Now that the Court of Review for the Trial of a Bishop has overturned your sentence of deposition, and you may continue to be a Bishop in the Episcopal Church, you have the right to return as Bishop of Pennsylvania. But is it right to do so?
I urge you to give this question the deepest consideration with your best advisers before making your final decision on returning August 16.
Let me tell you my advice, so you know.
To be Bishop is to unify the Church, but your return would further divide our diocese. To be Bishop is to build up the Church, but your return would tear down the fragile foundations of trust and hope that have been built these past two years. My strong belief is that your return will do more harm than good, create more anger and less reconciliation, and hinder, not advance, the Church’s mission in our diocese. These realities may be unfair and unjust, but I believe them to be true.
Fr. Safford, as rector of Christ Church, is a successor to William White, and Bishop Bennison is also a successor. Based on his letter I think Safford has more of the spirit of the first Presiding Bishop.
To the best of my memory, Tim Safford was a strong (to use the categories of this blog) revisionist, when he was a student at Yale Divinity School and thereafter. He is celebrated by revisionist colleagues on other blogs for his statement here. Perhaps this is a vision of the new TEC — powerful revisionists fighting one another over just what is and is not part of the Brave New Christian World, maybe even wondering what happened when all the reasserters left or were driven out by a liberal vision which dictates what is to be believed and practiced.
Dr Seitz,
Tim is a former colleague of mine in the Diocese of PA. Your memory is spot on.
I have long believed and continue to believe that there should be some sort of recall process for a bishop, even if the requirements are high (like an 85% vote of a diocesan convention). When you have a case like this, where the much of the diocese was in rebellion even before these charges were laid and the standing committee was calling upon him to resign over fiscal mismanagement, what kind of apostolic leadership can he continue to exercise?
In light of this, it will also be scandalous if the next GC does not enact changes to the statute of limitations when the charges involve sexual abuse or the covering up of same. It is outrageous that the existing statutes apply as it is.
Fr Safford’s letter might be more worthy of being taken seriously if it wasn’t so widely known in the Diocese that he has a bad case of “purple fever,” and was already campaigning to replace Dr Bennison, whose imminent departure was all but guaranteed until last Thursday.
For the record, my response in #2 was directed to Tom. I was not trying to impugn or label Safford, who I vaguely remember as a student at YDS when I taught there. He is not a conservative and would not want that label I am sure. My other remark had to do with what happens when conservatives are so extremely sidelined in the american denominational New TEC. I meant that very seriously. What you get is a contest about whose justice is more deserving of attention: one version going back to Locke (there are liberal absolutes that must be universally acknowledged and enforced) and another to Rousseau (let everyone do what they want, laissez faire). My point was that this new TEC will be facing its own strong internal corrosiveness.