On Saturday, delegates at both conventions noticed old friends were missing — and they felt the loss.

“Certainly, when a loved one dies, you want to move on. Yet it’s hard to transition from a deep relationship when they aren’t there,” said the Rev. Bill Gandenberger, assistant to Bishop John-David Schofield, leader of the breakaway diocese that held its convention in Fresno.

“It takes time. You can’t shake someone out of grief,” Gandenberger said.

Bishop Jerry Lamb, leader of the Episcopal diocese that held its convention in Hanford, said he also felt sorrow. Last week, Lamb began the process to suspend 36 priests and 16 deacons over charges they abandoned the Episcopal Church by taking part in removing the diocese from the Episcopal Church and repudiating the authority of the church.

“There’s a lot of personal sadness and sorrow seeing relationships end,” Lamb said.

Read it all.

The Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin today determined that sixteen deacons and thirty-six priests had abandoned the communion of the Episcopal Church. Findings against each of the fifty-two clergy were based on specific violations of the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church related to their support of attempts to remove the diocese from the Episcopal Church, and their repudiation of the ecclesiastical authority of the Episcopal Church and the diocese.

Should the bishop concur with these findings, the clergy will be inhibited and not allowed to function as an Episcopal priest or deacon, or be employed by an Episcopal congregation. Episcopal Church law provides clergy six months to recant and return to the Episcopal Church. Clergy who do not recant will be removed from the ministry of the Episcopal Church.

Read it all.

Next weekend’s local diocesan conventions for Anglicans and Episcopalians will be times for celebrations — and not to look back at the rift that led the Anglicans to break away from the U.S. Episcopal Church. Spiritually, both sides are getting past the split and moving in new directions.
“It’s a lot more celebration; a lot less business,” says the Rev. Bill Gandenberger, a spokesman for the Anglicans.

A spokesman for the Episcopalians, the Rev. Mark Hall, says, “People now are talking and having a good time building for unity and good conversation.”

Both sides previously made up the Fresno-based Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin. In December, however, it became the first U.S. diocese to secede from the Episcopal Church since the Civil War over differences about homosexuality and interpretation of the Bible.

Read it all.

Read it all.

Each [side] says it’s the only true Diocese of San Joaquin.

As in a bitter divorce, each claims to be noble but wronged. One has the house, the other, at least for now, rents an apartment with help from Mom. Though children struggle with loss, each spouse is glad to be free.

“We have that kind of fervor that you would have found in the early church,” said Nancy Key, spokesman for the reorganized Episcopal diocese

The other side is no less exuberant.

“We’ve been able to get about the gospel and doing our work as a church without being distracted by the kinds of arguments that folks seem to want to get into in the Episcopal Church. We’re not about trying to change the church. We are trying to be the church as best we can and as imperfect as it is,” said Rev. Carlos Raines, who has remained rector of St. James Cathedral.

When the diocese voted in september 42 of 48 parishes chose to leave the Episcopal Church, leaving six buildings in Episcopal hands and fragments of other congregations in community centers or rented churches.

Although much about San Joaquin’s experience is unique, its story is instructive about the problems that may lie ahead for the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, which will vote Saturday on whether to join San Joaquin in seceding.

Read it all.

A California Superior Court judge ordered that endowment assets be divided between the two dioceses of San Joaquin in a decision filed Aug. 25.

Last December, deputies to the annual convention of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin voted overwhelmingly to disaffiliate from the General Convention and to come under the primatial oversight of the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone in South America. In March, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori reconstituted an Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin consisting of those clergy, parishes and individuals that did not wish to leave. The Episcopal diocese sued the Anglican diocese in June for control of the endowment.

Read it all.

The Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, based in Stockton, is planning a second go-round for priests and deacons to clarify whether they wish to remain in the U.S. Episcopal Church.

Bishop Jerry Lamb of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin says “roughly a third” of the 110 priests and deacons responded to letters mailed July 10 asking them to clarify their status with the denomination. The deadline was Aug. 5. Lamb says he planned this week to send a second letter because of the low response.

