The lack of debt relief to the distressed households is the reason why this financial crisis is becoming more severe and the economic recession – with a sharp fall now in real consumption spending – now worsening. The fiscal actions taken so far (income relief to households via tax rebates) and bailouts of distressed financial institutions (Bear Stearns creditors’ bailout, Fannie and Freddie and AIG) do not resolve the fundamental debt problem for two reasons. First, you cannot grow yourself out of a debt problem: when debt to disposable income is too high increasing the denominator with tax rebates is ineffective and only temporary; i.e. you need to reduce the nominator (the debt). Second, rescuing distressed institutions without reducing the debt problem of the borrowers does not resolve the fundamental insolvency of the debtor that limits its ability to consume and spend and thus drags the economy into a more severe economic contraction.

So of the five possible uses of fiscal policy – income relief to households (the 2008 tax rebate), rescue/bailout of financial institutions (Bears Stearns, Fannie and Freddie, AIG), purchase of assets of failed institutions (an RTC-like institution), recapitalization of undercapitalized financial institutions (an RFC-like institution), government purchase of distressed mortgages to provide debt relief to households (an HOLC-like institution) – the last option is the most important and effective to resolve this severe financial and economic crisis. During the Great Depression the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation was create[d] to buy mortgages from bank at a discount price, reduce further the face value of such mortgages and refinance distressed homeowners into new mortgages with lower face value and lower fixed rate mortgage rates. This massive program allowed millions of households to avoid losing their homes and ending up in foreclosure. The HOLC bought mortgages for two year and managed such assets for 18 year at a relatively low fiscal cost (as the assets were bought at a discount and reducing the face value of the mortgages allowed home owners to avoid defaulting on the refinanced mortgages). A new HOLC will be the macro equivalent of creating a large “bad bank” where the bad assets of financial institutions are taken off their balance sheets and restructured/reduced; thus it will be the macro equivalent of the “bad bank” that Lehman tried to create for its bad assets.

—Nouriel Roubini

The numbers really start to get interesting, however, when one looks at the geographical spread of the data, and considers the level of each diocese’s 2007 contribution to the TEC budget. Here is where the data starts to be telling: it shows that Bishop Duncan was deposed by a combination of the dioceses that are the biggest contributors overall to TEC, as well as by those that are in what has been called, in the political arena, the “blue-county corridors.” (Click here for an animated map of how these areas have changed in the presidential elections from 1960 to 2004. Are we surprised?)

Total contributions to TEC by “Yes” dioceses: $20,593,549 (72%)

Total contributions to TEC by “No” dioceses: $ 6,237,162 (22%)

Total contributions by unrepresented dioceses: $ 1,621,881 (6%)

Do you begin to see how TEC is run by the wealthiest players? Only fifty-four percent of the dioceses voted to depose Bishop Duncan, but they contribute 72% of the funds coming to TEC from all the dioceses.

Read it carefully and read it all.

I posted much of the following information in the entry below with the Excel spreadsheet of how the bishops voted on the question of deposing Bishop Duncan. Kendall has requested I make this a stand alone entry to ensure it gets visibility. –elfgirl
——

In working on putting the roll call vote data into spreadsheet format, and adding in information about absent diocesan bishops, and reviewing the total number of eligible bishops, etc. I made several startling discoveries.

1. If I correctly understand Louie Crew’s House of Bishops data, there were 290 TOTAL bishops that were entitled to vote at the HoB meeting. Only 127 bishops attended the HoB meeting, not even 50% of eligible bishops.

2. ONLY 56 TEC diocesan bishops (or “acting” diocesans, see note below) — representing exactly 50% of the 112 TEC dioceses — voted YES to depose Duncan. In the remaining 56 dioceses, the diocesan bishop either voted No, abstained, was absent, or the see of the diocese was vacant. The breakdown is as follows:

29 Diocesans / Acting Diocesans Voted NO
4 Abstained
17 diocesans were absent (TEC only counted 15 as absent, I’m not sure why there is a discrepancy)
(among the absent diocesans are at least 4 who would almost certainly have voted No (Ackerman, Iker, Duncan, Wimberly)

6 sees are vacant with no acting bishop (including PA since Bennison is inhibited and couldn’t vote)

Among “Acting Diocesans,” I’ve counted Lamb (San Joaquin), Frey (Rio Grande), MacDonald (Navajo), Buchanan (S. Virginia) all of whom attended the meeting.

