Dave Walker has collected some weird items in a posting at the Church Times blog titled The Church Society on ‘strange vestments and ceremonies’.
And something even weirder crops up in an article for the Washington Times by Julia Duin titled New Anglicans split on women.
I queried retired Eau Claire, Wis., Bishop William Wantland, an old friend and an ardent opponent of ordaining women. He reminded me that 22 of the ACNA’s 28 dioceses do not allow female priests. It’s a system known as “dual integrity,” dioceses that differ on a question where Scripture can be read both ways agree to respect and live with each other’s views.
I asked him if he wanted the ACNA to eventually outlaw ordaining women entirely.
“Of course. That’s our mission,” he said. “Christ is the bridegroom and the church is the bride. The priest at the altar is an icon of Christ. What image is that if the person at the altar is a woman? It’s a lesbian relationship.”
ENS has this report:
Private meeting with Williams at convention will address sexuality, ministry
Eight members of the Episcopal Church’s House of Deputies are scheduled meet privately with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams at General Convention in a session that is intended in part to address lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues in the church.
General Convention meets July 8-17 in Anaheim, California, and Williams will be present July 7-9.
The session is not an official convention meeting and thus there has been no announcement of the plans. However, when contacted by Episcopal News Service, the Rev. Canon Michael Barlowe of the Diocese of California confirmed the details.
Barlowe said that he and the other deputies understood the meeting was to be brief and private, but that it was not a secret…
Lisa Fox has published all but two of the names of the group studying same-sex relationships. For background here is the early June report.
See The Formerly Secret Panel (go to original source for live links)
So here are eight of the ten theologians serving on the panel to study same-sex relationships.
Co-facilitators:
* The Rt. Rev. Joe G. Burnett, Bishop of Nebraska (webpage here)
* Ellen Charry, Princeton Theological Seminary (webpage here)Members:
* Deirdre J. Good, General Theological Seminary (webpage here)
* Willis Jenkins, Yale Divinity School (webpage here)
* The Rev. Grant LeMarquand, Trinity School for Ministry (webpage here)
* Eugene Rogers, University of North Carolina, Greensboro (webpage here)
* The Rev. George Sumner, Wycliffe College, Toronto (webpage here)
* The Rev. Daniel A. Westberg of Nashotah House (webpage here; see page 3 of the newsletter)
The Chicago Consultation has issued this press release:
CHICAGO, July 1, 2009—Ruth Meyers, Hodges Haynes Professor of Liturgics at Church Divinity School of the Pacific, General Convention deputy from the Diocese of Chicago, and co-convener of the Chicago Consultation, responded to the news that the names of most members of the House of Bishops Theology Committee panel on same-sex blessings have been made public:
“Continued scholarly work, done with particular attention to the work of the Holy Spirit in committed, life-long, monogamous unions of faithful gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Episcopalians, can liberate the church to discern more fully the work of the Spirit in all life-long unions of fidelity and mutual love. We wish this panel well, and we call upon General Convention to enrich its theological work by establishing a common rite for the blessing of unions across the Episcopal Church.”
“We commit to praying for each of these theologians and their co-chairs by name, and we hope that the remaining two members of the panel will choose to come forward publicly so that we may begin General Convention next week with the spirit of openness and transparency that characterizes our polity and our common life…”
Bishop Jack Iker has today issued a Memo to All Diocesan Clergy.
In recent days I understand that all of you have received two threatening letters from representatives of the rump diocese. The first is a letter from The Rt. Rev. Edwin F. Gulick, Jr., the Bishop of Kentucky, in a capacity he claims as the “Provisional Bishop” of the rump diocese, threatening to inhibit and then depose you if you do not recognize his authority over you as your bishop. The second is a letter from Jonathan Nelson, legal counsel for the Gulick-led group, addressed to our vestries, treasurers, and finance committee members, as well as to all our vicars and rectors. It too is meant to intimidate and control us. It is the preliminary notification that will lead to additional lawsuits to be brought against us by The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America (PECUSA). Both of these letters are now in the hands of our attorneys, and they will be responding on our behalf. There is nothing you need to do at this point in time. We are no longer members of PECUSA and are not subject to their discipline. It is indeed regrettable that they find it necessary to engage in such harsh, uncharitable tactics, rather than enter into negotiation…
The documents to which this responds are appended as PDF files:
Letter to clergy
Letter to churches
They were reported on by the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth in this news release, dated 29 May.
And there are two further documents published today by Bishop Iker:
Litigation Perspective
Archbishop Venables writes to the diocesan clergy
Earlier in the month, the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth had issued this formal response to a document filed in court on 8 May by the lawyers for Bishop Iker.
Read about it at The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth files response to motion to dismiss suit to recover property and assets of the Episcopal Church.
Episcopal Café has published two important articles relating to The Episcopal Church. Only the first one is, at present, scheduled for discussion at the triennal General Convention which starts on 8 July.
GC and B033: a preview and an analysis by Jim Naughton explains what may happen in relation to the moratorium in TEC on consecrating bishops who are in same-sex relationships.
Nick Knisely in Report on communing the unbaptized released introduces the text of a report from the House of Bishops Theology Committee entitled REFLECTIONS ON HOLY BAPTISM AND THE HOLY EUCHARIST.
ENS reports: California appellate court rules La Crescenta property belongs to Los Angeles diocese.
California appellate court’s June 9 ruling was the latest in a series of recent developments that return disputed church properties to three California Episcopal dioceses.
On June 9, the San Diego-based Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled unanimously that the Diocese of Los Angeles is legal owner of property currently occupied by St. Luke’s Anglican Church. The congregation had cited theological differences when severing ties to the Episcopal Church (TEC) in 2006 and realigning with an Anglican diocese in Uganda.
In unrelated agreements, displaced Episcopalians will return July 1 to two other disputed properties, St. John’s Church in Petaluma, in the Diocese of Northern California and St. Paul’s Church in Modesto in the Diocese of San Joaquin…
See also news reports:
Dispute over old church resolved
Breakaway Petaluma congregation returns building to Episcopal Church
and
Church ruling upheld
Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles wins another property battle
The Colorado Springs Gazette reports ‘Everyone just agreed to walk away’ from Grace Church dispute.
Litigation over the Grace Church property downtown seemed destined to drag on for years.
But all that changed Tuesday.
In a marathon mediation session, the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado agreed to drop its lawsuit against 18 Anglican parish members being sued for damages. Also several motions, including an appeal of the March 24 court decision upholding the diocese’s ownership of the Tejon Street church property, were quashed…
And there is this earlier report, Dispute over Grace church property settled.
A press release found at the website of the CANA congregation says:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 3, 2009St. George’s Responds to Settlement with the Diocese of Colorado
COLORADO SPRINGS, CO – St. George’s Anglican Church issued the following statement in response to the settlement agreement reached with the Diocese of Colorado:
“We are pleased with the settlement, particularly since it relieved our staff and vestry members of the burden and expense of defending against $5 million in unjustified claims brought against them personally by the Diocese of Colorado and The Episcopal Church.
“The settlement reached also means that all the costs associated with maintaining the property of Grace Church and St. Stephens, including payment of the $2,500,000 mortgage, belong to the Episcopal congregation and the Diocese of Colorado.
“Our only remaining obligation is to pay final operational expenses we had incurred during our possession of the property, but were unauthorized to pay until this settled agreement was reached.
“We look forward to fulfilling God’s call to us for mission and ministry.”
Updated again Saturday evening
Here’s a very surprising story from the USA about the Episcopal Church.
Episcopal Café Secret theology committee studies same sex relationships
The House of Bishops Theology Committee is refusing to release the names of members of a sub-committee it has appointed to study same-sex relationships. The existence of the panel was first reported in the Blue Book, which contains information relevant to General Convention, 2009. However, the Rt. Rev. Henry Parsley of Alabama, chair of the Theology Committee has refused several requests to disclose the names of its members.
The anonymity of the panel raises serious concerns in the Church that prides itself on the transparency of its representative form of governance. In addition, the work of this secret panel has already been cited by some bishops as a reason to delay further legislative action on the issue of same-sex relationships until the panel finishes its work in 2011…
The Chicago Consultation has issued a press release:
CHICAGO CONSULTATION CALLS FOR HOUSE OF BISHOPS THEOLOGY COMMITTEE TO RELEASE NAMES OF SCHOLARS STUDYING SAME-SEX RELATIONSHIPS
…However, we are saddened that the House of Bishops Theology Committee has chosen to begin this important scholarly work without making public the names of the bishops, theologians and scholars who are serving on this panel. The theological study of human sexuality is essential to our common life, to our mission and evangelism, and to our ability to live out our baptismal promises. Such important work deserves to be no less than a model of the transparent governance that the Episcopal Church has upheld for centuries.
As theologians, priests, bishops and laypeople from across the Episcopal Church, we call upon the House of Bishops Theology Committee to release at once the names of those serving on the panel it has appointed to study same-sex relationships. We commit to praying for them by name and to providing our assistance as they continue their work…
Update
EpiScope reports this statement From the HOB Theology Committee:
The following is a statement from the chair of the HOB Theology Committee.
By the Rt. Rev. Henry N. Parsley, Jr.
Chair, Theology Committee of the House of BishopsIn response to questions that have been raised about the panel of theologians appointed by the Theology Committee of the House of Bishops to prepare a paper on same-sex relationships in the life of the church, I wish to assure those concerned that the panel very intentionally represents a robust range of views on the subject and includes gay and lesbian persons.
This project has been designed in full communication with the House of Bishops. It has always been the committee’s intention to publish the names of the panel when the work has reached the appropriate stage. We believe that for a season the work can best be accomplished by allowing the panel to work in confidence. This supports the full collegiality and academic freedom of the theologians and provides the space they need for the deep dialogue and reflection that is taking place among them.
This project is designed to articulate theologically a full range of views on the matter of same sex relationships in the church’s life and to foster better understanding and respectful discernment among us. It will also be a contribution to the listening process of the larger Communion. It has several stages and is scheduled to be complete by early 2011. We are grateful to the distinguished theologians for their generous service to the church.
We wish to invite any member of the church who wishes to address the panel to send comments to the Theology Committee. We will see that these are communicated to the theologians to enrich their reflection and dialogue.
Comments should be directed to the chair of the committee, Bishop Henry Parsley, at hparsley@dioala.org.
ENS has a full report now, see Bishops’ Theology Committee chair declines to release names of same-gender study group.
Saturday evening update
Here’s a further twist to this strange tale. Frank Lockwood reports at Bible Belt Blogger that
Facing criticism for withholding information from its 2.3 million members, the Episcopal Church has quietly removed from its new IAmEpiscopalian.org website assurances that the church is committed to openness and transparency in government.
For months, the site had proclaimed on its home page: “Our controversies and conversations have been public. Our governance is transparent. You are free to see our imperfections…” (See a copy of the original message here.)
But sometime this week, after the church was repeatedly criticized for concealing key governance decisions from the people in the pews, the “transparency” and “openness” message disappeared.
Mark Harris doesn’t think this change is related to the above story. But even if it isn’t the original story is still very surprising. It even made the Church Times this week, see Name gay study group, say activists.
From San Joaquin:
ENS Final depositions for 61 disaffiliated clergy
Press release Letters of deposition sent
PDF of deposition notice
Bishop Schofield responds, see here.
From Fort Worth:
ENS Bishop asks clergy to verify decision to leave
Press release Bishop Gulick sends letters to clergy who left the Episcopal Church
PDF of letter from Bishop Gulick
From Pittsburgh:
TEC Hearing Conducted In Diocesan Assets Case
Southern Cone Legal Update- May 27 Hearing
For an eyewitness account see Lionel Deimel My Day in Court.
PDF of TEC intervention here
PDF of Bp Duncan’s filing here
As noted in the preceding item, the Church Times has reported that the Covenant is to be used as litmus test of Anglicanism.
Now, the Daily Episcopalian asks a related question, The Anglican Covenant: Dar by other means?
Jim Naughton writes:
Is it possible that proposed Anglican Covenant is a means of achieving a modified version of the Dar es Salaam settlement proposed by the Primates of the Anglican Communion in 2007?
The communiqué released after that meeting proposed a “pastoral scheme”, which created a church within a church led by almost exactly the same bishops who signed the factually challenged document on diocesan autonomy released yesterday by the Anglican Communion Institute.
The ACI, with Fulcrum in the United Kingdom, were influential in creating the pastoral scheme and articulating the Camp Allen principles that were also endorsed by the Primates. The Dar settlement was almost unanimously rejected by the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops, (which, as Sally Johnson chancellor to Bonnie Anderson, President of the House of Deputies, has demonstrated, did not have the constitutional authority to affirm it.) Despite its rejection, the leaders of the ACI continued to press for its provisions to be imposed on the Episcopal Church, even though the Dar settlement makes no provisions for this eventuality, and the Primates Meeting lacks the authority to force settlements on member Churches…
The Church Times reported:
…The Anglican Partner bishops have declared themselves to be loyal to the Episcopal Church and to the Anglican Communion. Their move can be seen as an alternative path to that taken by the Common Cause Anglicans in the United States, who last year established the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) under the deposed Bishop of Pittsburgh, the Rt Revd Bob Duncan.