Read it all and there is much more here.

But why now? And is Bishop Lamb possibly hoisting himself on his own petard here? Word has it that he is planning a “diocesan convention,” to be held in Hanford in October””conveniently the same weekend that the Southern Conites are planning theirs in Fresno (45 miles away). We’re back to the “you can’t have it both ways” situation that I outlined here. If Bishop Lamb wants to maintain the fiction that his “diocese” is indeed the rightful manifestation of the entity that existed as the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin prior to December 8 of last year, then every member of the clergy whom he does not depose is presently “in good standing,” and entitled to seat, voice, and vote at any convention of the diocese. The total of those so eligible is in the neighborhood of 110. According to the constitution of the diocese (as it read prior to December 8), a quorum of clergy for the transaction of business would be 37, give or take. He doesn’t have that many, but he could be within striking distance if he can cull the total in order to reduce the number needed for a quorum. So there’s some incentive to “downsize.”

Of course, there is also a quorum requirement in the lay order. In San Joaquin, this requires the registered presence of at least one elected delegate from one-third of the congregations that are in union with the diocese. Since the story that they’re sticking to is that dioceses can’t leave TEC, and therefore ADSJ hasn’t, then that means none of the parishes have either. (See the cyber-version of the Episcopal Church Annual””aka the Red Book. The page for the Diocese of San Joaquin lists nearly all the congregations that were part of the pre-12/8/07 entity, including a direct link to the website of my former parish, which, when one clicks on it, reveals a congregation that is very much gone from the Episcopal Church! The irony is mind-boggling.) So there would need to be at least one delegate from some 15 congregations in order to have a valid convention. This is a harder nut to crack, since a bishop cannot just “depose” a congregation. It takes an act of convention. But if there’s no quorum, there’s no convention. To top it all off, there is some question whether all the congregations Bishop Lamb claims are part of his diocese have even been informed officially of the upcoming convention, such notice being required by diocesan canons. And this is to say nothing of the congregations (four, as I count them) that were “planted” by the EDSJ after the split; this only raises the threshold for a canonical quorum. Want some Dramamine?

Read it all.

Bishop Lamb noted that his efforts to communicate with alienated clergy have been hampered by the fact that he does not have an updated list of clergy and addresses. That information remains in the possession of the Anglican Diocese of the San Joaquin, led by Bishop John-David Schofield.

On Aug. 4, Bishop Schofield, his standing committee and diocesan council wrote to Bishop Lamb informing him that “we accept the recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury of our bishop and reject any purported authority of The Episcopal Church, or Bishop Jerry Lamb, over any of our ministries. Our obligation is to conform to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the world-wide Anglican Communion.”

Bishop Lamb expressed cautious optimism about the Windsor Continuation Group proposals unveiled during the Lambeth Conference.

Read it all.

On July 10th, the Right Revd Jerry Lamb, putative bishop of the putative “Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin”, wrote this letter to the clergy of the diocese as it was constituted prior to December 8, 2007. It gave August 5th as the deadline for receiving responses from said clergy as to their intentions with respect to their future relationship to the Episcopal Church. Apparently it was not a precision operation. I know of at least two female deacons who were addressed as “Dear Father N.” I also know of two presbyters who never received the letter.

In any case, I am given to understand that the Standing Committee of the (rogue and illicit) Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin is set to meet this Friday. One might reasonably presume that their agenda includes taking notice of responses received and not received by last week’s deadline. One might further presume that a goodly number of letters will be in the mail shortly informing their recipients that they have been deposed from the ordained ministry as the Episcopal Church understands ordained ministry.

Read it all.

Read it all.

Officials with the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin sought to dismiss persistent rumors that Bishop John-David Schofield of the Anglican diocese will be uninvited at the last minute to the Lambeth Conference of bishops.

“Rumors are just that,” said the Rev. Canon Bill Gadenberger, canon to the ordinary of the Anglican diocese. “The invitation is still valid. Yet much is still happening, GAFCON was fantastic and gives us much of what we need for the future…

“I must remain to do other important ministry here, such as our youth leadership camp, Camp H2O,” he said. “Bishop Schofield has tickets to leave for London next week,” Canon Gandeberger said via e-mail on July 13.

