This is straight out of the litigation playbook described above, is it not? It represents steps 4 and 6 outlined earlier. But now we get to the crux of the matter. It is not sufficient to show that the persons who currently claim to be the “Trustees of The Corporation of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth” hired you as their attorneys; in order to satisfy Rule 12, you must also show that those persons are who they claim to be, and indeed have the required authority to authorize you, as an attorney, to file suit in an entity’s name. Stated another way: you cannot respond to a Rule 12 motion by saying “Joe Doakes at XYZ Corp. authorized me to bring suit for it, and he’s the Vice President for Legal Affairs.” You have to show that there actually is a Joe Doakes, and he has to prove that the corporation (through its Board of Directors, or President) gave him the authority to hire attorneys to institute litigation in the corporation’s name.

Thus in order to have the requisite authority, the persons claiming to be the “Trustees of The Corporation of The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth” would have to show that they were duly appointed to that office in accordance with The Corporation’s Articles and bylaws. And here they encounter an obstacle. For the Diocesan Canons (Canon 17) provide for one of the Board’s Five Trustees (the Bishop is an ex officio Trustee and Chairman) to be elected at each Annual Convention to a staggered five-year term. When a Trustee does not serve out his term, and a vacancy occurs, the bylaws specify that the remaining Trustees have authority to appoint an interim Trustee to serve until the next Annual Convention, as I noted in this previous post.

Read it all.

In a hearing today in the141st District Court, Judge John Chupp granted the Diocese partial relief under Rule 12 of the Texas code Rules of Civil Procedure. He ruled that attorneys Jonathan Nelson and Kathleen Wells do not represent the diocese or the corporation which have realigned under the Province of the Southern Cone. He denied a second aspect of Rule 12 relief which would have removed the plaintiffs’ diocese and corporation from the lawsuit filed April 14, 2009.

The judge also ruled that neither the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church nor the Constitution and Canons of this diocese prohibit withdrawal from TEC and realignment under another province. Further, he found that the Diocese had done so at its November 2008 annual convention, saying that “they [the members] took the diocese with them.” The action of the November convention was not, he said, ultra vires and void, as the suit’s plaintiffs have argued. He declared, too, that the Diocese had taken its property with it in realignment. He said he did not consider any court ruling concerning a realigning parish to be applicable in the present case, and he said that he considered it “self-serving on [the part of TEC] to say that [Bishop Iker] abandoned his job.

Read it all.

Via email:

Largo, Florida ”“ By a vote of 174 to 13, the membership of St. Dunstan’s Church today voted to sever its ties with The Episcopal Church and affiliate with the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) as a parish within the Anglican Diocese of Quincy, Ill. The vote took place during a special meeting convened following regularly scheduled church services this past weekend.

The ACNA unites some 100,000 Anglicans in 700 parishes into a single church. Jurisdictions which have joined together to form the 28 dioceses and dioceses-in-formation of the Anglican Church in North America include four former Episcopal dioceses (the dioceses of Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, Quincy and San Joaquin); the Anglican Mission in the Americas; the Convocation of Anglicans in North America; the Anglican Network in Canada; the Anglican Coalition in Canada; the Reformed Episcopal Church; and the missionary initiatives of Kenya, Uganda, and South America’s Southern Cone. Additionally, the American Anglican Council and Forward in Faith North America are founding organizations. The ACNA is headed by the Archbishop Robert Duncan, Archbishop and Primate.

Seventy-four priests who are affiliated with Communion Partners have pledged to fulfill non-episcopal requests made by bishops who met with the Archbishop of Canterbury on Sept. 1.

The priests, who lead parishes with a collective baptized membership of 60,000, list five commitments regarding their response to the Anglican Communion Covenant. The priests say they will:

Ӣ Continue to study the covenant and to pray and work for its adoption.

Read it all.

The Rev. Steve Wood, rector of St. Andrew’s since 2000, wrote to all members of the parish on September 4 to announce the program. The letter included the signatures of 36 other congregational leaders, including all current staff and nine senior wardens whose service dates back to 1989.

