1. Under the Canons and Constitution of the Diocese and the Episcopal Church, it is not possible for the Diocese or parishes within the Diocese to leave the Church. People may leave the Church; dioceses and parishes may not. Therefore, parishes, clergy and laity that wish to remain in the Episcopal Church will not recognize the legitimacy of “realignment.”
2. At the close of Convention on October 4, we will no longer recognize those members of the current leadership of the Diocese of Pittsburgh who “realign” as being legitimate. Ecclesiastic authority will shift to those members of the Standing Committee who are known to be remaining in the Episcopal Church.
3. Soon after October 4, the remaining members of the Standing Committee will determine whether any of the other members of the current Standing Committee are remaining in the Episcopal Church. Those who are not will cease to be recognized as members of the Standing Committee. The remaining members of the Standing Committee will appoint two additional individuals to serve as members of the Standing Committee.
I’m not sure if it will matter if TEC no longer recogizes those who have realigned the diocese, since they, along with their diocese, will no longer recognize TEC as having authority over them. Then it will be a matter of KJS doing what she does best: appoint compliant stooges to do her bidding and sue the departed.
Chilling.
Yes, chilling but not accurate. How does a diocese become a diocese of the EC? It must form, accede to the Constitution and Canons of the EC, and request membership through GC. If a diocese decides to join then naturally and legally the Diocese can decide to leave. This is an opening that you can drive a mack truck through and the leadership of the EC knows it no matter what argument they put forward.
Setting up a new shadow diocese as has been done in San Joaquin without following the Constitution and Canons of the EC just shows how lawlessness has become the way of the leadership of the EC. If they continue to not bear the fruits of righteousness, then like the unfaithful tenant in our lectionary for tomorrow, God will replace them.
Creighton+ (#3),
While I agree with Pittsburgh’s right to realign and leave TEC the argument you put forward worked out well for SC and the other 10 in the 1860’s. Secession from a voluntary accession to a constitution was not upheld as a right of the state, why should we expect that TEC would differ from national policy? After all, TEC sees itself as the national church.
[blockquote]This is an opening that you can drive a mack truck through and the leadership of the EC knows it no matter what argument they put forward. [/blockquote]
TEC is in a delicious (from my perspective) dilemma here: It can pretend the Cs&Cs;prevent a diocese from seceding and likely wind up losing several of them in this flight to the exits, or it can change the Cs&Cs;at GC2009 to explicitly prevent a diocese from seceding. Yet, in changing the Cs&Cs;, it implicitly admits that there was a way for a diocese to secede.
Popcorn…I’m getting some popcorn.
That’s a weird semicolon quirk there. Let’s try that again: Cs&Cs;
BUT. a change in Canon must got thru two (2) conventions right?
So, there will still be 3 years to fight. ?
Anyone?
Of course, not sticking with the canons is TEC’s speciality, wouldn’t stand up in court tho..
Grannie Gloria
There is nothing in the C & C of TEC that prevents removal of the accession clause and then making other amendments to the governing documents of a diocese.
There is nothing in law that would somehow automatically unseat the governing body of the diocese. TEC would like to argue that somehow the vote is ultra vires and thus of no effect, but they do not appear to have grounds for making that argument – hence, the old chestnut: “people may leave the Church; dioceses and parishes may not.”
I would suggest that TEC could move the Army of the Potomac into 535 Smithfield St., Pittsburgh.
😉
It’s just happened, so KJS ought to be dialing up the lawyers about now.
Re: #7,
Grandmother, today’s vote is the second vote; the first one was passed a year ago.
How can they lead off with a restrictive interpretation of the canons, and then turn around and make them irrelevant by making up their own rules of order in the subsequent items? By what canon can they have ONE member of the Standing Comm decide that the others will not be recognized? By what authority will they appoint replacements? Smells like hypocrisy to me.
Blessings upon Episcopal Commissary Duncan!
Secession from a voluntary accession to a constitution was not upheld as a right of the state
Actually, with regard to the Secession of the southern states, this issue was not ruled upon by the courts so much as by the armies of the Union. Lincoln’s war, whether morally legitimate or not, was entirely outside the Constitution.
The appropriate responce to these Vichy clowns would be to say, “You and what army”?”
