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.”
How does placing the primary financial and tactical burden on filing law suits against those who have left contribute to the “”guidance, support and pastoral care,” either of those who have stayed with TEC, or those who have left?
She does live in her own little world, doesn’t she?
Bless her little heart!
#1 William Witt. The assets of The Episcopal Church will be needed to carry on its mission. The only way to hang on to those assets is to sue those who are attempting to take them. If the assets in question were not of consequence to both sides, as recommended by +Akinola, the secessionists would have simply shaken off the dust and walked on. As clearly noted in +Duncan’s secret letter to the Global South Steering Committee revealed in the Calvary litigation, as well as the Chapman Memo, it was and has always been the intent of the dissidents to take the disputed assets with them.
No, EmilyH, the “only way to hang on to those assets is to sue those who are attempting to take them” is NOT correct. Many churches desiring to leave TEC and move under other Anglican bishops have expressed a willingness to PAY for their property or to reach some monetary agreement with their TEC diocese. Or, to be truly Christian, we can look to people like Bishop Schofield, who agreed to let any church take its property in peace in San Joaquin as long as they did not leave any debt to the diocese. And, since TEC has cut out of its current budget ANY financial aid to progress the MDGs, tell us what exactly their mission is again?
. . . I mean, what is their mission besides suing fellow Christians and bringing scandal to the Church?
I have no first hand knowledge of the situation in the other dioceses, but the report here over-inflates the role of the Presiding Bishop and the offices of the Episcopal Church in the on-going reorganization of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh-TEC.
Bruce Robison
Bruce
You are correct. TEC doesn’t have to inflate their role viz a viz Pittsburgh, they have Calvary Church and your Standing Committee marching to their litigation tune without even a nudge.
Isn’t concern over doctrine and mission a valid reason to be upset (at the least) with the national church. Thirty years ago I began hearing small changes in doctrine from the pulpit. I objected to them, but was told “get over it.” Twenty-five years later, my brain had been reduced to mush. I no longer had any clear idea what Christian faith was. After GC 06 I left the church. I’m slowly beginning to regain my faith, but 25 years of insidious brain-washing were effective. I’m now re examining everything in the light of Scripture. It’s the only safe way to go.
Dumb Sheep.