Bishop [Robert] Duncan is Archbishop-designate of the ACNA and Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh that is now under the auspices of the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone. The Rev. J. Philip Ashey, chief operating officer and chaplain for the American Anglican Council, told The Living Church that Pittsburgh is one of the five applications for recognition as an ACNA diocese that have already been received. The deadline for applications is April 15.

Earlier this month, the Rt. Rev. John H. Chapman, Bishop of Ottawa in the Anglican Church of Canada, said he would authorize a congregation under his oversight to begin performing same-sex blessings in part because “while our church struggles to honor the call for gracious restraint in blessing same-sex unions, those who are proponents of cross-border interventions have and continue to show no restraint.”

That view was echoed this week during the House of Bishops’ spring retreat by Bishop Dan Edwards of Nevada. Bishop Edwards posted a blog entry noting that a number of bishops are considering the repeal of Resolution B033 because of what they perceive as a lack of reciprocal restraint by the ACNA.

Read it all.

Back in 2003, the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York consecrated a gay bishop and allowed others to perform same-sex blessings.

The Church of the Good Shepherd in Binghamton, an Episcopal parish at the time, disagreed with this move and severed ties. Last year, the Diocese sued for Good Shepherd to leave the church building on Conklin Avenue, and in December, a state Supreme Court judge ruled in their favor.

On Friday, both sides were back in court.

“We’ve kind of moved on as a congregation and this is almost looking backwards now. So we were dreading it but here it is,” said Father Matthew Kennedy, Good Shepherd’s head pastor.

This time, the feud centers around a will by former Good Shepherd member Robert Brannan. He died in 1986 and left behind money in a trust fund for his parish.

Read it all.

A friend-of-the-court petition filed in the ongoing litigation in Pittsburgh by the Presiding Bishop’s chancellor represents a new, serious challenge to the long-standing polity of The Episcopal Church, according to a joint statement to be issued March 12 by the Anglican Communion Institute (ACI) and the Communion Partner bishops.

“The historic episcopate has long been recognized as an essential, non-negotiable element of Anglican identity,” the statement notes. “The polity of The Episcopal Church, clearly expressed in its name, its constitution and its history, is that of dioceses and bishops meeting in a general convention as equals. The Presiding Bishop and the Executive Council are the agents, not the superiors of dioceses.”

Read it all.

After the Realignment Resolution passed at the 2007 Diocesan Convention, Calvary took the position that if Realignment occurred after a second reading of the resolution at the 2008 Convention, then the Stipulation would act to bar the Diocese from continuing to use and administer Diocesan property. We opposed this argument, advising the court of our position that the Stipulation did not address realignment. We advised the court that the process for Diocesan realignment was in place and that we intended after realignment to continue to hold and administer Diocesan property for the beneficial use of all the parishes.

This process was transparent. We have tried to follow the good example of St. Paul in the 26th chapter of Acts by speaking and acting openly, and “not in a corner.”

The leaders of the new diocese challenge the validity of the Diocesan realignment. Although we strongly disagree with this position, we recognize that some of these leaders publicly took this position at our 2007 and 2008 Conventions. In this respect, it is right to acknowledge that their position on this issue is consistent, and to recognize that they believe it their duty to challenge the legitimacy of the Diocesan action.

The same cannot be said, however, for the new diocese leaders’ recent adoption of Calvary’s arguments regarding the 2005 Stipulation and Order. On behalf of the new diocese’s Standing Committee and Board of Trustees, Dr. Simons and Mr. Ayres (the presidents of each body) have written: “We call attention to the stipulation signed in good faith by Bishop Duncan’s attorneys on October 15, 2005, which clearly defines how assets are to be disposed of, if any attempt to leave the Episcopal Church occurred – they are to stay in the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church.”