3. Finally, something else is very striking. A few dioceses had extraordinary clout in the vote. A mere 6 dioceses (Los Angeles, New York, Washington, Connecticut, Chicago, North Carolina and Maine) accounted for 21 of the 88 YES votes (nearly 1/4 of the total Yes votes). Wow.

Comments and questions welcomed, but I’ll be traveling for 2 days and will not be able to reply quickly. –elfgirl

You’ll find all the details in the revised spreadsheet here:
http://kendallharmon.net/t19/media/Duncan_Deposition_Vote_(rev).xls

The House of Bishops believes that by this vote they have cancelled +Duncan’s ordinations as deacon, priest and bishop, and rendered him a layman in the church. For those of you who may have forgotten, Bishop Bob Duncan was not only the Episcopal Bishop of Pittsburgh, but is still the moderator of the Anglican Communion Network and moderator of the Common Cause Partners Federation. This last organization is seeking recognition from the GAFCON Primates’ Council as an orthodox Anglican Province for North America.

Immediately following Duncan’s deposition, Primate Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone (an Anglican province encompassing much of South America) announced that he and the Southern Cone House of Bishops welcomed Bishop Duncan in as a member of their Anglican province, thus preserving his holy orders as a bishop and giving him episcopal standing internationally.

Duncan’s alleged wrongdoing boils down to his being prophetic and speaking to TEC leadership that they have lost their spiritual legitimacy. For this truthful word they charged him with something he hadn’t done, leave TEC, so this was an execution based on anticipatory actions in the future. These allegations, without trial or proper procedures being followed, led to an ecclesiastical lynching, and 88 bishops of the church were the ones responsible.

We do applaud the 35 bishops who voted no the first time to the illegal actions taken. The Presiding Bishop announced in advance that she had reviewed all of the likely legitimate challenges to her proceedings and in anticipation found them failed. Her attempted refutation was based on her and her chancellors’ interpretation, and with a lynch mob dressed in Episcopal purple they were “somber and soberly” bent on getting their jobdone. Most people would take the plain meaning of the canons and bylaws, but she fashioned such mental gymnastics to justify setting aside the codified procedure that you might lose track of where she was going. She created ambiguity where there was none and then announced that in cases of ambiguity the final advantage had to rest with the presiding bishop’s point of view. In the United States there is a presumption of innocence until proven guilty, and any ambiguity goes to the accused, but not so in the Robespierre Court of the HOB. The bishop and Diocese of Albany issued in advance a well-reasoned letter of protest describing the faults of Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori’s process ….[which should be carefully digested by everyone].

Read it all.

Jim Naughton: There is the case made in blogs today that the House of Bishops ran afoul of its own rules in the Canons of the Church in deposing +Bob. The 5 day issue that Bp. Lawrence raised is one. Didn’t this deposition need to be looked at under diff canon? There is the notion screaming in the blogs today that +Bob’s deposition was done all wrong. Give us a sense of the actions taken.

Bp. Michael Smith: If you are referring to the notice being given 30 days prior and to the 3 senor bishops have to agree to inhibition prior to deposition, let me say this. Meeting notice wasn’t an issue. We knew it would be on the agenda at the September meeting. There were 2 challenges to the Presiding Bishop’s ruling on other two issues in question. I offered one (the need for the three Senior Bishops to agree to inhibition prior to deposition) and Bp. Mark Lawrence offered the second (with regard to the number of bishops needed to vote on this issue.) This is a contentious issue and area of great disagreement. In our system, there is no Supreme Court. In the context of any meeting we are free to challenge the Presiding Officer. We did that. We were overruled by 2/3 majority of this House. The ruling will stand. Eventually, General Convention will change those canons and/or clarify them….

