If one thinks of a true hierarchy like the Roman Catholic Church, there would be no question as to who could authorize a bishop to speak for it in court: it would be the Pope, and nobody but the Pope. Since ECUSA, however, lacks any metropolitan archbishop (the Presiding Bishop is called a “Primate” without the word signifying anything other than that the Presiding Bishop represents ECUSA to the other Churches in the Anglican Communion), there is a very nice question as to just who has sufficient authority under its Constitution to represent it in a court of law. If it were a regular corporation, like General Motors, the matter would be clear: its Chief Executive Officer (or President, as the case may be) would be authorized by the Board of Directors to speak for the corporation in court; or the Board could give him the authority to delegate the task of spokesperson to some other officer of the Corporation.
Nothing like that, however, has happened here. General Convention, ECUSA’s only legislative body, has not met since 2006, and has never (to my knowledge, at least) specifically authorized any official within the Church to file suit in its name and to speak for it in court. Even if it had purported to do so, there is no provision in the Constitution to which General Convention could point as granting it the authority from the member dioceses to designate a spokesperson to represent the views of all of the dioceses in court—as though they were one. Elementary common sense suggests that the members of a group have to vote on an issue in accordance with their procedures before the position of the group as a whole on that issue may be stated. Even then, there is usually provision made for some means by which any division of opinion can be exhibited: by a “minority report”, or by a “statement of the views of the minority”, which always accompanies any presentation of the views of the majority.
The recent publication of the Statement by the (Communion Partner) bishops is evidence that just such a minority viewpoint exists in ECUSA today.
Excellent article and helpful. I am praying for the good folk in Pittsburgh as this has been like the sword of Damocles hanging over them. I believe that Mr. Haley’s arguments are sound and pray that they will prevail in the courts.
I appended the following at the A. S. Haley’s site:
“One of the conclusions that I have reached is that the founders of the Episcopal Church deliberately avoided specificity.
On both sides, the existential debate on the “hierarchical church” principle seems to ignore the fact that William White knew he was attempting to reconcile the irreconcilable (Samuel Seabury and the Virginians). Consequently, for the first 150 years of the Episcopal Church’s existence, those in authority strove desperately to avoid winner-take-all outcomes. Given that the only loss in that period was the Reformed Episcopal Church, they were clearly fairly successful.
Starting in the late 1910s (the Nationwide Campaign of 1919, to be exact) there was a groundswell of opinion favoring greater centralization – an elected Presiding Bishop without jurisdiction and a more reliably funded central office – but within ten years the Great Depression had brought this to a crashing halt. When it revived in the early 1950s, the ideological and theological climate of the church had undergone a distinct shift.
Clearly, such history does not prove intent to establish the facts on the ground for the hierarchical church principle (and the grassroots rejection of the General Convention Special Project during the 1960s would seem to prove the contrary). What does seem more ambiguous to me is the assurance of so many of my conservative friends (whose theology I share) that the decentralized model is part of the warp and woof of Episcopal identity.
It seems more plausible to say that Samuel Seabury would have had no trouble with a hierarchical church model but would have utterly rejected the notion of autonomous provincial churches, while the Virginian tradition could live with an “American” church model, but would have been equally fervent in the notion of congregational autonomy. Hence the fervent desire of the founders to avoid undue specificity and to create a zone of “diocesan autonomy” that would hopefully satisfy all. Ironically, neither of the parties to the current dispute exactly mirrors the positions of the past, thus perpetuating the confusion. The trouble with all of this is that no legal team is ever going to address it directly because it muddies the waters (at least in the opinion of this non-lawyer).”
[url=http://catholicandreformed.blogspot.com]Catholic and Reformed[/url]
the place to correct it is through amending or rewriting the Constitution, not turning the BP and Executive Council into to a continuously sitting constitutional convention.
Watching TEC develop a strong central authority is not unlike reviewing the development of monarchies in feudal Europe. Which leads one to be reminded of the saying about the Holy Roman Empire in that it was none of those.
So many analogies with human power struggles, so little to do with Christ.
Good exposition,. Curmudgeon!. It’s fun tryiong to see TEC reinvent itself as heirarchical through a lawsuit. What will they do about the reconstituted dioceses at Anaheim? If they ADMIT them, they are de facto saying they are new organizations without saying so. Then, unlike previous instances, for the first time GC will in effect have constituted dioceses.
Two othey thoughts: (1) what are they (TEC) smoking and where can I get some? and (2) Now children, play nice.
Dumb Sheep.
I am wondering if these will be deemed questions of law to be decided by a judge, or perhaps questions of fact to go before a jury…
Please……….[b]#6[/b], I could just see the questions at the Jury selection. “Do you believe that the Bible represents the Word of God?†Did you say yes? Dismissed! Let us be thankful that that is not the case.
I can still hear my mother remarking around the house as she read successive issues of The Living Church in, oh, the late 1960s to early 1970s: “What’s going on in this Church? – there is too much centralizing of things at the NYC headquarters. That can’t be good…..”. And I used to wonder if she knew what she was talking about, and if so , how she knew.
BabyBlue’s post of this article by Haley includes a pair of photos that really are worth a thousand words, even two thousand. One shows a Christian leader and the other, a sort of joke about one. The day someone shows that the Episcopal Church’s decision to ordain women had nothing to do with the state it now finds itself in, will be the day it can be taken seriously again.