First please go here and reread the necessary procedures for a petition nomination. Observe especially the following:
“A petition should come after a prayerful discernment about the preliminary slate and as a way to strengthen the slate,” advises Dean [George] Werner.
A nomination by petition requires ten signatures from individuals representing at least three parishes. Four of those signing must be canonically resident clergy, and of the six lay communicants in good standing in parishes of the diocese, three must be deputies to the Diocesan Convention. The petition must also include the consent signature of the person being nominated.
Now see what you make of Lionel Diemel’s take on this matter.
I put up a post on Lionel’s blog reminding him of exactly how the nomination process worked out in 1995. The list of people who petitioned for ++Bob to be added extended across the theological divide. Many of the liberals swiftly realized their error, but at the time all they really knew was that he had been a good canon to the ordinary.
I hope there is a successful petition.
If Lionel doesn’t like the canonical process, which includes the right to nominate by petition, he can work to get it changed so only apparatchiks are nominated by committee.
Are we to assume that only apparatchiks who are personally approved according to their standards are acceptable to him and his friends?
If anyone wants to nominate me, I would run.
How much y’all want to bet that the petition candidate is conservative? It’s quite obvious that Deimel knows who it is from the post. Love this line: “I suspect that the résumé of the priest being nominated by petition does not compare favorably with those of the current candidates in terms of education, variety of experience (particularly in different dioceses), and relevant accomplishments.” No — say it ain’t so, Deimel — really? ; > )
As one commenter noted — Deimel shouldn’t worry, he knows the revisionists own that “diocese,” as anybody with sense could see from the beginning.
He’s just frustrated by the fact that conservatives have the gall to put up even a token resistance.
And to pietistically intone against putting up a petition candidate as some kind of “rebuke” to the committee — heh. As if revisionists like Deimel haven’t been “rebuking” committees when they deemed it strategically politic for 50 years now. “A blow to diocesan unity and collegial trust” — can’t you just hear the quavering tones of this silly inflation of what is a standard action in any diocese, even faux ones? And the amazing thing is that the tone of pietism is manufactured and artificial . . . just an attempt to be manipulatively guilt-tripping, like a bad mother trying to shame adult children — and without the slightest sense of shame or recognition of how obvious it is to an outside reader.
What a card. You just have to smile. Imagine the conservatives in that diocese having to put up with that kind of ridiculous rhetoric. Strong drink has to be the only way.
Yeah, and if I were a conservative priest in that faux diocese, I think I’d be inclined to go to the nearest watering hole and toss down a few. Scotch, anyone?
The obvious reason for having such a process is because committees aren’t infallible (and often enough make stupid choices out of groupthink). Petition processes, of course, are also fallible. Relying on Process to pick good people is insane.
Anyway, if you don’t like the people put forward, you find someone else to petition for, and you don’t vote for the people you find objectionable and try to convince others to go along with you. It may be more work than rearranging the field so that your opponents can’t play, but I’m not sympathetic to the “need” for the latter.
If Pittsburgh’s Boss Tweed is correct in his surmise (see the most recent comment on the Deimel thread), we have the potential for another graduate of TSM as a TEC Bishop.
Now wouldn’t that be ironic? 🙂
RE: “If Pittsburgh’s Boss Tweed is correct . . . ”
Well.
Well — we already know that “the résumé of the priest being nominated by petition does not compare favorably with those of the current candidates in terms of education, variety of experience (particularly in different dioceses), and relevant accomplishments.”
So there!
; > )
AND, he’s Canon to the Ordinary! How silly of me not to realize Lionel’s fear of history repeating.
Not that Scott+ is likely to act that way.
Let’s just remember that some of the Church’s worst bishops (defined variously by whomever you ask) were very well qualified (as per resumes) for the job.
As well, besides just plain old posturing, what profiling! Does Lionel also believe that no one from Fort Worth, or San Joaquin, or Quincy should also be nominated for Pittsburgh? Aren’t the dynamics in those dioceses just the same?
Personally, beyond a “nominating committee’s” work beyond the diocese, I think EVERY priest and bishop in an electing diocese should be automatically nominated (except for the too young, and the too old) and must make notice to the nominating committee if they do NOT accept such automatic nomination. And then have a nominating convention to bring it down to a predetermined number of final candidates. My only caveat in such a process (and in any election process for a bishop) is that those nominated have at least 10 years since ordination. And when considering a nominee as my personal choice for voting, I will give more weight to someone who has been the rector or vicar of a congregation, and was in at least one congregation for at least 7 years. Then I look at the rest of the background.
On another note, once a background check has been successfully and positively completed on a petition nominee, their name must be made public. Hopefully, there will be no delay on this one.
Finally, my sense of the Petition for nomination allowance is the same as that for the purpose of Roberts Rules of Order.
What a strange thing for Lionel to attempt to undermine.
Too bad the Diocese of Nevada didn’t take all of this into consideration before KJS was chosen as their bishop.