Christopher Grabiec is the editor of the Niagara Anglican, the official organ of the Diocese of Niagara. Most of the Niagara Anglican is given to a Seinfeld inspired devotion to obsessing about the irrelevant; but here, Grabiec has something to say about forgiveness:

Have you ever thought about the ministry of forgiveness? We have wanted to assign that one to the clergy because they can forgive sins. It is the ministry of every Christian to forgive unconditionally. It’s possible that a good number of us will walk away from this article at this point. We all have people to forgive and we do not feel like doing it. If forgiveness is a ministry then we don’t necessarily “feel like it”. We are asked to go out and forgive the sins of others and that means all of us. It means that we have to forgive the four parishes that have left the diocese of Niagara.

As a member of one of those parishes, I’m not sure what Christopher feels he has to forgive. We are following our conscience, continuing in communion with 80% of the world’s Anglicans, and paying to heat and maintain the building that we bought but his diocese is occupying.

So what is there to forgive? Perhaps it is the unstated implication that we believe the direction that the diocese of Niagara has taken is sufficiently misguided and sub-Christian that we can no longer be under its authority: so what Christopher is forgiving is the “sin” of our saying, we don’t agree with you and we are prepared to act on it.

OK, Christopher, old chap, forgiveness accepted: when are you stopping the lawsuits?