Rich: Pittsburgh realigns and new diocese will be formed in TEC?
Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori: Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh will not go away even if convention will make the inappropriate vote to realign. One member of Standing Committee will remain within TEC (rumored to be the Rev. Jim Simon) and will be the center of the new diocese. People from across the aisle are rejecting realignment. They are coming together to act against and actively protest these schismatic actions. It is a vastly different situation than San Joaquin and we will move quickly to reestablish the diocese of Pittsburgh.

Read it carefully and read it all.

I write, therefore, to ask that you take immediate action in suspending the Episcopal Church from any further participation in activities of the Anglican Communion and in calling a meeting of the Primates to give formal recognition to a new Province in North America, as desired by the Common Cause Partners Federation. At that meeting the Primates must give guidance as to the future conduct of the Episcopal Church so as to enable it to return to the full fellowship of the Anglican Communion .

The action of Archbishop Gregory Venables in receiving Bishop Duncan as a member of the House of Bishops of the province of the Southern Cone should not be seen in any way as interference in another province, but as a fraternal act towards a brother who has, for a long time, been speaking out for biblical truth in a church which, by its teaching and actions, has been gradually separating itself from the rest of the Communion. He deserves our gratitude and full support.

You are in my prayers and those of many others, that you will have God’s wisdom and despatch in dealing with this further tear in the fabric of our Communion, especially in view of your own pleas for holy restraint at the Lambeth Conference.

Read it all.

Forward in Faith deplores the deposition by the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church of the Bishop of Pittsburgh, Robert William Duncan. Bishop Duncan is a faithful servant of the Lord Jesus Christ and a respected leader of faithful Anglicans both in and beyond The Episcopal Church. His summary deposition shows scant respect for due process and calls into question both the political wisdom and Christian charity of the Presiding Bishop. We welcome Bishop Duncan’s admission to the College of Bishops of the Southern Cone, and call upon all other orthodox bishops to assert their solidarity with him as a bishop in good standing in the Communion.

–(The Rt. Rev.) John Fulham

Chairman

Forward in Faith International

One consequence of TEC’s deposition of the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan—surely overlooked in the “prayerful” rush to judgment—is to confirm that The Episcopal Church is not a hierarchical organization.

How did that happen? I shall explain.

TEC is now forced to regard the see of Pittsburgh as vacant. And who can fill the vacant see? The Presiding Bishop? No. The House of Bishops? No. The House of Deputies? No. General Convention? No. The Executive Council? No. (I shall call all of these together “the usual suspects.”)

Answer: Only the clergy and parishioners of the Diocese of Pittsburgh can.

That’s some hierarchy. Were this the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope or a Cardinal would have a new bishop in the office on Monday.

Or consider this: who has the power to call a diocesan convention in Pittsburgh, now that there is no diocesan? Any of the usual suspects? No.

Answer: Only the Standing Committee of the Diocese, acting as the Ecclesiastical Authority when there is no bishop, can call a diocesan convention.

Again, that’s some hierarchy.

Read it all.

When government officials surveyed the flailing American financial system this week, they didn’t see only a collapsed investment bank or the surrender of a giant insurance firm. They saw the circulatory system of the U.S. economy — credit markets — starting to fail.

Huddled in his office Wednesday with top advisers, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson watched his financial-data terminal with alarm as one market after another began go haywire. Investors were fleeing money-market mutual funds, long considered ultra-safe. The market froze for the short-term loans that banks rely on to fund their day-to-day business. Without such mechanisms, the economy would grind to a halt. Companies would be unable to fund their daily operations. Soon, consumers would panic.
For at least a month, Mr. Paulson and Treasury officials had discussed the option of jump-starting markets by having the government absorb the rotten assets — mainly financial instruments tied to subprime mortgages — at the heart of the crisis. The concept, dubbed Balance Sheet Relief, was seen at Treasury as a blunt instrument, something to be used in only the direst of circumstances.

One day later, Mr. Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke sped to Congress to seek approval for the biggest government intervention in financial markets since the 1930s. In a private meeting with lawmakers, according to a person present, one asked what would happen if the bill failed.

“If it doesn’t pass, then heaven help us all,” responded Mr. Paulson, according to several people familiar with the matter.

Read it all from the front page of this morning’s Wall Street Journal.