None the less, their latest move to use the Covenant as a test of orthodoxy parallels moves by the ACNA last week. The Covenant has been criticised by conservatives in the past, and the first version of a communiqué issued by the GAFCON (Global Anglican Future Conference) Primates in London last week appeared to be sceptical about the latest draft of the Covenant (the “Ridley draft”, News, 17 April): “While we support the concept of an Anglican Covenant . . . if those who have left the standards of the Bible are able to enter the Covenant with a good conscience, it seems to be of little use.”
This was later changed to: “We welcome the Ridley Cambridge Draft Covenant and call for principled response from the provinces.”
Interviewed at Heathrow on Thursday of last week, Bishop Duncan said that the Covenant would be debated at the ACNA provincial assembly in June. “We imagine that, while we as the Anglican Church in North Ameri-can ratify the Covenant, neither the US Church, when it meets three weeks later, nor the Church of Canada, when it has its next general synod, will be in any hurry to ratify it. The question will be for the Communion: ‘Who actually are the partners?’”
The Church Times has this report by Pat Ashworth US contingency plan asserts diocesan autonomy and there is a second, related report Covenant is to be used as litmus test of Anglicanism.
The first article has moved on the CT website: please follow the above link, and then scroll down, in order to find the first article above!
Matthew Davies has written about it for ENS see Communion Partners statement challenges Episcopal Church polity.
The Chicago Consultation has issued this Response to Anglican Communion Institute statement.
The Living Church has a report, Bishops: Church’s Doctrine, Worship, Polity in ‘Grave Peril’.
Mark Harris who first broke this story, has written a second note, Cleaning out the Stalls.
The predicted statement has now been published.
See Bishops’ Statement on the Polity of the Episcopal Church, at the ACI website.
There is also a separate item there, Statement from the Anglican Communion Institute signed only by The Revd Canon Professor Christopher Seitz. This responds to the original publication of email extracts by The Revd Canon Mark Harris.
The entire email correspondence has now been published as a PDF file over here.
Earlier, an unofficial copy of the formal ACI document was published, also as a PDF here.
The Bishops’ Statement has been signed by 15 bishops. The list is as follows:
Also Endorsed By:
- The Reverend Canon Professor Christopher Seitz
- The Reverend Dr. Philip Turner
- The Reverend Dr. Ephraim Radner
(The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc.)
The name of Mark McCall, the actual author, does not appear in the published document.
According to the emails and the draft version of the document, the following four additional signatures were sought:
list amended Thursday morning
The Right Reverend John C. Bauerschmidt, Bishop of Tennessee
The Right Reverend Geralyn Wolf, Bishop of Rhode Island
The Right Reverend Gary R. Lillibridge, Bishop of West Texas
The Right Reverend C. Andrew Doyle, Bishop Coadjutor of Texas
Various blogs have commented on this story, including:
In A Godward Direction BS from ACI
BabyBlue Draft of Communion Partners Statement on the Polity of The Episcopal Chuch is seized and leaked by Episcopal progressive activists
Integrity Integrity Applauds “Outing” of Communion Partners Network
Telling Secrets Anglican Teabagging
Episcopal Café ACI releases statement and Breaking III: Integrity publishes CP/ACI draft document
Articles of Faith Episcopal email conspiracy unwrapped
Washington Blade Episcopal leaders look to enhance anti-gay schism: source
An Inch At A Time: Reflections on the Journey Nancy Drew and The Case of the Errant Anglican Emails added Thursday morning
The arguments being put forward by Communion Partners about the autonomy of TEC dioceses apply also of course to those dioceses which now claim to have left TEC. And the ACI is clearly aware that the forthcoming CP statement could be used in the litigation which is ensuing in relation to those dioceses (San Joaquin, Fort Worth, Quincy, and Pittsburgh). Here are three further quotes from the same thread of emails:
…by ‘support’ do you mean, support for the Bishops signing this document to be posted at ACI and used in the Pittsburgh case? Mark McCall can evaluate that better than I, but in terms of sending a message about where the CP Rectors are, this could I think be helpful. It will not go out as a CP Bishops statement, however, but rather as a statement endorsed by individual Bishops, all of whom are of course also CP Bishops.
…On the second purpose of the Bishops’ Statement—to serve as a resource for the litigation and the expert testimony—the general principle is the more support the better, although on this front, it is the bishops’ signatures that matter the most. The only thing that would hurt is a format that implies more signatures should have been attached, e.g., if your statement were open to all rectors but only a handful actually signed on.
…there were significant developments in the Pittsburgh litigation while we were in Houston. There was a flurry of filings and a ruling yesterday permitting +Buchanan (with Beers as counsel) to intervene. This is merely a procedural ruling. Beers now has to prove what he has alleged (subordination, etc.). As some of you know, I have always regarded this procedural ruling as a foregone conclusion, but +Duncan’s counsel opposed it vigorously. I was somewhat concerned that they were wasting credibility with the judge, but they know this better than I. There will still be substantial procedural wrangling in Pittsburgh over the terms of the settlement agreement reached three years ago between +Duncan and Harold Lewis+, so the substantive issues we are concerned with will come up later in Pittsburgh than in San Joaquin. I believe, however, that the failure of the procedural tactic by +Duncan’s lawyers means that these substantive issues will eventually be decisive in Pittsburgh. (I have a great deal of respect for +Duncan’s current lawyer, John Lewis. He is trying to get out of a deep hole dug by Duncan’s former counsel in the disastrous Harold Lewis litigation. Bishop Duncan has been badly served in the past by my profession.)
So it is not entirely clear to me how far the CP members are distancing themselves from those who have left TEC for ACNA.
Update
John Chilton has drawn attention at Episcopal Café to the signature of The Rt. Reverend D. Bruce MacPherson (Communion Partner Bishops) on the document at ACI entitled ACI Statement on Civil Litigation which deals specifically with the TEC intervention in the legal action in Pittsburgh.
Communion Partners is an organisation of (non-TEC) Primates, TEC bishops and TEC rectors which is closely linked to the Anglican Communion Institute.
The two organisations jointly sponsored a conference last week in Houston, Texas. You can find more information about the conference here, and in this Living Church news report, Archbishop Carey: TEC Likely to ‘Clean Out’ Conservatives.
Their own About Us page says:
In light of our understanding of the integrity of the Dioceses of The Episcopal Church and the Episcopal Visitors concept announced by the Presiding Bishop, we have considered a need to maintain and strengthen
- our ties with the Anglican Communion
- our fidelity to the canonical realities, integrities and structures of the Episcopal Church
- and our exercise of our office as a focus of unity.
We believe such ties will provide the opportunity for mutual support, accountability and fellowship; and present an important sign of our connectedness in and vision for the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion as we move through this time of stress and renewal.
And the page also discusses Purpose, Scope, Participants, and Transparency. The Primates listed are: Tanzania, West Indies, Jerusalem and Middle East, Burundi, Indian Ocean.
There are lists of TEC bishops and of TEC rectors.
Earlier statements published in the name of the CP group include Common Cause and a New Province.
CP and ACI now intend to publish a formal document shortly, signed by perhaps 18 CP bishops, entitled Bishops’ Statement on the Polity of the Episcopal Church which argues in detail that TEC is not a hierarchical body and that individual dioceses are autonomous entities. In particular they argue that individual dioceses are free to sign up to the proposed Anglican Covenant, and that it is not necessary to leave TEC and join ACNA in order to do that. The presumption here is that TEC itself will not do so, or at least not in 2009.
Mark Harris has reported on the existence of a thread of emails about this plan, see Heads Up: Lawyer McCall and “Communion Partner” bishops play the diocese card.
The CP bishops and ACI also plan to press ahead with a plan for a priest in Colorado, named as The Revd. Theron Walker, Rector of St Philip In the Field, Sedalia, to request a visitation from the Bishop of South Carolina, as a CP Bishop. Below the fold, are extracts from two of the emails which give full details of this.
email 1:
The other main concern is seeing to a visitation in the name of CP, something now long overdue. We are hoping that Theron Walker requests a CP visitation from +Mark Lawrence, asap, and +Mark will request that +Salmon go in his place, as a CP Visitor. I understand from Philip that +Wimberly has also volunteered his services, as has +Hathaway.
I would request of your advisory group that a series of these visits be planned, asap, and with some sense of organisation, perhaps using these three men. It was usefully pointed out that the places needing support are precisely those where the Bishop is very unclear about his support of Covenant, and so the parishes under him that want this are left to themselves, either to buckle under or leave with the help of AAC/ACNA.
In point of fact, this is not really the case in B-ham with Limehouse, as +Mark reminded me. That said, any parish that wants to underscore their commitment to covenant and CP needs a way to show their people that CP is the way to do this.
The negotiating of this takes place between a CP bishop and the respective Diocesan, but the advisory group of CP can start setting the matter in motion. Only in this way will the PV scheme have a proper foundation, and otherwise it may be stalled for a season. We can however show Lambeth that this way forward works, (if it does), and help parishes resist leaving as the only way forward.
———-
email2:
1) The CO priest will request of +SC, as a CP Bishop, a ‘visitation’,
2) the purpose of which is to prevent his parishioners from concluding that the only route for them is joining ACNA (which will be happening in CO soon) because their Diocesan is not foregrounding his covenant commitments and indeed has ordained an openly homosexual priest, etc, but also has said he means to create space for others’ views, etc;
3) +SC will phone +O’Neil and ask that this request be honored and seek to persuade him of its importance,
4) +SC will ask +Salmon to visit, and will indicate to +CO that +Chane is using Salmon in this way in DC.
At issue here is said parish understanding that they have some connective tissue to a covenant their Diocesan may wish to avoid, without challenging the Diocesan as to his authority, and so underscoring a way to remain in TEC and not leave for ACNA but also to affirm Communion life and differentiation.
Importantly, +SC reminded us that he does not want to get into a quid pro quo situation that, having implemented something like this, the PB makes sure he reciprocates when SSBs pass in General Convention and he is forced to let a proponent of the same do a visitation in SC. Hence, using +Salmon.
But also, hence, the importance of the Pastoral Visitors. They need to come into play in time as independent of deal-making and/or mild forms of extortion.
…at issue here is a) the need to show +RDW and others that CP works at a practical level, and that we have tried, b) that we have not done this by asking something of the PB is is not her right to give, but have worked bishop to bishop, c) that the PVs can in time occupy the space—it is hoped—modelled by the CP initiatives in this regard.
IMPORTANTLY, the visitation in CO, should it happen, needs to be labelled by all as a CP initiative and not just a single ad hoc thing (as in DC).
Updated Monday morning
The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh reports that:
A judge has ruled in the Diocese’s favor on several points in its legal dispute with former leaders over the control of diocesan assets.
In a hearing today, April 17, 2009, Judge Joseph James of the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, allowed Diocesan Chancellor Andy Roman’s appearance as the attorney for the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church. The judge also granted a motion by The Episcopal Church to intervene in the case.
Both matters had been challenged in earlier court filing by attorneys representing former Bishop Robert Duncan and others who left the Episcopal Church last October.
The judge proceeded to order a hearing on the central issue before him, namely, whether a 2005 Court Order and Stipulation agreed to by Duncan and Calvary Episcopal Church requires that diocesan property must remain under the control of a diocese that is part of The Episcopal Church. Attorneys on both sides agreed the question of whether a diocese may leave the Episcopal Church will be reserved for a later hearing and decision, if necessary…
Read the full report at Judge Allows Chancellor’s Role, Episcopal Church Intervention.
Compare this account with the press release found on the website of the “Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (Anglican)” emphasis added:
On April 17, lawyers for the diocese attended a hearing before Judge James in Pittsburgh, together with lawyers for Calvary Church, lawyers representing The Episcopal Church (TEC) diocese, and lawyers representing the leadership of the national Episcopal Church.
All parties, including the lawyers for the leadership of national Episcopal Church, agreed that there will be hearing based on the assumption that the diocese’s withdrawal from The Episcopal Church was valid. At that hearing, the court will address whether the October 2004 stipulation in the Calvary Church lawsuit was violated by a valid withdrawal of the diocese from The Episcopal Church. No date for the hearing has yet been set…
Lionel Deimel has additional commentary at A Hearing at Last.
The Living Church reported it this way: Flurry of Motions in Pittsburgh Case.
Updated 24 April
Episcopal Café reports that:
On Tuesday, April 14, 2009, the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, the Corporation of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth and the Episcopal Church filed suit in 141st District Court of Tarrant County, Texas in part to recover property and assets of the Episcopal Church. The defendants are former members of the corporation’s board and the former bishop of the diocese, all of whom have left the Episcopal Church.
For the diocesan press release, and a statement by the Presiding Bishop, go here.
For the Pastoral Letter from the Provisional Bishop, see this, or there is a PDF copy here.
To read the petition filed in court, as a PDF, go over here. (1.1 Mb)
The story has been reported by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram as National Episcopal Church sues Fort Worth group over split.
And in the Dallas Morning News it is described as Episcopal Church sues to regain control of Fort Worth-area buildings held by breakaway group.
24 April update
A news report of this event appeared yesterday at the website of the defendants, see Lawsuit served on the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth. The earlier comment made by Bishop Iker is here.
Updated Thursday lunchtime
The Diocese of Virginia has issued a press release: Diocese of Virginia Appeals to Virginia Supreme Court in Order to Protect Religious Liberty in the Commonwealth.
