Update: Sarah Hey has comments on this here.
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Update #2:
Referenced in the comments below are the following:
Update: Sarah Hey has comments on this here.
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Update #2:
Referenced in the comments below are the following:
Of course 815 plays both sides of the rules. Whatever works to their advantage. We have known that for years and to expect anything different is foolishness.
Are we surprised by this?
He who lives by the letter of canon law will die by the letter of canon law…
Y’all are obviously using the wrong “rose colored glasses”.
See the lower top level Sugden article, which suggests that a “bureaucratic response” is what is going to happen. “Whitened sepulchres” isn’t an historical anachronism just for the first century AD.
I actually think we should be cautious here.
There might be explanations that we have simply not received yet. There is no evidence yet that ALL consents to the consecration of the Bishop of Virginia were invalid, and thus a majority of valid Standing Committee consents may have been received, even if some were invalid.
The issue of the SC consents from Standing Committees was that so few responded [or responded and said no], that reaching the halfway mark occurred — but with no room for error in the forms and the letter of the canons.
So perhaps VA received so many validly, that some that were not valid really didn’t matter to the final outcome.
I’m just being cautious before leaping to conclusions. There are valid questions to be answered, and maybe those answers will come.
Wise words of caution Sarah, thanks. And thanks for your post over on SF helping to publicize this question.
It is strange that the SJ Standing Committee has written three times to the Presiding Bishop and still not received a reply. What’s up with that?
bb
BB, maybe 815 views mail like many in TEC seem to view the listening process. What should be a two-way process becomes one-way. So maybe 815 doesn’t accept mail FROM SJ, only issues letters with its dictates TO SJ?
Someone help me out here, I’m working on lack of sleep from reading a certain Harry Potter book, but doesn’t the problem appear to be that VA sent out the forms with the wrong wording? So, even if enough standing committees send in the form properly signed via snail mail, they would be invalid, since they do not contain the verbage required by the national canons?
#9
The issue here arises only in comparison to the SC precedent. There they insisted on canonical full compliance despite the fact that some Standing Committees obviously made errors in signing what they had already voted to affirm.
So if 815 is going to ask for perfection in that case, why not in others of a similar nature? This is not an idle question, but rather strikes to the heart of [i] what ecusa’s mission actually is.[/i]
Thanks #10. From what I read, it appeared that the national canons required a certain wording. VA sent out forms with different wording, therefore, any response from a SC using VA’s forms would automatically be invalid. So, if the same standards apply to VA that applied to South Carolina, then the consecration of the new bishop in VA is irregular at best, and invalid at worst (once concecrated, he is a bishop, just not a valid TEC bishop). 815 cannot ignore this, and if they do, Mark Lawrence should be consecrated ASAP.
“Of course 815 plays both sides of the rules. Whatever works to their advantage. We have known that for years and to expect anything different is foolishness.”
OK, but if 815 is applying inconsistent standards, we would be monumentally foolish to remain quiet about it. If the inconsistency is innocent, it can be clarified. If it is willful, then making a ruckus about it would both (1) help educate fence-sitters about the character of those running ECUSA and (2) encourage second thoughts in those who torpedoed Fr. Mark Lawrence.
In Texas, et al,
I posted a long comment over at Stand Firm, which I won’t post here (I don’t like to re-post identical comments). However, in the midst of that comment is the very simple point of a Standing Committee receiving a request for consent from another diocese and recognizing a form out of compliance with national canons. Asking for clarification, and not receiving any, demands the next question in the context of today’s TECusa, “Are games being played here (prejudicial or otherwise), because there are people’s lives and the ongoing life of the Church at stake.”
RGEaton
Rob+ huge thanks to all of you in San Joaquin for taking a stand and persevering on this, even if it proves an innocent mistake, your call for accountability and clarity is important.
What is the bet that Jim McNaughton (is that his name?) is putting out another “let’s pretend this story doesn’t exist” email?
Margaret and all, correct name is Jim Naughton. No “Mc.” He’s the Communications Director for the Diocese of Washington, and editor in chief of the blog Daily Episcopalian.
This business of not responding to mail reminds me of our experience with Bishop Howard (Florida). Multiple letters from our Mission Board (and three personal ones from me ) went unanswered. But he got the one “uninviting him” for a scheduled visitation!
jumpinj
My recollection is that something similiar happened when Jane Holmes Dixon was elected Suffragan of DC. It’s been a few years ago, but I recall that some Diocese (Ft. Worth maybe?) challenged the consents and the chancellor stated he had reviewed them and since they were proper so he destroyed them. The PB was undeterred and went forward with the consecration. Does anyone else have such a recollection, or am I even more delusional than usual?
David Keller,
I think the situation with Jane Dixon you are thinking of actually had to do with getting the consents to the calling of FIFNA President Samuel L. Edwards to be rector of Christ Church, Accokeek, MD. Dixon refused to allow Edwards to serve as priest even though the canonical time limits for her to do so had passed. When the case went to secular court, the court decided that, because ECUSA is a hierarchical church, it is the bishop who decides the meanings of canons. So, if the bishop decides that the time limits for denying a priest residence do not apply, they do not apply.
