The convention of the Diocese of Fond du Lac is scheduled to consider a resolution that seeks consent from General Convention to explore a junctioning arrangement with the Diocese of Eau Claire when it meets Oct. 18-19 in Fond du Lac, Wis.
Junctioning, as defined in Article V of the constitution of The Episcopal Church, means the joining of two or more dioceses to form a new diocese. In order to come before General Convention, the Diocese of Eau Claire must approve a similar resolution at its convention Nov. 7-8. Fond du Lac is 134 years old. Eau Claire is 80.
Canon Matthew Payne, canon administrator for the Diocese of Fond du Lac, likened General Convention consent as something less than marriage and more like getting permission to date.
One wonders why Eau Claire was ever created in the first place. If they had waited even a year, I suspect the Great Depression would have out paid to the idea.
“put paid” not “out paid,” obviously.
Another symptom of a rapidly-shrinking TEC.
The difficulty, as is true in all TEC provinces, but esp. Provinces V, VI, VII and VIII, is that the spaces are huge, but the number of Episcopalians on the ground is small. Not a few dioceses are bigger than all of Province I, geographically. If you look at the number of communicants alone, there are many adjacent dioceses that may justify merger/junction/etc. But when you consider the amount of territory that would put in a single diocese, you have to solve problems relating to the ability of the Bishop and his/her staff to minister effectively throughout the Diocese, the ability of the diocesan office to provide ministry resources to congregations, and the ability of laypeople and clergy from throuhout the dioceses to participate fully in the life and governance of the Diocese. I have heard people in numerous dioceses that are dominated by a single metropolitan area complain that the people “in the hustings” get little or no attention from the Diocesan office. All of these are challenges that need to be addressed when combining diocesan ministries. I believe that, if Eau Clair and Fond du Lac were combined geographicallly, it would take about eight hours to drive between the geographic extremes of that area. how wouild that impact the schedule of the Ordinary in making episcopal visitations? That is just one example of the issues involved. And if you get an Assistant or Suffragan, or set up satellite “miinistry” offices for the diocesan, don’t you end up just sliding back into the prior situation?
In the early 1990s, some people in the Diocese of East Tennessee came up with a proposal to re-draw the diocesan lines in accordance with population, rather than using geographic and political boundaries. If TEC gets to the point where a number of dioceses have to explore the above issues, perhaps the General Convention should get involved on a “big picture” level, rather than leaving the dioceses to make ad hoc decisions.
Kevin,
How in the world did bishops in the 19th century ever effectively minister in such a vast area. The first Bishop of Dallas oversaw an area that combined the modern dioceses of Dallas and Ft. Worth and much of NW Texas – with fewer Episcopalians than today in a much larger area.
If they could do it 150 years ago – without airplanes and cars, then they could do it today.
I suggest that TECUSA combine dioceses such that no diocese has an ASA < 10,000 people to start with and when the ASA of a dioces drops below 5000, it will be broken up and merged into surrounding dioceses. Of course, that would never work. As of 2006, there 42 dioceses with ASA < 5000 and 76 dioceses with ASA < 10,000. YBIC, Phil Snyder
“..getting permission to date.”
Dating Common Cause would give some promise of a future family and blessings.
Don
re 5: One hates to be a spoilsport, but a lot of these divisions were done in the 19th century. It’s particularly the case for Province V, which has the biggest collection of pointlessly small dioceses.
At any rate, it’s rather unAnglican to undo these historical accidents.
Too true #7. Erie was lopped off Pittsburgh in 1910 because of complaints that they were inadequately involved in the life of the Diocese and because Bishop Whitehead, in advanced age, objected to making visitations so far north. The hope was that independence would spur vitality; with one or two noteworthy exceptions, this doesn’t seem to have been the case (though whether they would have done better by remaining part of Pittsburgh is anyone’s guess).
[url=http://catholicandreformed.blogspot.com]Catholic and Reformed[/url]
I’m told that the Diocese of Western Kansas was formed because one of the past bishops of Kansas didn’t like having to travel all the way out to the western part of the state.
How did any early church exist without any modern means of converyance?? Oh well back to the days of circuit riders (equine borne). What also enters the picture now is the price of gasoline!!
#8 The Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania (formerly Diocese of Erie) had an ASA of 1,989 in 2006 with a loss of 21% of ASA from 1996-2006. [url=http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/Average_Sunday_Attendance_by_Prov.__Diocese_1996-06(1).pdf]Diocesan ASA Chart[/url]
Well, let’s see: How many geographically small dioceses are there in TEC? How about Rhode Island, Delaware, Easton, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maryland, Hawaii; and the ones with the small population, such as Nevada, the two Dakotas, etc? Seems to me that they could be amalgamated with few problems…..except that some TEC bishops would be out of a job.
Maryland has 114 parishes; even with two bishops not every parish gets a visit every year. Easton got split from Maryland because ferrying the bishop across the bay in the 1800s was terribly inconvenient; besides, it has another 40 parishes. Washington got split from Maryland because 200 parishes is simply too many for one diocese. A number of the big, liberal dioceses on the east coast could easily be broken up: in New York, for instance, “Region II” is essentially already being administered as a subdiocese. Most of these dioceses already have multiple bishops.
And as far as the early church is concerned: by and large, a diocese was a city. That’s pretty much the way it was in medieval England too.