Some supporters of Katharine Jefferts Schori, now confronted with the call for investigations by the Bishop of Central Florida and the Bishop of South Carolina regarding the recent activities by the Episcopal Presiding Bishop and her lawyer, are now waving off those actions a mere “technical error” when Bishop Schori lead a majority of a quorum of the House of Bishops to depose the Bishop of Diocese of San Joquin and 88 year old retired Bishop William Cox.
Oops?
A “technical error” did not impose the equivalent of an ecclesiastical death sentence by manipulating the process to remove opponents with the majority of a quorum. That’s not a technical error – that is either duplicitousness or incompetence.
Earlier today she reiterated this point that she authorized the removal of her opponents through a majority of a quorum. 815’s press office reported that she said in a press conference that “We believe that we did the right thing,” and added that the consent came from “a clear majority of those present.” Yes, that’s what a quorum is. So she just stated the obvious – and it’s obviously what’s wrong here.
[blockquote] A “technical error†did not impose the equivalent of an ecclesiastical death sentence by manipulating the process to remove opponents with the majority of a quorum. That’s not a technical error – that is either duplicitousness or incompetence. [/blockquote]
Indeed, no “technical error” exists here. No one is so gullible as to accept that obvious dodge!! If incompetence is the issue, the Presiding Bishop must be officially censured. If duplicitousness, then presentment. No ifs, ands, buts, hemming and hawing. None. Get it done. Otherwise, autocracy takes all the marbles. Period. Get it done (censure/presentment) or get used to it (magisterium solely vested in the person of the presiding bishop). Those are the only choices. Christe eleison.
This is not incompetance, it is deliberate. TEC is in the midst of official lawlessness.
Please help me to understand this. Are not the Bishops being deposed either a.) Bishops who have repudiated and seperated or are in the process to seperate their church’s and or diocese from the TEC? b.) Bishops (retired or otherwise) who have acted against the interests of TEC in a public and provactive way by flouting/disregarding the canons/agrred upon boundaries for common life in order to support, aid and assist those in the a.) category above? If so, why are these deposed Bishops and their supporters so terribly offended and felt to be oppressed when the TEC is but formally and officially confirming what is already true in the heart’s and actions of said bishops? TEC does not claim they are not still Bishops in the Anglican Communion only that by their actions and the words of their own heart’s they are no longer (because they choose not to be) Bishops in TEC. Do they expect the TEC to throw them a goodbye party?! Is TEC allowed no way of recognizing the hard truth of Bishops who want to leave, are in the process of leaving or who have already left? Is it thought that to do such a thing is not the most weighty matter full of thorny, messy outcomes for all those involved? Let those who wish to leace TEC do the honorable and noble thing: Follow the bright and blazing trail of those good folk in the Anglican Province of America who seperated themselves fully and completely from TEC on theological principle and made no attempt to take any TEC properties, belongings, goods or security with them. They have since grown and flourished. But reasserters say, “Oh but our lovely buildings and grounds, all are holy hardware, all those important and valuable THINGS! We’re taking all that with us too.” “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” There is just as much chance that the now dead and buried folk who helped build and sustain those churches would be on the reappraiser side of things (they are the majority, like it or not). If your convictions are as principled as you claim and are about issues of orthodoxy and truth then do like the Anglican Province in America and be the change you wish to see in the Church fully trusting in God to provide and to bless. Until this happens you play the same game, albeit from the other side, as you claim TEC is playing as you cling and claw for the infrustructure, property and goods of the church you now cannot abide. YES, TEC is changing and has been in the process of change ever since her birth and will continue to change in ways none of us can predict. Those that deplore the change have an obligation of conscience to shake the dust from their sandals and leave without stuffing their pockets and then fuming when it is formally declared that you have left! Godspeed and traveling mercies on your journey.
The irrelevance of TEC grows exponentially.
I’m most definitely a reasserter, but if a bishop is leaving I’m not sure that it matters much what Schori and her cabal do. I basically agree with #3 – one shouldn’t expect a going-away party.
Has anyone anywhere seen any write-ups of this story in the secular press?
Even if all that archangelica says is valid, for the once proud and envied Episcopal Church to engage in the kind of tactics that they have displayed so far, from thumbing their nose in arrogance at the rest of the Anglican communion to the petty tactics used by the PB does them no favors. At the very least, TEC can follow it’s well established rules, even if they feel no one else does. Making up rules as she goes along opens the PB to charges of dictatorship and worse. My many fine Christian friends who choose to stay with TEC have got to be horribly embarassed, by her actions, from her (?) Easter message to the latest attempt to get her way, without benefit of following the canons. Where are the other Bishops? Other than SC and Central Florida, they seem to have disappeared into the woodwork. The latest actions by 815 only give fodder to those who are on the fence in this conflict to move to the other side. And cutting the Mission budgets speaks loudly to the real focus these days. Sad, so sad for those of us who grew up in a church we could be proud of. So sad.