Watch it all and please note the reference to “one veteran Senator” who described Thursday night’s meeting as the most sobering meeting had had been in on any topic in all his time in the nation’s capitol.

Take a look.

On Main Street, insurance protects people from the effects of catastrophes.

But on Wall Street, specialized insurance known as a credit default swaps are turning a bad situation into a catastrophe.

When historians write about the current crisis, much of the blame will go to the slump in the housing and mortgage markets, which triggered the losses, layoffs and liquidations sweeping the financial industry.

But credit default swaps — complex derivatives originally designed to protect banks from deadbeat borrowers — are adding to the turmoil.

“This was supposedly a way to hedge risk,” says Ellen Brown, the author of the book “Web of Debt.”

Read it all.

A massive truck bomb devastated the heavily guarded Marriott Hotel in Pakistan’s capital Saturday, killing at least 40 people and wounding at least 100. Officials feared there were dozens more dead inside the burning building.

The Marriott has been a favorite place for foreigners as well as Pakistani politicians and business people to stay and socialize in Islamabad despite repeated militant attacks.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast. But Pakistan has faced a wave of militant violence in recent weeks following army-led offensives against insurgents in its border regions.

The capital has not been spared, though Saturday’s blast appeared to be one of the largest ever terrorist attacks in the country.

The blast left a vast crater, some 30 feet deep in front of the main building, where flames poured from the windows and rescuers ferried bloodied bodies from the gutted building.

Read it all.

We’ve created an Excel Spreadsheet with the details of the Duncan Deposition Vote. This way you can sort the results by diocese, name, vote, position, etc.

http://kendallharmon.net/t19/media/Duncan_Deposition_Vote.xls

———————–
Update:
We’ve revised the spreadsheet this morning to add a few more absent diocesans we missed last night, and to clarify which dioceses are vacant. The second and third pages of the spreadsheet are entirely new.

The second page lists every TEC diocese, and how the bishops in that diocese voted.

The third page was my attempt, using Louie Crew’s House of Bishops data, to list the TOTAL number of bishops that were entitled to vote at the HoB meeting. If my understanding is correct, I came up with 290 eligible bishops. Only 127 bishops attended the HoB meeting, not even 50% of eligible bishops.

You’ll find all the details here:
http://kendallharmon.net/t19/media/Duncan_Deposition_Vote_(rev).xls

The revised table makes one thing clear: the diocesan bishops of ONLY 56 TEC dioceses — exactly 50% of the 112 TEC dioceses — voted YES to depose Duncan. The bishops of the remaining 56 dioceses either voted No, abstained, were absent, or the see of the diocese was vacant.

Also, something else is very striking, a few dioceses had extraordinary of clout in the vote. A mere 6 dioceses (Los Angeles, New York, Washington, Connecticut, Chicago, North Carolina and Maine) accounted for 21 of the 88 YES votes (nearly 1/4 of the total Yes votes). Wow.

Comments and quetions welcomed, but I’ll be traveling for 2 days and will not be able to reply quickly. –elfgirl

Peter Frank, the Communications Director for the Diocese of Pittsburgh sent us this note by e-mail:

Because we don’t have enough to do, we tossed together a website to display all of he supportive public statements we are getting. We are hoping to also publish individual notes of encouragement from clergy and laity all over the world for Bp. Duncan and our diocese.

The address is:
http://www.support-duncan.blogspot.com/

If you could point people to it and suggest they send us or Bp. Duncan a message of support, that would be great.

So, there you have it folks. Let Bishop Duncan and all in Pittsburgh know of your support and prayers in these momentous days. I’m headed over there to do so right now! — elfgirl