Determined to restore constitutional and legal protections for all churches in Virginia, and to return loyal Episcopalians in Virginia to their Episcopal homes, the Diocese of Virginia today filed a petition to appeal The Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Virginia v. Truro Church, et al.
The Diocese is appealing on a number of grounds, including a challenge to the constitutionality of Virginia’s one-of-a-kind division statute (Va. Code § 57 9(A)) and the rulings of the Circuit Court in applying the law…
The full text of the appeal petition can be read as a PDF file here.
The Anglican District of Virginia has responded with ADV Responds to Appeal by The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia.
FAIRFAX, Va. (April 7, 2009) – In response to the appeal in the Virginia church property litigation filed on Tuesday, April 7 by the Diocese of Virginia and The Episcopal Church, the Anglican District of Virginia Vice-Chairman Jim Oakes issued the following statement:
“We are saddened that The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia find it necessary to continue this litigation with an appeal filed during Holy Week. The appeal process will cost additional millions of dollars that could be spent on mission and ministry. Both sides have already spent some $5 million in legal costs, money that could have gone to helping our communities during these tough economic times. The legal victories we’ve had so far in support of our religious freedom have only encouraged us to stand firm in our Anglican faith and work together to deliver the message of Christ.
“Since our final legal victory in December 2008, the Anglican District of Virginia has added two more congregations, bringing out total to 25 congregations and three mission fellowships. This continuing growth here and around the country is tangible evidence of the hunger for orthodox Anglicanism in the U.S. Despite today’s appeal, we will continue to move on with our mission to spread the transforming news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Our doors are open to everyone, especially those who thirst for transformation and renewal.”
Thursday update
The Episcopal Church has also filed a petition, see The Episcopal Church’s Petition to the Supreme Court of Virginia to Hear Appeal (PDF).
There is a full article at ENS about all this, VIRGINIA: Diocese, Episcopal Church ask state Supreme Court to review property rulings by Mary Frances Schjonberg.
ACNA has published its draft constitution and canons, see ACNA Canons Published, Comments Welcome for more detail.
The Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) has paid the Anglican diocese of Niagara $20,000, which it was awarded for legal costs by an Ontario Superior Court ruling. See Diocese of Niagara awarded $20,000 in legal costs at Anglican Journal.
The Falls Church congregation which split from TEC has issued a request to help pay legal bills. See the text of the letter sent as a PDF, and for background on the property development mentioned, see this news article in the Falls Church News-Press. (H/T Episcopal Café)
And in Colorado Springs, there are reports of the successful transfer of occupancy of Grace and St Stephens Church. See ENS report Colorado Springs parishioners celebrate Palm Sunday homecoming, and also in the Colorado Springs Gazette For two churches, a new beginning.
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 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey is available on the web in a variety of formats.
From the Summary:
An extensive new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life details statistics on religion in America and explores the shifts taking place in the U.S. religious landscape. Based on interviews with more than 35,000 Americans age 18 and older, the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey finds that religious affiliation in the U.S. is both very diverse and extremely fluid.
One of the key findings is that:
More than one-quarter of American adults (28%) have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion - or no religion at all. If change in affiliation from one type of Protestantism to another is included, 44% of adults have either switched religious affiliation, moved from being unaffiliated with any religion to being affiliated with a particular faith, or dropped any connection to a specific religious tradition altogether.
Another of its findings is that Most Mainline Protestants Say Society Should Accept Homosexuality.
Members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, two mainline Protestant denominations, are considering whether to allow the ordination of non-celibate gays and lesbians as members of their clergy. The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, finds that majorities of both denominations say that homosexuality is a way of life that should be accepted by society. Among mainline Protestants overall, 56% say homosexuality should be accepted, compared with only about one-in-four evangelical Protestants and four-in-ten members of historically black Protestant churches.
Updated again Thursday morning
Thursday morning update
Colorado Springs Gazette Judge orders Anglican parish to vacate Grace church by April 3
A judge on Wednesday ordered the Anglican parish that’s been meeting at Grace Church, 631 N. Tejon St., to vacate the building by April 3 at 5 p.m., setting the stage for the exiled Grace and St. Stephen’s Episcopal parish to hold its first service in the gothic church on Palm Sunday.
Judge Larry Schwartz also ordered the Anglican parish priest, Donald Armstrong, to vacate the rectory, where he lives on Electra Drive in the Skyline Way area, by May 8. This revised the original order issued on Tuesday, which stated that Armstrong would have to vacate by April 1.
——-
Earlier report:
The property dispute in the Diocese of Colorado over Grace and St Stephens parish property has been resolved in favour of the diocese. Many members of the congregation have affiliated with CANA.
The Colorado Springs Gazette reports it this way: Armstrong camp loses Tejon Street church report written through extensively and new headline is One group leaving Grace church, one moving in — but when?
From the earlier version:
According to a press release issued by the Rev. Alan Crippen II, a member of the breakway group, Judge Larry Schwartz issued a 28-page ruling that concluded , among other things: “The Diocese over most of its 135 years existence demonstrates a unity of purpose on the part of the parish and general church. … The trust created through past genereations of members of Grace Church and St. Stephen’s prohibits the departing parish members from taking the property with them.”
Crippen said the group is considering an appeal, but is already preparing to move from the historic property.
“We will meet at a new location,” he said in an interview.
Because of the ruling, the congregation’s leader, the Rev. Donald Armstrong, is also losing his rectory, and the church loses its name because it’s so similar to the Episcopal congregation, Grace and St. Stephen’s Episcopal.
Martin Nussbaum, attorney for the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado, expects the move to go quickly.
“We will be in possession of the property no later than next Wednesday,” he said.
The press release from the Diocese of Colorado is available here as a PDF. The content as a web page can be found here at Episcopal Café:
The Bishop and Diocese of Colorado, and the more than 500 members of Grace and St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church rejoice today that the members of the Episcopal parish will be returning to their church home as a result of a decision issued by District Court Judge Larry Schwartz. In that ruling, Judge Schwartz found that the historic property is held in trust for the mission and ministry of the Episcopal Church and ordered the breakaway congregation that wrongfully took possession of the property two years ago to leave…
There is also a press release from the continuing parish.
The full text of the judgement is on the website of the continuing Episcopal parish as a PDF file.
The website of the CANA-affiliated congregation has its press release here as a PDF file:
“For two years we have been praying for justice in this case, and the Court has now ruled. Judge Schwartz is a fair and honorable man and we appreciate his own sacrifice and considered effort in hearing our case. Our congregation will take some time to review his ruling with our attorneys before we make a formal response.
There is much yet to be settled even with this significant ruling now issued,” said Father Donald Armstrong, rector of Grace Church & St. Stephen’s.
“As to the future of our congregation, it’s the people and not the building that is at the heart of our life in Christ,” Armstrong said. “This decision is one major step out of the ambiguity in which we have lived these past two years and will allow us to more readily refocus on gospel work and service. At the very least this is an occasion for renewal and recommitment to the essential things of gospel work. Our Plan B is well-developed, exciting, and will be announced shortly.”
and:
“This is a new beginning for Grace Church & St. Stephen’s in its partnership with CANA,” said the Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns, missionary bishop of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA).
“Grace Church has a glorious heritage and an exciting future ahead of it. Although this decision is disappointing, the congregation and its leadership in Don Armstrong are strong in their commitment to gospel work and the renewal of Anglicanism in Colorado Springs and beyond. I fully expect that its members will quickly recover
from the sad loss of their historic place of worship. Knowing the people of Grace Church and their buoyant optimism, I anticipate that the parish’s best days are yet ahead.”
Update Wednesday morning
Episcopal News Service has a detailed report at Diocese of Colorado, Episcopal Church prevail in Grace and St. Stephen’s church property dispute by Pat McCaughan. It includes this:
Armstrong, who became rector of the congregation in 1987, is the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation into allegations he misappropriated parish funds. No criminal charges have as yet been filed in that matter, although parish financial records and computers were seized during a November 2008 police raid.
A year earlier, an ecclesiastical court had judged Armstrong guilty of financial improprieties and sentenced him to deposition from ordained ministry. On September 26, 2007, the five-member panel of clergy and laity unanimously found him “guilty on all counts … (of) theft of $392,409.93 from Grace Church and causing Grace Church to issue false W-2s and underreport Armstrong’s benefits by $548,097.27,” according to a diocesan spokesperson.
The diocesan court also found Armstrong guilty on four other charges, including receiving illegal loans totaling $122,497.16 as well as “unauthorized encumbrance and alienation of Grace Church’s real property, violation of the temporary inhibition placed on Armstrong and improper use of clergy discretionary funds and failure to maintain proper accounting records.”
and
Local media reported that police were called to the church by Armstrong a few hours after the court’s ruling. Armstrong said that security guards hired by the diocese who were on the property to patrol it were trespassing.
Armstrong told a Colorado Springs Gazette reporter that “they have no right to be on the property until April.”
Other press reports:
Associated Press Breakaway Episcopalians lose bid to keep building
Denver Post Church is Episcopal property, judge says
Colorado Springs Gazette Grace Church timeline
CANA has issued a press release, CANA Responds to Colorado Springs Ruling:
“While we are of course disappointed with today’s ruling, we will continue with our ministry and mission work in Colorado Springs and around the nation,” said CANA Missionary Bishop Martyn Minns. “The Gospel is not spread by church buildings or church property. It is the living Christ that works in people, and we are praying for the orthodox Anglicans in Colorado Springs that the work of the Lord will continue.”
“We remain steadfast in our effort to defend the historic Christian faith across the country. There is clearly a division within The Episcopal Church which broke its relationship with the worldwide Anglican Communion and fell out of step with much of Christendom by choosing to redefine and reinterpret Scripture,” Minns concluded.
The Diocese of Quincy is reorganising itself, see ENS report, Diversity embraced as steering committee leads reorganization by Joe Bjordal:
A newly appointed steering committee, representing persons in the Diocese of Quincy who want to remain in the Episcopal Church, has met with the Presiding Bishop in New York, welcomed a bishop as consultant, and released a vision statement and immediate goals for the reorganizing diocese.
Last November, a number of clergy and laypersons in the Peoria, Illinois-based diocese voted to leave the Episcopal Church due to theological disagreements and align with the Argentina-based Anglican Province of the Southern Cone.
The reorganization moves are in preparation for a special synod meeting which has been called by Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori for Saturday, April 4 to be held at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Peoria. In a notice issued February 27, Jefferts Schori called for the synod, saying there was “no bishop of the Diocese of Quincy, or any qualified members of the standing committee of that diocese.”
The notice from the Presiding Bishop can be found in full here.
The Diocese of Fort Worth is seeking to recover control of its assets, see ENS report Continuing diocese requests ‘orderly transfer of assets’ by Pat McCaughan:
The standing committee of the continuing Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth (Texas) and Provisional Bishop Edwin Gulick have written to former bishop Jack Iker to request a “peaceful and orderly transfer of property and other assets.”
“Our hope is to work together with those who left the Episcopal Church to make this period of transition as painless as possible in what has been a sad time for all of us,” said the Rev. Frederick Barber, president of the standing committee. “Those who left remain our brothers and sisters in Christ. But we also know we have a sacred responsibility to the Episcopalians of the diocese to be good stewards of property that is held in trust for generations of Episcopalians past and to come.”
The March 3 letter, written by chancellor Kathleen Wells, also asked that Iker and others not interfere with the reorganization of the continuing diocese; refrain from using the diocesan logo and seals and meet with representatives of the continuing diocese “to plan the orderly transition” of property and assets. Last November, Iker and some members of the diocese voted to realign with the Argentina-based Anglican Province of the Southern Cone.
The letter itself can be read in full as a PDF file here.
Updated again Sunday evening
The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (Anglican) has published a Pastoral Letter from Bishop Robert Duncan. The website home page summarises the letter thus:
Bishop Duncan comments on the decision of the new Episcopal Church diocese to reject mediation.
Sunday Update
I should have added some background when posting the above note. First, the previous TA report on the Pittsburgh saga is Pittsburgh: national church seeks intervention.
Subsequent to that report, on 23 February, the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh issued a letter dated 18 February, which can be read in full as a PDF over here.
Sunday evening
Lionel Deimel has attempted an analysis of the Duncan letter, see Duncan Letter Decoded.
Updated again Tuesday evening
Although there is no report of this as yet on Episcopal Life Online, nor at the The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (Anglican) - which despite former claims to the contrary now appears to have slightly changed its name - there is now confirmation from the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh of a report from Lionel Deimel that Episcopal Church Asks to Join Calvary Lawsuit.
The actual court filing can be seen here as a PDF.
Deimel wrote:
An objection that the defendants have raised more than once in the lawsuit filed by Calvary Church against now-deposed bishop Robert Duncan and other (now former) leaders of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh is that Calvary had no right to sue without The Episcopal Church’s being a party to the suit. Well, Archbishop-in-Waiting Duncan seems about to get his wish. Papers were filed today in the Allegheny Court of Common Pleas on behalf of Bishop John C. Buchanan, Retired Bishop of West Missouri and parliamentarian of the House of Bishops. In a “petition to intervene,” Buchanan, representing The Episcopal Church, asks the court to become a plaintiff in the case…
The diocese wrote:
Today, Friday, February 13, 2009, attorneys representing The Episcopal Church filed a Petition to Intervene in the Diocese of Pittsburgh’s Request to Special Master now pending in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County.