Read it all.

According the Anglican San Joaquin diocese’s web site, Schofield allowed individuals and parishes that wanted to remain with the Episcopal Church to do so and to keep all their real and personal property.

The Episcopal House of Bishops, meeting in Texas on March 12, voted to depose Schofield from ordained ministry. Subsequently, the parishes and individuals that opted to remain with the Episcopal Church formed the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin and approved the Right Rev. Jerry Lamb as their provisional bishop. In April, the Episcopal diocese filed a lawsuit against Schofield in Fresno County Superior Court to reclaim the possessions and real property, including the diocesan chancery office, still in possession of the Anglican diocese.

According to the Anglican San Joaquin diocese, in March, St. Andrew’s Mission in Taft was one of the churches to sign new by-laws declaring itself Anglican. But, in late May, 11 of the mission’s members held a reportedly unpublicized meeting with an representative of Lamb’s, and a majority of those present (9-2) voted to join the Episcopal diocese. The mission’s junior warden said he did not know of the meeting until one hour before it occurred. After the meeting, both the junior warden and the mission’s treasurer resigned.

Read it all.

All actions taken by the Diocese of San Joaquin were authorized by its governing bodies, namely, its Standing Committee and its Diocesan Council, along with Bishop Schofield. These actions were done in complete compliance with California law and were done to secure the property until a California court can rule on the issue of ownership. One of these actions was to retitle accounts held at Merrill Lynch; assets were not moved from Merrill Lynch. The property in question is owned by the Diocese and its parishes and not the Episcopal Church. The Diocese expects a favorable ruling by the California court on the issues of property ownership.

The Diocese of San Joaquin is a California unincorporated association that is governed by the California Corporations Code and its own internal Constitution and Canons (akin to bylaws). The Diocese is a corporate person; a legal entity recognized by the civil courts. In California, an unincorporated association is governed by majority vote of its members. There is nothing in the governing documents of the Episcopal Church which forbade or limited the right of the Diocese of San Joaquin from withdrawing and taking its property with it.

Read it all.

The Episcopal Church has expanded its lawsuit against a deposed bishop who led a secession movement prompted by the church’s ordination of women and gays.

Church officials say in court documents that John-David Schofield attempted to transfer titles to at least three parishes worth several million dollars to an outside holding company he formed in April.

Read it all.

The legal tangle between the dioceses of San Joaquin – one Episcopal, one Anglican – has brought an allegation of wrongdoing against the financial investment firm Merrill Lynch.

In its quest to regain control over millions of dollars’ worth of real estate and investments, the fractured Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin has amended a lawsuit it filed in April against its former bishop, John-David Schofield, to include as defendants Merrill Lynch and the nonprofit Anglican Diocese Holding Corp., which is newly formed by Schofield.

Read the whole article.

The San Joaquin Diocese, which covers Lodi to Bakersfield and east to Mammoth Lakes and Ridgecrest, split this year over what Schofield perceives as a growing liberalization of the national Episcopal Church. Schofield strongly opposed the consecration of V. Eugene Robinson, an openly gay man, as bishop of New Hampshire. Schofield maintains that Robinson’s appointment violates scripture.

That means there are two San Joaquin Dioceses, one that is Episcopal and one that is Anglican under the Southern Cone. The Episcopal San Joaquin Diocese reorganized on March 29 in Lodi and appointed Jerry Lamb as the new bishop.

The new Lodi congregation will be a “mission church” sponsored by St. Mary’s Anglican Church in Manteca. Riggsby said he has served at St. Mary’s and an Episcopal church in Copperopolis.

Riggsby said he has no intention of attracting conservatives away from St. John’s Episcopal Church.

“We’re not anti-Episcopal,” he said. “I’d like to work with them. I’m not going to lay my beliefs like a sledgehammer.”

Read it all.