I would like to thank Dr. Gundersen, a church historian, for reviewing my recent paper, “Is The Episcopal Church Hierarchical?”. Reading her response, one could perhaps be forgiven when informed that my paper contains a “fatal flaw” for thinking that she had discovered that TEC’s constitution did in fact contain explicit technical legal language identifying General Convention as the supreme or highest authority. But she makes no such claim. Nor did she discover that the Church of England, contrary to the claims in my original paper, lacked a “Supremacy Act” and an “Oath of Supremacy” at the time TEC was being formed. Or that the governing legal instruments of other churches widely-regarded as hierarchical are actually devoid of the legally-precise hierarchical language identified in the original paper. Because those points are at the heart of the argument developed in that paper, one senses right away that the “fatal flaw” is unrelated to the main lines of the paper. What is not so quickly apparent, however, is that Dr. Gundersen’s critique itself contains a “fatal flaw”: she overlooks my discussion of the very topic she says is not there. It is Dr. Gundersen who engages in an anachronistic and legally uninformed reading of the text, and it is she who clearly misunderstands legal terminology, preferring to use colloquial definitions and references to an ordinary dictionary for the legal terminology analyzed in the original paper.

What follows is necessarily technical, but to avoid the anachronistic reading Dr. Gundersen gives the language in question some technical understanding is required….

Read it all and note that a fuller version with footnotes is available.

From the Lead, appended to an article on the post-HoB Press Conference. Here are the official minutes of the Business Session of the HoB Meeting including the roll call vote on the deposition of Bp. Duncan

House of Bishops Business Meeting
Little America Hotel, Salt Lake City, Utah
September 18, 2009

The business meeting of the House was called to order at 10:00 a.m. by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. Prayers were offered by Chaplain Carol Wade and the roll of bishops was called by Secretary Bishop Kenneth Price. It was determined that the 127 bishops present represented significantly more than a quorum. Bishop Clifton Daniel moved, on behalf of the Dispatch of Business Committee, the agenda for the day. It was adopted.

The Presiding Bishop then recognized Vice President Bishop Dick Chang who moved that the House go into a Committee of the Whole to discuss the matter of the deposition of Bishop Robert Duncan. Parliamentarian Bishop John Buchanan explained that as a Committee of the Whole no minutes would be taken and no motions made. The rest of the morning session was spent as a committee of the whole in which 21 bishops spoke. The morning section of the business session recessed for Holy Eucharist at 11:45 a.m. and lunch
.
The business session resumed at 2:00 and the Committee of the Whole continued with 14 more speakers. When no more speakers requested to be recognized the Presiding Bishop declared the Committee of the Whole to be ended and the following motion was made and seconded.

“RESOLVED, that pursuant to Canon IV.9.2 of the Episcopal Church, the House of Bishops hereby consents to the Deposition from the ordained ministry of the Rt. Rev. Robert W. Duncan, Bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh.”

The following explanation accompanied the resolution.

EXPLANATION: On December 17, 2007, the Title IV Review Committee certified to the Presiding Bishop, pursuant to Canon IV.9.1, that the Rt. Rev. Robert W. Duncan, Bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, had “abandoned the communion of this Church by an open renunciation of the Doctrine, Discipline or Worship of this Church.” In the intervening months since the Presiding Bishop gave notice to Bishop Duncan of the foregoing certification, Bishop Duncan has failed to submit to the Presiding Bishop sufficient retraction or denial of the actions found by the Title IV Review Committee. Accordingly, the Presiding Bishop has presented the matter to the House of Bishops and requested consent to Bishop Duncan’s Deposition.

Bishop William Love then called for division with the following statement:

“We the undersigned being voting members of the House of Bishops, hereby call for division of each and every vote of this House on any matter put to vote with respect to the status of the Bishop of Pittsburgh as a bishop and member of this House of Bishops and that each member’s vote, whether it be aye or nay, be entered in the journal.”

This above call was signed by Bishops William Love, James Adams, David Reed, Michael Smith, Edward Little, Geralyn Wolf, Mark Lawrence, John Howe and Bruce MacPherson. She ruled that the roll would be called on the final vote.

Bishop Michael Smith made a challenge was then made and seconded regarding the chair’s ruling that no inhibition was needed before the house considered deposition. The matter was put to a vote and more than the requisite 2/3 vote sustained her ruling.

Bishop Lawrence made a challenge was then made and seconded regarding the chair’s ruling that the requisite votes for deposition would be arrived at by a majority of the bishops eligible to vote who were present at this meeting. The matter was put to a vote and more than the requisite 2/3 vote sustained her ruling.