“Since 2003 I have felt compromised by continued association with a denomination that I consider to be apostate,” Fr. Wood told The Living Church.

He said he does not know of any significant group in St. Andrew’s that wants to remain affiliated with The Episcopal Church. When he interviewed to become rector, Fr. Wood said, both the search committee and the vestry asked if he was open to separation from The Episcopal Church.

Read it all.

As you know, in his July 27, 2009 “‘Reflections on the Episcopal Church�s 2009 General Convention. . .,” the Archbishop of Canterbury discussed the possibility of a “two-fold ecclesial reality in view in the middle distance. . .[whereby] there may be associated local churches in various kinds of mutual partnership and solidarity with one another and with �covenanted� provinces.” God willing, should there come an opportunity for this Diocese, and likewise for the Advent, to remain aligned with the orthodox Anglican Communion and at the same time distance ourselves from the current direction and decisions of TEC, we prayerfully believe that you will take all necessary actions to remain aligned with the Anglican Communion.

May God be with both of you, and grant us all His wisdom.

Read it all.

From here:

ACI believes that, on the basis of the Constitution and Canons of TEC and their historical substance and meaning, dioceses have the power to withdraw from General Convention. We do not deny that there are probably legal complications involved in exercising that power, most of which are untested. But granting this””and defending the constitutional structure that might permit a San Joaquin or Pittsburgh or Fort Worth to withdraw as well as opposing as uncanonical the means by which bishops of these dioceses were disciplined””is not the same thing as approving of specific decisions here and there.

And there is a fundamental difference between what is at stake in CP dioceses adopting the Covenant and the actions of the dioceses mentioned above: in the former case, the dioceses in question would (and should) adopt the Covenant on the basis of their powers as laid out by the Constitution and Canons of TEC itself for its own dioceses. There is no question here of “leaving” TEC, but of TEC dioceses doing what they are meant to do.
Brian seems to think that doing this would cause a free-for-all among anglican churches in the world. But what is at issue is precisely that TEC’s polity is DIFFERENT from the polity of most other anglican churches. And its “provincial” personality exists only according to this unusual, even unique, polity. That personality operates according to individual diocesan decision-making, which either coheres or does not with the collective that is designated by the General Convention. The former shapes the latter, not the the other way around in terms of “hierarchical” powers.

Of course, not everyone agrees with this interpretation of our Constitution. But our argument is that is it not up to the Instruments of Unity to interpret our Constitution and Canons on behalf of American dioceses. Over and over, the Instruments have prescinded from such a task, and on principle. Unless the constituional question is resolved amongst the members of TEC themselves, it will finally be resolved in the civil courts of the United States. That, in fact, seems to be path now being taken.

Until such time, we have two vying interpretation as to who has the “authority” to adopt the Covenant within TEC: we argue that only dioceses can do this, in any final way; others have argued that only the General Convention can do this. No other Anglican Church has in fact exhibited such a disagreement, and none is anticipated given the shape of other churches’ constitutions. Those provinces who do end up adopting the Covenant will finally have to make the decision themselves as to who they will recognize as Covenant partners amongst those American Anglicans who formally express their desire to be party to this Covenant. But nothing now prevents, from a legal point of view, TEC dioceses from such formal expressions apart from General Convention. Nothing. It is not illegal, it is not rebellious, it is not unAnglican, it is not a declaration of war, it is not impertinent: it is rather the exercise of diocesan responsibilities, with its bishop, to remain faithful (as we see it) to the Anglican commitments of its formation and vocation.