Received Via Email:

To the clergy and parishioners of San Joaquin –

We recognize that the news of a lawsuit from the Presiding Bishop and the representatives of Remain Episcopal in Stockton, may be unsettling.
However, please be assured that we have been expecting this litigation and the contents contain no surprises. Please know that our legal team has been at work for some time. They are optimistic and remain unperturbed by The Episcopal Church’s most recent action. What our legal counsel has accomplished on our behalf is already proving most helpful in defense of property and assets despite the fact that this preparatory work had to be done without the benefit of seeing what the Episcopal Church intended to do.

Furthermore, I want to remind you that in spite of the claims by The Episcopal Church, nothing in their current Constitution and Canons prohibits a diocese from leaving one province and moving to another.

Also, just as we stood together for the sake of our witness to the Gospel at our Convention in December, so now will we continue to stand together for that same witness. I will continue to respond to those who disagree with us in a Christian and charitable manner and I trust that you will, as well.

Thank you for the trust that you have placed in me as your bishop and senior pastor, and know that I will continue to honor that trust with God’s help.

Faithfully, yours in Christ,

+John-David

The Rev. Canon William Gandenberger, canon to the ordinary for the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin, said the legal filing by representatives from the newly constituted Episcopal diocese was not unexpected.

“I have been in contact with our chancellor and we are prepared to respond,” Canon Gandenberger said. “We have numerous options and we are looking at all of them carefully.” No decision has been made at this time, he added, noting that the diocese is currently preoccupied with preparations to welcome Presiding Bishop Gregory Venables. As primate of the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone, Bishop Venables claims primatial oversight of the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin and has welcomed Bishop Schofield as a full member of that province’s House of Bishops.

Read it all.

The Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin has filed a lawsuit against a deposed bishop who tried to secede from the church last fall to protest the ordination of women and gays.

According to the lawsuit filed Thursday in Fresno Superior Court, John-David Schofield breached his duties to the church last December when he broke from the U.S. Episcopal Church and placed San Joaquin’s parishioners, property and endowments in the hands of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone of America, based in Buenos Aires.

The diocese, which serves nearly 9,000 parishioners in the Central Valley from Lodi to Bakersfield, split into camps following the 2003 ordination of the Right Rev. V. Gene Robinson, a gay man, in New Hampshire.

His consecration has divided the nation’s 2.5 million Episcopalians between those who applaud the changes and others who interpret Scripture to bar gay relationships.

Read it all.

Update: An AP article is there.

Something mysterious (well, not really—but read on) has happened with regard to the corporate entity recognized under California law as the religious corporation sole associated with the Diocese of San Joaquin. Under California law, a “corporation sole” is a special kind of corporation—with just one shareholder, one officer and one director, who are all one and the same person—that can be formed by “a bishop . . . of any religious denomination, society, or church, for the purpose of administering and managing the affairs, property, and temporalities thereof.” (Calif. Corp. Code section 10002.)

There has been a corporation sole for the Diocese of San Joaquin in California ever since 1911. Each time a new bishop is elected, there is an amendment to the articles filed by the new bishop, naming him as the successor to the position. When the Rt. Rev. John-David Schofield was elected Bishop in 1988, the articles were amended (albeit in 1992); and preceding the first convention vote in December 2006 to change the Diocesan Constitution, the articles of the corporation sole were amended in March 2006 to change the method of electing his successor. (That amendment caused four other Episcopal Bishops in California to issue an ultimatum to Bishop Schofield that they would file a presentment against him unless he rescinded the changes—the documents may be seen here.) On January 22, 2008, Bishop Schofield filed another amendment to the articles, changing the name of the corporation from “The Protestant Episcopal Bishop of San Joaquin, a Corporation Sole” to “The Anglican Bishop of San Joaquin, a Corporation Sole.”

Now, quietly and without any fanfare, the Secretary of State’s Web site lists the corporation again under a new name as of April 8, 2008: the name has changed back to “The Protestant Episcopal Bishop of San Joaquin, a Corporation Sole”. Further research with this filing shows that it lists the sole member of the corporation as the Rt. Rev. Jerry A. Lamb, in Stockton, California, and that its agent for service of process is attorney Michael Glass of San Rafael, California.

