Read it all.

Surprisingly, the court’s decision to grant the motion is no longer the bad piece of news it would have been had it happened on February 25, or shortly thereafter. I write this post immediately after receiving word of the court’s ruling, in order to forestall the impact of the trumpet-blaring from Bishop Lamb, his supporters, and the Episcoleft blogworld that will now inevitably follow.

The reason why the ruling is not bad news for the defendants any longer is quite simple: the case itself has moved on. The parties are no longer concerned with the second amended complaint, which was the subject of the court’s ruling. The plaintiffs have now filed, and the Schofield defendants have now answered, their fourth amended complaint in this case. That fourth amended complaint contains whole new theories about the alleged collusion between the various defendants (including the Bishop’s law firm) to remove property from the Episcopal Church (USA) and its allegedly still-existing diocese.

A motion for summary adjudication of a single cause of action, just like a motion for summary judgment on an entire complaint, is framed by the pleadings that are at issue in the case — meaning the most current pleadings. It is, therefore, in my view a meaningless act to grant adjudication with regard to the second amended complaint, since it is no longer the operative pleading.

Read it all.

Last week, the Anglican congregation at St. Paul’s handed over the keys to its $2.3 million facility to Episcopal Bishop Jerry Lamb. The congregation became one of the first in the nation to voluntarily give its property to the Episcopal Church before a lawsuit was filed.

It’s a miniature portrait of a conflict going on across the country over the interpretation of Scripture, such as whether Jesus is the only way to salvation, as Anglicans believe, and if same-sex marriages should be allowed, as Episcopalians favor.

But Sunday, both sides seemed content.

Read it all.

The Rev. Tom Foster of Modesto was a delegate to the historic inaugural provincial assembly of the Anglican Church in North America held June 22-25 in Bedford, Texas. He called the meeting “a gangbuster operation” and said the spirit of the gathering “was absolute joy.”

The 29th province in the worldwide Anglican Communion was established to oversee U.S. churches and dioceses that have left the Episcopal Church, as well as those in Canada that similarly have split over doctrinal issues, primarily the interpretation of Scripture. ACNA will oversee 700 parishes four U.S. dioceses and about 100,000 people, organizers said.

The new province, which still must garner approval from two-thirds of Anglican leaders around the world, is not recognized by the Episcopal Church. The Rev. Robert Duncan, bishop of another U.S. breakaway diocese, was installed as ACNA’s archbishop during the assembly, which included the adoption of a constitution and canons, or laws. That would put him on equal footing with Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, and the other 27 primates, or leaders, around the world.

Read it all.

Although the decision has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, Anglican leaders in Petaluma decided to settle rather than engage in a costly legal battle, said their lawyer, the Rev. Lu T. Nguyen.

“My clients felt as though it just wasn’t worth the long-term fight,” Nguyen said. “This is a church. It’s purpose is not material gain but spiritual matters.”

Petaluma Episcopalians appeared happy Wednesday to have a place of their own.

After a majority of the congregation voted to split from the Episcopal Church in December 2006, the remaining Episcopal members re-formed under the Rev. Norman Cram, and held services first in a parishioner’s living room and later at Elim Lutheran Church.

The congregation now has about 50 members.

Read it all.

Episcopal Bishop Jerry Lamb announced that the first service at St. Paul’s in Modesto will be held July 5 at 10 a.m., instead of the two services originally scheduled.

He said a diocesan committee decided it would be better to have everyone gathered at one time to celebrate the renewal of Episcopal services at the church on Oakdale Road just south of Briggsmore….

Also last week, the nine other self-incorporated parishes with ties to the Anglican diocese headquartered in Fresno received letters from Lamb “to arrange the transition of all properties and assets back to the Episcopal Church.” Two of those parishes are St. Francis in Turlock and St. James (the historic Red Church) in Sonora….

The Rev. Gerry Grossman, pastor of St. Francis, said Lamb’s letter “amounts to the harassment of a local congregation by a national organization. We’ve received ‘invitations’ from him before, but this is the first request to, quote, “give back” something that’s ours. We’re not going to have this taken from us. The story of David and Goliath comes to mind.”

Read it all.

To The Bishop and Clergy of The Diocese of San Joaquin
Iglesia Anglicana del Cono Sur de America

Dear Brothers,

Greetings in the wonderful name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am writing to you on the eve of the launch of the new Anglican Church in North America. You are to be congratulated for your faithfulness in the Gospel and in your cooperation with the organization of the new Province. It is likely that it will take some time before the institutional structures catch up to the realities of the present day situation in the Communion. Until that time, you can be sure of your dual status with us in the Southern Cone. This is true not only for Bishop John-David, but also all of the priests and deacons who received licenses under my authority when your diocese came to us.