The following statement was issued by the Standing Committee, the current leaders of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh:
“We approve of and welcome The Episcopal Church joining our legal effort to regain control of diocesan assets that are still held by former diocesan leaders. Our request before the court is based on an agreement those former leaders made in court, namely, that diocesan property would unconditionally remain with a diocese that is defined as being part of The Episcopal Church of the United States. We believe the participation of The Episcopal Church in the case will help clarify beyond question who is and who is not rightfully the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh identified in that court agreement.”
Update
Lionel Deimel has published a second article, Further Analysis. In this he notes that the PDF document linked above contains two items. The second document, titled complaint-in-intervention, is analysed in detail by him. He summarises the concluding paragraph as follows:
In particular, The Episcopal Church asks that the court:
a. Declare that the people recognized by The Episcopal Church are the proper authorities to control the assets of the diocese.
b. Declare that property held by and for the Diocese of Pittsburgh may only be used for the mission of The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Pittsburgh, subject to the rules of each.
c. Order the defendants to relinquish all diocesan assets to the proper authorities of the diocese.
d. Require defendants to submit an accounting of all assets held on October 4, 2008,
e. Provide such further relief as may be proper.
Tuesday evening update
ENS now has a report, PITTSBURGH: Episcopal Church petitions to join property case, wants Duncan to vacate offices.
Updated Sunday morning
The Convention of the Diocese of Fort Worth is due to hold a special meeting tomorrow.
The Presiding Bishop will attend tomorrow, and will preside and preach at the eucharist preceding the meeting, and again on Sunday morning. The meeting will elect a provisional bishop to replace Bishop Jack Iker.
The recommended candidate is Rt. Rev. Edwin F. “Ted” Gulick Jr., Bishop of Kentucky.
Earlier this week Bishop Jack Iker announced that he was relinquishing all claims on four of the parishes of the diocese. See this press release, Diocese Releases Four Parishes, and the associated supporting documents. See also this press release from The Steering Committee North Texas Episcopalians about it. There are several more parishes not affiliated with Bishop Iker.
The Dallas Morning News carried this front page report today: Episcopal divide in Fort Worth still wide open by Sam Hodges.
Sunday morning update
ENS reports: FORT WORTH: Gulick unanimously elected provisional bishop.
A pastoral letter from Bishop Gulick can be found here (PDF).
Local newspaper reports:
Fort Worth Star-Telegram Fort Worth-area Episcopalians elect provisional bishop and Reorganized Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth elects a new bishop.
Dallas Morning News Fort Worth congregations loyal to Episcopal Church reorganize.
Meanwhile, Bishop Iker announced 23 Clergy Released from Canonical Residency.
Katie Sherrod writes about it here.
The Executive Council of The Episcopal Church has published its latest response to the St Andrew’s Draft of the proposed Anglican Covenant.
The response is in a PDF file available here.
There is also a covering press release. Some excerpts:
[Episcopal News Service — Stockton, California] The Episcopal Church’s Executive Council said January 30 that the church “remains committed to the Communion-wide process of conversation towards an Anglican covenant.”
“At the same time, TEC wants to emphasize that matters of moral authority and interdependence amongst churches result from mutuality, not regulation,” the council wrote its response to the St. Andrew’s Draft of the proposed covenant.
“Care needs to be taken that our conversations around an Anglican covenant do not draw us necessarily toward a hierarchical model of a church union or even the perception of Anglicanism as a singular global church,” the response said…
…Council’s covenant response reiterates the Episcopal Church’s stance that participation in the covenant development process “does not implicitly commit” the church to ultimately approving a covenant. And it makes clear that only the General Convention can sign the church onto such a document. It predicts that such approval would not come until at least 2012 and not until at least 2015 if such approval was deemed to require changes to the Episcopal Church’s constitution…
…In response to the Joint Standing Committee’s question about what changes are needed in the St. Andrew’s Draft, the council offered nearly five pages of section-by-section comments. It raised the most concern over the process (that begins to be described in Section 3.2.5) to be employed when any proposed or enacted measures at the provincial or local level “are deemed to threaten the unity of the Communion and the effectiveness or credibility of its mission.”
Calling it “the most problematic section,” the response said the process that involves consultation, mediation, and communion-wide evaluation is “overly juridical.” The council said that from the time an Anglican covenant was proposed in an appendix to the 2004 Windsor Report, there has been a movement “calling for the beginnings of inter-Anglican canon law or, if not that, inter-Anglican processes for negotiations and settlement of disputes and concerns.” Council summed up its comments by asking, “How does the covenant help us look like Christ?” and asked how it helps Anglicans recognize Christ in each other…
The recent Church of England response to the same draft was reported here.
Updated again Saturday morning
There have been several confusing reports about Bishop Henry Scriven’s status as a bishop.
ENS reported Presiding Bishop accepts two bishops’ voluntary renunciation of orders.
Religious Intelligence reported US Presiding Bishop deposes Church of England Bishop
…On Oct 16, Bishop Scriven wrote to Bishop Schori to inform her that he was returning to the Britain to take up the post of director of South American ministry for SAMS-CMS. Ordained in the Church of England, Bishop Scriven was consecrated in 1995 as Suffragan Bishop of the Diocese of Gibraltar in Europe by Archbishop George Carey. In 2002, Bishop Scriven became the Assistant Bishop of Pittsburgh in the Episcopal Church. Following Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan’s deposition from office as Bishop of Pittsburgh on Sept 19, Bishop Scriven’s position in the US church was terminated.
In his letter, Bishop Scriven informed Bishop Schori he was returning to the UK to take up the SAMS-CMS post and had been appointed an Honorary Assistant Bishop and would be under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Oxford.
In her response of Nov 12, Bishop Schori acknowledged that Bishop Scriven was now a Bishop of the Church of England, and said she would “release you from your orders in this Church” for reasons “not effecting moral character.” Bishop Schori added that she believed “that subtlety was lost on some of our Communion partners” over her understanding of canon law, as her action would not undo the “indelible” mark of ordination, but was a housekeeping action that would end his licence to serve in the US Church.
However, before Bishop Schori’s tenure as Presiding Bishop, bishops who left the US church to serve in other provinces were not released from their orders, but transferred to other churches…
The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh has issued a statement:
An article that appeared on Episcopal Life Online on January 23, 2009 reported that Bishop Henry Scriven, the former Assistant Bishop for the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, had renounced his orders and that the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, had accepted that renunciation. Although the article may suggest otherwise, the Standing Committee understands that this action was not in any sense a disciplinary action or an action taken because of Bishop Scriven’s support for the attempt to realign the Diocese with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone.
Before he relocated to England, Bishop Scriven had submitted his resignation as a member of the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church, inasmuch as he was planning to return to England and serve as Assistant to the Bishop of Oxford. In order to permit that, the Canons required that he be released from his orders in the Episcopal Church for reasons not affecting his moral character, which is what occurred. This is a routine way of permitting Bishop Scriven to continue his ministry. Orders in the Church themselves are indelible, but licensing is required to exercise them.
The Standing Committee gives thanks for the gracious way in which Bishop Scriven exercised his ministry in the Episcopal Church while he served here as Assistant Bishop and we hope he and his wife Catherine will visit us in the future.
Friday morning update
The Church Times has a report by Pat Ashworth ‘Really weird’, but Scriven bears no ill will on orders.
…Bishop Scriven described the letter he received in November releasing him from his orders as “really weird”. He retained it but did not respond to it. The promised certificate releasing Bishop Scriven from his orders did not reach him personally, “though, to be fair, she might have tried as I was wandering round the world,” he said on Wednesday.
The correspondence is now in the public domain. “I had no desire to publish these letters until the thing was announced but was then very happy for them to be released,” Bishop Scriven said. “Hers was a very gracious letter but I was kind of boggled by the language really. It’s two nations divided by the same language, it seems to me. I bear no ill will, and I think it’s a storm in a teacup really…
There is a further report from ENS which notes PITTSBURGH: Standing Committee acknowledges Scriven’s service to diocese.
The Anglican Communion Institute has published Is The Renunciation of Orders Routine?
Saturday update
Andrew Carey has also weighed in, see A dangerous move by the Americans.
The Diocese of Virginia held its annual Council meeting yesterday. A number of resolutions were passed. They included this one:
R-4a Blessedness of Covenanted Relationships
RESOLVED, that the Diocese of Virginia recognizes our responsibility to respond to the pastoral needs of our faithful gay and lesbian members in a spirit of love, compassion and respect, and in doing so seek to fulfill our baptismal commitment to respect the dignity of every human being; and be it further
RESOLVED, that accordingly the 214th Annual Council of the Diocese of Virginia affirms the inherent integrity of and blessededness of committed Christian relationships between two adult persons, when those relationships are “characterized by fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication, and the holy love which enables those in such relationships to see in each other the image of God.” (Resolution 2000-D039 of the 73rd General Convention of the Episcopal Church).
Two other resolutions on related topics were not passed, but were referred to an already existing diocesan Windsor Dialogue Commission. For details of these resolutions see:
R-5: Allowing Clergy To Exercise Pastoral Care In Blessing the Unions Of Same-Gender Couples
R-6: Inclusiveness in Ordained Ministry
According to Episcopal Café another highlight of the event was this:
…the longest applause came during the closing remarks of the chaplain for this year’s 214th Annual Council. Archbishop Barry Morgan, Primate of Wales, said Wales was in the same boat as The Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church and he would resist the formation of an alternative North American province with, in his words, “every fiber of my being.” The room jumped to its feet with applause and cheering.
The report of the Windsor Dialogue Commission is a PDF file here. Appendices 2 and 3 contain liturgies in Thanksgiving for a Committed Relationship and for Friendship.
Updated Sunday lunchtime
First, George Conger reports in the Church of England Newspaper that those Brazilians, who earlier had affiliated with the Province of the Southern Cone, have now decided to migrate to the new grouping being formed in North America. See Brazilian diocese links with the Americans.
The synod of the Diocese of Recife has voted to leave the shelter of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone and affiliate with the third province movement in North America.
At its Dec 4-6 meeting in Jaboatão dos Guararapes the ex-Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil (IEAB) diocese voted to join with the ex-Episcopal Church dioceses of Pittsburgh, Quincy, Fort Worth and San Joaquin, along with a number of continuing American and Canadian Anglican and African-led jurisdictions, to form the new province.
The move from the Southern Cone to the third province will take place in June at the Anglican Church in North America’s founding convocation in Fort Worth…
Update Sunday
Anglican Mainstream has published this Important correction from Diocese of Recife which says this is not correct.
It was a surprise to all of us from the Diocese of Recife to read the title and the internal affirmation of the article “The Synod of the Diocese of Recife has voted to leave the shelter of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone and affiliate with the third province movement in North America”. We had no debate or deliberation in the Synod of this subject…
Second, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that Morgan Stanley has frozen the accounts of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh because it is unsure who should be allowed to access them. See Schism causes Morgan Stanley to freeze Episcopalian accounts.
Financial services firm Morgan Stanley has frozen the accounts of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh because it is unsure who should be allowed to access them.
In a letter Jan. 13, the firm said it would not allow any further distributions until it received a court order listing those authorized to use the accounts…
Related to this, the diocese has published Information On Recent Court Filings by Southern Cone Group.
On January 20, 2009, the attorneys for former Bishop Duncan and other former leaders of the Diocese who now regard themselves to be affiliated with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone filed three motions with the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County seeking to oppose the “Request to Special Master” that had been filed jointly by the Diocese and Calvary Episcopal Church on January 8, 2009…
Updated again Friday evening
First, there was the invitation to Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church to give the formal invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration. There was a lot of negative reaction to this, but more recently Mr Warren added his own Anglican angle, as reported by Christianity Today in Displaced Anglicans Offered Refuge on Saddleback Campus.
Wednesday evening update That article was removed, as explained here. The original text can still be found here.
Second, there is the news report that the Rev. Sharon E. Watkins of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is to deliver the sermon at the national prayer service that is held the day after the inauguration. The Anglican angle is that this service is being held at the Washington National Cathedral.
Third, there is the announcement that Bishop of New Hampshire Gene Robinson is to offer prayers at the Lincoln Memorial concert two days before the inauguration. See also the ENS report: New Hampshire bishop invited to offer prayers at inaugural kickoff event. And there are many links to other reports here.
British reporting of this: Guardian, Times, Telegraph.
Wednesday morning updates
Episcopal News Service has more on the Rick Warren story, at ‘Purpose-Driven’ pastor offers space to dissident Episcopalians.
And Max Blumenthal has written about Rick Warren’s Africa Problem.
National Public Radio has a 5 minute radio interview with Bishop Robinson at Robinson ‘Delighted’ To Be Part Of Inauguration.
Wednesday evening update
A fourth Anglican angle on the inauguration can be found in the Washington Post which reports that Historic Church Will Host President-Elect on Big Day. This refers to St John’s Church Lafayette Square.
Friday evening update
More Anglican angles on the Washington Cathedral service, which will involve both the Bishop of Washington and the Presiding Bishop.
Even more detail on all the participants in that service is provided by ENS here.