Read it carefully and read it all.

Leaving aside the obvious problems with such a claim, let us, for the sake of discussion, simply grant it. One would think that–simply for the sake of appearances, to say nothing of legal strategy–it would then be in 815’s best interests to establish as much continuity as possible between the “new” DSJ–i.e. the one configured at the Lodi convention of March 29 of this year–and the “old” DSJ, that is, the one that was spun off as a Missionary District from the Diocese of California 97 years ago. One would think that it would be in the best interest of the Presiding Bishop and her counsel to be able to credibly say, “Several individuals have left, but the diocese remains. Look: We have retained eleven congregations, including the three largest ones, representing over half of the average Sunday attendance of the diocese. We have retained the most senior clergy, and six of the eight members of the Standing Committee, who have assured us that once Bishop Schofield resigns or is lawfully deposed, they will step in and perform their canonical duty. The Diocese of San Joaquin is still vital, diverse, and financially viable without any outside help.”

The ability to say all of this was within 815’s grasp. But, for reasons that I could only speculate about, they looked a Public Relations gift horse in the mouth and sent it packing. They rejected continuity, and chose instead to confect a new DSJ out of whole cloth, with only a little decorative embroidery from had come before. The fact that there is not the shred of a canonical basis for doing what they have done seems to count for nothing; what’s new is new and what’s done is done. The rule of law has been thrown under the bus of expediency.

The irony in all of this, and the actual point of this post, is that, in rejecting the path of maximum continuity, maximum numerical strength, and maximum credibility in the eyes a watching Anglican world, 815 has undercut its own Prime Directive than “only individuals can leave.” By their actions in electing to start over from scratch, they have tacitly admitted that the Diocese of San Joaquin did, in fact, leave the Episcopal Church. Why else would they have taken such pains to invent a new one–a new one that is every bit as ideologically monochrome as they accuse the old one of being, a new one that has retained not even a vestige of institutional or administrative continuity with the old one, and a new one that is wholly dependent on 815’s financial largesse and will, in effect, be a client diocese for as long as it is allowed to exist?

Apparently, dioceses can leave the Episcopal Church. One just did, and they made a new one to replace it.

Read it all.

No matter how thin Occam’s razor slices the voting at the recent HoB meeting, one thing is painfully clear.

This vote does not pass the…[impropriety] test. It stinks.

It is so…[poorly done] and weak to go forward on voice vote only, for of course, there would be No recorded vote, so:

1) No one knows how many were in the house to vote on the motion.
2) No one knows how many in the house were entitled to vote.
3) No one knows how may voted for the motion.
4) No one knows who voted for the motion
5) No one knows if any of the bishops who were present but not entitled to vote, voted anyway, for one mumbled “Aye” sounds much like another.
6) …[It appears] the bishops there made sure that they have their political shelter of plausible deniability in place.

—Scottsreb in a comment on a previous thread about San Joaquin

As for a proposed alternative course, I would respond, “What [another name deleted] said,” only raise him a level. I don’t think a telephone poll is a good enough response. It doesn’t address the root problem, which is that, technically, there was a valid vote on the question of deposing Bishop Schofield, and the motion failed. That question is therefore settled: He is not deposed, because the number of Aye votes was less than a majority of “the whole number…entitled to vote”. (This, BTW, is precisely what prevented the legitimate Standing Committee of San Joaquin from stepping in an assuming the role of Ecclesiastical Authority; I have it on good authority that they were within a hair-trigger of doing so when the procedural fiasco was revealed, preventing them from acting.) What the PB needs to do is invite the Title IV Review Committee to provide a finding of abandonment with a fresh date (this should not be too difficult), get the three Seniors to consent to an inhibition, serve said inhibition, and bring the matter before the September HOB meeting in Utah, with the understanding of the level of consent needed for a valid deposition. The case of Bishop Cox is more complicated, because the PB neglected her canonical duty of inhibiting him before brining the question before the House, so there was no valid vote, whatever the outcome. So, once again, we need a fresh finding from the Review Committee (a five-minute conference call should suffice), and then the whole rest of the process. Yes, this sounds fastidious to an onerous degree. But nothing other than this course of action will serve to restore trust that the leaders of this Church are committed to abiding by the rules of this Church. Anything less will only hasten the political meltdown that we are in the middle of.