We must go further, however. Theologically, the provincial system is itself flawed, or at least many believe it is, and I have argued along these lines recently in my paper “The Organizational Basis of the Anglican Communion”. These flaws are ones that have increasingly been noted within the Communion itself, despite our generally (but not uniformly!) provincial organization. The Christian Church ought properly to be ordered, I have argued, according to what I call “pastoral synodality”, which is episocopally centered and structurally ordered along what amount therefore to diocesan lines. Cultural, regional, and political considerations ought not to define the character of these structures, but rather the persuasive pastoral witness of self-expenditure that discples of Christ provide. There are good historical and theological reasons for seeing matters this way, and the Anglican Communion itself, I would argue, has long been evolving in this direction, and away from the national-provincial structures that were pragmatically and often unthinkingly and problematically adopted in the wake of colonial expansion and then ecclesial and national independencies. I would prefer to see the present turmoil less as a simple matter of a clash of theological commitments, than as the transformational pains of a more faithful adaptation to the Church’s intrinsic order.

It so happens that TEC’s Constitution is shaped more in accord with the character of pastoral synodality than some other Anglican churches! But it is not surprising, therefore, that this very Constitution and its implications is now being subverted by those whose theological commitments demand the justification of nationalistic and/or cultural priority over the authority of particular sanctified witness that pastoral synodality represents. That is, TEC’s leadership is promoting a new understanding of the Episcopal Church, and one that contradicts our Constitution, that demands subservience to a purported cultural revelation that General Convention has arrogated to itself and the PB the power to impose. The subversion is one of political convenience.

Any attempt to defrock bishops or priests who seek to uphold our Episcopal Constitution in opposition to these subversions would be meaningless in substance, and practically so unless and until any court ruled in favor of the defrockers. CP dioceses and bishops should adopt the Covenant when its text becomes recognized, and assuming its acceptability. If other covenanting churches do not wish to receive these dioceses and bishops as full covenanting partners, that will be to their shame.

The following is a statement just received from Bishop Iker’s office (I have added the bold for emphasis):

In a hearing this morning before Judge John Chupp in the 141st District Court in Tarrant County, our attorney filed a motion that requires the lawyers who have brought litigation against us to prove that they had the legal authority to bring the suit. They moved for a continuance, which the Judge denied.

At 10 a.m. Judge Chupp adjourned the hearing due to the fact that a jury trial in another case was scheduled to resume in his court. The hearing on our Rule 12 motion will reconvene at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 16.

Please continue to keep this situation in your daily prayers, and pray for Judge Chupp and attorney Shelby Sharpe by name. As you did last Sunday, please pray during worship this week. For those who are able, fasting as well as prayer will be appropriate and appreciated on the 16th.

Bishop Iker

Read it all.

“I realize emotions are high, feelings are high,” said Love, standing at the edge of the altar in St. Paul’s Church for nearly two hours.

The Episcopal Church is split by the ongoing debate over the ordination of gay and lesbians and the blessing of sex same unions.

“We are a divided church. There’s no question we are a divided church,” said Sheridan Biggs of St. Paul’s Church in Schenectady, who indicated his uneasiness with the direction at the national level to support ordination and the blessing.

“What state we are in when we get through this, only God knows that,” said Love, who is counted among the Episcopal Church’s conservative bishops. He urged Biggs to stay in the church.

Read it all.

Clarification is Always Good–But Where Does That Leave Us?

Everyone’s attention was certainly grasped the other week when the vestry issued its “Declaration of Intent”, wrote a letter to every parishioner, and then issued a press release for The American Press. At least everyone is talking about St. Michael’s. First let’s be clear on what the vestry did NOT say.

St. Michael’s vestry is not leaving the diocese. Your vestry has initiated no plans to leave The Episcopal Church. We stand fully behind Bishop MacPherson who has simply said that in his opinion The Episcopal Church is like a train that will soon be fully off the tracks. This present week he has gathered 6 other orthodox Communion Partner bishops to visit with Dr. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, in efforts to have him intervene in the crisis that not simply affects our Episcopal Church, but has torn the whole Anglican Communion apart. What is that crisis? It stems from the American church’s belief that it is free to redraft 2000 years of accepted Christian teaching on a whole variety of subjects, unilaterally, and without regard for what the rest of Christendom thinks.

