Five is a lonely number...

Suspicions confirmed.

I said this past Friday, "I have good reason to believe that these two (bishops) are not alone and that other Network bishops have been committed to working "from the inside" for change, and continue to work for such change, but are not ready to end their relationship with TEC. Indeed there is a growing sense that as the leadership in ACN grows more distant from TEC, some of the Network bishops are increasingly unhappy. My sense (which will in one way or another be proven out) is that of the ten diocesan bishops in the ACN, only five are willing to step out with the Moderator and take part in the ordination of invader bishops and commit themselves to a pre-Provincial council of bishops which recognizes these invader bishops and bishops from the Anglican Province of America and the Reformed Episcopal Church as part of a new emerging province."

Today Stephen Bates in the Guardian said this, "American conservative bishops complained that the archbishop refused to see them, or return their calls during his stay. A handful have now left the meeting and are planning to re-gather in Pittsburgh this week to discuss strategy, which is likely to include seeking oversight from an African province. Their leader, Bishop Bob Duncan of Pittsburgh, predicted that about five of the US church's 112 dioceses would seek to affiliate outside the US.

So the big ten is now the big five.

One of the bishops who has been part of the Network has moved on, and we wish him God's blessing. Bishop Steenson of Rio Grande, has decided to leave TEC and become a Roman Catholic.

As to the five who will seek and perhaps find affiliation outside the US, we will see. More, we will certainly see if their leaving is, like Bishop Steenson's a matter of personal decision made by bishop and some members of a diocese, or will be an attempt to take the diocesan structures, physical and corporate, with them.

The Network is hunkering down and all the noise and fury of a grand coup d'eglise is dimming.

Then they were going to become the new and improved Anglican Province in America. Now they are "seeking to affiliate outside the U.S."

Actually they are still playing both cards: Usurp if possible, affiliate if necessary.