The statements made, and the inferences apparent for readers to draw, are both incorrect and unfair. The reference to “good faith” and “Bishop Duncan’s attorneys” appears to be an attempt to personalize the present dispute as being about my actions alone, and they question my good faith. Our counsel represented me as Bishop of the Diocese, but also represented all of the other defendants in the litigation, including the then-members of the Standing Committee, and the Diocese itself as an entity. Personal attacks on me during the litigation are not new, but I reject the improper personalization of my role as Bishop. On issues of property and fiscal stewardship, the Bishop operates within a well-defined role outlined by the Diocesan Constitution, Canons, and Financial Regulations. This structure delineates the proper role of not only the Bishop, but also the role of the Standing Committee, the Board of Trustees, the Diocesan Council, and the Diocesan Convention. I have faithfully exercised my duties on all of these issues.

Read it all.

Saying that all property held by or for a diocese can only be used for the mission of that diocese and the Episcopal Church, the church has asked a Pennsylvania court to allow it to join an ongoing case concerning the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.

In papers filed February 13 with the Court of Common Pleas in Allegheny County in Pittsburgh, the Episcopal Church also asked the court to declare:

”¢ that the members of the diocesan leadership now recognized by the Episcopal Church are “the proper authorities entitled to the use and control of the real and personal property” of the diocese,

Ӣ that the property may be used only for the mission of the diocese and the wider church,

Ӣ that deposed Bishop Robert Duncan and the leaders of the group of Episcopalians that left the diocese on October 4, 2008 must provide an accounting of that property, and

Ӣ that Duncan and the breakaway leaders must vacate the diocesan offices and turn over control of the property to the current leadership.

The petition to intervene in the case is available here. It was signed by retired Diocese of West Missouri Bishop John C. Buchanan, who is the parliamentarian for the House of Bishops and is described in the petition as trustee ad litem (Pennsylvania law requires unincorporated associations, like the Episcopal Church, to sue in the name of one of its members as trustee ad litem).

Read it all.

As I watch the sad saga of our bishops’ legalistic and punitive response to “traditionalist” bishops, dioceses, and parishes who are attempting to leave the Episcopal Church in order to form a new North American Anglican province, I am reminded of the defensive and dismissive response of the Church of England bishops to the Methodist Movement in the eighteenth century. The result of course was the founding and development of a separate Methodist Church, which is now much larger than the “Anglican” Church (at least as we are now constituted) on this continent. Imagine the strength and witness of Anglicanism today if the Methodists were welcomed as a preaching order within the Church of England. Surely, they would be more “orthodox” and we would be more “vibrant,” and together we would be much larger and much more effective for the Gospel in the world than we are divided. This, by the way, is exactly what Innocent III achieved when he embraced St. Francis and welcomed his friars into the ministry of the Catholic Church at the beginning of the thirteenth century, despite the fact that they were preaching such a dangerous “new” doctrine.

Now what I wonder is this: what would happen if the Presiding Bishop with the support of the House of Bishops were to welcome the formation of a new province for “traditionalists” within the Episcopal Church, allowing every diocese, parish, and church institution to join this province with a two-thirds vote by the appropriate parish meeting, convention, or governing body? She could even stipulate an acceptable window of a year during which this vote would be required to happen.

In this way, both “sides” of our church could continue in dialogue from protected positions of mutual respect without the present feelings of distrust and fear. Both would also be encouraged to grow by teaching the doctrines and practicing the liturgies they believe in, which they could proceed to do with conviction and enthusiasm. We could, for instance, continue to share the Church Pension Fund and Episcopal Relief and Development, and our primates and bishops could continue to meet on an annual basis to look for areas of agreement, common witness, shared costs and joint projects, but in a way which is more representative, more conducive to collegiality, and more focused on results than our present General Convention. I also wonder if it would not be appropriate for the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Anglican Consultative Consul to ask us to do this in one final attempt at unity and civility before they are forced by our actions to actively establish or passively recognize a permanent state of schism between us.

I would hope that the traditionalists would find such an arrangement better than what is now proposed as it would allow clergy, parishes and dioceses to reorganize without the loss of their properties and the cost of legal action. The risk for the Presiding Bishop, of course, is that too many will want to leave, but at least they will not be completely leaving and no one will remain because they have been bullied and threatened into submission. There is also the obvious advantage pointed out by others who have written to this magazine before me that such an action on her part and on the part of the rest of the House of Bishops would show true Christian humility and a more genuine openness to the power of the Holy Spirit to build the Church and thus to lead the Church in His, if not necessarily our own, direction.