The previous one was over a month ago.
The Presiding Bishop is due to attend a special diocesan convention in Fort Worth on 7 February. See FORT WORTH: Presiding Bishop will convene a special diocesan convention. The formal notice is here.
Bishop Jack Iker has sent a letter to the Presiding Bishop, making a public objection about this. (H/T Est Anima Legis)
Also, the Church of England Newspaper reports that Fort Worth bishop demands right to respond to ‘abandonment’ charge. See also here.
Updated again Monday evening
The Diocese of Pittsburgh has issued this press release: Diocese Asks Court For Access To Funds.
Request Made In Case Which Defined “Episcopal Diocese”
Pittsburgh, PA – Today, January 8, 2009, the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh asked a court for control of church assets still held by former diocesan leaders who have left the Episcopal Church.
The request was made in the context of an existing court order which stipulated that local Episcopal property must stay in the control of a diocese that is part of the Episcopal Church of the United States.
“We’re not asking for anything the court has not already addressed, or for anything former leaders have not already agreed to,” said the Rev. Dr. James Simons, President of the diocesan Standing Committee, the group currently leading the Pittsburgh Episcopal Diocese.
The original court order was issued in October 2005 as a result of a lawsuit filed by Calvary Episcopal Church in East Liberty. The order prohibits any group that separates itself from the Episcopal Church from continuing to use or control Diocesan property. The order specifically defines the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh as being part of “the Episcopal Church of the United States of America.” In negotiations leading to the 2005 Order, former Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan and his attorneys agreed this stipulation would apply regardless of the circumstances surrounding any separation, even if every parish were to leave…
…Approximately 27 congregations, or about 40% of the Pittsburgh Diocese prior to the October separation, remain active in the life of the Episcopal Church.
The Southern Cone-affiliated body has also issued a press release: New Diocese Attempts to Join Lawsuit
In an expected, but disappointing decision, the newly forming Episcopal Church diocese in southwestern Pennsylvania announced today that it intends to move forward with legal action against The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (Anglican) by attempting to claim all diocesan property.
“The document filed today in the Calvary litigation by Calvary and the new diocese created after the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh withdrew from The Episcopal Church is both procedurally and substantively improper. Moreover, it is regrettable that these groups have chosen to pursue more litigation rather than agree to equitable division of the assets.” said the Rev. Peter Frank, diocesan spokesman.
Initial press reports:
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Claim filed to control local Episcopal Church assets
Associated Press Pa. Episcopal church sues parishes for $20 million
Friday press reports
Associated Press Diocese seeks $20M from breakaway Episcopalians
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Episcopal Diocese claims $20 million in schism fight by Paula Reed Ward
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Episcopal groups battle over assets by Craig Smith
Episcopal News Service PITTSBURGH: Diocesan leaders ask court for access to assets by Mary Frances Schjonberg
Monday update
There is an excellent summary by Joan R. Gundersen of recent events in Pittsburgh in this post: A Pittsburgh timeline.
The Colorado Gazette reports Grace raid affidavit details claims that Armstrong misused church funds:
The Rev. Donald Armstrong funneled money earmarked for “single, unmarried seminarians” from a Grace Church trust fund to pay for his two children’s college tuition, according to Colorado Springs police investigators.
That accusation was contained in a affidavit supporting a search warrant used by police in a November raid on Grace Church and St. Stephen’s and its offices in a next door Victorian home known as the McWilliams House at 601 N. Tejon St.
The affidavit, returned by detective Michael Flynn to the court Tuesday, outlines the 18-month police investigation from May 2007 - when they were notified by the Episcopal Church, Diocese of Colorado that it suspected financial wrongdoing by Armstrong - and Nov. 25, when a judge signed the warrant authorizing the search…
Once again, there is an exhaustive set of links to earlier reports on this story already available at Episcopal Café.
The previous TA article on this case can be found here.
Episcopal News Service reports:
In a landmark ruling that could have national implications, the California Supreme Court on January 5 upheld an earlier court decision that buildings and property do not belong to dissident congregations but to the Diocese of Los Angeles and the general Episcopal Church…
See California Supreme Court rules disputed property belongs to general church by Pat McCaughan.
The full text of the opinion is a PDF file available here.
There are many more links to related stories at Episcopal Café both here, and also here.
The Fairfax County Circuit Court today issued its last rulings in the long-running property dispute between the Diocese of Virginia and the eleven congregations that seek to depart from The Episcopal Church but retain their parochial property. The Diocese of Virginia intends to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of Virginia.
The actual court ruling (PDF)
Press release from Anglican District of Virginia NB This is very poorly formatted, an easier to read copy can be found here instead.
Statement by Bishop Martyn Minns
Press release from Diocese of Virginia
Press statement from Canon Charles Robertson, Canon to the Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop
ENS has VIRGINIA: Court ruling clears way for property-litigation appeal by Mary Frances Schjonberg
The archive of documents can be read here. Or alternatively over here.
The Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church addressed the National Press Club, in Washington DC.
There is a transcript of her speech here.
There is an audio recording which also includes the extended Question and Answer session here.
A video recording of the event is over here.
Updated Tuesday morning
From the diocese:
State Of The Diocese Report - The Rev. Dr. James B. Simons
Bishop Named For Pittsburgh Episcopalians
Greetings to the Special Convention from The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
From the newspapers:
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Ann Rodgers Diocese names interim leader
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Debra Erdley Smaller Episcopal diocese rebuilds
Tuesday morning update
Episcopal News Service at last has a report, Pittsburgh Episcopalians reorganize diocese.
See this news report by Episcopal News Service LOS ANGELES: Bishop authorizes blessings of lifelong covenantal relationships.
Bishop J. Jon Bruno of Los Angeles has authorized the use of a rite for the “Sacramental Blessing of a Life-long Covenant” for both same-gender and heterosexual couples…
On the diocesan website there are these four PDF files:
Some Questions and Answers: The Sacramental Blessing of a Life-Long Covenant
Service for the Sacramental Blessing of a Life-Long Covenant
Suggested Readings for the Blessing of a Lifelong Covenant
Updated Friday
The Anglican Communion Network has issued a press release Anglican Communion Network Celebrates Successes, Prepares for Hand Over to Province.
“God did not use the Network to change the direction of The Episcopal Church as we had originally hoped. He has used it and us to create a Biblical, missionary and united Anglican province-in-waiting here in North America. We are deeply thankful to Him and to all who have supported its work,” said Bishop Duncan.
The full text of the Resolution includes this:
…And finally be it resolved, that the Steering Committee enter into conversation with that part of the membership of the Anglican Communion Network remaining in The Episcopal Church as to whether they might desire to take upon themselves the original mantle of the Anglican Communion Network.
Friday Update
The Living Church reports that Rio Grande Drops Network Affiliation:
The standing committee of the Diocese of the Rio Grande has voted unanimously to disaffiliate from the Anglican Communion Network…
…The withdrawal of the Rio Grande, which did not send any representatives to the annual council meeting, leaves eight of the original 10 dioceses nominally in the organization. Four of the original 10 founding dioceses—Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, Quincy and San Joaquin—have withdrawn from The Episcopal Church.
…Bishop John Howe of the Diocese of Central Florida withdrew his Network affiliation about six months ago in favor of affiliation with the Anglican Communion Institute. Leaders from the remaining four Network dioceses—Albany, Dallas, South Carolina and Springfield—expressed varying degrees of support for the formation of another organization, but all four said there were no plans at present to discuss withdrawal or disaffiliation.
And there is also an ENS report on this: RIO GRANDE: Diocese disaffiliates from Anglican Communion Network.
The Bishop of Washington, John Chane has written a letter to his diocese about the proposed formation of a new province in North America.
Read it all here. There is also a PDF version.
Here’s an extract:
…The Archbishop of Canterbury wisely did not invite any of the bishops consecrated to serve in the Nigerian, Ugandan, Rwandan or Kenyan incursions into the United States to last summer’s Lambeth Conference. Nor did he invite bishops of the Reformed Episcopal Church, which broke from the Anglican Communion almost 130 years ago. Williams seems unlikely to reverse course now. He knows that the leaders of the proposed province have been working, overtly and covertly, to undermine the Episcopal Church for almost a decade, so what was a front page story to the editors of the New York Times was old news to him. It would be folly for the Archbishop to even consider recognizing a non-geographical province because it would unleash chaos in the Communion, with theological minorities in every jurisdiction seeking to affiliate with likeminded Anglicans in other provinces. Unfortunately, the Archbishop has contributed to the confusion and anxiety the leaders of the proposed province have sought to foster by meeting on numerous occasions with Duncan and his allies. These meetings have bestowed an unwarranted sense of legitimacy on those who seek to deconstruct the Anglican Communion.
What Duncan and Minns propose – that Duncan become the Archbishop of a newly minted non-geographical province with the support of GAFCON primates such as Peter Akinola of Nigeria and Henry Orombi of Uganda – is a rejection of the respectful diversity and generous orthodoxy that defines the Communion. It is a repudiation of the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury in our communal life. It flies in the very face of what it truly means to be an Anglican. For Minns to suggest that he is leading a “new reformation” is ludicrous and demeans the historicity and value of the real Reformation as we know it and live it. The movers of the proposed new province embarrass themselves, the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion by the self-serving media coverage they have worked so hard to achieve. The news of the proposed province appears at a time when more than 28 million Americans are living on food stamps, one out of every 10 new mortgage holders is facing foreclosure, unemployment is at its highest level in decades, the auto industry is “tanking” and the real danger of deflation or a possible depression looms large on the horizon. In the global south, millions live on $1 a day, and wars, ethnic and religious violence, poverty and the AIDS epidemic continue to wrack the African continent. To learn in this context that Duncan, Minns and their allies think that the most important issue facing the church is the sexuality of the Bishop of New Hampshire suggests a level of self-absorption that is difficult to square with the teachings of Christ. And to learn that the New York Times considers the complaints of these deposed, retired and irregularly consecrated bishops to be front page news suggests a fixation on “culture wars” reporting that deprives readers of a true sense of the challenges facing the church in this country…
The Diocese of Los Angeles held its annual convention last weekend.
News reports:
Los Angeles Times Episcopal Diocese of L.A. officially condones the blessing of gay unions by Jessica Garrison
The bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles has announced that church leaders can bless the unions of same-sex couples as a matter of policy.
The Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, whose diocese encompasses Los Angeles County and five other Southern California counties, made the announcement Friday during a diocesan convention in Riverside.
Bruno acted just days after hundreds of conservative Episcopal congregations in North America formed a breakaway church amid a rift that began with the ordination of a gay bishop in New Hampshire five years ago.
Bruno’s declaration is not expected to have a major effect on Episcopal churches in Southern California. Many have been blessing gay unions for years. But he has now made it official…
Riverside Press-Enterprise At Riverside convention Episcopalians say no to ban on gay bishops by David Olson
In a move that presaged yet another battle over homosexuality at a national Episcopal Church meeting, delegates to the Los Angeles Diocese’s convention voted overwhelmingly Saturday to support lifting a moratorium on consecrating bishops who are in same-sex relationships…
Updated again Sunday morning
From epiScope: Renunciation of Orders
Today, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori “accepted the renunciation of the Ordained Ministry of this Church, made in writing on November 24, 2008 by the Right Rev. Jack Leo Iker, Bishop of Fort Worth who is, therefore, removed from Ordained Ministry of this Church and released from the obligations of all Ministerial offices, and is deprived of the right to exercise the gifts and spiritual authority as a Minister of God’s Word and Sacraments conferred on him in Ordinations.”
Saturday morning update
There is a detailed ENS report: Presiding Bishop declares inhibited Fort Worth bishop has renounced his orders.
See also PB “accepts” Bishop Iker’s renunciation of orders at Episcopal Café.
Here is what was published on the date mentioned above.
Read what she wrote to the House of Bishops.
…My decision to accept Bishop Iker’s voluntary renunciation fits squarely within the canons. Bishop Iker’s November 24 statement clearly constitutes “a renunciation of the ordained ministry of this Church, and a desire to be removed therefrom” as contemplated by Canon III.12.7(a). Other, similar letters — most recently from Bishops Bena and Fairfield — have also been treated as voluntary renunciations and with the consent of my Council of Advice I have accepted them and removed and released those bishops from our ordained ministry, as well…
Sunday morning update
Bishop Iker has issued a statement: What Renunciation?
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports Episcopal Church presiding bishop says Iker renounced orders.
And, Bishop Iker commented on the proposed new province in this newspaper report: Fort Worth Episcopal bishop weighs in on the church’s split.
The Steering Committee North Texas Episcopalians issued this statement.
Updated Friday evening
The Living Church reports that the former bishop of Quincy, who recently retired suddenly just before the diocese voted to align with the Southern Cone, has accepted a new assignment, see Bishop Ackerman Accepts Call to Springfield.
ENS reports that QUINCY: Diocese begins to reorganize after split.
There is a report overnight that
Members of the Cathedral parish of the Diocese of Quincy voted Thursday night to not be “realigned” or “removed” to the Anglican province of the Southern Cone in a 181 to 35 vote.
According to Episcopal Café four hundred of the diocese’s 1850 members belong to the cathedral parish, and it accounts for 22 percent of Quincy’s average Sunday attendance.
There is more information here.
