Leaving aside the obvious problems with such a claim, let us, for the sake of discussion, simply grant it. One would think that–simply for the sake of appearances, to say nothing of legal strategy–it would then be in 815’s best interests to establish as much continuity as possible between the “new” DSJ–i.e. the one configured at the Lodi convention of March 29 of this year–and the “old” DSJ, that is, the one that was spun off as a Missionary District from the Diocese of California 97 years ago. One would think that it would be in the best interest of the Presiding Bishop and her counsel to be able to credibly say, “Several individuals have left, but the diocese remains. Look: We have retained eleven congregations, including the three largest ones, representing over half of the average Sunday attendance of the diocese. We have retained the most senior clergy, and six of the eight members of the Standing Committee, who have assured us that once Bishop Schofield resigns or is lawfully deposed, they will step in and perform their canonical duty. The Diocese of San Joaquin is still vital, diverse, and financially viable without any outside help.”
The ability to say all of this was within 815’s grasp. But, for reasons that I could only speculate about, they looked a Public Relations gift horse in the mouth and sent it packing. They rejected continuity, and chose instead to confect a new DSJ out of whole cloth, with only a little decorative embroidery from had come before. The fact that there is not the shred of a canonical basis for doing what they have done seems to count for nothing; what’s new is new and what’s done is done. The rule of law has been thrown under the bus of expediency.
The irony in all of this, and the actual point of this post, is that, in rejecting the path of maximum continuity, maximum numerical strength, and maximum credibility in the eyes a watching Anglican world, 815 has undercut its own Prime Directive than “only individuals can leave.” By their actions in electing to start over from scratch, they have tacitly admitted that the Diocese of San Joaquin did, in fact, leave the Episcopal Church. Why else would they have taken such pains to invent a new one–a new one that is every bit as ideologically monochrome as they accuse the old one of being, a new one that has retained not even a vestige of institutional or administrative continuity with the old one, and a new one that is wholly dependent on 815’s financial largesse and will, in effect, be a client diocese for as long as it is allowed to exist?
Apparently, dioceses can leave the Episcopal Church. One just did, and they made a new one to replace it.
Not unlike the Khmer Rouge marching everyone out of Phnom Penh. They want a Year Zero.
Apparently the Episcopal Church can leave The Episcopal Church too…
I agree with Father Dan. We HAVE left…….never to return. We are home……where we belong!
are the claims of the article true? Did Schofield transfer the diocese against the will of the majority of his standing committee, the three largest parishes in the dio and without many of his senior clergy? If true, that is really news to me. I thought that the dio had voted and left with a majority of consent to the transfer.
And if true, how exactly does a dio leave without its largest congregations. I thought that the largest churches in such a conservative dio would be equally as conservative as their bishop. Color me very confused and not a little disturbed to hear about this.
As one of the commenters on the original article points out, the TEC leadership can’t have it both ways. There seem to be two options: either (1) it is impossible for a parish as a collective entity to secede from a diocese without diocesan consent (and for a diocese to secede without national consent), or (2) the inferior judicatories are independent entities that can do whatever they please without consent from any higher level of an alleged hierarchy.
It seems to me that church tradition for the better part of two millennia and legal precedent in the majority of states since at least 1776 supports Option 1 and rejects Option 2. If episcopacy means anything, it is that bishops have real oversight and that parishes (as entities, as opposed to a collection of free individuals) cannot reject that oversight in favor of some other bishop that they can choose and replace with complete discretion. Similarly, individual bishops are not free agents, but subject to oversight by the province to which they belong. Option 1 is the stated position of TEC and many of its dioceses both in their PR campaigns and in litigation.
However, if San Joaquin’s parishes are not free to leave TEC or the diocese, then [i]a fortiori[/i] they have not left. If there is even a single TEC loyalist remaining in the parish, he or she is the legitimate congregation of the continuing entity, while the rest of the former members must be considered to have left and formed a new organization. Since the continuing parish still exists and is still a part of the diocese, it is entitled to representation in the diocesan convention (although the individuals who have left and formed a Southern Cone congregation are not).
I would be astonished to learn that the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin do not contain quorum requirements for meetings of the diocesan convention. The quorum requirement for clergy may have been met if the majority of the total number of canonically-resident bishops, priests, and deacons who have not left TEC were present. However, I wonder if the quorum for lay members of the convention was met—this is typically either representatives from a majority of the congregations entitled to representation or representatives from enough such congregations to include the majority of the lay membership of the entire diocese.