You may have heard negative things about your ministries and orders from some quarters, but I can assure you of your good standing and favour with me nd this Province under me as Primate.

Last year, even Archbishop Rowan Williams himself assured me of Bishop John-David’s status as a bishop of the Anglican Communion. Any other assertions are, in our view, completely unfounded. What is important is that people are brought to saving faith in Christ and to maturity in Him. We need your full energy to be devoted to that task. The harvest is indeed plentiful, and the workers few! Thank you for your faithfulness.

Yours sincerely,

–(The Most Rev.) Gregory J. Venables is Presiding Bishop of the Southern Cone of South America

During that week, St. Paul’s will become the first parish in the San Joaquin Diocese — and one of the first self-incorporated parishes in the nation — to willingly sign its property over to the Episcopal Church before a lawsuit has been filed. The church, which is 130 years old and has been at various locations in Modesto, predates the San Joaquin Diocese and owns its property free and clear.

“Our name’s on the deed. It doesn’t even have the name ‘Episcopal’ on the deed, and we paid for it,” said the Rev. Michael McClenaghan, St. Paul’s priest. “Not a dime came from the Episcopal Church, not even a dime from the diocese.”

Read it all.

Anglicans who left the Episcopal Church in California’s San Joaquin Valley to reject [partnered] homosexual clergy are waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Will they lose the churches where they worship as a result of their split with the national church and Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin? The answer could come any day over the next two months.

The stakes are high after more than 40 churches from Lodi to Bakersfield and from the coast to the Nevada border left the Fresno, Calif.-based diocese. They joined the Anglicans because of differences with the national Episcopal body over same-sex blessings, the ordination of a gay bishop and the authority of Scripture.

Read it all.

The Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin on Wednesday deposed 61 clergy from Lodi to Bakersfield because they have left the national Episcopal Church and aligned themselves with the worldwide Anglican Communion.

Episcopal Bishop Jerry Lamb, who called the action “heartbreaking,” said from his Stockton headquarters that such clergy will have their retirement assets frozen and no longer can participate as Episcopal priests. But, he added, “this action is not taken for any ethical or moral concerns.”

The news didn’t seem to matter to the priests, who are now under Anglican oversight.

Read it all.

Received via email–KSH.

It is with a mixture of sadness and joy that we received today a letter from Bishop Lamb wherein he purports to depose 36 priests and 16 deacons as of May 22, 2009. It is heartbreaking that The Episcopal Church chooses to take such a punitive action and condemn 52 active clergy with “Abandonment of the Communion” when all of these men and women are recognized around the world as priests and deacons in good standing within the Anglican Communion.Clearly, the traditional understanding of what it means to be a member of this historic Communion has been tragically altered by this action; and thereby The Episcopal Church needlessly isolates itself from their brothers and sisters around the world.

The Diocese of San Joaquin continues to reach out to the central third of California in active ministry.It will become one of 23 founding Dioceses, along with 5 more in formation, within the new Province of the Anglican Church in North America at its first Provincial Assembly in Bedford, Texas, June 22-25. Despite The Episcopal Church’s disregard for valid Anglican Orders and ongoing legal actions against us, the bold vision to bring all to an ever expanding knowledge and joy of the Lord Jesus Christ remains unchanged within the diocese. We rejoice over the growing number of ministries seeking to join themselves with us in the mission field God
has put before us.
~
We are, however,~grieved that the leadership of The Episcopal Church feels compelled to create this unprecedented division between the ministries of The Episcopal Church and their brothers and sisters throughout the rest of the Anglican Communion. For our part, we continue to recognize the orders of those who are properly ordained according to the Book of Common Prayer and who have chosen to continue to serve Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior within TEC.~~May God bless~all of us who share a common vision of ministry.~

–The Rt. Rev. John-David Schofield, is Bishop of the Diocese of San Joaquin

It seems that whenever a court ruling comes out in ECUSA’s favor, or that could put the orthodox into an unfavorable light, all of the Episcopal/Anglican blogs on the left have news about the ruling up on their sites within a day, if not within hours. Just as a little experiment, I have delayed putting up this post about a recent court ruling in the San Joaquin litigation that went mostly against ECUSA, Bishop Lamb, and the group he leads in order to see whether any of those same blogs would discuss it. Well, there has been not a word, even on the group’s official Website—and not even about the part of the ruling that was in their favor, either (see below for details: this blog may be ponderous to some, but we do cover both the favorable and the unfavorable).