Read it all.

One notes that the requirement that a full majority of all the Bishops entitled to vote in the House of Bishops—both active and retired (or “resigned”, as they now say)—has been with us since the very first abandonment canon was adopted in 1853. I shall return to this legislative history in a later comment about the procedural violations that have occurred in the cases of Bishops Schofield and Duncan. But my next post (when it is ready) will show how the (ab)use of the abandonment canons has lately been greatly expanded, to the detriment of the Church and its polity.

Read it all carefully.

The following editorial originally appeared on page 10 of the April 13, 2008 issue of The Living Church, an independent weekly magazine supporting catholic Anglicanism. It is reprinted by permission. If you wish to cite it, could you please include this heading and this blog as a source–KSH.

Inconsistent Treatment

The unusual occurrence of the House of Bishops voting to depose two of its members [TLC, April 6] has pointed out some inconsistencies in the application of canon law. Following the decision by the bishops to depose bishops John-David Schofield and William Cox, questions arose as to whether canon law was followed correctly. At issue is whether there were enough bishops present to be able to take action against these two bishops. The matter is complicated. Title IV, Canon 9, Section 2 of the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church states that a vote to depose requires “a majority of the whole number of bishops entitled to vote.”

Because only 131 bishops registered for the gathering held last month at Camp Allen in the Diocese of Texas and at least 15 of them left before the vote to depose took place, and because there were 294 bishops entitled to voted on March 12 when the decision was made, it would appear that the depositions are invalid, for those in attendance were only about a third of the number of those entitled to vote.

Since the voting took place, several bishops have said that those present on March 12 were told that canonical procedures were being followed, and that there were no challenges to the procedure that was used. Later, David Booth Beers, the Presiding Bishop’s chancellor, said the vote conformed to the canons. He said the canon meant a majority of those bishops present rather than all of the bishops eligible to vote.

We are concerned about an apparent inconsistency by some church leaders in dealing with canons. When the Diocese of South Carolina sought consents for its bishop-elect to be consecrated, the canons were applied with great detail when it was decided that procedures had not been followed correctly. The same diligence to canon law should have been given to decisions as important as these depositions.

The casual treatment of canon law in the depositions does not bode well for the future. With the possibility of similar action to be taken against more bishops and other clergy, it is necessary that all involved have a clear understanding of how the Title IV canons are to be applied. If the canons are unclear in their language, then someone needs to take the lead in getting them clarified, for there is much at stake.

Is there anyone out there who can show, based on the language of the canons themselves, and the language of the history and explanation of the Canon in White and Dyckman, the standard reference work on the canons, that the canons were followed in these two depositions?

I have seen much special pleading, dodging, and sophistry, but I have seen not one case of such a defense from anyone including the presiding Bishop’s Chancellor.

People who claim to speak for justice and polity continue to undermine their own witness and credibility in this matter and the clock is ticking–KSH.

At Preludium, the Rev. Mark Harris offers an argument why the deposition is supposedly effective. I greatly admire Mark, but in this case he appears to be abandoning judgment in favor of wishful thinking. Mark writes:

To read “whole number” as meaning a reference back to all the possible bishops (300 or so) absent or present would provide the parliamentary boondoggle of making some votes based not on those present but on those possibly present. One might suppose it would be a virtue of any democratic system to insist that a majority vote ought to be on the basis of the whole body of voters on the rolls, but it would be a virtue that would either require compelling voters to be present or it would be increasingly unmanageable.

Nonsense. Requiring certain actions to be approved by a stated percentage of an entire body is a common procedural safeguard. For example, if the U.S.
Senate wishes to remove a president from office (after impeachment by the House), a full 2/3 of all sitting senators must vote to convict, not just 2/3 of those senators present. If the Congress wishes to override a presidential veto, a full 2/3 of the entire membership of each house must approve the override. These requirements are hardly parliamentary boondoggles.