Friday evening update
ENS has QUINCY: Cathedral to stay in the Episcopal Church and the Living Church has Quincy’s Cathedral Parish Won’t Join Southern Cone.
And there is this press release about a forthcoming meeting.
Updated again Tuesday
Bishop Jack Iker has been inhibited by the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church.
You can read the official notice here (PDF).
It probably won’t get announced on the website of the diocese.
The Steering Committee of North Texas Episcopalians has issued a statement which you can read here.
Monday evening update
I was wrong in my prediction about the diocesan website. It now carries the following: Press Release in response to attempted inhibition which includes both a statement by the bishop and a statement by the standing committee.
Episcopal News Service has published a very detailed report by Mary Frances Schjonberg headed Presiding Bishop inhibits Fort Worth bishop. This includes links to the certificate issued by the Title IV Review Committee, and to the documentation, here, and here, and also here, which was submitted to the committee.
Religious Intelligence has published a report by George Conger Fort Worth Bishop inhibited.
Tuesday update
The Living Church also has a report Bishop Iker Describes Inhibition by PB as ‘Irrelevant’.
Bill Fleener Jr has drawn attention on his blog Est Anima Legis to some earlier cases which are of interest now in connection with two dioceses which have recently voted to leave The Episcopal Church.
Fort Worth moves from Devious to Hypocrisy
Quincy Hypocrisy just like Fort Worth
Updated twice Monday afternoon
Bishop Jack Iker issued this statement to be read in parishes yesterday.
Katie Sherrod has detailed comments on it here.
The Presiding Bishop of the Southern Cone issued this statement of greeting to Fort Worth.
The official report of the convention voting results is here.
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has another news report, After Fort Worth Diocese breakaway, area Episcopalians were back in church Sunday by Terry Lee Goodrich.
Monday afternoon updates
George Conger reports for Religious Intelligence Fort Worth votes to secede from Episcopal Church.
Mark Harris has some analysis of the press conference, at Bishop Iker asks some questions, doesn’t answer others.
Updated Sunday evening
The New York Times has Diocese in Texas Leaves Episcopal Church by Gretel C Kovach.
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has Fort Worth Episcopal Diocese votes to dissociate from national church by Terry Lee Goodrich.
Associated Press has Fort Worth is 4th Episcopal diocese to break away by Rachel Zoll.
And the Dallas Morning News has a later version of its report, Fort Worth Diocese splits from Episcopal Church.
For earlier news reports see previous article.
A statement by The Steering Committee North Texas Episcopalians can be found here.
A statement by Fort Worth Via Media can be found here.
Sunday evening update
There is a transcript of the press conference here.
Updated again later Saturday evening
Quite a bit of press coverage in advance of today’s voting by the Diocese of Fort Worth.
Agenda information here.
Houston Chronicle Fort Worth Episcopals set to leave national church
Dallas News Fort Worth Diocese to officially split from Episcopal Church today over social issues
Wichita Falls Times Record News Episcopalian realignment vote will affect local church properties
Religious Intelligence Fort Worth on verge of secession
Saturday evening update
Associated Press Fort Worth Is 4th Episcopal Diocese to Break Away
Dallas Morning News Fort Worth Diocese officially breaks away from Episcopal Church
The bishop’s address is published in full here.
Statement of delegates who will remain in TEC
The detailed results of the voting on the various resolutions are available from Katie Sherrod, see here.
Later Updates
Statement by the Presiding Bishop
Fort Worth Star-Telegram Fort Worth Episcopal Diocese votes to leave mother church
Living Church Fort Worth Convention Joins the Southern Cone
Episcopal News Service Fort Worth delegates vote to leave Episcopal Church, realign with Southern Cone
This report by Pat McCaughan is comprehensive.
And there is an earlier version with other detail, here.
Locations of those who are not leaving The Episcopal Church are listed here and here.
Updated Thursday morning
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports: Fort Worth diocese will vote on breaking away from Episcopal Church.
Meanwhile, some of those intending to remain in The Episcopal Church had an event titled The Once and Future Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth — Dealing with the present, planning for the future. Read about it in this blog article by Katie Sherrod.
And the Steering Committee of North Texas Episcopalians has prepared a range of materials for parishes to use after the vote.
Thursday morning update
There is an interview with the Bishop of Fort Worth, which contains much useful information, at Stand Firm see Stand Firm Interviews: Bishop Jack Iker by Greg Griffith.
Updated again Thursday morning
The Diocese of Quincy has voted to depart from The Episcopal Church and (separately) has voted to affiliate with the Province of the Southern Cone.
The Living Church has the details at Quincy Synod Votes to Join the Southern Cone.
Update Friday evening Episcopal News Service has a bulletin at Quincy members vote to leave Episcopal Church, align with Southern Cone.
Update Saturday evening
Episcopal News Service has this further very detailed report by Joe Bjordal Presiding Bishop says church laments Quincy departures.
Update Sunday morning
The Peoria Journal-Star has Episcopal diocese leaving national church by Erin Wood.
The Associated Press has 3rd Episcopal diocese splits from national church by Rachel Zoll.
Update Tuesday morning
Quad-City Times Episcopal Church split might turn into conflict over property by Deirdre Cox Baker
Update Thursday morning
There is a further report in the Living Church Quincy Promises ‘Christian Charity’ for Remaining Episcopalians.
Updated Friday evening
Ruth Gledhill has a report in The Times headlined Barack Obama asked gay bishop Gene Robinson what it was like to be ‘first’.
Bishop Robinson, in London as a guest of the gay rights group Stonewall for its annual “Hero of the Year” awards dinner at the Victoria and Albert Museum tonight, said that Mr Obama’s campaign team had sought him last year and he had the “honour” of three private conversations with the future president of the United States last May and June.
“The first words out of his mouth were: ‘Well you’re certainly causing a lot of trouble’, My response to him was: ‘Well that makes two of us’.”
There is a transcript of this interview, together with audio recordings, on her blog, under the heading Obama and the Gay Bishop: ‘Three Private Meetings’.
Friday evening update
The Hero of the Year Award was in fact awarded to Bishop Robinson. This award is based on the votes of Stonewall supporters, as is the annual Bigot of the Year Award, which last year was also won by an Anglican bishop.
See Stonewall press release here:
Hero of the Year chosen by Stonewall supporters - Rt Revd Gene Robinson. Openly gay Bishop of New Hampshire. Has bravely endured sustained personal attacks in recent months, as church debate on homosexuality has intensified. Recently barred from Lambeth conference.
Updated Tuesday morning
The Diocese of Pittsburgh reports: Presiding Bishop Visits Calvary Episcopal Church, and the full text of her sermon is available here (PDF file).
Press reports:
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Top Episcopal leader visits troubled members by Ann Rodgers
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Episcopal leader says exodus ‘tragic’ by Bonnie Pfister
There is a further diocesan announcement: Bishop Jones To Make First Parish Visit.
Update
ENS has a full report by Mary Frances Schjonberg All involved in Pittsburgh split are saints, Presiding Bishop tells Pittsburgh Episcopalians. Part of that report:
Many of the questions concerned the tensions in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion that led to the October 4 vote. More than once, Jefferts Schori suggested that those tensions would ease in the next few years. She said that more bishops across the communion have a better understanding of the complexity of the issues. Those bishops have said “‘we don’t agree, but we recognize you are called to follow where you believe the Spirit is taking you, and we are called to try to understand that,’” according to the Presiding Bishop.
Others questions addressed theological matters, including the issue of whether Jefferts Schori had suggested there are ways to salvation other than following Jesus.“That’s not what I said,” Jefferts Schori said, explaining that she has noted in the past that “most Christians believe Christ died for all, as savior for the whole world.”
She said she has also cited the Bible’s record of God’s promises to the Jewish people and other promises that “were not broken by Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.”
“Therefore, Jews have access to salvation without consciously saying ‘Jesus is my Lord and savior.’ I didn’t do that; God did it. I also see that God made promises to Hagar and Ishmael, whom Muslims claim as their ancestor,” she said. “I don’t think God broke those promises when Jesus came among us.”
Jefferts Schori had touched on the question during her sermon, noting that “Episcopalians and other Christians wrestle with how broadly to understand the family of God, and whether non-Christians are included, for we can certainly point to holy examples who show us what God at work in the world looks like — people like the Dalai Lama and Mahatma Gandhi.”
She suggested that “it seems more fruitful to remember that Jesus’ saving work was and is for the whole world, and that our baptismal promises are about living holy lives, together, in community.”
Updated
An email was published yesterday which announces that Bishop Keith Ackerman of the Diocese of Quincy will retire, effective 1 November. That’s the day after tomorrow!
The text of the announcement can be found here, or here, or here.
The Diocesan Synod is scheduled for the following weekend, 7-8 November. The resolutions due to be considered can be found in this PDF file here.
A recent local newspaper report explains what is expected: Illinois Episcopalians face historic vote.
Update
There is now a Living Church report titled Bishop Ackerman to Resign Saturday.
ENS now has a comprehensive report at Quincy’s Bishop Ackerman announces retirement.
Forward in Faith announces that Bishop Keith Ackerman will remain as President of Forward in Faith North America.
The Executive Council of The Episcopal Church passed a number of resolutions at its recent meeting relating to the issues raised by the recent and anticipated actions of some dioceses in aligning with the Southern Cone.
There is a comprehensive report Executive Council promises support, money to continuing Episcopalians by Mary Frances Schjonberg at Episcopal Life.
The Episcopal Church’s Executive Council October 23 renewed its ongoing support of dioceses in which the leadership has left or plans to leave the church, and pledged the church to seek reconciliation “without precondition on our part.”
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told council members that she appreciated their sense that irreconcilable differences are inconsistent with the gospel. “It is profoundly unchristian and unhopeful to say that differences can be irreconcilable,” she said…
There is also a report Executive Council Wants Dialogue with Common Cause Partnership by Doug LeBlanc at the Living Church.
Executive Council has called for a reconciliation-oriented conversation with members of Common Cause Partnership, according to the two top officials of The Episcopal Church. They spoke to members of the media Oct. 23 during a brief conference call at the conclusion of the council’s four-day meeting in Helena, Mont.
The council approved a resolution from its Committee for National Concerns, said Bonnie Anderson, president of the House of Deputies. Mrs. Anderson said the resolution is based on council’s belief that talk of irreconcilable differences is a contradiction of the Christian gospel.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said she was expressing nothing new when she said earlier in the week that she would “strongly discourage” General Convention from voting on a final form of the proposed Anglican Covenant in July 2009, if the final draft is released in May 2009. She said she has made the same remark for several weeks in various locations, and that she has not encountered any resistance to her plans…
Also, there is a report about: Bishop to Advise Pittsburgh Episcopalians.
The Rt. Rev. David Colin Jones, the bishop suffragan of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, has accepted an invitation from the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh to serve as a “consulting bishop” as it rebuilds.
Bishop Jones will provide the Pittsburgh diocesan Standing Committee, the current leadership team, with practical advice on the details of diocesan administration, clergy deployment, and support for congregations remaining in the Episcopal Church in the United States…
The Living Church report on this also mentions that:
…In a similar development, the Rt. Rev. Sam B. Hulsey, Bishop of Northwest Texas from 1980 to 1997, confirmed that he has participated in preliminary discussions about serving as the provisional bishop of Fort Worth in the event that the majority of delegates to the annual convention on Nov. 15 votes to leave The Episcopal Church. No formal offer to serve in that capacity had been made yet, he said.
And, from San Joaquin there is a report that Realigning clergy are charged with abandonment of communion. See here for more details.
And also, the Presiding Bishop will visit Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh on Sunday 2 November. Read more details of this in their latest newsletter here (PDF).
Episcopal News Service reports:
ENGLAND: Archbishop of Canterbury, deposed Pittsburgh bishop meet at Lambeth Palace
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and deposed Diocese of Pittsburgh Bishop Bob Duncan met privately in London last week.
The Lambeth Palace press office confirmed that the meeting took place on October 15, but would not disclose details of the conversation between Williams and Duncan, saying it was “one of many private meetings” the archbishop hosts at his London residence…
Episcopal News Service reports that General Convention should not consider Anglican covenant, Presiding Bishop tells Executive Council:
If a proposed Anglican covenant is released in mid-May for adoption by the Anglican Communion’s provinces, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori will “strongly discourage” any effort to bring that request to the 76th General Convention in July.
Jefferts Schori briefly discussed the covenant process during her remarks to the opening plenary session October 21 on the second of the Executive Council’s four-day meeting in Helena, the seat of the Diocese of Montana.
Anglican Communion provinces have until the end of March 2009 to respond to the current version of the proposed covenant, known as the St. Andrew’s Draft. The Covenant Design Group meets in London in April 2009 and may issue another draft of a covenant. That draft is expected to be reviewed by the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) during its May 1-12, 2009 meeting. The ACC could decide to release that version to the provinces for their adoption.
If the ACC decides to do that, “my sense is that the time is far too short before our General Convention for us to have a thorough discussion of it as a church and I’m therefore going to strongly discourage any move to bring it to General Convention,” Jefferts Schori told the Executive Council. “I just think it’s inappropriate to make a decision that weighty” that quickly, she added.