Read it all.

When [Bishop John David] Schofield broke off from the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin around Christmas in 2007 because he opposed the denomination’s decision to appoint women as bishops and support of same-sex marriage, a handful of churches split with him.

They called themselves Anglican after the schism and claimed membership with a newly formed Fresno-based diocese led by Schofield. Church leaders deemed too liberal by Schofield within the separated diocese were slowly replaced with more conservative leaders.

St. Mark’s, though, was left in the lurch. It took more than a year for the congregation to find a priest. The instability drove away many members and took an emotional toll on those who stayed.

“A deep, dark depression settled over everyone at first,” said Carolyn Barth, 74, Marvin’s wife and a senior warden for the Anglican side of St. Mark’s. “It took a while for us to move on from that.”

In San Joaquin County, St. Ann’s in Stockton and St. Mary’s in Manteca sided with Schofield. About one-third of St. Mark’s congregation stuck with the national Episcopalian denomination, while the rest turned Anglican.

Read it all.

If it did not succeed for Bishop Dionisije Milivojevich, why should that maneuver succeed for Bishop Jerry Lamb? What right, under the Serbian Orthodox decision, does anyone have to come into a secular court and seek a declaration that Bishop Schofield has been duly and properly deposed, and is no longer the “Bishop of San Joaquin”?

And, even more pertinent to the issues at hand, who is to say that the Rt. Rev. Jerry A. Lamb is the proper person even to bring such a claim? If we are to look only to the Episcopal Church (USA) to say who is one of its bishops, then as already mentioned, what is to stop the Episcopal Church from picking out any loyal parishioner and saying: “You are now ‘the Bishop of San Joaquin.’ Please sign this lawsuit for us. Thank you.”

The answer to that last question is simply what has already been noted: the Constitution and Canons of the Diocese of San Joaquin, as duly enacted and adopted over the years, are the only authority that can specify just who is and who is not a Bishop of that Diocese. Unless and until they have been followed to the letter, the defendants contend that there is no person who can in law (as opposed to whatever the Episcopal Church (USA) wants to do) claim to be that Bishop. And since they were not followed in the case of the Rt. Rev. Jerry A. Lamb, he cannot, they maintain, be entitled to bring a suit in law as “the Episcopal Bishop of San Joaquin.”

Read it all.

The Episcopal Church has prevailed on all issues in its dispute with the former leadership of the Diocese of San Joaquin, according to a tentative ruling for summary judgment issued May 4 by a Fresno County Superior Court judge.

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.

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

Among the many quotes that are mistakenly attributed to William Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott’s “Oh, what a tangled web we weave / When first we practice to deceive . . .” is surely one that ranks among those which are the most frequent to be so cited. (It in fact comes from his epic poem “Marmion, a Tale of Flodden Field” [scroll down to Canto VI, Stanza XVII, lines 532-33], written in 1808.) Be that as it may, the quote has proved its worth by describing so aptly the results of deception as a “tangled web”, which all too frequently catches up the deceiver who spun it.

In this post, I want to point up a classic example of the improviser’s art, and to show how it will most likely catch up the improvisers in ways they surely did not imagine at the moment. At the same time, however, the facts I am about to show should let no Episcopal bishop remain comfortable in occupying his or her see. For the truth is that the innovation in this instance sets a most dangerous precedent. And given the manner in which the Episcopal Church (USA) reveres illegal precedent, as in the case of citing the depositions of Bishops Davies and Larrea to justify its subsequent “depositions” of Bishops Cox, Schofield and Duncan, the establishment of any precedent so egregious and illegal as the one I am about to relate should, as I say, be enough to make any Episcopal bishop insecure. For this precedent involves the transformation of the office of the Presiding Bishop from a “primus inter pares”, or first among equals, into a Metropolitan of the Church: a primate not in name only, but one in fact, who can swoop into any diocese and assume the Ecclesiastical Authority there.

Read it all.

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.

The litigation in San Joaquin has entered a new phase with the filing of a cross-complaint against the Episcopal Church (USA) by the parties it initially sued last April. The cross-complaint, brought by Bishop Schofield and two diocesan investment entities which he heads (the Episcopal Foundation and the Diocesan Investment Trust), seeks an award against ECUSA for the amount of attorneys’ fees those defendants are being called upon to expend in defending the suit instigated by Bishop Jerry A. Lamb and a group calling itself the “Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin”, and joined in by ECUSA.