–The Revd. Dr. D. Stuart Dunnan is Headmaster of Saint James School in Maryland; this article appears as a Guest Column in the February 8, 2009 Living Church on page 10 and is used with the author’s kind permission

The national Episcopal Church has asked to join a lawsuit over who owns an estimated $20 million held in the name of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.

Since Oct. 4, when the majority of the diocese voted to secede from the national church and realign with an Anglican province in South America, there have been two rival bodies called the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.

Read it all.

The region known for steel is quietly making its mark as a religious stronghold with influence stretching nationwide.

A strong work ethic and conservative religious bent, the legacy of early settlers from Scotland and Ireland, has created a Bible Belt here as strong as that in the South and Midwest, theologians say, but with a personality of its own because Pittsburgh, with its many faiths and nationalities, has a deep religious commitment that spans church spectrums.

“God has done something very special here,” said Anglican Bishop Robert Duncan.

Read it all.

Check it out. Also, the whole filing is here.

Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and her staff have attempted to aid the four dioceses in which the leadership and a majority of members have left the church with a combination of “guidance, support and pastoral care.”

So says an eight-and-a-half page memo Jefferts Schori gave the Executive Council during its winter meeting here. The memo was written by Mary Kostel, the recently appointed special counsel to the Presiding Bishop for property litigation and discipline. Kostel has worked closely with David Beers, who is chancellor to the Presiding Bishop.

While the situations in San Joaquin, Fort Worth, Pittsburgh and Quincy are all different, there are similarities in their experiences and in the way Jefferts Schori has worked with them, Kostel wrote. Those efforts usually begin with the Presiding Bishop encouraging the formation of a steering committee of Episcopalians from across the diocese who are committed to remaining in the church “and who represent a broad spectrum of views in the diocese on issues such as human sexuality and the ordination of women.”

Read it all.

Defenders of the Presiding Bishop claim that by her actions she has merely deprived him of a licence in the Episcopal Church. But surely the whole point is that after the deposition of Bob Duncan last September, Bishop Scriven’s ”˜licence’ was revoked. No, in fact it looks like Presiding Bishop Schori is attempting something much more sweeping here.

The Anglican Communion Institute again comments: “The Presiding Bishop’s action has profound consequences for TEC’s status as a constituent member of the Anglican Communion and its communion with the Church of England.” Her Declaration of Removal touches upon the ”˜ordinations’ conferred on him by the Church of England, not by The Episcopal Church, and therefore she is going down a very dangerous road by pretending to have the authority to pronounce on them. Furthermore, by prohibiting a bishop in good standing within the Church of England from ministering in The Episcopal Church, Presiding Bishop Schori is opening up the way for a diplomatic row.

Bishop Scriven, no doubt, will be laughing about this bizarre overstep by the Presiding Bishop, but the ramifications of this move should be examined further by English canon lawyers. It seems that The Episcopal Church is claiming to have an authority that it does not. And that, after all, is the root of the problem in the Anglican Communion.

Read it all.

Bishop Scriven remained as a bishop in good standing in the Episcopal Church after Pittsburgh diocese realigned with the Southern Cone in November last year. He believed the diocese had democratically made its decision and ”” in a response to the Church Times which came too late for publication ”” described the Convention’s vote as conducted “in a very fair and grace-filled way”. He made himself available as a bishop to all congregations who invited him, regardless of how they had voted.

He said at that time: “We still pray sincerely that further lawsuits can be avoided, and I certainly intend to maintain all my close friendships with the vast majority of those who have chosen not to stay with the diocese.”

Bishop Scriven described the letter he received in November releasing him from his orders as “really weird”. He retained it but did not respond to it. The promised certificate releasing Bishop Scriven from his orders did not reach him personally, “though, to be fair, she might have tried as I was wandering round the world,” he said on Wednesday.

The correspondence is now in the public domain. “I had no desire to publish these letters until the thing was announced but was then very happy for them to be released,” Bishop Scriven said. “Hers was a very gracious letter but I was kind of boggled by the language really….”

Read it all.

