While Anglican leaders say they appreciate the gracious tone of the offer, they believe it is a suspect use of a canon written for clergy who want to renounce their ordination. Few responded to the first offer that the Episcopal diocese made last month.
“It’s unfortunate that we’re in this situation, but it is asking us to renounce our vows, which we cannot do,” said the Rev. Mary Hays, canon to the ordinary for the Anglican diocese.
“They’re interpreting the canon in a way that it’s not been interpreted before. We’re all in a tough place, but our clergy have not abandoned their ordination vows.”
I talk to many people who simply cannot understand how the leadership of the EC and these newly formed shadow dioceses can behave in this way and still call themselves “Christians”.
If a divorce is unavoidable, then let it be as amicable as possible. The World is watching…and our witness matters.
I can’t begin to tell one and all how grateful I am that I have been “released”, but then I hadn’t been aware I had been held captive. Having retired from the Corporation several months ago, need I inform the Registrar of Recognized Ordinations that I have also been “released”? The gracious of an act done on my behalf without my consent is beyond words and even comprehension.
It was inevitable that canons should be subject to the same deconstruction as the Scripture and the liturgy. Words are merely malleable symbols devoid of content or meaning so as to allow conversation; canons are words; ergo, they mean what “interpreters” want them to mean at any given moment. Every action of the ECUSA/TEC and its menials has been to undermine meaning in the quest for power. Reality is not within their purview. It is an epistemological maelstrom from which recovery is rendered impossible.
The TES (the Episcopal Sect) blight on the Body of Christ continues. My annoyance at that dying sect and the harm they keep visiting onto the larger community of Christians almost makes me want to drive up to Pittsburgh and slap a few faces. Stop it!!!! You are an embarrassment to the rest of us and a public menace to reaching the Lost.
Welcome to the club, folks! We “deposed” clergy from the former diocese of San Joaquin have not suffered at all, being recognized still by the Christian parts of the Anglican Communion as being still clergy. Indeed most parts of TES still regard us as being in good standing — I was invited to concelebrate, and did, and to distribute the bread in a TES church last summer.
desert padre
“On Saturday [Nov 7} the Anglican diocese will vote on a proposal to affiliate solely with the Anglican Church in North America, while Archbishop Duncan would also remain a bishop of the Southern Cone”.
Since the 135 deacons and priests of the Anglican diocese will as of Saturday no longer be canonically resident in the Southern Cone and hence no longer formally a part of the Anglican Communion per se, it seems the Episcopal Diocese for some unknown (legal?) reason felt compelled to complete this “gracious” action now. Lionel Deimel, a member of the Episcopal Diocese Cmte on Canons, over on his blog thinks if we ACNA clergy for some unfathomable reason would like to rejoin the TEC Diocese we ought to be sent to re-education camps — ala Red China! Hard to beleive there are people like him in positions of authority.
Just received my letter signed by TEC Bishop Kenneth Price and a Statement of Renunciation where I am listed with 102 of my closest friends signed Bp Price aand attested to by former TEC colleagues Jeff Murph and Nano Chalfont-Walker. I was kinda hoping Jim Simons would have signed mine. They are some great names on that list- Stephen Noll, Leslie Farifield, John Guest, John Leggett, Mary and Whis Hays, Geoff Chapman, etc. Interestingly listed as priests are one who in July was promoted to greater glory, the late David McKenzie+ and one who was consecreated as a bishop in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church, Bill Ilgenfritz.
#7 David Wilson
Removing the ordination of a deceased priest? Really? These people and Mrs Schori have no shame.
Shame on you Rump TEC Pittsburgh – you really are the pits.
What are they going to dig him up to deliver Price’s letter?
DISGRACEFUL!
#7 David Wilson – may I ask a question please?
We have seen a release on this issue from the TEC Pittburgh website:
http://www.episcopalpgh.org/diocese-completes-release-of-clergy-11032009/
and that refers at the bottom to a pdf of a letter of 5th October from the Standing Committee:
http://www.episcopalpgh.org/wp-content/uploads/file/Documents/CanonIII_9_8 letter100509.pdf
Would it be possible for you to either post the text of the letter from Bishop Price and “statement of renunciation” you mention in a comment here or refer me to where it is on another website.
‘Wildfire’ mentions the issue of whether what you have received tracks the language of the Title III.9.8 canon here:
http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/26262/#398848
Any help you can give English people like me would be greatly appreciated in our efforts to understand TEC polity.
More generally, I am also wondering how it is claimed that the late David McKenzie managed to renounce his orders in writing. Have Bishop Price and the standing committee been playing with ouija boards?
I am really shocked. I know that in the middle ages a deceased pope was disinterred for the purposes of excommunication, but in modern America! Just when you thought TEC could not stoop any lower.
#10
the letter is here
http://www.episcopalpgh.org/wp-content/uploads/file/Documents/CanonIII_9_8%20letter100509.pdf
I will try and put up a copy of the Renunciation Statement after I scan it at the church office –I don’t have it in electronic form
link again
http://www.episcopalpgh.org/wp-content/uploads/file/Documents/CanonIII_9_8 letter100509.pdf
http://www.episcopalpgh.org/wp-content/uploads/file/Documents/CanonIII_9_8 letter100509.pdf
Let’s try this. Here’s a hyperlink to the pdf.
Elves – the hyperlink worked in preview. 🙁
Thanks David – I see one can cut and paste your link to the Standing Committee letter of 5 October into the browser. I look forward to seeing the scans of Bishop Price’s signed letter and the Statement of Renunciation when it has been scanned and posted.
I am grateful – it all helps our understanding of what is going on.