The misconduct complaint filed against the Bishop of Los Angeles by members of St James the Great Episcopal Church in Newport Beach has been handed back to the national church’s disciplinary panel for bishops after the parties were unable to reach an amicable resolution.
The Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno appears to have adopted a scorched earth in dealing with complaints of bullying and dishonesty levelled against him by ignoring a request for the national church that he not prejudice the proceedings. Though all parties had been charged to “enter into this process in good faith,” the bishop’s attorneys have not relented in their legal campaign, and have sought to depose a Girl Scout leader whose troop had planted an herb garden at the parish, and the daughter of a woman whose ashes are interned at the church.
Jon Bruno refusing to be conciliatory. Who would ever have believed that?
A query for purposes of clarification: how can a bishop depose a lay person? What does this mean? Does it mean suspend them from communion?
Good question. I believe in either 2006 or 2009 there was a proposal before GC to allow inhibition of lay people, but it was soundly defeated. As an aside, there were two deacons in my former TEC diocese who had made a list of people lay they were going to have inhibited, and I have it from very solid authority that I was #2 on their list. That said, Bruno does have the power to license and revoke the licenses of various lay ministries, and he can always declare them a mission and fire the vestry.
#2– I think “depose” here is referring to taking a person’s deposition (oral testimony under oath before a court reporter) for use in legal proceedings.
I think “depose” means “depose as a witness for court”, not “remove from ordained ministry”.