In an e-mail, the Right Rev. Alfredo Morante, bishop of Ecuador (Litoral), said today (06/25/09) that he will withhold consent to the election of the Rev. Kevin G. Thew Forrester as bishop of Northern Michigan.

But the bishop isn’t sure if he’ll vote no by ballot or vote no by simply abstaining (abstentions are counted as “no” votes.) As of today, 90 days into the consent process, Bishop Morante says he still hasn’t received the paperwork from the presiding bishop’s office that he’d need in order to cast an actual vote.

Bishop Morante also predicts that his diocese’s standing committee will join him in withholding consent once they gather “to take up this distasteful matter.”

Thew Forrester’s theology raised concerns for Bishop Morante. Church leaders, Bishop Morante said, shouldn’t “disagree so much with the doctrine of the church, with Christianity’s fundamental and vital doctrines.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 25th, 2009 at 1:27 pm and is filed under Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.