Whether we like it or not Episcopalians are only Episcopalians because our constitution demands that we remain in communion with The Archbishop of Canterbury and in communion with the wider Anglican family. That includes Anglicans in South America, Uganda, Nigeria, South East Asia ”“ all those places to which American Episcopalian missionaries took the gospel, along with Europeans, in the C19. These , our missionary children, are now asking Christians in America and in Britain why it is that we no longer believe the same Bible that we brought to them nearly 200 years ago.

At St. Michael’s we still believe in that same Bible, and in those same Christian teachings, and we try to preach and teach it week in and week out. That is why I want to commend to you our Fall study in the 39 articles of our Prayer Book. These doctrinal teachings are what gave birth to good Old Henry VIII’s Church of England in the 1500’s. These are the same articles of religion that expressed our Anglican Prayer Book teachings in a way that still keep open the doors of understanding between Anglicans and Roman Catholics, and which sought to avoid the narrower form of Protestantism sometimes found in those puritan traditions that gave birth to our Presbyterian and our Baptist brethren.

There is carefulness of thinking, and moderation, and sheer class about how our Prayer Book Articles of Reigion give understanding to our faith. And in this confused C21, where so many of our young people are growing up without the slightest understanding of why we as parents keep trying to get them to attend church we need to get to grips with our faith. If you can’t sign up for either of our Wednesday study sessions, or our Sunday Adult Education session, make sure you give us your email address or download the study notes we will be putting out on our church website. stmichaelslc.com . Thank you for reading this.

–The Rev. Dr. Peter Cook is rector, St. Michael and All Angels, Lake Charles, Louisiana

St. Andrew’s Church begins 40 Days of Discernmentâ„¢

September 9, 2009 ”“ Mount Pleasant, South Carolina: The clergy and lay leadership of St. Andrew’s Church have invited the congregation to explore 40 Days of Discernmentâ„¢, a process where the church seeks God’s will for their place within the Anglican Communion. The process encourages parishioners to seek Jesus Christ personally and in community through Bible study, prayer and fasting, and through open and honest discussion.

“Our vision in this process is simple: We will come together to study the Scriptures, pray with one another, listen to each other, and seek to hear and the trust the Lord together as the body of Christ,” said The Rev. Steve Wood, who has been rector of St. Andrew’s since 2001. “Our intention to work through 40 Days of Discernmentâ„¢ represents our church’s desire to engage our entire community in one of the most important decisions we will ever make. We want to hear from the Lord about our place in the Anglican Communion as we pursue the vision God has for us. We believe God has given us the mission of playing our part in the re-evangelization of the world by telling people of the great hope and love found in Jesus Christ.”

40 Days of Discernmentâ„¢ is centered around a 40 Days Guidebook, with content written by a variety of Christian leaders on critical topics of concern. The Guidebook is designed to facilitate weekly small group discussions during the process.

St. Andrew’s is a Bible-based, mission-minded congregation. Among the many formal and informal ties to mission organizations and others in the community and internationally, the church’s members are involved in East Cooper Community Outreach, Coastal Crisis Chaplaincy, Habitat for Humanity, Global Health Outreach, Palmetto Medical Initiative, and the Christian Medical Clinic, housed at St. Andrew’s Church. In addition, St. Andrew’s has international partners and missionaries in Honduras, Brazil, Haiti, Rwanda, Switzerland, India, Burundi, Uganda, and Liberia.

For many years now, the clergy and lay leadership of St. Andrew’s Church have wrestled with the increasing tension between St. Andrew’s and The Episcopal Church caused by the decisions of The Episcopal Church to “walk apart” from both the biblical faith and the Anglican Communion. Throughout this time we have sought the Lord desiring to be prayerful and graceful in our response to the challenges presented to us by the actions of The Episcopal Church. And so in the late 1990’s we began a process of differentiation in which we took steps that have included the cessation of funding for the national church, and, more recently recognizing that we are in a state of broken communion with The Episcopal Church. The Vestry has continually sought to discern the Lord’s will for our place within the Anglican Communion, as well as our expressed relationship to The Episcopal Church. Twice in August the Vestry met for prayer, confession, repentance and conversation about this matter. The conclusion of this long, prayerful process is the unanimous sense that the entire parish of St. Andrew’s, Mt. Pleasant be invited into an intentional, parish-wide discernment process called, “40 Days of Discernment.” Joining the Vestry in this invitation are the Staff and former Senior Wardens of the parish dating back to 1989.