Defenders of the Presiding Bishop are scrambling to re-interpret her extraordinary action of depriving a bishop of the Church of England of the gifts and authority conferred in his ordination and removing him from the ordained ministry of The Episcopal Church. For example, the group supporting the Presiding Bishop in Pittsburgh stated that “[t]his is a routine way of permitting Bishop Scriven to continue his ministry.” In the strange world of TEC, renunciation of orders has become a routine way of continuing one’s ministry.

But it is not routine. Indeed, it has not been used for those transferring from TEC to another province in the Anglican Communion until the Presiding Bishop began what resembles a scorched-earth approach to her opponents within TEC. Not surprisingly, in the past such matters have been handled by letter. One can see the evolution of the Presiding Bishop’s “routine” policy in the treatment of Bishop David Bena, who was transferred by letter by his diocesan bishop to the Church of Nigeria in February 2007. A month later, the Presiding Bishop wrote Bishop Bena and informed him that “by this action you are no longer a member of the House of Bishops” and that she had informed the Secretary of the House to remove him from the list of members. That was all that needed to be done. A year later, however, as her current strategy emerged, she suddenly declared in January 2008 that she had accepted Bishop Bena’s renunciation of orders using the canon she now uses against Bishop Scriven. In other words, if this is now sadly routine, it has only become routine in the past year.

Not only is this not routine, it was not necessary.

“This action reflects profound confusion” say the authors. Is there a better phrase to describe the common life of TEC at present? Doctrinal and Structural incoherence abound. Read it all–KSH

An article that appeared on Episcopal Life Online on January 23, 2009 reported that Bishop Henry Scriven, the former Assistant Bishop for the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, had renounced his orders and that the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, had accepted that renunciation. Although the article may suggest otherwise, the Standing Committee understands that this action was not in any sense a disciplinary action or an action taken because of Bishop Scriven’s support for the attempt to realign the Diocese with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone.

Read it all.

Notwithstanding these facts, on January 15, 2009, the Presiding Bishop purported to accept Bishop Scriven’s renunciation of his ministry “of this Church” and claimed to remove him from all ministry conferred in his “Ordinations.” Canon III.12.7, the canon under which the Presiding Bishop claimed to be acting, plainly applies only to a “Bishop of this Church.” The only way Bishop Scriven could have been a bishop of TEC on January 15 is if the deposition of Bishop Duncan were invalid. In such a case, Bishop Duncan would have continued to serve uninterrupted as Bishop of Pittsburgh and Bishop Scriven’s tenure as Assistant Bishop would not have ended by operation of Canon III.12.5(e). We doubt, however, that this is the theory under which the Presiding Bishop is operating.

Moreover, in addition to constituting an abuse of the canons, the Presiding Bishop’s action has profound consequences for TEC’s status as a constituent member of the Anglican Communion and its communion with the Church of England. The Declaration of Removal and Release states categorically that Bishop Scriven “is deprived of the right to exercise the gifts and spiritual authority as a Minister of God’s Word and Sacraments conferred on him in Ordinations.” Those ordinations occurred, of course, in the Church of England. On its face, this declaration appears to prohibit a bishop in good standing in the Church of England from acting sacramentally in TEC. Since the use of Canon III.12.7 carries with it a certification that the bishop is not in violation of the constitution and canons and is not taken for causes that affect moral character, Bishop Scriven in this regard stands in no different position than any other bishop in the Church of England. If Bishop Scriven is so barred, is not the Archbishop of Canterbury barred as well?

Defenders of the Presiding Bishop’s course of conduct attempt to soften the impact of these actions by claiming that all that is being done by these acceptances of “renunciation” is the removal of a license to act in TEC. But this is clearly erroneous.

Read it all.

In a display of now unparalleled and unprecedented lawlessness for an ordained bishop, the Primate of All the Episcopal Church (USA) has thrown down the gauntlet to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Anglican Communion as a whole. She has declared that on the basis of a letter written to her by the Rt. Rev. Henry Scriven, the former Assistant Bishop of Pittsburgh, on October 16, 2008, she has “accepted [his] renunciation of the Ordained Ministry of this Church . . . [and that he] is, therefore, removed from the Ordained Ministry of this Church and released from the obligations of all Ministerial offices, and is deprived of the right to exercise the gifts and spiritual authority as a Minister of God’s Word and Sacraments conferred on him in Ordinations.”

