The Peoria Journal-Star reports Top Episcopal Church bishop visits Peoria.
An unprecedented visit to Peoria on Saturday by the top leader of the Episcopal Church was welcomed by some local churches but was largely ignored by the 19 that have broken away from the national organization.
The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, called a special synod at St. Paul’s Cathedral to name new leadership within the Peoria-based Diocese of Quincy and “to get the diocese back on its feet.”
More detail is available in this ENS report Joy, hope and excitement surround formal reorganization of Diocese of Quincy.
Deputies to a special synod meeting of the Episcopal Diocese of Quincy acted with dispatch on Saturday, April 4 as they quickly and unanimously elected new leadership, approved a diocesan budget and elected a provisional bishop. The actions were necessary after a majority of deputies at the 2008 annual synod voted to leave the Episcopal Church and realign with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone.
Deputies elected the Right Rev. John Clark Buchanan, retired bishop of the Diocese of West Missouri, as provisional bishop of the Diocese of Quincy. Buchanan most recently served as interim bishop in the Diocese of Southern Virginia.
The homily preached by the Presiding Bishop is available here.
The Church of England Newspaper has a report Quincy Dioceses files lawsuit against Episcopal Church which says that:
The breakaway Diocese of Quincy has filed suit against the Episcopal Church in an Illinois Court, asking the court to clarify its rights to the name and assets of the diocese.
“We hoped from the beginning to avoid any legal action,” the President of Quincy’s Standing Committee, Fr. John Spencer said on March 31. However, preliminary moves by the national church to seize the diocese’s bank accounts prompted the court filing, he said.
“The breakaway Diocese of Quincy has filed suit against the Episcopal Church in an Illinois Court, asking the court to clarify its rights to the name and assets of the diocese.” If you have broken from the Episcopal Church and joined the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, what possible right to call yourself an Episcopal Diocese can you claim to have? Further, if you are in such violent disagreement with the Episcopal Church as to find such actions necessary, why would you want to retain a name that can only cause outsiders to confuse you with the larger body?… Read more »
How akin this all is to the children’s playground where one of the players wants to sequester the ball – when it doesn’t agree with the established rules of the game. When will the dissenters realise that they have no grounds for wanting to seize the lawfully acquired assets of TEC?
“Unless, of course, you think that makes it easier to retain the property….”
But the Colorado breakaways [sounds like a football team, doesn’t it?] now tell us, having lost their attempt to grab the property, it never WAS about the property. I’m confused…
Do be careful. While it is reasonably clear that parishes normally can’t keep the property, no diocese has ever tried to leave TEC except in the US Civil War, so matter has never been tried in court. As a result it isn’t clear whether secular courts will let the dioceses can take the property with them. In the US Civil War, of course, it would have been impossible to settle the matter in court.
Jon
It’s becoming increasingly clearer that according to US law the schismatics do not have a right to the Church’s property. However, it seems to be their custom as they leave to stop and pee on the carpet. Then the Church has to spend money cleaning it up. I’ve forgotten the technical psychological term for this behavior.
“I’ve forgotten the technical psychological term for this behavior.”
In animal behavior, it’s called marking territory.
Their desire to hold on to assets may say a great deal about their fear – their fear that they will not be able to attract new followers given their lack of love and charity. The bitterness in conservative blogs is absolutely frightening.
Jon,
Are you aware of a legal argument that would allow a distinction to be drawn between a diocese and a parish under the law of any of the states that might consider a church property case? I am not aware of one, and the California Supreme Court’s recent ruling certainly allows no such distinction, but some state laws are idiocyncratic –Virginia’s being the most notable example–so maybe there is one sitting out there that I don’t know about.
Jim Naughton
“Their desire to hold on to assets may say a great deal about their fear – their fear that they will not be able to attract new followers given their lack of love and charity.”
Well said, ettu.
I’m not sure whether it’s the ugliness of the new “Church of No Homos (Ordained, Married, or UnCloseted!)” brandname . . . or simply the *competition* (from ConEv, Popoid and Mormon quarters) for that share of the religious market! ;-/
[But seriously: a blessed Holy Week to all…]
I am not aware of any legal argument that would allow such a distinction to be drawn, but I’m also not a lawyer. Coincidentally, if a was a lawyer I’d be inclined to side with TEC over the break away dioceses. The legal arguments take us several steps down the line, however. My point is to note at the outset that, however convincing we find any of the legal arguments, it is uncharted territory.
Jon