Mark writes:

The whole number of persons eligible to be present at the meeting is the list of 300. The list of bishops eligible to vote at the meeting are (i) persons present and (ii) persons part of the whole list.

If this were true, then the definition of a quorum in Art I.2 would be incoherent: ”A majority of all Bishops entitled to vote, exclusive of Bishops who have resigned their jurisdiction or positions, shall be necessary to constitute a quorum for the transaction of business.”

Under Mark’s argument, testing whether a quorum was present would entail counting up those bishop-voters who happened to be present, and then determining whether a majority of them were present. That, however, implies that the remaining minority of bishop-voters were somehow both present and not present at the same time. (Insert here your favorite joke about boring meetings.)

I would like nothing better than to see +Schofield defrocked and, independently, stripped in civil court of every stick of diocesan property he controls. But we need to face the facts: The deposition motion failed for lack of the required number of votes.

Read it all.

Then on the Stand Firm thread Commenter “Chancellor” adds this very helpful history of the applicable Canon:

A little history may be helpful here. From White and Dykman (1981 ed.), Vol. II, pp. 1079-80 (with emphases added):

The first canonical enactment on the subject of the “Abandonment of the Communion of the Church by a Bishop” was Canon 1 of 1853, which read as follows:

In all cases where a Bishop, Presbyter or Deacon of this Church . . . has abandoned her Communion . . . either by an open renunciation of the
Doctrine, Discipline and Worship of this Church, or by a formal admission into any religious body not in Communion with the same: such Bishop, Presbyter
or Deacon . . . shall thereupon be pronounced deposed; . . . and if a Bishop, by the Presiding Bishop, with the consent of the majority of the Members of the
House of Bishops.

. . .

This canon was enacted to meet the case of Bishop Ives of North Carolina, who, on December 22, 1852, renounced the communion of the Protestant Episcopal
Church and submitted himself to the authority of the Church of Rome. No canon on this subject had before been enacted, as there had been no need thereof . . . .

It was recognized that the canon, hastily enacted to meet an emergency, was far from perfect . . . . In the revision of the canons by [the] Convention [of 1859],
Canon 1 of 1853 was made Title II, Canon 8, and amended to read as follows:

If any Bishop . . . abandon the Communion of this Church, either by an open renunciation of the doctrine, discipline, and worship of this Church,
or by formal admission into any religious body not in communion with the same, it shall be the duty of the Standing Committee of the Diocese to make certificate
of the fact to the Senior Bishop . . .

Notice shall then be given to said Bishop . . . that unless he shall, within six months, make declaration that the facts alleged in said certificate are false, he will
be deposed from the Ministry of this Church.

And if said declaration be not made within six months as aforesaid, it shall be the duty of the Senior Bishop with the consent of the majority of the House of Bishops,
to depose from the Ministry the Bishop so certified as abandoning . . . .

It has thus been the case ever since the first version of the “abandonment” canon was adopted that a majority of the House of Bishops was required to consent to the
deposition of a Bishop.

Read it all carefully.

A strong majority of the 7,500 Episcopalians in San Joaquin’s 47 churches voted last December to follow Bishop John-David Schofield out the door and align with conservatives in the Argentina-based Anglican Church of the Southern Cone. They and other conservatives disagree with the U.S. church on issues of homosexuality and the authority of Scripture.

Schofield and the dissident congregations continue to occupy San Joaquin property, while Episcopal leaders maintain it belongs to the Episcopal Church.

Both Schofield and the conservative dissidents say because they left the Episcopal Church, they are not bound by the new bishop or impacted by his election.

Meanwhile, about 300 Episcopalians, 70 of whom were convention delegates representing 18 congregations, turned out to elect Lamb and begin rebuilding their diocese.

“Right now we’re trying to build a diocese with cell phones, Blackberries and cars,” said Lamb.

Read it all.