What is the problem? The most fundamental issue in conflict within The Episcopal Church is the gospel message itself. St. Paul spoke repeatedly of faithfully passing on that which he received. Great care was taken to ensure that the gospel message would be entrusted to those who would not add to nor subtract from The Story. In the three most recent General Conventions of The Episcopal Church (2003, 2006, 2009) the gospel message of a loving Father who seeks to draw all people unto Himself through the cross of His Son has been replaced. Offered instead is a therapeutic gospel which refuses to acknowledge the falleness of our nature and our deep need for spiritual and moral transformation. While this gospel appears kind in its inclusivity, it nevertheless leaves us unchanged and enslaved to our sins and is therefore unspeakably cruel.

Read it all.

Read it carefully and read it all.

Every Christian should read and study the Bible. Every Christian should think deeply about God and the truths of the faith. Yet not every Christian is a Bible scholar or a theologian. Expertise gotten by education and hard work are required. And even those of us who are trained in Bible scholarship and theology make mistakes. We all need the wisdom, leadership, and correction that are God’s gifts to his Church.

It is right that lay people consult their pastors and teachers who in turn consult scholars. In addition, pastors, teachers, and scholars need to hear the insights of lay people. There is a reciprocity and an interconnectedness in the Church and it transcends space and time.

We waste our heritage if we limit our conversations with those who happen to be near by and alive today. The Church has nearly 2,000 years of Bible scholarship, preaching, and theological reflection on which we can draw. When we do, it gives us a perspective beyond the narrow confines of our own era with its blind spots.

Read it all.

Q: Some who have left call the church’s stance on homosexuality unbiblical
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(at a July convention, Episcopalians voted to allow gay bishops and blessings for same-sex unions). How concerned are you that people will continue to leave the church over these issues?

A: People have always decided to pursue their spiritual journeys elsewhere — some people — at times of controversy. Certainly, the same kind of thing happened when the church began wrestling honestly with the place of African-Americans in the church and the place of women in the church. At the same time, we tend to attract others who find our stances positive, so there is a give and take.

Q: On Thursday, 10 Episcopal nuns from a convent in Catonsville, Md. — 55 miles south of York — joined the Roman Catholic Church, saying they left in part because of the recent decisions on homosexuality. How did you respond to their departure?

A: I know that one of them did remain within the Episcopal Church.

I note the interesting dilemma that that situation raises. They would not have the freedom to make that kind of a decision once they were in the Roman Catholic Church. They do have the freedom to make that kind of a decision within the Episcopal Church. Religious orders are independent bodies within the Episcopal Church, they’re not like a congregation or a diocese, and they can vote to affiliate with another body. Once they’re in the Roman Catholic Church, they will not have that ability.

Read it all.

A Report of the meeting of the Bishops of Albany, Dallas, North Dakota, Northern Indiana, South Carolina, West Texas and Western Louisiana with the Archbishop of Canterbury on September 1, 2009.

As seven representatives of the Communion Partner Bishops, we are grateful to have met with the Archbishop of Canterbury to discuss our concern in light of the recent actions of the General Convention and the subsequent nomination of candidates “whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on Communion” (General Convention 2006, B033).

At this meeting we expressed our appreciation for his post-convention reflections, “Communion, Covenant, and our Anglican Future,” and were especially interested in his statement about whether “elements” in Provinces not favorably disposed to adopt the Anglican Covenant “will be free … to adopt the Covenant as a sign of their wish to act in a certain level of mutuality with parts of the communion.”