What makes this move on the Primate’s part so outlandish is that Bishop Scriven has not been canonically resident in the Diocese of Pittsburgh in the Episcopal Church (USA) since October 4, 2008, when the Diocese voted by a sizeable majority to withdraw from ECUSA and affiliate temporarily with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. Details are not clear at this writing, but if events happened as they should have, Bishop Scriven would have received at that point a license from the Most Reverend Gregory Venables. (It is not known whether Bishop Duncan gave Letters Dimissory to Bishop Scriven before the former’s “deposition” by the ECUSA House of Bishops on September 18, 2008.) At any rate, Bishop Scriven became for the time being a member of the House of Bishops of the Province of the Southern Cone, and in that capacity continued to assist in the Diocese of Pittsburgh through December 2008. He conducted, for example, an ordination of the Rev. Aaron Carpenter at St. Philip’s Church in Moon Township, Pittsburgh, on December 9.

Read it all.

Financial services firm Morgan Stanley has frozen the accounts of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh because it is unsure who should be allowed to access them.

In a letter Jan. 13, the firm said it would not allow any further distributions until it received a court order listing those authorized to use the accounts.

Read it all.

Both sides in the court battle call themselves “The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America,” but in October, a group representing about 60 percent of the local parishes voted to join the more theologically conservative Anglican Province of the Southern Cone in South America.

In papers filed yesterday in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court, the Episcopal Diocese argued that the Anglican group stipulated in October 2005 that if it were to leave the church, all property and assets held by the “Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America … shall continue to be so held … regardless of whether some or even a majority of the parishes in the Diocese might decide not to remain in the Episcopal Church of the United States of America.”

Read it all.

In an expected, but disappointing decision, the newly forming Episcopal Church diocese in southwestern Pennsylvania announced today that it intends to move forward with legal action against The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (Anglican) by attempting to claim all diocesan property.

“The document filed today in the Calvary litigation by Calvary and the new diocese created after the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh withdrew from The Episcopal Church is both procedurally and substantively improper. Moreover, it is regrettable that these groups have chosen to pursue more litigation rather than agree to equitable division of the assets.” said the Rev. Peter Frank, diocesan spokesman.

Today, January 8, 2009, the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh asked a court for control of church assets still held by former diocesan leaders who have left the Episcopal Church.

The request was made in the context of an existing court order which stipulated that local Episcopal property must stay in the control of a diocese that is part of the Episcopal Church of the United States.

“We’re not asking for anything the court has not already addressed, or for anything former leaders have not already agreed to,” said the Rev. Dr. James Simons, President of the diocesan Standing Committee, the group currently leading the Pittsburgh Episcopal Diocese.

Read it all.

The angel in The Gospel According to St. Luke explains it this way: “To you is born this day in the City of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord.” Jesus comes to save us. One way we can understand that saving transaction is to say that Jesus comes to take our place. He comes to trade places. He comes to trade identities and to trade futures. We could also say that he comes to trade parents and children and relationships and health and circumstances and resources and preferments, yes, and even investments. He trades his royal robes for swaddling bands. He takes our place and offers us His.

He begins in poverty in a stable, in homelessness in Bethlehem and in exile in Egypt. He takes on our flesh and our struggle. He takes on our infirmities and our death, that we might be whole and freed. He offers us his place, His Father, His Spirit, His life, His future.

Read it all.

We need a unified body both to heal the divisions among ourselves and to give the broader Anglican Communion a unified and coherent partner with which to be in relation­ship.

Forming the Anglican Church in North America is a significant step forward on both these fronts. It is an amazing God-given healing of that internal division and an opportunity for forming constructive relation­ships within the Communion.

Eleven fragments of “mainstream” Anglicanism in the United States and Canada were involved in the adop­tion of the provisional constitution: the American Anglican Council, the Anglican Coalition in Canada, the Anglican Communion Network, the Anglican Mission in the Americas (Rwanda), the Anglican Network in Canada, the Convocation of An­glicans in North America (Nigeria), Forward in Faith North America, the Missionary Convocations of Kenya, Southern Cone (including the Bolivia and Recife networks), and Uganda, together with the Reformed Episcopal Church.