Prayer was then offered by Chaplain Carol Wade and the roll was called on the matter of the deposition of Bishop Robert Duncan. The motion passed by a vote of 88 Ayes. 35 Nays and 4 Abstentions. A complete list of the votes of the 127 bishops present is as follows:

RECORD OF VOTES CAST REGARDING THE DEPOSITION OF BISHOP DUNCAN

Consecration Number Consecration Date Name Role Diocese Vote re: Duncan
627 11/26/67 William Frey Assisting Rio Grande n
665 9/12/71 Otis Charles Resigned y
721 10/31/77 Bob Jones Resigned y
722 2/11/78 Robert Anderson Assistant Los Angeles y
779 1/21/84 James Ottley Assistant Long Island y
780 1/25/84 Leopold Frade Diocesan Southeast Florida y
785 5/19/84 Peter Lee Diocesan Virginia n
804 2/15/85 Allen Bartlett Resigned y
812 10/11/86 Arthur Williams Resigned y
819 2/24/87 E. Don Taylor Assistant New York y
830 9/27/88 C. Christopher Epting Bishop for Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations y
835 2/25/89 John Buchanan Assistant Southern Virginia y
839 4/15/89 John Howe Diocesan Central Florida n
844 8/20/89 Sergio Carranza Assistant Los Angeles y
854 3/24/90 Charles Keyser Assisting Florida y
861 1/26/91 Chester Talton Suffragan Los Angeles y
864 3/15/91 Victor Scantlebury Assistant Chicago y
865 3/23/91 Steven Charleston Assistant California y
868 6/9/91 Jerry Lamb Provisional Bishop of San Joaquin y
869 6/15/91 Alfred Marble Assisting North Carolina y
870 8/16/91 Julio Holguin Diocesan Dominican Republic a
872 2/29/92 Peter Beckwith Diocesan Springfield n
876 11/19/92 Jane Holmes Dixon Resigned y
879 3/6/93 James Stanton Diocesan Dallas n
883 9/11/93 F. Clayton Matthews Bishop for Pastoral Development y
885 10/29/93 James Jelinek Diocesan Minnesota y
891 4/17/94 Edwin Gulick Diocesan Kentucky y
894 5/24/94 Russell Jacobus Diocesan Fond du Lac a
900 10/29/94 Kenneth Price Suffragan Southern Ohio y
901 1/21/95 Henry Louttit Diocesan Georgia y
902 2/3/95 Dorsey Henderson Diocesan Upper South Carolina n
904 3/25/95 Vernon Strickland Resigned y
907 6/24/95 David Jones Suffragan Virginia y
909 10/21/95 Robert Ihloff Resigned y
912 1/27/96 Catherine Roskam Suffragan New York y
913 2/17/96 Geralyn Wolf Diocesan Rhode Island n
917 5/4/96 Andrew Smith Diocesan Connecticut y
918 5/31/96 Carolyn Irish Diocesan Utah y
919 6/29/96 Paul Marshall Diocesan Bethlehem y
922 9/21/96 Clifton Daniel Diocesan East Carolina y
924 10/12/96 Gordon Scruton Diocesan Western Massachusetts y
925 10/26/96 F. Neff Powell Diocesan Southwestern Virginia y
926 1/4/97 Richard S.O. Chang Resigned y
929 6/7/97 Catherine Waynick Diocesan Indianapolis y
930 6/28/97 C. Wallis Ohl Diocesan Northwest Texas n
933 9/13/97 Mark MacDonald Diocesan Navajoland a
934 9/26/97 Bruce Caldwell Diocesan Wyoming y
936 1/31/98 Charles Jenkins Diocesan Louisiana n
937 3/14/98 Barry Howe Diocesan West Missouri y
938 3/28/98 Chilton Knudsen Resigned y
939 4/25/98 Mark Sisk Diocesan New York y
940 6/6/98 Harry Bainbridge Diocesan Idaho y
942 10/10/98 John Rabb Suffragan Maryland n
944 2/27/99 Charles vonRosenberg Diocesan East Tennessee n
945 3/13/99 William Persell Resigned y
946 4/10/99 Keith Whitmore Assistant Atlanta y
947 4/24/99 J. Michael Garrison Diocesan Western New York y
949 10/9/99 D. Bruce MacPherson Diocesan Western Louisiana n
950 2/5/00 Wendell Gibbs Diocesan Michigan y