The cross-complaint states two claims for relief. The first asserts that ECUSA in effect put Bishop Lamb and his followers up to bringing the lawsuit that was filed in Fresno County Superior Court on April 24, 2008, by making false representations to them that they could be plaintiffs because they were now a genuine diocese of the Episcopal Church who had met in a legitimate “special convention” the previous month and elected a bishop. The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, convened the special convention herself, and proposed the Rt. Rev. Jerry A. Lamb, the resigned (retired) bishop of the Diocese of Northern California, to be its “provisional bishop”. After it concurred, the convention proceeded to adopt resolutions authorizing him to claim ownership of the corporation sole that holds title to diocesan real property, and to file the present lawsuit against Bishop Schofield and the investment entities, which manage the funds belonging to the diocese.

Read it all.

In light of the California court’s ruling, Bishop Lamb sent letters Jan. 14 seeking dialogue with those who have disaffiliated. One letter was sent to clergy who have accepted canonical licenses issued by the Southern Cone; the second was sent to church-goers.

“There has been enough pain and suffering on all sides of the issue of separation from The Episcopal Church,” Bishop Lamb wrote to clergy. “It is time for us to speak to one another face to face about returning to the fold of The Episcopal Church or setting forth a plan for gracious leave-taking.”

Shortly before the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin’s annual convention last October, Bishop Lamb inhibited all of the San Joaquin clergy who accepted canonical licenses from the Church of the Southern Cone. The inhibitions will automatically become depositions from the ordained ministry of The Episcopal Church in April if the inhibited clergy take no further action.

Read it all.

“We really just want the status quo to exist which is leave us alone, let us follow Christ as we have been doing and do that in the building that we’re in right now,” said Anglican priest, Father Carlos Raines.

Last December the Diocese of San Joaquin split from the Episcopal Church over the issue of homosexuality.

Read it all.

…the repeated mantra of “fiduciary responsibility” wears a little thin. One must turn to other factors to make a prudent and sensible decision. If a majority of the present active congregation is in favor of leaving, but a significant minority is in favor of staying, the latter group should certainly not be turned out into the street–or the VFW hall. IMHO, too little imagination and charity have been exhibited in such situations; the winner-take-all mentality has been destructive. (The Colorado Springs situation seems a case-in-point here.)

On the other hand, when a congregation is a relatively recent plant and the facilities have been paid for by parishioners who are more or less the present congregation, and the diocese has made no investment beyond the brand name, and there is an overwhelming vote in favor of leaving, it strikes me as beyond inane to take those folks to court. Justice is just a matter of common sense for those with open eyes.

Then there are the “bite my nose to spite my face” cases where any victory on the part of TEC is pyrrhic because they’re left with a church and a steeple but when they open the doors there are no people. Just heating and lawn care bills–and in many cases, a mortgage. Meanwhile, the people that could be worshiping and serving there are…you guessed it…celebrating the Eucharist in the VFW hall on Sunday mornings. That’s just idiotic. My former parish is in one of the four departed dioceses. Between my departure and my successor’s arrival they eradicated the word “Episcopal” anywhere it was found and replaced it with “Anglican.” Sooner or later, Mr Beers will get around to suing them. If he wins, he’ll have a very handsome set of buildings dating back to the late 19th century and which are a collective black hole for maintenance dollars. I hope he enjoys watching them fall apart, because my guess is that even the residents of the columbarium will have relocated by then.

This is a complicated mess. It requires a complicated cleanup. Nostrums about thievery are not helpful.

Read it all.

When the Diocese of Fort Worth voted Nov. 15 to become the fourth American diocese to leave The Episcopal Church, the leadership of the Common Cause Partnership (CCP) scheduled a constitutional convention in the Chicago area Dec. 3 to form a new North American Anglican province. The event will be followed by “a province-by-province visitation and appeal for recognition of the separate ecclesiastical structure in North America.”

Significant details about the plan were revealed in a short AnglicanTV internet video clip containing remarks delivered by Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh and Bishop Bill Murdoch, a missionary bishop to the U.S. consecrated by the Anglican Church of Kenya.

Read the whole thing and please take the time to view the video interview here.