Similarly, in the recent Presentment against Bishop Andrew Smith in the Diocese of CT, the Presentment Committee agreed that Smith, by appointing a Priest-in-Charge without consultation of the vestry of St. John’s, Bristol, was technically in violation of the canon that specifies that the vestry must first be consulted. However, the committee stated that since Smith violated the canon with “good intentions,” the violation was permissible, and there were no grounds to proceed with a trial.
TEC uses the same hermeneutic with the canons that they use with Scripture. The letter of the law applies for some; good intentions is sufficient for others.
“TEC uses the same hermeneutic with the canons that they use with Scripture. The letter of the law applies for some; good intentions is sufficient for others.”
Had ++KJS and her chancellor in fact applied “the latter of law,” she wouldn’t have unilaterally (and, arguably, uncanonically) extended the 120 day for consents to 123 days.
At least the VA consents carried signatures, allowing one to know for certain who was consenting; who really thinks that e-mailed “consents” (as in a number of the SC responses, no?) should be valid evidence of *anything*? Really, the situations in VA and SC seem like apples and oranges.
In any event, SC will re-elect the same bishop, and everyone on all the standing committees is clear (one hopes!) that they must *sign*, not simply e-mail. This quibbling now over VA only looks petty and does no service to getting Lawrence re-elected and canonically approved.
Nadine,
Regarding the extension over that weekend, the Presiding Bishop made the announcement AT THE TIME OF THE EXTENSION, to let everybody know what was taking place. There was some grumbling here and there, but due to screw ups at the beginning of the process, people had lost track of when the consent period actually had formally begun. With that all in mind, there was a general allowance for argument behind the extension. It was understood to be an extension, a temporary setting aside of the rules established by canon law.
That is not a valid argument to discount what has happened here.
Do you see? This is not about re-election or consents for South Carolina. However, what HAPPENED (past tense) for South Carolina should have been the massive wake up call to actually do it right — no matter how many times it has been done wrong before.
So, in that sense, you are right, apples and oranges.
And back to the issue at hand, the ____________________ Standing Committee gets the wrong form, wanting to get it right, lets the right people know, and…… no response. It could have been any alert Standing Committee. And maybe others did ask.
Nadine, don’t listen to those (of any sort) who want to make this a political fight between reasserters and revisionists, between conservatives and liberals. This is about administrative propriety, getting it right the first time, so the canonical door doesn’t get blown off down the road. If only someone from Virginia (if it had been Fort Worth, they would have gotten the same request for clarification from San Joaquin) had replied to the inquiry and said – immediately – “Don’t worry, we’ve got permission to do it this way”, from wherever that permission might have come. It might not have satisfied San Joaquin Standing Committee, but at least it would have given them something to work with, and perhaps a point from which to carry on.
I am confused. According to epiScope this same apparently defective form was used by South Carolina. So while it may be defective, it isn’t inconsistent….
Re: #21 —
Simon, it appears South Carolina may have corrected their form before it was sent out. The Living Church has quite a few additional details on this story here:
http://www.livingchurch.org/publishertlc/viewarticle.asp?ID=3517
Here’s the episcope post #21 mentions,
http://episcopalchurch.typepad.com/episcope/2007/07/and-another-thi.html
RE: “I am confused.”
The Living Church will help with the confusion . . . they have helpfully clarified that South Carolina seems to have sent the correct wording.
Sad — but Jan Nunley’s basic argument was “why . . . so many have violated the canons that it’s not really important anyway.”
#18–WW. I am thinking of her original consecration when I was on the Standing Committee of Upper SC, which would have been about 1992-93. I asked my wife this morning and she recalls some alleged irregularity also. It also sticks in my mind because shortly after she was consecrated we ran into her at Kanuga where she ORDERED me to get her a cup of coffee. I was there for a vestry retreat and I assume she thought I was a Kanuga employee; though her attitude and demeanor were pretty pitiful. I told her I wasn’t an employee and also told her that I had voted against her consecration. How the world of TEC has changed–the standing committe of USC voted against her becuase she refused to respond to questions about her beliefs on ordination of practicing homosexuals! I wonder if Kendall or the elves have any recollection of what I am thinking of?
Simon,
I was on the San Joaquin Standing Committee when the South Carolina Standing Committee’s request for consent came onto the agenda. My signature for consent is on the canonically mandated form. Jan Nunley, especially in the uniquely responsible position she holds for TEC, needs to be more careful with her words.
Perhaps she was referring to the bishops’ consent form (the form signed by the bishops).
Let me say it again for the sake of all, if the Standing Committee of South Carolina (or any other) had sent the form that Virginia did, a fax or email or phone call would have been made by the San Joaquin Standing Committee to the president of the SC S.C. requesting the correct form with the mandated wording, and some explanation. Having worked with both the current and past presidents of the South Carolina Standing Committees, I have no doubt they would have responded immediately. I can only hope that any other president of such a body in a diocese in TEC would have done the same.
Despite the ENS article attempting to look for ulterior motives, and making a false statement apparently in order to apply some ethic of lowest common denominator, this is about an incorrect but critical form and no one making a response back (and all the extended ramifications).
RGEaton