as one is in a diocese that's in communion with Canterbury, one's place within the Anglican Communion is secure. Bishop Howe used that letter to assure his diocese there's no need to flee to another province. [Some of you will recall that Williams' letter was so bizarre that his office later issued a clarification here.]

But Bishop Cavalcanti of Recife (in Brazil) fled to the Southern Cone back in mid-2005, and – as a result – was not invited to the Lambeth Conference. In other words, neither he nor his faux diocese is in communion with Canterbury.

Now, in an effort to be an "orthodox Anglican," Schofield has taken the one step that seems clearly to put oneself outside the Anglican Communion.

Can somebody explain this to me?

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Postscript: Incidentally, in that same story, Virtue plagiarizes the story I broke here yesterday. Of course, he doesn't credit me, nor does he cite the source I found. But that's nothing new. Even Greg Griffith at StandFirm has gone ballistic a couple of times over Virtue's unrepentant plagiaristic lifestyle.