“In their deliberations at the special session last week, the House of Bishops was clear that this action is based on Robert Duncan’s actions and statements to facilitate the departure of congregations out of the Episcopal Church,” Robertson told ENS. “This was not based on Robert Duncan’s theological position.” Duncan has taken a conservative stance on such issues as church attitudes toward homosexuality.
The Title IV Review Committee had certified in December that Duncan had abandoned the communion of the Episcopal Church under the terms of Canon IV.9.1 “by an open renunciation of the Doctrine, Discipline, or Worship of this Church.”
The Presiding Bishop moved to inhibit Duncan (restrict his episcopal acts) during the time between the certification and the time she brought the matter to a meeting of the house. However, the House’s three senior bishops could not agree unanimously with Jefferts Schori’s request. The canon on abandonment does not call for a formal trial, as do the disciplinary canons.
John H. Lewis, Duncan’s attorney, said in a September 18 statement that was posted on the diocese’s website September 22, that Duncan “was denied his fundamental right — the right to a church trial ”¦ because the Presiding Bishop believes that his ‘deposition’ will assist her in her desire to seize the property of the Diocese of Pittsburgh.”
and from +++Rowan (http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/1) we still have nothing. The photo on his home page might leave one with the impression that he is (sadly) more concerned with carbon dioxide emissions, no doubt heartening his revisionist ECUSA brethren….
Rowan is at Lourdes with the Anglo-Catholics- I just hope he offers them (and me by association) some reassurance as to our future in the progressively liberal church he leads.
#2: Good luck with that hope!
If past performance is relied on to predict future actions…well, the ABC will likely remind us that Canterbury does not control autonomous TEC, that we should all be in prayer…..etc. Do NOT look for him to refer to his Advent Letter of a year ago which appropriately described the diocese and its bishop as the constituent reality of the Anglican Communion.
The title of the article – by ENS no less – is interesting.
[i]Presiding Bishop[/i] Removes…
And no one caught the irony?