Asked whether he would have to step down from the ACC’s Standing Committee due to his change in status from priest to bishop, Dr. [Ian] Douglas told CEN he would remain in place.
“Election to the Standing Committee by the ACC is irrespective of orders. Therefore, if I am elected the episcopal ACC member from TEC by the Executive Council in June, then I remain on the Standing Committee,” he said.
However conservatives have pushed for ACC chairman, Bishop James Tengatenga to replace Dr. Douglas, arguing that under the bylaws of the ACC a church cannot have two episcopal delegates. They state that upon his consecration as a bishop, Dr. Douglas ceased to be a clerical member of the ACC.
Another loss of civility and commonsense to the power bloc that is EcUSA/TEc. By their fruits you shall know them……….
I understood that +Douglas had already resigned his position. So what is the conflict?
Surely he should step down and TEC should no longer be represented in any official Anglican bodies. An ACNA representative should be invited instead!
http://www.churchoftheword.net
It just seems to me that it is unwise for Ian to serve when he is a brand new diocesan bishop.
bb
Brian — it appears that he wants to be *elected* the “episcopal” representative despite the fact that I understand the bylaws state you must wait 6 years after you have served a term. The ACI went into the issue in mind-boggling detail.
Boy, he’s really got to have that power doesn’t he. One of the weirder statements he made upon his election as bishop was what a good rolodex he has of many great international contacts — it was for all the world like something I hear from a local business person bragging about his connections.
The issue is confused due to the very clear account given by Mark Harris. In it, Douglas resigned, and Harris described how he could return. ACI responded to this. But then the Harris account was taken down from Preludium. When it reappeared, it had a header which said that ID had not resigned the ACC but Executive Council, and that Harris had not got the account right. But when one reads the corrected account, it remains the basic case that Harris accepts that Douglas is going to relinquish the seat. Of course what is unclear in all this is how Harris actually got it wrong to begin with, or if in fact he did. In his comments in response things are even more confused. It is hard not to draw the conclusion that ID has backed away from his public comments at Exec Counc because it is now clear that things are not so tidy as Harris had hoped, in terms of his returning to the ACC (and SC of the ACC). But back of all this is a more fundamental issue, which Sarah refers to. Why would one be so anxious to retain the post, even to the degree of not caring that one’s actions are above suspicion and fully above board? And this comes at a time when people are already unwilling to accept the goodwill and public honesty of the entire concept of a SC of the Anglican Communion, not to mention the ACC itself. Do progressives not realise that having things on these terms just assures that they will be dysfunctional and lose all trustworthiness? If the answer is Yes, then the entire idea of a Communion is belied. Even Brian above seems to accept the general idea that resignation by Douglas is logical and consistent with general fairness. Borsch and Kimsey resigned their posts when made bishops, from what the record indicates. So why not Ian Douglas, a new Bishop without any rector experience, responsible for a large Diocese?
I believe the CEN article has also been published on George Conger’s blog.
Thanks Prof Seitz for a very thorough analysis by ACI here and here
What is it that happens to people when they become bishops of Connecticut? The last one was a burglar and this one has been flogging off other peoples’ grannies. From an English perspective this behaviour is hard to believe.
I really do not see how an Episcopal resurrectionist can be considered by any stretch a fit and proper person to be involved in any church Instrument. These are the activities of a scoundrel, not a bishop. Fortunately the civil authorities seem to have stepped in to curb this abuse.
At least Douglas has jumped before he has had to be pushed.
#2- and others. There is a conflict because:
Whether he resigned or not, he figures he can stay on:
“Asked whether he would have to step down from the ACC’s Standing Committee due to his change in status from priest to bishop, Dr. Douglas told CEN he would remain in place.
“Election to the Standing Committee by the ACC is irrespective of orders. Therefore, if I am elected the episcopal ACC member from TEC by the Executive Council in June, then I remain on the Standing Committee,†he said.”
And Kearon intends to keep him there too:
“On April 14, ACC secretary general Canon Kenneth Kearon told CEN Bishop Douglas would continue to serve on the standing committee.
“With respect to Prof. Ian Douglas’s changed order of ministry, the issue of duration of membership of the Standing Committee was dealt with in Resolution 28 of ACC-4. This states that members hold their position until such time as their successors take their place, or they retire for any other reason,†he wrote.”
In other words, whether Douglas resigned or not, Kearon is trying to keep him on the Standing Committee.
followed by:
“However, conservative critics of the ACC not that clause 4d of its Constitution states that members lose their seat when they change status: “Bishops and other clerical members shall cease to be members on retirement from ecclesiastical office.â€
Article 2f of the ACC bylaws also requires members of the Standing Committee to be members of the ACC. However, they are “subject to earlier termination in the event that such elected member shall for any reason cease to be a member of the Council.â€
Asked to explain the contradiction of Resolution 4:28 and the section 2f of the ACC’s bylaws which requires those who lose their seats to give up their standing committee membership, Canon Kearon’s spokesman said the ACC secretary general would seek advice.”
