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But REAL Anglican Forefathers didn't marry their cousins

Although it doesn't affect your overall message, of course, perhaps I could point out that your figure of 1,048,576 forefathers in the 20th generation does assume no overlaps due to cousins, however distant, producing offspring.

Robert W. M. Greaves
All Saints Anglican Church, Jakarta
Jakarta, INDONESIA
robert.w.m.greaves@gmail.com
7 March 2011

No sex please, we're Irish

Your rather snide comments about possible sexual reasons as to why the General Synod of the Church of Ireland was called into session re. the vacancy for the position of a new Bishop for the United Diocese of Tuam, Killala and Achonry the previous one having resigned in order to take up a position in the Church of England. The reason for the session was to delay the convening the required Electoral College because of the the very low number of members in the diocese. The most recent figure that I have-about ten years ago-was less than one thousand. By now they are probably fewer.

The sexual inuendo comment in your News section was crass. You give the impression that "you don't get get out much, do yer?"

The question of the continuance of this diocese arose at the time of the previous vacancy as well but was not resolved and so a new bishop was duly elected. This time the Irish House of Bishops wished to delay the normal process of electing a new bishop in order to reflect on the appropriateness of so doing.
Sexual reasons indeed! Get a life or two.

Derek Dunwoody
St. John the Divine Anglican, Victoria, BC
Victoria, BC, CANADA
akashic@shaw.ca
7 March 2011

(Editor: We're sorry to have offended you. Our intended point was exactly the opposite of the one that you thought we made, which is that this story was notable because it described an unusual synod meeting whose purpose had nothing to do with sex. We've seen so many recently that do, that the contrast caught our attention. We've adjusted the wording of the copy of the story in the News Archive to make sure that future readers read it as we intended.)

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