The departure of Quincy and three other conservative dioceses raises questions about the future of the Episcopal Church. The church, led by Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, represents the U.S. branch of the 77-million-member worldwide Anglican Communion. However, leaders of the conservative breakaway dioceses are pushing for a second province in North America. Approval of an additional province by the archbishop of Canterbury would be unprecedented and pose a strong challenge to the Episcopal Church.

“You have some significant, traditionalist Episcopal dioceses that no longer feel that they have a future in the Episcopal Church. That’s a tragedy,” said Rev. Kendall Harmon, a theologian in the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina. “Now, we also have a bigger group that’s trying to organize, link with the Global South and compete as Anglicans within the same territory. It will be interesting to see how the leadership of the Anglican Communion responds to this.”

Read the whole article.

Greg Griffith: So not just from a conceptual standpoint, but really from an official standpoint, the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth is not a creation of General Convention.

Bishop Iker: Not at all. If it’s a “creation” of anything, it’s a creation of the Diocese of Dallas, which decided for missionary and church growth purposes that they would divide the diocese in two. Two-thirds of the geographical area remained the diocese of Dallas. They wanted to create a new diocese which at the time didn’t have a name; it was referred to as the “western diocese,” so the first convention had to, among other things, choose our name – it wasn’t given to us by someone else. There were several proposals, and the vote was that we call ourselves the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth.

Greg Griffith: Provided the resolutions at your convention pass, you’ll be joining Bishop Schofield and San Joaquin, Bishop Duncan and Pittsburgh, as well as the diocese of Quincy, which voted yesterday, in a realignment with the Southern Cone under Archbishop Venables. I think we have to be candid and say that’s probably it for the near term – that’s probably all the dioceses that will be aligning with the Cone for the time being.

Bishop Iker: I think so. It’s interesting, though, that historically to form a new province it’s been customary to have 4 dioceses.

Read it all.

Five years ago, General Convention threw a match onto a gasoline-soaked garage floor, instigating a chain of events of which the secession of Quincy is now the latest link. At the very least, we are witnessing a series of rebellions that might plausibly be interpreted as one Big Rebellion in several parts. The hope of dioceses like Quincy (along with San Joaquin, Pittsburgh, and Fort Worth) is that they are part of a larger movement of realignment within Anglicanism, the end of which will result in a new Anglican province on North American soil, one that will be institutionally unconnected from both the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada. Several other Anglican provinces are cooperating with this movement: the Southern Cone, obviously, by providing a temporary insitutional haven, but also all the groups that fall under the umbrella known as GAFCON (from their initial gathering in Jerusalem this past summer, the Global Anglican Futures Conference). This big tent includes the Anglican Mission in American (AMiA, connected to Rwanda), the Convocation of Anglicans in North American (CANA, connected to Nigeria), and a smattering of parishes that have come under the aegis of Uganda.

So far, then, what we have is a rebellion in progress. But the hope of what we might call the realignment community is that it will continue to grow”“both by continuing to peel off dioceses and parishes from TEC (and its Canadian equivalent) and by growing their parishes, both in size and number”“and that TEC will continue to decline (by ongoing loss of dioceses and parishes and by stagnation in spiritual and financial vitality) to an envisaged tipping point, at which it will simply be a fait accomplait, with or without any official pronouncement from Canterbury or elsewhere, that TEC has been replaced as the holder of the Anglican franchise in this country.

Read it all.

All of the $260,000 the reorganizing Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin expects to collect next year in assessment income will be allocated to its ongoing court battle with the leadership of the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin. Delegates approved the measure during the diocese’s Oct. 24-26 convention.

Read it all.

The Episcopal Church’s Executive Council October 23 renewed its ongoing support of dioceses in which the leadership has left or plans to leave the church, and pledged the church to seek reconciliation “without precondition on our part.”

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told council members that she appreciated their sense that irreconcilable differences are inconsistent with the gospel. “It is profoundly unchristian and unhopeful to say that differences can be irreconcilable,” she said.

House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson echoed that sentiment during a post-meeting news conference, noting that the remaining members of the Diocese of San Joaquin “have done some very, very hard work ”¦ in reconciliation in trying to draw in people who were, shall we say, on the fence.” Executive Council said October 23 that “it stands ready to help,” Anderson added.

During the closing sessions of its four-day meeting in Helena, the seat of the Diocese of Montana, the council passed four resolutions that speak to various aspects of its commitment to the new leadership of the dioceses of Pittsburgh and San Joaquin, as well as to other “similarly situated dioceses.”

Read it all.