It sounds from the accounts of the meeting as if only the congregations with a TEC majority were represented at the special convention. The many congregations that had a Southern Cone or AMiA majority were not represented. That only makes sense if Option 2 described above is the case and those parishes are no longer part of the TEC diocese, thereby reducing the number of congregations entitled to representation and reducing the quorum with it.
Of course, the TEC position (which I believe to be theologically correct and legally supportable) is that Option 1 also applies to dioceses. When the Episcopal Bishop of San Joaquin and the majority of diocesan clergy and laity left, therefore, they did not take the preexisting Diocese of San Joaquin as a collective entity with them, but formed a distinct Southern Cone Diocese. The clergy and laity who remained in TEC, no matter how few, constituted the continuing Episcopal Diocese.
Since the diocese was still in existence, its Constitution and Canons remained in effect, including the provisions relating to the calling and conducting of special meetings of the convention. Clearly, the Presiding Bishop ignored those provisions and simply proceeded as if the Episcopal Diocese had become defunct. That, again, only makes sense if Option 2 were the case.
Similarly, I assume there are also canonical provisions dealing with the situation when the diocesan bishop is dead, disabled, resigned, removed, inhibited, or otherwise unable to act. Those were also ignored, as was the duly-elected Standing Committee of the diocese (6 out of 8 of whom were willing and able to continue serving). There is no authority of which I am aware under which the National Church can intervene to this degree in the internal affairs of an existing diocese. It certainly could take extraordinary action if the Episcopal Diocese had actually ceased to exist, but that (once again) only makes sense under Option 2.
Not only are the 815 actions spectacularly inconsistent with the TEC canons and my understanding of the Anglican approach to the theology of the church, they are legally foolish. The Southern Cone Diocese (and the seceding parishes in Los Angeles, San Diego, et al.) can now point out to the California courts that TEC is behaving as if the preexisting diocese had successfully seceded, leaving an open territory where the national church is free to organize a new diocese without reference to the canons of the old one. This is yet another example of the 815 staff and their legal representatives taking precipitate action without thinking through the consequences.
I still haven’t seen an answer to the question I’ve been posing about the six DSJ standing committee members: Who among them publicly dissented from the secessionist action beforehand? (If they didn’t publicly dissent, they should be considered to have constructively resigned.)
#6,
There is no “answer” to your “question” other than “that’s what you think.” The criterion you propose (prior public dissent) is not self-evidently applicable to this situation. The Standing Committee does not serve as a [i]de facto[/i] Board of Directors for the diocese; there is no parallel in the secular arena. It is immaterial how any of them acted or voted at the convention. What is material is that on that day the four clergy members explicitly and actively declined to receive the certificates proffered by the Bishop attesting to their canonical residence in the Southern Cone. A week later, they convened as the Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin and transacted business as said Standing Committee-to wit: consenting to an episcopal election in another diocese, signing the appropriate documentation, and forwarding the signed document to the Standing Committee of the electing diocese, all very routine work for an Episcopal Church Standing Committee. Then, on January 19, all four clergy members and two of the lay members declined, when pressed by the Bishop, to affirm their allegiance to the Southern Cone, and for that they were sent packing by the Bishop. The day before this happened, the Presiding Bishop was aware, via a direct phone conversation, of the loyalty of the majority to the Constitution and Canons of TEC. Even as recently as the botched deposition attempt against Bishop Schofield, some, at least, of the Standing Committee members made it clear that they stood ready, in the event of a canonical deposition, to step in as the Ecclesiastical Authority, per the canons. These, rather than theories of “constructive resignation” are the material facts.
#5,
A majority of the convention delegates did indeed vote for the departure; that is correct. It is also correct what I said just above re the four clerical members of the Standing Committee, three of whom are rectors of the largest parish, and the fourth has 19 years of tenure in the diocese. Since then, because of the chilly reception from 815, one of the three large parishes has gone ahead and joined the majority in the Southern Cone, one has affiliated with the AMiA, and one is still, as far as I know, undecided. It is important to understand that there are many more factors in play here than how “conservative” a priest or a parish is.
Fr. Dan – I know you are formerly of the legitimate TEC Dio. SJ and of its Standing Committee. I’m puzzled by the church which joined AMiA – were they frustrated at Bp. Schofield’s methods and wanted a different Bp.? What is their reason for not joining the Southern Cone, assuming they felt the need to leave TEC?