Angelica, instead of simply accepting the resignation from the HoB of +Cox and +Schofield, the HoB decided that they no longer had the authority to exercise the spiritual gifts given in ordination. Additionally, they did so in an unlawful manner and did not give these bishops a trial or a chance to defend themselves. Canon IV.9 section 1 reads [blockquote](i) by an open renunciation of the Doctrine, Discipline, or Worship of this Church, or (ii) by formal admission into any religious body not in communion with the same, or (iii) by exercising episcopal acts in and for a religious body other than this Church or another Church in communion with this Church, so as to extend to such body Holy Orders as this Church holds them, or to administer on behalf of such religious body Confirmation without the express consent and commission of the proper authority in this Church;[/blockquote] So, it would seem that TECUSA considers itself out of communion with the Church of the Southern Cone and Uganda since +Schofield transferred to the Southern Cone and +Cox acted on behalf of Uganda.
I don’t think we would hear as much anger from the reasserters if they bishops had been disciplined such that they could not act as bishops in TECUSA congregations. But TECUSA claims the right to depose them from the ministry of Bishop all together.
The second problem is that the canons were not followed. It seems that reasserters need to be canonical fundamentalists, but reappraisers can interpret the canons to mean whatever they want them to mean. This is not blind justice, but the naked power of the [i]fasces[/i] – the rods and axe.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
The ONLY thing these bishops have “left” is a “Church” whose heretic bishops….a few anyway….have denied or questioned the divinity of Christ, whose Presiding Bishop has openly and publicly said that “there is more than one way to God than through Jesus Christ,” and who has deliberately persecuted faithful Anglican bishops for daring to disagree with her.
This is a woman who is bent on power. She thrives on it. Clearly, because of her misrepresentations and uncanonical acts of recent days, she needs to be brought up on presentment. I only hope that someone will have guts enough to do it.
[blockquote]But in America, the power is in the people – that is the principle our form of government is built on, We the People, and many of the same people who formed the United States government, formed the dioceses in the Episcopal Church. That’s certainly true in Virginia. Those principles are what are at risk now and if we can’t find agreement amongst ourselves as Episcopalians or as Anglicans or even as Christians – perhaps we can find agreement that our democratic principles are at risk and we know it because we are Americans.[/blockquote]
What the Presiding Bishop is doing is scandalous, is invalid, and will ultimately prove ineffective, if not actually counter-productive.
The opposite of petty thuggery, however, is not plebiscitary democracy. Nor, I think God is particularly impressed with the “power of the people” in general, or American Principles in particular. The former freed Barabbas. The latter has, over two centuries, ultimately played out in giving the world Youporn.
The U.S. Episcopal Church’s founding was no watershed event in the unfolding of the Great Commission. I understand the political necessity of an institutional separation from the Church of England. I also have no illusions about the theological milieu of the day in colonial America. The three-branches-of-government-minus-one polity, however, has always struck me as a great weakness in the Episcopal Church. I have no idea why people think so highly of it. Indeed, I believe its role in getting us to Where We Are Now is greatly underestimated.
In our land the national government is a monopoly. The separation of powers was a stroke of genius probably not undirected by God.
The Episcopal Church, however, has always been very far from being a monopoly. The rote mimicry of our civil polity in the ecclesial polity of the Episcopal Church was an unimaginative blunder entirely inappropriate to the Church’s real situation. How many short generations was it before sound doctrine was abandoned as unfashionable– and how few more before the most basic aspects of human anthropology were disavowed as inconvenient– by that little hijacked cockpit which is the General Convention?
Historically speaking there is nothing uniquely evil about the easy consumerism of the American People. Profligates, however, do not make good shepherds. It is scandalous that Bishop Schori has abrogated due process, not because it is contrary to the “Will of the People”, but because any such abrogation offends the dignity of that man who is its object, only a handful of such abrogations are required to breed cynicism in a people towards all religion, and only a brief pattern of such abrogations to destroy altogether a people’s resolve to themselves engage in fair play and good faith.
No. 7, Phil, I kind of liken it to answering an indictment from a court that has no jurisdiction. Who cares? It would be like George Bush showing up for a deposition pursuant to an subpoena issued by some third world banana republic. Pointless.
Isn’t all that matters is whether the bishops’ new juridiction recognizes their holy orders?
Can you have it both ways? Can you resign from a company and still expect to keep your key to the executive washroom?
… should be “a” subpoena.
Elves: Shamelessly off topic
I just finished bottling the first run o’ the year, two gallons of nice medium amber syrup, right on the cusp it was between light and medium, so the first sap is running very sweet. What a beautiful liquid this is!. I can’t say “Let t here be light” but I can say, “Let there be sweetness.” The
SapMan in Maine
Someone brought up an point that is interesting
[blockquote]
“There is just as much chance that the now dead and buried folk who helped build and sustain those churches would be on the reappraiser side of things”
[/blockquote]
And I must question[b] Is there really?[/b]
These “dead and buried” folk have left plenty of evidence of their thought on many subjects including their faith now delivered to us. So it would be interesting to question the “side” that they would be on but though, there be heretics in any age, the ” folk who helped build and sustain those churches” would probably not be described as “reappraisers”.
Archangelica, do you approve of what the Presiding Bishop has done and how it has been done? Do you feel that it is appropriate to press for every minutiae in the election of Bishop Lawrence but play fast and loose when it comes to the deposition of bishops?
Is she being the sacrament, the outward and visible sign, of the grace that she knows in the resurrected Christ? Is her living allowing others to live more abundantly? If you are unclear about these questions, I suggest that you review her Easter Message.
Thank you, BabyBlue, for a fine analysis of the unlawful actions of the PB and the HOB. Excellent!
“that is either duplicitousness or incompetence.”
Dr. Schori has shown us that these are not mutually exclusive!