These fragments draw together some 700 congregations in North Am­erica, with an estimated 100,000 worshippers on average on any given Sunday. This constellation is thus numbered as larger than 13 of the provinces of the Anglican Com­munion (including Scotland and Wales), and compares to the 750,000 the Episcopal Church in the United States claims to draw every Sunday.

Please note: this was in last week’s print edition of the Church Times, which was available on the web for subscribers only. It is now available to all. Please read it attentively.

New leadership, both lay and ordained, a new episcopal presence and a new priest highlighted the Diocese of Pittsburgh’s special convention December 12.

Meeting at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Mount Lebanon, Pennsylvania, the special convention was called to reorganize the diocese and fill a number of leadership positions vacated by those who left the Episcopal Church following the diocese’s 143rd annual convention on October 4.

The people who departed, led by deposed Bishop Robert Duncan, now say they will be a part of the Argentina-based Anglican Province of the Southern Cone while they attempt to form a parallel Anglican province in North America that would be recognized by the large Anglican Communion.

Members of 28 congregations took part in the December 12 convention, representing 40% of both the number of parishes and total membership — as measured by the benchmark average Sunday attendance — in the Pittsburgh diocese prior to October, according to a diocesan news release. Members of 18 congregations had declared their plans to remain with the diocese in the days just after the October convention.

Read it all.

It is time to stop casting stones: it is time to realize with humility that we are all sinners saved by the grace of God, that judgment is not ours to render, and that we would do well to drop the stones we now hold and instead open our hands to each other.

This will be no easy task. The hurts and wounds are very real, and healing will come only when we are willing to let go of the pain. We need to ask for forgiveness and we need to forgive as we have been forgiven by God, and move forward in grace. Patterns of behavior have been established, many unconsciously, and we need to give each other permission to stop and say, “No, that’s they way we used to treat each other. We’re not doing that anymore.” We’ll need to re-evaluate every aspect of our lives and ask the question, “Is this the way that Jesus would have us behave and treat each other?” We will make mistakes, and there will be false starts. There will be more hurt, but if are willing to be vulnerable to one another and believe the best of each other, the old patterns will begin to melt away and we can move ahead with grace and charity.

Read it all.

A vastly downsized Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh launched its reorganization Saturday, calling a senior bishop from North Carolina to serve as its interim leader.

The Right Rev. Robert Hodges Johnson, a retired bishop who previously served as interim bishop to a Virginia diocese in upheaval, will serve as assisting bishop to the Diocese of Pittsburgh through July 2009, as it reorganizes, the Rev. James B. Simons announced yesterday. Simons, president of the Standing Committee of the Pittsburgh diocese, made the announcement during his state of diocese speech at a special convention yesterday at which representatives from 28 parishes met to reorganize, ordain a new priest and elect new leadership.

Read it all.

Leaders of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh that remained in the Episcopal Church after most of the diocese seceded have named as their interim spiritual leader retired Bishop Robert Hodges Johnson, formerly of the Diocese of Western North Carolina.

Bishop Johnson, not to be confused with a different Bishop Robert Johnson who also served in North Carolina, will provide part-time pastoral and sacramental duties while a committee of local clergy and laity continues to run the diocese. His contract ends July 31. Bishop Johnson did similar work in the Diocese of Southern Virginia in 2006.

Read it all.

It appears a narrow majority of Alle-Kiski Valley Episcopal parishes will remain with the Pittsburgh diocese that agreed in October to split from the Episcopal Church of the United States.

“The (national) Episcopal church really has gone off the wall in terms of liberal theology,” said the Rev. Gary Miller, pastor of Holy Innocents parish in Leechburg. “The majority of bishops in the church do not believe in the basic doctrines of the faith.”

He noted several conservative tenets of Christian theology that, he claimed, many in the national church have moved away from, such as the virgin birth and deity of Jesus Christ.

Read it all.