The 76th General Convention meets July 8-17 in Anaheim, California…
Updated further Wednesday evening
There was a press conference yesterday, at All Souls, Langham Place. You can read all about it at Episcopal Life which has Former Pittsburgh bishop warns Church of England traditionalists against ‘complacency’ written by me.
Toby Cohen of the Church of England Newspaper was also there. His report on Religious Intelligence is titled Deposed Bishop issues warning to Church of England.
Anglican Mainstream has a transcript of part of the press conference, at Bishop Bob Duncan on recognition of new province in North America.
Maria Mackay of Christian Today has Deposed bishop warns traditionalists against ‘illiberal takeover’.
Anglican Mainstream has now added transcripts of further portions of the press conference:
First, his opening statement: Thanks, a report and a warning - Bishop Duncan’s statement to the press.
Second, some of the initial answers to questions: Questions to Bishop Bob Duncan -1: on what could happen in the UK, the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Windsor Continuation Group.
Third, more answers to questions: Questions to Bishop Bob Duncan 2:on Sour Grapes, Catholic Order and Martyrdom.
Ruth Gledhill has posted video of part of the conference, see her blog at Bob Duncan: Over-stressed, over here and over?
Updated Wednesday evening
The Bishop of Fort Worth reports that Clergy Discussions on Conflict Produce No Solution.
…At the same time as these conversations were going on, a group of diocesan officials from Fort Worth were meeting with our counterparts in the Diocese of Dallas to see if a pastoral agreement could be worked out between our two dioceses, whereby parishes in Fort Worth that wanted to remain in TEC could do so as part of the Dallas Diocese. These meetings included the Bishops, Chancellors, Canons to the Ordinary, and Presidents of the Standing Committees of the two dioceses. We came up with a proposal whereby, under certain conditions, Fort Worth parishes and clergy could have “associate membership” in Dallas, including seat, voice and vote at their Convention, and their property could be placed temporarily in the name of the Corporation of the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas, to be held in trust for their use.
This plan was then presented to the Rectors, Wardens and Chancellors of five Fort Worth parishes that we thought would like to pursue such an arrangement, at least on a trial basis. They were asked to discuss the proposal with their vestries, and then we would meet a second time for further exploration. Unfortunately, at that second meeting, the Chancellor of Dallas reported on conversations he had initiated with the Presiding Bishop’s Chancellor, David Booth Beers, about the proposal under discussion. Mr. Beers stated that neither the PB nor the General Convention would support such a plan, and without their support, the Fort Worth parishes were unwilling to continue steps to implement the plan…
Update
Episcopal Life Online now has a report by Mary Frances Schjonberg FORT WORTH: Effort to let parishes join Diocese of Dallas fails.
Christianity Today carries an interview by Timothy C. Morgan with the former Bishop of Pittsburgh, Robert Duncan.
It is titled The Comeback Bishop.
Some extracts:
Do you have any second thoughts about creation of this new province for conservative Anglicans?
No second thoughts about it. I would have hoped that the Anglican Communion might simply recognize us as the legitimate bearers of the Anglican franchise here. But that’s not likely to happen in the short run. The significance of the Episcopal Church deposing me is much greater than what most people would assume in this battle for a province. For the worldwide Anglican Communion to see me deposed has been absolutely sobering, and even moderates are shocked and stunned by it…
Some conservatives continue to support an Anglican Covenant and the Windsor continuation process as vehicles for reform. Do you hold out much hope for these initiatives?
The covenant is a good concept. Sadly, the form, in which it comes forward, has no great strength to it. A better form of covenant would have been the Thirty-Nine Articles or The Book of Common Prayer. Those have been the things that actually functioned as the covenant for three centuries and more. So the covenant is a useful idea. But as it’s being developed it’s not [useful]. About the Windsor continuation group, the glacial timetable on which it’s working is like every other proposal that’s come from the Anglican Communion office, from the Archbishop of Canterbury. They have been too little and far too slow…
Are you confident that there will be a new province for the North American Anglicans a year from now? And are you the most likely person to be the primate of that province?
The simple answers are yes and yes. I do believe that the Common Cause partners will put everything in place that we need to put in place by Christmas. The time has come. In terms of my leadership I think I understand, and those who put me in this place understand, that in this particular moment my task, my call has been to bring the partners to a place, to the creation of a province and to the beginning of its life, and then I’ll be happy to give it over as soon as it’s clear that I’m not called to do it anymore. We will operate in a way in which the primate of the province is a diocesan bishop, will serve for a term, and may be reelected for a term. Then another will take up that primacy…
Upated Friday evening
The Church Times has Pittsburgh diocese votes to secede from Episcopal Church by Pat Ashworth.
In the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette there is Minority recognized as ‘true’ Episcopal Diocese by Ann Rodgers.
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has Episcopal Church recognizes loyal parishes by Craig Smith.
Friday evening
Episcopal News Service has Pittsburgh Standing Committee fills vacancies, seeks Presiding Bishop’s assistance by Mary Frances Schjonberg
Updated Thursday evening
The Diocese of Pittsburgh has a new website, at which we find
…Later in the day, I received a letter by e-mail from David Wilson informing me that the remaining seven members of his Standing Committee consider themselves to be aligned with the Province of The Southern Cone.
This information was conveyed to the Presiding Bishop’s office and today we received recognition as the Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh in the Episcopal Church and because of the absence of a Bishop, the ecclesiastical authority.
I am also pleased to announce that the Standing Committee has made several staff appoints. Andy Roman has agreed to be our Chancellor, Rich Creehan is Director of Communications, Joan Gunderson is the Treasurer, and Scott Quinn is the Director of Pastoral Care.
I am also pleased to announce that The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh will be holding a reorganizing Convention on Saturday December 13th. Details as to time and place will follow shortly…
Meanwhile a meeting has been called for 16 October.
The FAQ for Parishes previously published by Across the Aisle has been updated with two additional items.
Over at the website of those joining the Southern Cone, there is this letter: Standing Committee Responds to Demand it Repudiate Convention Actions.
Thursday evening update
There is also a press release: Reorganized Episcopal Diocese Recognized as Legitimate:
October 9, 2008
REORGANIZED EPISCOPAL DIOCESE RECOGNIZED AS LEGITIMATE
New Leadership Formed from Group that Opposed Realignment;
Governing Convention Set for December 13Pittsburgh, PA – Today the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church recognized a local group committed to the U.S. church as the legitimate Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.
The recognition by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori came in the form of accepting a new Standing Committee as the governing body of the diocese that remained after former leaders voted to leave the church on October 4th.
“I do recognize the Rev. James Simons and the two people he appointed as the rightful Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh,” Jefferts Schori wrote in an e-mail to the Rev. Simons, the only remaining member of the Standing Committee and the one responsible for reorganizing a diocese within the Episcopal Church…
The full text of the letter from the Presiding Bishop is available as a PDF here.
Updated Monday morning
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Episcopal diocese chooses to secede by Ann Rodgers
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Episcopal diocese votes to split by Brian Bowling
New York Times Pittsburgh Episcopal Diocese Votes for Split by Sean D Hamill
Associated Press Diocese to Break From Episcopal Church and there was this earlier report, prior to the vote from Rachel Zoll Episcopal dioceses mulling split over Bible, gays.
Agence France-Presse US diocese splits from Episcopal Church amid gay crisis
The glossy brochure mentioned in some reports can be seen as a PDF file here.
Monday morning update
A further report in the New York Times by Sean D Hamill After Theological Split, a Clash Over Church Assets
Updated again late Saturday evening
The Pittsburgh newspapers have reports on this:
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Mike Cronin Episcopal diocese to vote today on split
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Ann Rodgers Episcopal Diocese set to vote today whether to secede
Earlier the New York Times had Pittsburgh Episcopalians Weigh Division by Sean Hamill.
One item in that article caused Episcopal Café to respond with Proclaiming Jesus as Son of God never in debate.
Across the Aisle has published this List of Parishes Committed to Remaining in the Episcopal Church and has also published information about what will happen if “realignment” is approved, see NEXT STEPS: if “Realignment” Happens.
lunchtime update
Episcopal News Service has Convention could create four parishes in midst of realignment vote by Mary Frances Schjonberg.
Statements from the leadership of some of the parishes who are not “re-aligning” can be found here.
evening update
Resolutions considered can be found in this PDF file.
Constitutional Changes Approved
The diocese has voted with a clear majority to remove its accession to the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church.
A total of 191 laity voted. 119 voted in favor. 69 voted against, 3 abstained. A total of 160 clergy voted. 121 voted in favor. 33 voted no. 3 abstained. 2 invalid ballots were cast.
ENS has Bulletin: Pittsburgh votes to leave Episcopal Church, align with Southern Cone.
Further press releases from the diocese:
Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh Changes Constitution, Joins Anglican Province
Diocese Begins Process to Recall Bishop Duncan
Two press releases from those opposed to the “realignment”:
Across the Aisle To the Members of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh
Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh Episcopal Group Vows to Help Return Pittsburgh Diocese to Health
And a full report from ENS is now published, Pittsburgh votes to leave Episcopal Church, align with Southern Cone by Mary Frances Schjonberg.
An ecclesiastical court has determined that Diocese of Pennsylvania Bishop Charles E. Bennison should be deposed from the ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church.
ENS has a full report by Mary Frances Schjonberg at Court for the Trial of a Bishop calls for Bennison’s deposition with various links to documents.
The Living Church has a report by Doug LeBlanc at Church Court Rules for Deposition of Bishop Bennison.
The Associated Press reported it, see Pennsylvania Episcopal bishop ousted in cover-up.
The Philadelphia Inquirer has Episcopal court rules to defrock Pa. bishop.
First, two items from within the Diocese of Pittsburgh:
Bruce Robison who is Rector of St Andrew’s Highland Park, wrote to his parishioners about the deposition, explaining the current situation there, see Rector’s Announcement concerning the Deposition of the Rt. Rev. Robert W. Duncan.
Joan Gunderson president of Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh and a member of the steering committee of Across the Aisle, wrote about the current situation, and this was reproduced on the web by Lionel Deimel, see Gundersen Offers Pittsburgh Update.
Also, this news report by Ann Rodgers in last Sunday’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is relevant: Diocese found breaking up hard to do, but still a relief.
Second, some more expressions of support for Bishop Robert Duncan:
Archbishop Henry Orombi wrote this Open Letter of Support.
Global South Anglican published this Statement by the Primates’ Council of GAFCON on the alleged deposition of the Bishop of Pittsburgh. The GAFCON website is broken at the moment, no list of signatories is included at GSA.
Update The GAFCON website has no list of signatories either.
Bishop Mark Lawrence of South Carolina wrote this: Bishop Lawrence Reports on the House of Bishops’ Meeting, September 17-19, 2008.
Updated again Wednesday evening
Bishop Jack Iker has written 10 Reasons Why Now Is the Time to Realign.
This appears in the current issue of the diocesan newsletter, Forward in Mission. The complete newsletter is available here as a PDF.
The first URL above appears to be only temporary, so the full text is reproduced below the fold.
Update Wednesday morning
A detailed response to this has been published by Fort Worth Via Media and can be found at 10 Reasons Why Now Is NOT the Time to Realign.
Update Wednesday evening
Further responses can be found by Pluralist - Adrian Worsfold at Iker’s Inaccurate Slur, and also by Mark Harris at Bishop Iker’s Reasoning.
10 Reasons Why Now Is the Time to Realign
Our 26th annual convention is approaching, and a momentous decision is before us as a diocese. At last year’s convention, your clergy and elected delegates voted by majorities of around 80 percent each to remove language in our Constitution that affiliates us with the General Convention of The Episcopal Church (TEC). This year, clergy and delegates will be asked to ratify that decision to separate.
“Why now?” someone might ask. “Why is this the time for our diocese to separate from the General Convention of The Episcopal Church and realign with another Province of the Anglican Communion?”
Here are a few of the thoughts that come to mind:
1. This is God’s time – our kairos moment – and it has been coming for a long time. We believe that God the Holy Spirit has guided and directed us to this particular time and moment of decision. Some might well ask, “Why has it taken us so long to take definitive action, given the past 30 years of the shenanigans of The Episcopal Church?” We have explored every avenue and exhausted every possibility. Now is the time to decide to separate from the moral, spiritual, and numerical decline of TEC.
2. Actions of the General Convention have brought crisis and division to the whole Anglican Communion, not just TEC. More than 20 of the Provinces of the Communion have declared themselves to be in a state of broken or impaired communion with TEC because of the ordination of a homosexual bishop living in a sexual relationship with another man and the blessings of same-sex unions in many places throughout this church. We need to dissociate ourselves from the bishops and dioceses that are violating the teaching of Scripture by doing these things.
3. The heresies and heterodoxy once proclaimed by just a few renegade bishops – like James Pike and John Spong – are now echoed by the Presiding Bishop, who is the chief spokesperson for TEC and speaks on behalf of our church to the rest of the world. She does not reflect the orthodox beliefs of Episcopalians in this diocese. The greatest problem we face with Katharine Jefferts Schori is not that she is a woman, but that she is not an orthodox bishop.
4. If we do not act now, we will lose our momentum and lose our God-given opportunity. Many laity and clergy who have been standing with the Diocese, as a beacon of hope, will give up and leave for other Anglican bodies. We will never be stronger than we are right now! We will never have another chance to act with such a strong majority. The Episcopal Church many of us were born into or became members of many years ago no longer exists! It has been replaced by a liberal, revisionist sect that does not deserve our allegiance or support any longer.
