In an email to Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts-Schori, dated February 14, 2008, The Rt. Rev. Dr. Terence Kelshaw stated that he has been received into the Province of Uganda. Bishop Kelshaw wrote, “I have therefore requested and been received into the Province of the Church of Uganda (where I once lived for two years) and I believe I sense a certain security and unity with that decision and with that Province.”
No consent to his resignation is required, since he is not a sitting bishop. The Presiding Bishop will, in due course, send out a notice that renunciation of his ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church has been received and he has been removed from our rolls and released from the obligations of ordained ministry in this Church. (Per David Booth Beers, Chancellor for The Episcopal Church.)
Bishop Kelshaw has been scheduled, for many weeks, to preside at the Confirmation Service at St. James, Clovis. After consulting with David Booth Beers, it would appear that, with the permission of the Standing Committee, Bishop Kelshaw can preside at the service without issue as to the validity of the confirmations. Canon Kelly is giving consent to Bishop Kelshaw for this weekend’s service of Confirmation. Further information will be distributed as events unfold.
As Bible teacher Terry Fulham used to say, “whenever you see the word therefore, you have to ask what is it there for?”
“The Presiding Bishop will, in due course, send out a notice that renunciation of his ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church has been received and he has been removed from our rolls and released from the obligations of ordained ministry in this Church. (Per David Booth Beers, Chancellor for The Episcopal Church.)”
Then he’ll be excommunicated, anathematized and hanged in effigy.
I would like to know what happens to ‘reappraiser’ TEC clergy who move overseas to other provinces. Are they ever deemed to have ‘renounced the ministry of this church’? If not, why not?
Re #2: To the best of my knowledge (1) Bp. Kelshaw has not moved overseas to another province but still lives in or around Albuquerque and (2) Albuquerque is still a part of New Mexico and not of Uganda. The rules (not just the Episcopal rules, but those adopted by several Lambeth Conferences and numerous prior church councils going all the way back to Nicaea) on transferring canonical residence require that the person move his physical domicile (the place where he intends to live for the indefinite future) to the new diocese and have both the consent of the receiving diocese and a letter of recommendation from the one he is leaving. Unlike the missionaries in your example, Bp. Kelshaw has not changed his domicile from New Mexico to Uganda.
There are many, many TEC clergy who are have different physical (domicile) and canonical residences. While most of those involve clergy remaining canonically resident in their former dioceses, there is no reason why clergy could not change canonical residence without changing physical especially clergy who may contemplate missionary work in the new diocese.
Dale Rye (#3), you overstate the applicability of the canons of the Council of Nicaea to this case. Bishop Kelshaw’s being a retired bishop, there being no idea of retired bishops in the early 4th century, and his not taking on the episcopal oversight of parishes of the Church of Uganda outside the geographical jurisdiction of that province, puts him outside the intentions of any conciliar canon.
Except for the fact that any bishop other than the Archbishop of Santa Fe, the Bishop of Albuquerque, etc – all in communion with the Bishop of Rome – is a schismatic interloper into an episcopal jurisdiction that has been under a bishop in historic succession (at first, of Durango) since the late 18th century. In that case the canons of the Council of Nicaea apply with full force.
Episcopalians who quote the canons of Nicaea without regard to their own schismatic existence skate on thin ice with a blowtorch. Were we to apply the canons in the spirit and letter in which they were framed, only bishops of a few Episcopal dioceses – and most of those east of the Mississippi River – could claim not to be schismatic interlopers into ecclesiastical jurisdictions already under the oversight of duly ordained and consecrated bishops (all of whom were in communion with the See of Rome). And this is even accepting that the Church of England could validly cite the canons of Nicaea with regard to diocesan integrity.
#5: Quite so. Tom Wright citing the canons of Nicaea wrt ‘border crossings’ really made me laugh. There are endless numbers of canons enacted by the pre-Reformation Western Church (e.g. on married clergy, for starters) that Anglicanism has cheerfully ignored, so that bit of cherry-picking was rich.
I see my question about ‘reappraising’ clergy was not answered.
#3 Dale–It it possible that the dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate for the stormy present?
Even the great Bishop Wright’s attempt to apply the Nicene Canons to the current Anglican scene is not without question, cf.
http://touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=18-03-036-f
And, of course, Dr. Granger’s response is spot on. To which one might add, that that body of bishops that assembled at Nicaea and, among other interesting actions, promulgated the canons under discussion here, believed themselves to be speaking for, and with the authority of, “the Catholic Church” (one and only) and not of a communion, or federation, of churches forming part, but not the whole, of that Catholic Church; and it remains unclear on what basis a body that disclaims being that “Catholic Church” can apply such canons to its own circumstances.
Wait, just a sec, did someone with an attempt at a straight face refer to the “validity of the confirmations”?? In the Episcopal Church? What if the **unbaptized** bishop of Utah decided to lend a hand in this important matter by being an Episcopal visitor for a weekend? How would that effect their “validity”? Too little room for the irony of this idea. In another item being dealt with, it is repeatedly noted that Episcopalians give communion to anything that shows up in line. Maybe just deal with the question by not bothering to “confirm” (in WHAT??) at all? What’re you going to do; say some baptized (why, by the way?) Episcopalian kid can’t receive while someone just in off the street can? The next edition of the BCP may just be a pamphlet.