Given our commitment to remain constituent members of both the Anglican Communion and The Episcopal Church, we are encouraged by our meeting with the Archbishop. We agree with him that our present situation is “an opportunity for clarity, renewal and deeper relation with one another – and also Our Lord and his Father in the power of the Spirit.” We, too, share a desire to “intensify existing relationships” by becoming part of a “Covenanted” global Anglican body in communion with the See of Canterbury. We also pray and hope that “in spite of the difficulties this may yet be the beginning of a new era of mission and spiritual growth for all who value the Anglican name and heritage.”

We understand the divisions before us, not merely differences of opinion on human sexuality, but also about differing understandings of ecclesiology and questions regarding the independence or interdependence of a global communion of churches in discerning the mind of Christ together. However, we also shared our concern that the actions of General Convention have essentially rejected the teaching of 1998 Lambeth Resolution 1.10 as the mind of the Communion, and raise a serious question whether a Covenant will be adopted by both Houses at General Convention 2012.

At the same time we are mindful that General Convention Resolution D020 “commended the Anglican Covenant proposed in the most recent text of the Covenant Design Group (the “Ridley Cambridge Draft”) and any successive draft to dioceses for study during the coming triennium” and invited dioceses and congregations to “consider the Anglican Covenant proposed draft as a document to inform their understanding of and commitment to our common life in the Anglican Communion.”

Therefore, at this time we make the following requests of Communion minded members of the The Episcopal Church and the wider Anglican Communion:

1. We encourage dioceses, congregations and individuals of The Episcopal Church to pray and work for the adoption of an Anglican Communion Covenant.

2. We encourage dioceses and congregations to study and endorse the Anglican Communion Covenant when it is finally released and to urge its adoption by General Convention, or to endorse the first three sections of the Ridley Cambridge Draft and the Anaheim Statement, and to record such endorsements on the Communion Partners website (www.communionpartners.org).

3. We encourage bishops, priests, deacons and laypersons of The Episcopal Church who support the adoption of the Anglican Communion Covenant to record such endorsement on the Communion Partners website.

4. We encourage dioceses and congregations, in the spirit of GC2009 Resolution D030, to engage in “companion domestic mission relationships among dioceses and congregations within The Episcopal Church.”

5. We encourage Bishops exercising jurisdiction in The Episcopal Church to call upon us for service in needed cases of Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight.

6. We encourage relationships between Communion Partners and primates, bishops, provinces and dioceses in other parts of the Communion, in order the enhance the ministry we share in the life of the Communion.

7. We invite primates and bishops of the Communion to offer their public support to these efforts.

+Mark J. Lawrence, South Carolina
+Gary R. Lillibridge, West Texas
+Edward S. Little, II, Northern Indiana
+William H. Love, Albany
+D. Bruce MacPherson, Western Louisiana
+Michael G. Smith, North Dakota
+James M. Stanton, Dallas

The sisters had been considering conversion for several years.

The Episcopal Church has been riven by controversy over theology and sexual ethics. Its most recent General Convention gave permission to ordain practicing homosexuals to any ministry and also began writing prayers to bless same-sex unions.

“As we interpret Scripture, it does not give you license to be actively involved in a same-sex relationship,” Mother Christina said. “It is not the person we have a problem with. It is what that person is doing. And now that the Episcopal Church has given permission to bless these partnerships, it is way off the boat.”

Mother Christina, who has been a consecrated religiosu since 1966, said the sisters used to believe the Archbishop of Canterbury had the authority to stop those acting contrary to Scriptures but now they believe he does not.

“The Catholic Magisterium has an authority that says the buck stops here,” she remarked.

Read the whole article.

The Episcopal Church is in a Level Five conflict. It’s not getting better, it’s getting worse. We continue on this trajectory and the entire communion is affected. The best thing would be for The Episcopal Church to withdraw for a time certain, work through their theological issues, and then come back. Perhaps in that time, the rest of the communion will have worked through and discovered that yes, God is Doing A New Thing and glory hallelujah. Or not. Then The Episcopal Church can decide whether it belongs in the Anglican Communion.

Read it all.