Now do you see why there is a controversy?
As the comments above show plainly, there are multiple reasons why +Ian Douglas shouldn’t be on the ACC at all, much less the ACC’s standing committee. But neither should anyone else from TEC or the ACoC (as #3 noted).
This mess stinks to high heaven. It provides further evidence, if any be needed, why ++Mouneer Anis was right to resign from the utter farce that the ACC and its sc have become.
David Handy+
Sarah (#5.), your comment,
“One of the weirder statements he made upon his election as bishop was what a good rolodex he has…”
stopped me right in my tracks.
Until I realized that you quoted him as saying “what a good rolodex has” and not “what a good ROLEX [wrist watch] he has.”
Whatever the technicalities of this matter, it should not be forgotten that the advent of the “Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion†was part of a putsch, a regime change engineered by the Anglo-American establishment to centralize its power and disempower the Primates of the Global South. The idea that this Committee, with Katherine Schori and Ian Douglas on and Mouneer Anis and Henry Orombi off (the former by resignation the latter by boycott) can speak for the Communion and adjudicate the Covenant is farcical.
The present kerfuffle, I think, clarifies the need for reform initiated by the Global South churches, as was indicated at the GSE last month. The ACI is calling on Canterbury to exercise his gathering power in this matter and to disinvite PB Schori from the Primates’ Meeting and hence disqualify her from the Standing Committee. Such an act by Rowan Williams would be completely out of line with his behavior to date. It is much more likely, and preferable, for reform of Communion governance to come from the Global South, independent of the present Communion bureaucracy.
There comes a time in the course of human events, when one can no longer look for help from Albion or Cantuar.
The choice here is not so simple as ‘GS’ or ‘Albion/Cantaur’. ‘GS’ will have different views on the character of reform and indeed on the place of ‘Albion’ in Communion leadership.
Thank you Stephen Noll for your wise comments at #11.
CSeitz wrote: “‘GS’ will have different views on the character of reform and indeed on the place of ‘Albion’ in Communion leadership.”
which invites the response: “So What?”. Of course there is variation in any group. There is variation within CofE and indeed even within the inner circle of the ABC himself. It is still valid to speak of the Global South, when there is a clear direction within that movement towards reform.
Dr Noll referred to “the need for reform initiated by the Global South churches, as was indicated at the GSE last month.” It seems to me that those words were carefully chosen, and very accurate. The precise shape of reform may not yet be clear, but all that means is that ABC has a very narrow window in which to co-operate with the reformers and perhaps achieve some of his own goals in the process. Instead, he has not been co-operating with them at all (apart from using weasel words) and thus bringing closer the day when reform will be forced upon him and his supporters, in a form that they will find inimical.
The ‘GS’ will have different ideas about the desirability of Canterbury, even the necessity. The ‘GS’ does not operate in a ‘GS or Canterbury’ mentality, though a portion may now think that way and though it is a popular way for conservatives in the West to frame the matter. If the GS were Gafcon, then the matter would be different. It isn’t.
CSeitz,
At first you wrote “the GS will have different ideas about the desirability of Canterbury”, which is the very point I made. But then you contradicted yourself by saying “The GS does not operate in a ‘GS or Canterbury’ mentality” – if the GS has different ideas, then you can’t make sweeping generalisations like this.
In any case, your comment is non-responsive. Dr Noll at no point said “The GS operates in a ‘GS or Canterbury’ mentality” or anything like it, so why are you responding to a straw man?
You then finish off with another comment that is simply wrong: “If the GS were Gafcon, then the matter would be different. It isn’t.” – The Gafcon conference in 2008 did not make any statement or call that remotely resembled an “its us or Canterbury” line.
cseitz is correct. When conservatives talk about “reform” coming “from the Global South” they are often really just talking about the Gafcon Primates.
It gets old.
Obviously — quite obviously by now — those provinces which showed up for the Global South to South Encounter a month ago are *not* agreed on how to reform matters, except in the very broadest vaguest brushstrokes — or there would have been quite a different communique from them.
I am hopeful that more and more of the 20 or so will move to the Mouneer position, but it’s clear that that hasn’t happened. My prediction — when we have the next Primates meeting and *when* Schori is there, there will be at most 7-8 Primates of “the Global South” who refuse to attend.
A pity, as remember that RW’s vision of “success” and “dialogue is working” is that “we are all showing up to meet at my meetings.” But there it is.
Respectfully, CSeitz is not correct.
Firstly, CSeitz wrote “The GS does not operate in a ‘GS or Canterbury’ mentality†– my point was that this is a sweeping generalisation. It is just as incorrect to say this, as it is to say the reverse. The GS is a diverse group, and one cannot characterise them in this way.
Secondly, CSeitz responded to Dr Noll as though he had claimed that the GS operates in a “canterbury or us” mentality. Dr Noll wrote no such thing.