I reiterate my statement in my previous post (#3). WE ARE GONE! Get over it.
#8,
The parish in question is St Paul’s, Modesto. I believe that, for the greater good, I should decline to say anything further.
Dale (#5) – In addition to there being a problem with the requirements for a quorum in the lay order, there are problems with the clerical requirements for a quorum. I don’t know if the clergy had their letters dimissory transferred to Southern Cone or not. Either the Diocese of SJC is a member of Southern Cone (and the clergy don’t need letters dimissory) or the clergy have abandoned communion, but have not yet been deposed. Since they have not been deposed nor are they inhibited or under discipline, they are still entitled to voice and vote in convention. They were not there, so the quorum requirements fail based on both the clergy and lay requirements. So, either SJC and the resulting parishes left and are not part of TECUSA or the convetion of March 29th was null and void.
This opens up a large can of worms. Did the diocese and congregations leave? If so, then the convention was as proper as could be under the circumstances, but the new DSJ(TECUSA) does not have any claim to the property or money (or obligations) of the old DSJ(SC). If not, then the convention was illegal and its actions are null and void and the proper authority is +Schofield or the “old” Standing Committee.
As Fr. Dan pointed out, TECUSA is acting like the Diocese and Parishes left and are not part of the DSJ(TECUSA).
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Wright’s First Generalization states:
[blockquote]Those who are in error will not only contradict but actually refute themselves. They will not do this because it is logically necessary but because it is how human beings happen to behave.[/blockquote]
To which a professor friend of mine responded with what I now call Rabkin’s First Corollary to Wright’s First Generalization:
[blockquote]In other words the truth will always come out. Somehow.[/blockquote]
Fr. Dan (#10) – I respect your reticence to speak.
There quickly comes a point at which arguing the legalities becomes pointless, if only because applying the same principles to the formation of the Church of England is hardly favorable to the presiding bishop. Dealing with the legalities quickly takes us to the rather debased and unedifying standard of “whatever one can get away with.”
But as far as the latter is concerned, it’s striking how cavalierly the program against the schismatics is being pursued. The forces of 815 are not making any particular attempt to make sure that Is get dotted and Ts get crossed. The message I take away from that is that either they feel that the middle doesn’t have enough power to oppose them, or that they don’t expect enough of a rebellion against their various transgressions against canonical process. Once again I am most dismayed not by the aims of the liberal establishment, but by the destruction they are willing to produce in the course of their acts.
Dear D.C. (#6), so silence is consent? First of all that is not the case at all in law:
[blockquote] Pure and simple, silence cannot be considered as a consent to a contract, except in cases when the silent person is bound in good faith to explain himself, in which case, silence gives consent. But no assent will be inferred from a man’s silence, unless, 1st. He knows his rights and knows what he is doing and. His silence is voluntary… The rule of the civil law is that silence is not an acknowledgment or denial in every case, qui tacet, non utique fatetur: sed tamen verum est, eum non negaro. [/blockquote]
But I would argue that the 6 of 8 standing committee members were hardly silent. Indeed, they spoke very loudly with their no votes.
And no, the standing committee members of the old diocese of San Joaquin – TEC did not sign an oath of loyalty or swear publicly their allegiance but neither did the standing committee members of diocese of Los Angeles, Northern Michigan, etc.
Robroy [#15], as the last sentence of your quoted passage (which comes from where) implies, there are times when silence is indeed consent. In some circumstances, if a member of a corporate board of directors fails to dissent on the record from a proposed board action, the member is held just as liable as if s/he had voted in favor. The analogy to a diocesan standing committee is rough but serviceable.
Question: On what do you base your statement that 6 of the 8 voted “no”? Is there reliable evidence to that effect, e.g., contemporaneous meeting minutes?
RE: “Who among them publicly dissented from the secessionist action beforehand? (If they didn’t publicly dissent, they should be considered to have constructively resigned.)”
The reason why people declined to respond on the previous thread is because the question was irrelevant.
There are all sorts of appropriate times when people don’t “publicly dissent” — as for instance in the House of Bishops meetings — and that lack of “public dissent” means zilch, whether DC asserts that “they should be considered to have constructively resigned” or not.
Personally I think that all bishops wearing prayer shawls “should be considered to have constructively resigned” but the House of Bishops doesn’t pays attention to me either.