The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh wants to name a provisional bishop, the next step in remaking itself after a split last year, officials said.

The church will vote on appointing the Right Rev. Kenneth L. Price Jr., an assisting bishop of the Diocese of Southern Ohio, at its convention Oct. 17.

“It’s the next logical step in the path that we’re on,” said the Rev. James Simons, president of the diocese’s Standing Committee, which recommended the appointment.

Read it all.

THE MUSIC was fine, and the weather was reasonably fine; but many visitors to the Greenbelt Festival in Cheltenham last weekend were talking more about two transatlantic speakers ”” the Rt Revd Gene Robinson and Rob Bell.

Both were appearing there for the first time. Although they come from different points on the Christian spectrum ”” one the Bishop of New Hampshire, the other the founding pastor of Mars Hill, a large inde­pendent church in Michigan ”” the Greenbelt crowds took them to their hearts. By all appearances, they were quite taken with Greenbelt, too.

Whether it was their presence, or the state of the economy, or some of the music acts, the numbers were up again on previous years. The organisers reckoned that, over the Bank Holiday weekend, 21,000 people attended. About three-quarters had bought weekend tickets and camped or stayed near by; the rest came on day tickets.

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Leaders of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh have nominated a bishop from southern Ohio to serve as a full-time interim bishop for the next few years.

A diocesan convention will vote Oct. 17 on whether to elect Bishop Kenneth L. Price, Jr., the suffragan bishop of the Diocese of Southern Ohio, as provisional bishop of the minority who remained with the Episcopal Church after last year’s diocesan convention voted to leave the Episcopal Church. He would have the full executive authority of a diocesan bishop, but his position would be temporary.

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In administering the sacrament of confirmation, Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien traced a cross on the foreheads of each candidate as he anointed them with sacred chrism oil and called on them to be sealed with the Holy Spirit. The sisters then renewed their vows of poverty, chastity and obedience as some 120 worshipers looked on.

Ten of the 12 members of the All Saints’ Sisters of the Poor joined the Catholic Church during the liturgy. The two nuns who have decided to remain Episcopal will continue to live, pray and work in community with their now-Catholic sisters.

Father Warren Tanghe, former chaplain to the All Saints’ Sisters of the Poor, was also confirmed and has applied to become a Catholic priest for the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

In his homily, Archbishop O’Brien welcomed the newcomers and extolled the sisters for their dedication to the consecrated life.

Read it all.

In a move that religious scholars say is unprecedented, 10 of the 12 nuns at an Episcopal convent in Catonsville left their church Thursday to become Roman Catholics, the latest defectors from a denomination divided over the ordination of gay men and women.

The members of the All Saints Sisters of the Poor were welcomed into the Catholic Church by Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien, who confirmed the women during a Mass in their chapel. Each vowed to continue the tradition of consecrated life, now as a religious institute within the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

“We know our beliefs and where we are,” said Mother Christina Christie, superior of the order that came to Baltimore in 1872. “We were drifting farther apart from the more liberal road the Episcopal Church is traveling. We are now more at home in the Roman Catholic Church.”

Also joining the church was the Rev. Warren Tanghe, the sisters’ chaplain. In a statement, Episcopal Bishop Eugene Taylor Sutton wished them God’s blessings.

Read it all

Check them out.

An Anglican church cannot simultaneously commit itself through the Anglican Covenant to shared discernment and reject that discernment; to interdependence and then act independently; to accountability and remain determined to be unaccountable. If the battle over homosexuality in The Episcopal Church is truly over, then so is the battle over the Anglican Covenant in The Episcopal Church, at least provisionally. As Christians, we live in hope that The Episcopal Church will at some future General Convention reverse the course to which it has committed itself, but we acknowledge the decisions that already have been taken. These decisions and actions run counter to the shared discernment of the Communion and the recommendations of the Instruments of Communion implementing this discernment. They are, therefore, also incompatible with the express substance, meaning, and committed direction of the first three Sections of the proposed Anglican Covenant. As a consequence, only a formal overturning by The Episcopal Church of these decisions and actions could place the church in a position capable of truly assuming the Covenant’s already articulated commitments. Until such time, The Episcopal Church has rejected the Covenant commitments openly and concretely, and her members and other Anglican churches within the Communion must take this into account. This conclusion is reached not on the basis of animus or prejudice, but on a straightforward and careful reading of the Covenant’s language and its meaning within the history of the Anglican Communion’s well-articulated life.