On Aug 26, attorneys for Bishop Schori submitted a 64-page indictment to the Title IV Committee. Bishop Schori believed the Anglo-Catholic leader had “so repudiated the doctrine, discipline and worship” of the church by his “persistent position that the Diocese may choose whether or not to remain a constituent part of the Episcopal Church,” that he should be found to have “abandoned the Communion of this Church.”

Bishop Schori’s lawyer, David Booth Beers added the “presiding bishop would appreciate consideration of this matter on an expedited basis, specifically, if at all feasible, before the next meeting of the House of Bishops on September 17, 2008.”

The Title IV Committee declined to deliberate at an expedited pace, and on Sept 12 Mr. Beers provided further documents in support of its contentions. A third memo to the committee was mailed on Oct 3 by Mr. Beers with clippings of an article written by Bishop Iker entitled “10 Reasons Why Now is the Time to Realign.”

In his Oct 3 letter, the presiding bishop’s attorney said that his client “has asked you consider again the evidence” against Bishop Iker. Mr. Beers noted the deposition of Bishop Duncan had now set a precedent that permitted a bishop to be deposed for bad thoughts, without recourse to having committed bad actions.

Read it all.

The failure of the House of Bishops to discipline our own for lesser infractions than pulling a diocese out of TEC (thereby giving incontrovertible proof of violating the oath to “conform to the doctrine, discipline and worship of The Episcopal Church) is a matter of significance, I think. Bishop Duncan in particular has done a number of things which should have called for a disciplinary response from the HoB. Indeed, he asked for it specifically, back in September 2002, when he stated to the House that he had deliberately “provoked a constitutional crisis” (his words) by interfering in a parish in another diocese. And nothing happened. That the present Presiding Bishop is acting may be closing the barn door after the horse has left. But just leaving it swinging in the breeze would be dereliction of duty.

In the final analysis, our polity exists to support a dynamic missionary expansion as its first priority, and it does this admirably. After all, TEC, despite our small size, has launched about one-quarter of the provinces of the Communion. As such, it is less well suited to resolving significant conflicts about doctrine and discipline, because sufficient agreement on these is presupposed in the structures themselves. How can you undertake to evangelize the world if you do not have enough basic trust in each other’s grasp of the Gospel and catholic order””the synthesis that is the genius of Anglican ecclesiology?

Read it all.

(The essay subtitle is: On Doing What it Takes to Get What You Want–KSH).

The changes now well underway simply described are these. At present, TEC’s Constitution renders the General Convention and the Office of the Presiding Bishop as instruments of its various Dioceses. The change sought by the Office of the Presiding Bishop and many within the House of Bishops would alter this arrangement by rendering each Diocese a creature of the General Convention. Along with this change comes another. The Office of the Presiding Bishop at present serves to execute the policies of the General Convention but does not stand in a hierarchical relation to TEC’s various Dioceses. The change now in progress would place the Office of Presiding Bishops in a hierarchical relation to these Dioceses, and in so doing give the holder of that office executive powers within the several Dioceses not accorded by the Constitution.

In times such as these actions of this sort are by no means unusual. Times of stress almost always lead those in power to stretch the law in order to achieve their purposes. Churches are no more immune to this temptation than are civil governments. Within TEC, one can see this dynamic clearly at work in two recent incidents, each of which reveals a strategy on the part of the Office of the Presiding Bishop to circumvent the requirements either of TEC’s Constitution or its Canons. I have in mind the replacement of the Standing Committee of the Diocese of San Joaquin and the deposition of Robert Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh.

These claims are both bold and controversial. Of this fact, I am fully aware.

Because the issues involved are so serious, I will do the best I can to make both my claims and the major objections to them as clear as possible. To my mind the objections are unconvincing. However, a grave flaw in TEC’s polity is the lack of a supreme court. As a result, the House of Bishops and the Office of the Presiding Bishop are each left in these matters to be judge in their own case. The implication of this unhappy situation is that if one excludes (as I believe one should) civil litigation as a means of establishing order in the church, the only credible arbiter left in this dispute is the court of last resort, namely, the people of the church, the court of public opinion.

Read it carefully and please read it all.