951 2/12/00 George Packard Bishop Suffragan for Chaplaincies n
952 3/18/00 Edward Little Diocesan Northern Indiana n
953 4/29/00 J. Jon Bruno Diocesan Los Angeles y
955 6/17/00 Michael Curry Diocesan North Carolina y
956 6/17/00 Duncan Gray Diocesan Mississippi n
957 9/23/00 William Gregg Assistant North Carolina y
958 9/30/00 Stacy Sauls Diocesan Lexington y
959 10/14/00 James Curry Suffragan Connecticut y
961 10/21/00 James Waggoner Diocesan Spokane y
963 2/24/01 Katharine Jefferts Schori Presiding Bishop y
965 4/28/01 Thomas Ely Diocesan Vermont y
966 5/12/01 Philip Duncan Diocesan Central Gulf Coast y
968 7/7/01 J. Neil Alexander Diocesan Atlanta y
969 7/14/01 Francisco Duque Diocesan Colombia y
970 10/13/01 William Klusmeyer Diocesan West Virginia n
971 10/20/01 Lloyd Allen Diocesan Honduras n
972 10/27/01 Gladstone Adams Diocesan Central New York y
973 11/18/01 Pierre Whalon Suffragan American Churches in Europe a
974 2/7/02 Marc Andrus Diocesan California y
975 3/2/02 G. Wayne Smith Diocesan Missouri y
976 3/16/02 James Adams Diocesan Western Kansas n
979 6/1/02 John Chane Diocesan Washington y
981 1/18/03 Gayle Harris Suffragan Massachusetts y
982 1/25/03 James Shand Diocesan Easton n
983 4/5/03 Alan Scarfe Diocesan Iowa n
984 11/28/97 David Alvarez Diocesan Puerto Rico y
985 9/13/03 Joe Burnett Diocesan Nebraska y
987 9/27/03 C. Franklin Brookhart Diocesan Montana n
989 10/4/03 Robert O’Neill Diocesan Colorado y
990 10/18/03 George Councell Diocesan New Jersey n
991 10/18/03 Steven Miller Diocesan Milwaukee n
992 11/1/03 S. Johnson Howard Diocesan Florida y
993 11/2/03 V. Gene Robinson Diocesan New Hampshire y
994 11/8/03 Dean Wolfe Diocesan Kansas y
995 2/21/04 Gary Lillibridge Diocesan West Texas n
996 4/24/04 Kirk Smith Diocesan Arizona y
997 4/17/04 Mark Hollingsworth Diocesan Ohio y
998 5/8/04 Michael Smith Diocesan North Dakota n
999 9/18/04 G. Porter Taylor Diocesan Western North Carolina y
1001 1/22/05 Bavi Rivera Suffragan Olympia y
1002 3/5/05 James Mathes Diocesan San Diego y
1003 6/11/05 E. Ambrose Gumbs Diocesan Virgin Islands n
1005 8/26/06 David Reed Suffragan West Texas n
1006 9/9/06 S. Todd Ousley Diocesan Eastern Michigan y
1007 9/16/06 William Love Diocesan Albany n
1008 9/30/06 Barry Beisner Diocesan Northern California y
1010 10/26/06 Nathan Baxter Diocesan Central Pennsylvania y
1011 1/6/07 Larry Benfield Diocesan Arkansas y
1012 1/27/07 Mark Beckwith Diocesan Newark y
1013 1/27/07 John Bauerschmidt Diocesan Tennessee n
1014 3/10/07 Dabney Smith Diocesan Southwest Florida n
1015 3/10/07 Robert Fitzpatrick Diocesan Hawaii y
1016 4/28/07 Thomas Breidenthal Diocesan Southern Ohio y
1017 5/26/07 Shannon Johnston Coadjutor Virginia n
1018 6/30/07 Laura Ahrens Suffragan Connecticut y
1019 9/8/07 Sean Rowe Diocesan Northwestern Pennsylvania y
1020 9/15/07 Edward Konieczny Diocesan Oklahoma n
1021 9/15/07 Gregory Rickel Diocesan Olympia y
1022 11/10/07 Mary Gray-Reeves Diocesan El Camino Real y
1023 1/5/08 Dan Edwards Diocesan Nevada y
1024 1/12/08 John McKee Sloan Suffragan Alabama n
1025 1/26/08 Mark Lawrence Diocesan South Carolina n
1026 2/2/08 Jeffrey Lee Diocesan Chicago y
1027 1/25/94 Sylvestre Romero Assisting New Jersey y
1028 5/3/08 Stephen Lane Diocesan Maine y
1029 5/31/08 Prince Singh Diocesan Rochester y
1030 6/28/08 Eugene Sutton Diocesan Maryland y
1031 7/12/08 Paul Lambert Suffragan Dallas n