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Check it out.

The Episcopal Church (USA) currently is a party to some sixty lawsuits across the United States. Its litigation budget from 2006-2012 could approach $7 million, or more than $1 million per year — and that is just the official, published figures. There is another considerable amount going out to prop up its Potemkin dioceses in San Joaquin, Fort Worth, Pittsburgh and Quincy.

Those are the four dioceses which have thus far voted to leave the Church, and each departure has spawned a lawsuit. ECUSA from the beginning has adopted a high-stakes, winner-take-all strategy which depends for its success on its ability to prove in court the proposition that a diocese is not free to withdraw from the voluntary unincorporated association which ECUSA has been since its formation at common law in 1789….

The inverted logic of this argument should be apparent to any mind that loves reason. The Presiding Bishop and Chancellor first contend that ECUSA’s Constitution and Canons prohibit any Diocese from amending its Constitution so as to withdraw from the Church. They can point to no language in the national Constitution and Canons which says as much; they argue that the prohibition against leaving is implicit. Then they contend that because it is forbidden implicitly to withdraw, a vote to do so pursuant to the express power to amend spelled out in the diocesan Constitution (which, in the form approved by General Convention when the diocese in question was admitted, was an unlimited power to amend the document in any manner whatsoever) violates that implicit prohibition. So an implicit and unwritten understanding overrides the express language of amendment: the latter does not mean what it says, because despite its unrestricted language, it is to be understood that certain amendments are out of bounds. And it is further understood (although nowhere expressly written) that you are out of office the moment you choose to follow the express language in a manner that is implicitly prohibited.

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We are writing as individuals to disassociate ourselves from certain actions taken at the recently concluded General Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the General Convention of The Episcopal Church (TEC). We believe that by their actions, the ELCA and TEC have abandoned the authority and plain teaching of Holy Scripture; overturned two thousand years of Christian thought and teaching; and sought to conform the church to this world/age instead of discerning the will of God (Romans 12:2).

In response to these actions, we wish to affirm that:

· Jesus Christ is “the Way, the Truth and the Life” (John 14:6) and that “there is salvation in no one else” (Acts 4:12).

· We believe the Holy Scriptures to be God’s Word written and to “contain all things necessary for salvation.” In addition, we feel that “it is not lawful for the Church to ordain anything that is contrary to God’s Word written” (XX ”“ Articles of Religion).

· The ideal set forth by God in Holy Scripture for human sexuality is found within the bounds of Holy Matrimony between one man and one woman, or chastity in the single state. And if this be the case, the church cannot bless relationships outside of this standard, and ought not ordain those whose lifestyle does not conform to this standard.

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THE first openly gay bishop in the Anglican communion yesterday criticised the Archbishop of Canterbury’s suggestion of a possible “two-track” church. Gene Robinson, the Episcopalian bishop of New Hampshire, said: “I can’t imagine anything that would be more abhorrent to Jesus than a two-tier church.

“Either we are children of God and brothers and sisters in Christ, or we aren’t. There are not preferred children and second-class children. There are just children of God.”

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No, as you can see plainly from this chart.

I post this today because earlier I read the following:

St. Francis is one of 28 parishes of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church in the United States.

According to the Episcopal Church Annual of 2007 (which reflects parochial reports from 2005) there were 67 parishes in the diocese of Pittsburgh that year. So the quite significant drop in active baptized membership in the domestic dioceses of TEC from 1997-2007 of -9.7% does not yet reflect the realignments in Pittsburgh, Quincy, Fort Worth and San Joaquin.