Dr. Tighe #10, I was speaking of GC-09. No matter what they do to the canons, it takes two times through the TEC Convention, that is unless “someone” says otherwise…
I was speaking of “Jeffersonians”” ..”or it can change the Cs&Cs;at GC2009 to explicitly prevent a diocese from seceding. Yet, in changing the Cs&Cs;, it implicitly admits that there was a way for a diocese to secede.”
I would not be surprised if there was a spcial case thingy passed, to say “new canons” become effective immediately… C&C;” be darned.
Grandmother
Nonjuror – I doubt that the precedent of the Civil War would have any weight in a court making a decision on the legitimacy of the Diocese of Pittsburgh’s vote to disaffiliate with the General Convention. This is part of the reason why KJS’s recent actions against Duncan, Cox and Schofield were such pure folly on her part.
KJS has acted clearly in violation of TEC’s canons. As such, she has set the precedent that bodies within TEC have great discretion in how to interpret and apply canons. I am trained in law and I can say that my reading of the canons (and I am trying to be fair and objective) suggests that KJS blatantly and capriciously abused the canons when she deposed Duncan, Cox and Schofield (but especially Duncan). On the other hand, a canon that requires that a NEW diocese have an “unqualified accession” clause to TEC’s C&C;in order to be admitted into union, can NOT be seen in any reasonable way to prevent the diocese from revoking that clause and leaving.
Think of it this way – if I immigrate to the US and become a citizen, I take an oath renouncing my other allegiances and pledging allegiance to the U.S. without any intent of evasion. If some years down the road, I decide to move to Canada and renounce my US citizenship, would it make sense for the US government to refuse to recognize this and attempt to arrest me and throw me in jail? No. When you join a voluntary organization, you agree to be bound by the rules. That doesn’t mean you can’t later leave UNLESS the rules that you have agreed to abide by forbid it. And there is nothing in TEC’s C&C;which forbid leaving. It’s that simple.
As I have pointed out in the past and the Curmudgeon points out [url=http://accurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2008/10/logic-wins-in-pittsburgh.html ]again[/url], having an accession clause in one’s diocesan constitution is a requirement for membership of that diocese. Now, the diocese of Pittsburgh no longer has such a clause. The correct response from Ms Schoria and Mr Beers would be told they have to shove off and that they are no longer part of the club.
The Curmudgeon also writes (ibid):
[blockquote] The Episcopal Church, like each of the Dioceses which make it up, is itself an unincorporated association. What does that mean? An unincorporated association is, first of all, not incorporated—that is to say, it is not a permanent legal entity, as is a corporation. Second, it is an association—which is to say that it is a voluntary assembly of people who choose freely to belong to it. While they are members, they must obey its rules. But if the association had a rule that “members who join us may never leave us,” that rule itself would not only be unenforceable in any court, but it would violate the very definition of an association, in an effort to turn it into a permanent, corporate-like entity.[/blockquote]
Oops, the “Schoria” really was a typo. Sorry elves.
Everyone here seems to think that a ‘diocese’ is some sort of independent, free-standing association which formerly existed outside TEC, and which mutually agreed with TEC to change that status. Think of the Republic of Texas joining the Union in 1845 following nine years as an independent state. (Or imagine, as was half-seriously proposed during the Quebec Libre angst a number of years ago, Canada’s Western provinces deciding to become the 51st etc. states of the United States.) A handful of Episcopal dioceses may have originated this way.
In many cases, however, the reality is that the ‘diocese’ originated because a subset of pre-existing Episcopalians — not Baptists, not Methodists, not unaffiliated Christians, but people who were already members of TEC — ‘colonized’ mission territory and eventually petitioned for full ‘statehood’ status in the Episcopal Church. Think of, say, the states of Oklahoma, Arizona, and Alaska: If memory serves, all three were not independent republics like Texas, but territories colonized and governed by Americans who eventually sought and received full statehood status from the Congress.
(The cases of San Jose and Fort Worth are more like the state of Maine, carved out of an existing jurisdiction by authority of the central government.)
In the coming months it will be useful to keep these distinctions in mind, I think.
Welcome to the hotel Episcopalian. You can join, but you can never leave!