.
The Rules of Order call for the introduction of new bishops at each business meeting. The Presiding Bishop had introduced them the day before. They are:

Bishop Steven Lane, Bishop Diocesan of Maine
Bishop Prince Singh, Bishop Diocesan of Rochester
Bishop Eugene Sutton, Bishop Diocesan of Maryland
Bishop Paul Lambert, Bishop Suffragan of Dallas

The Rev. Brian Thom, elected Bishop Diocesan of Idaho, was also introduced. His consents have been received but he is not yet consecrated.

The following bishops, who have died since our last meeting, also were remembered with a moment of silence. They are:

Bishop Robert Spears, Rochester, resigned
Bishop Ronald Haines, Washington, resigned
Bishop Frank Vest, Southern Virginia, resigned
Bishop Jose Gonzalez, Newark, resigned

As a communication from the Presiding Bishop, Bishop Jefferts Schori explained that in the matter of inhibited Bishop Charles Bennison of Pennsylvania, we are still waiting a verdict from the Trial Court. Bishop Allen Bartlett will continue serving as Assisting Bishop of the Diocese of Pennsylvania until December 31. The Presiding Bishop will meet with the Standing Committee on October 3 to discuss next steps.

After comments from six bishops regarding a desire to be clear in explaining the actions of the House regarding the deposition of Bishop Duncan, the House shared in prayer and took a brief break.

Bishop Chilton Knudsen, reporting for the Committee on the Resignation of Bishops,
moved that the resignations of Bishops Harry Bainbridge and Wallis Ohl both be accepted, the
canonical reason being “advanced age.” Both resignations were accepted.

The agenda as set forth in the Rules of Order is the reading of the minutes of the last meeting. Motion was made to dispense with this reading as the minutes are posted on the College of Bishop web site. Motion Passed.

Several announcements were made, Bishop Chris Epting reported on ecumenical and interreligious issues coming to General Convention. These include full communion with the Moravians, a modest proposal for relations with the Presbyterians and principles and approaches to be used in interreligious talks. He also announced his office is now in Omaha, Nebraska.

The Presiding Bishop then called on bishops to reflect on the actions of this meeting, and after 13 bishops spoke, the meeting was adjourned.

Respectfully submitted, Certified

Kenneth L. Price Jr., secretary James Mathes, chair,
House of Bishops Committee on Certification of Minute

Michael Smith
Committee on Certification of Minutes

It was a room full of people who rarely hold their tongues. But as the Fed chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, laid out the potentially devastating ramifications of the financial crisis before congressional leaders on Thursday night, there was a stunned silence at first.

Mr. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. had made an urgent and unusual evening visit to Capitol Hill, and they were gathered around a conference table in the offices of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“When you listened to him describe it you gulped,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York.

As Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, put it Friday morning on the ABC program “Good Morning America,” the congressional leaders were told “that we’re literally maybe days away from a complete meltdown of our financial system, with all the implications here at home and globally.”

I do not think many people realized just how serious the situation was on Wednesday and Thursday of this past week, and that Senator Dodd is not exaggerating (look for example at what happened to [url=http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=STT#chart1:symbol=stt;range=5d;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined”]State Street Bank[/url]). [url=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/20/washington/19cnd-cong.html?hp]Read it all, and spare a prayer or two for the national leaders involved in all this–it matters[/url][/i].