Mark McCall: TEC Polity, The Civil Law and the Anglican Covenant

Turning to the TEC constitution, we find that it has no supremacy clause giving General Convention priority over diocesan conventions. There is no language of supremacy or any of its synonyms, such as “highest” or “hierarchical.” The closest the TEC constitution comes to this concept is in the provision making the Bishop and standing committee “the Ecclesiastical Authority” in the diocese. If the bishop is “the” ecclesiastical authority in the diocese, the Presiding Bishop, the General Convention and the Executive Council are not.

So in TEC we have concurrent jurisdiction without supremacy among the General Convention and the various diocesan conventions, and each can theoretically undo what the other has done. But since the diocesan conventions meet three times for every one time the General Convention meets, this gives a distinct legal advantage to the diocese, and as a practical matter, the diocese gets the last word.

Now: what does this mean for the Anglican covenant? I will conclude with three observations.

First, given this concurrent jurisdiction and lack of a supremacy clause, dioceses have the inherent authority to commit themselves to the covenant as soon as it is available. Moreover, given the principles just discussed, if General Convention were someday to adopt the covenant, dioceses that do not want to assume the obligations of mutual responsibility and interdependence entailed by the covenant””and we know there are many such dioceses in TEC””those dioceses would be able to nullify that adoption and those commitments for their dioceses. So TEC’s polity makes it inevitable that dioceses will have to consider the covenant, and they will be able to do so at any time after it is finalized and sent to the member churches of the Anglican Communion early next year.

Second, what does the Anglican covenant, or the Anglican Communion more broadly, have to say about TEC polity? The short and clear answer to this question is: “Absolutely nothing.” The covenant is explicit in saying that nothing in it alters any provision of the constitution or canons of any church. And that has always been understood as a hallmark of the Anglican Communion. Member churches are autonomous. The covenant and the Communion have no say in how we do what we do””unless, I suppose, we abolished bishops altogether. So the frequent complaint directed by some in the House of Deputies to the wider Communion, “you don’t understand our polity,” is irrelevant. The Communion does not need, or perhaps even care, to understand our polity. They have no interest or say in how we do what we do.

Read it all.