5. TEC is not turning back and matters will only get worse. General Convention is out of control and beyond reform. The Deputies seem to think that they can do whatever they want as long as they can muster a majority vote, even if what they propose is contrary to Holy Scripture. We will not accept majority votes of the General Convention that compromise the Christian ?faith. The more they change the teachings of the church, the less tolerant they are of dioceses such as ours. By the time I retire (in the next 7 to 13 years), this diocese will be unable to elect an orthodox bishop to succeed me.
6. TEC is coming after us, and they are the ones that brought on this crisis. In October 2006 the chancellor to the PB wrote a letter to our diocese demanding that we change our Constitution to remove the clause that says that we will not accept General Convention dictates that are contrary to the Bible and the apostolic teaching of the church. In addition, we were instructed to remove provisions stating that all church property in this diocese is held in trust for the use of our congregations and to state instead that our property ultimately belongs to TEC. If we don’t make such changes, the letter asserted that the Presiding Bishop would have to determine what actions she must take “in order to bring your diocese into compliance.”
7. At this time there is nothing in the Constitution or Canons of TEC that prevents a Diocese from leaving. Oh, I know that General Convention officials claim that dioceses cannot leave TEC, but you will not find that anywhere in the Constitution and Canons as they presently stand. So we have this window of opportunity to do what we need to do, for you can be sure that the next General Convention will close off this option by adopting amendments that will make it even more difficult to separate in the future.
8. The vast majority of our younger clergy, those ordained in the last 10 years or so, are in favor of the decision to separate and realign. They are the voice of the future of this diocese; they are the leaders who will take us into the next decade and beyond. You will notice that most of the clergy leaders opposing this move are already retired or on the verge of retiring. This is not their battle; they have had their time to lead. Now it is time to let this next generation step forward and lead, as we prepare a future for our children and our grandchildren.
9. We have international support for making the move at this time. Not only has the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone made provision for us to join them on a temporary basis as full members and partners in mission, but several Global South Primates are standing with us and have expressed their willingness to support us in this bold move. They have stuck their necks out for us and offered their encouragement, assistance and support. We must now have the courage of our convictions and act! What a joy and relief it will be to be part of a Province where we are not always under attack and on the defensive. We will then aggressively pursue the formation of an orthodox Province in North America in conjunction with the Common Cause Partnership.
10. Most importantly, this decision is about the truth of the Gospel and upholding the authority of the Holy Scriptures. We believe in God’s full self-revelation in Jesus Christ, not in the speculation of humanist unitarians who have been elected to high offices in our church. Many leaders of TEC are teaching a false Gospel and leading people astray. Now is the time for us to take a bold, public stand for the biblical faith and practice of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.
Now is the time to decide. Our cause is right, and the choice is clear. Let us act together, decisively, and with courage, faith and charity.
The Rt. Rev. Jack Leo Iker
Bishop of Fort Worth
September 2008
Updated Sunday evening
The deposition of the Bishop of Pittsburgh was completed, ENS reports in Jefferts Schori removes Pittsburgh bishop from office by Mary Frances Schjonberg.
The letter sent to Bishop Duncan is here (PDF) and the formal deposition document is here (also a PDF).
Subsequently, the Standing Committee of the diocese issued a further statement, and ENS reported that Convention will go forward, Standing Committee says.
The Church Times reported on all this in US Bishops depose Bishop Bob Duncan for secession by Pat Ashworth.
Six Church of England Diocesan Bishops Make Joint Statement of Support contains the statement signed by the bishops of Blackburn, Chester, Chichester, Exeter, Rochester, and Winchester.
Update Sunday evening
Across the Aisle has launched a new website at http://www.episcopalpgh.org/
Updated again Sunday morning
Episcopal Café has the rollcall of the vote at The post-deposition news conference and minutes.
Saturday morning updates
Further reports from Pittsburgh newspapers:
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Ann Rodgers Some expected to resist split from Episcopal Church
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Craig Smith Episcopal bishop’s ouster sets up battle line
And a further report by Pat McCaughan at ENS House of Bishops adjourns Salt Lake City meeting with ‘spirit of commitment’ includes a link to a pdf file containing the official copy of the minutes and the rollcall.
The Diocese of Pittsburgh has set up an additional website, In Support of Bishop Duncan.
The Living Church has published the rollcall vote in a more userfriendly format, and also has News Analysis: Curial Powers Expanded.
Sunday morning updates
For many additional reactions see Bishop reactions to Duncan issue, Saturday edition at Episcopal Café and also see many recent entries at Anglican Mainstream.
The Pittsburgh group Across the Aisle now has a website here with materials and pictures from the recent event A Hopeful Future.
Updated Friday evening
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had this last night, and this morning has Episcopalians vote to oust Pittsburgh bishop by Ann Rodgers.
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has Duncan out as bishop by Tony LaRussa.
The Associated Press has Breakaway Episcopal bishop ousted from ministry by Rachel Zoll.
Reuters has Episcopal church defrocks dissident bishop by Michael Conlon.
The Living Church has House of Bishops Deposes Bishop Robert Duncan.
Religious Intelligence has Bishop of Pittsburgh deposed by House of Bishops by George Conger.
Friday evening updates
The Times Ruth Gledhill Leading conservative bishop deposed in US
Telegraph Martin Beckford Bishop of Pittsburgh deposed by Episcopal Church for ‘abandoning communion’
Updated Friday evening
The American House of Bishops has considered the case of Bishop Duncan of Pittsburgh. ENS reports that House of Bishops votes to depose Pittsburgh bishop for ‘abandoning Communion’:
After nearly two days of prayerful and solemn closed-door sessions, the House of Bishops on September 18 voted by a two to one majority to depose Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh. The vote authorizes Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori to remove Duncan from ordained ministry.
The vote total was 88 to 35 in favor of deposing Duncan, according to Episcopal Church spokeswoman Neva Rae Fox. There were four abstentions…
The Presiding Bishop issued this statement:
The House of Bishops worked carefully and prayerfully to consider the weighty matter of Bishop Duncan. The conversation was holy, acknowledging the pain of our deliberations as well as the gratitude many have felt over the years for their relationships with, and the ministry of, Robert Duncan. The House concluded, however, that his actions over recent months and years constitute “abandonment of the communion of this church” and that he should be deposed. Concern was expressed for the people of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh in the face of leadership which has sought to remove itself from The Episcopal Church. In the days and months ahead, this Church will work to ensure appropriate pastoral care and provision for the members of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, so that mission and ministry in that part of Pennsylvania may continue in the name of Jesus Christ and in the tradition of the Episcopal Church.
The House of Bishops Daily Account Thursday, September 18 contains comments from different sides of the debate.
The Diocese of Pittsburgh has issued a press release, Diocese of Pittsburgh Maintains Course after Purported Deposition, the Standing Committee has issued this statement. Bishop Duncan himself has issued this statement.
The Anglican Communion Network issued Network, Common Cause Leaders offer Support for Bishop Duncan and the Convocation of Anglicans in North America issued TEC’s Unilateral Removal of Bishop Duncan.
Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh issued PEP Hopes Diocese Will Move Forward Gracefully After Duncan Deposition.
Episcopal Café points out that the Standing Committee statement is not unanimous, and has links to various other statements. And more background is here.
Friday evening updates
The Episcopal Café article titled Duncan deposed has been revised in a write-through. The remarks of Bishop Paul Marshall of Bethlehem (Pennsylvania) are particularly noteworthy.
Statements from other bishops can be found at Archbishops offer support to Bishop Duncan, Pittsburgh (Egypt, Sydney, Rwanda, Kenya, West Indies and Southern Cone), at Blogging bishops weigh in on the Duncan deposition and here (Fort Worth) and here (Western Louisiana).
And Stand Firm reports this:
“As was resolved by resolution made at the Provincial Synod in Valparaiso last November 2007, we are happy to welcome Bishop Duncan into the Province of the Southern Cone as a member of our House of Bishops, effective immediately. Neither the Presiding Bishop nor the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church has any further jurisdiction over his ministry. We pray for all Anglicans in Pittsburgh as they consider their own relationship with The Episcopal Church in the coming weeks,” said Archbishop Gregory Venables.
Recently, the Anglican Communion Institute published an article written by Mark McCall, a lawyer, entitled Is The Episcopal Church Hierarchical? You can read this article as a PDF file here.
There was an introduction to it on the ACI website titled Constitution And Canons: What Do They Tell Us About TEC?
A Response to Mark McCall’s “Is The Episcopal Church Hierarchical? has now been published by Joan Gunderson, a church historian in Pittsburgh. You can read that article as a PDF file here.
There is an introduction to it published by Progresssive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh and titled Historian Exposes Flaws in Argument That Episcopal Dioceses Are Independent.
Updated Sunday afternoon
The Bishop of Pittsburgh has issued a pastoral letter today. You can read it in full here.
In a letter to the House of Bishops yesterday, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori made it clear that there will be a vote this coming Thursday on whether to depose me from the ministry of the Episcopal Church. The charge is abandonment of the Communion of the Church, a charge initiated by five priests and sixteen laypeople of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. Much of the “evidence” in the case is put forward by the House of Bishops Property Task Force, drawn directly from the Calvary litigation. We have long suspected that a principal purpose in the Calvary litigation was to have me removed, by whatever means, before the realignment vote. Whatever the purported evidence, I continue to maintain that the House of Bishops “vote” will be a gross violation of the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church…
He then refers to a letter he sent to the House of Bishops on 24 August, and this letter is available as a PDF. This letter is also summarised in a Living Church news article.
Stand Firm has published the letter from the Presiding Bishop to which Bishop Duncan also refers. That letter is here.
And there is also a covering memo and then a lengthy memorandum from the Task Force on Property Disputes. The latter is a PDF file.
Sunday afternoon update
George Conger has reported at Religious Intelligence that there is Legal doubt over Presiding Bishop’s move to depose Duncan. The new issue is summarised thus:
However, the rules of the House of Bishops forbid modifying the agenda of a special session after the meeting has been announced, placing her plans in legal and canonical limbo. Whether the bishops will challenge her request is unclear, however, as her past legal missteps in the cases of Bishops John-David Schofield and Williams Cox provoked protests from bishops and dioceses distressed over what they perceived was her abuse of office, but no action followed.
The Episcopal Bishops of the six dioceses in the state of California have issued a joint statement calling for defeat of Proposition Eight, a ballot initiative approved for inclusion in the November 4 election that would amend the state constitution to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
Read the ENS report: California bishops call for defeat of proposition that would ban same-sex marriage which includes the full text of the joint statement. Here is an extract:
The group statement, signed by bishops of the dioceses of Northern California, California, El Camino Real, San Joaquin, Los Angeles and San Diego, said, “We do not believe that marriage of heterosexuals is threatened by same-sex marriage. Rather, the Christian values of monogamy, commitment, love, mutual respect and witness of monogamy are enhanced for all by providing this right to gay and straight alike. Society is strengthened when two people who love each other choose to enter into marriage, engaged in a lifetime of disciplined relationship building that serves as a witness to the importance of love and commitment.”
The bishops acknowledged that the Church is not of one mind on the blessing of same-sex unions, but said they are “adamant that justice demands that same-sex civil marriage continue in our state,” and noted that a resolution passed at the 2006 General Convention opposed any civil initiative that would make same-sex marriage unconstitutional on a state or national level.
The Los Angeles press conference is available online here. The Los Angeles Times report is here.
Updated yet again Saturday evening
First, Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, said he has requested Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to facilitate a meeting between him, the primate of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, Gregory Venables, U.S. presiding bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, and the primate of Brazil, Mauricio de Andrade, to discuss cross-border interventions.
See the report by Marites Sison in the Anglican Journal Canadian bishops to ponder implications of ‘next steps’ after Lambeth.
The three primates – Archbishop Hiltz, Archbishop de Andrade, and Bishop Jefferts Schori – have repeatedly asked Archbishop Venables to stop meddling in the internal affairs of their provinces. Archbishop Venables has, on his own accord, been providing episcopal oversight to churches that are in serious theological dispute with their respective provinces over the issue of sexuality. Archbishop Williams has said he will do his best to facilitate the request.
There is some more detail on the background, with links, in Canadian primate asks Archbishop of Canterbury to convene interventions meeting from ENS.
Second, the Diocese of Fort Worth issued a Third Report from the Bishop and Standing Committee concerning The Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. There is a note which says:
On Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2008, the Executive Council of the diocese adopted and endorsed - with only one dissenting vote - the following report and recommendation of the Bishop and Standing Committee.
Third, Episcopal News Service reports that Presiding Bishop removes MacBurney’s inhibition after retired bishop apologizes. This is related to confirmations on behalf of the Southern Cone that Bishop MacBurney performed in San Diego.
Thursday evening update
The Toronto Star has Breakaway faction has switched allegiance to S. American bishop which includes this (h/t to the Café):
Archbishop Gregory Venables of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, however, says he would find it “difficult” to attend such a meeting.
“We had been talking about a private meeting, and it rather surprises me that it is now public,” Venables told the Star in an interview from Buenos Aires.
“This makes it even more difficult for me to attend.”
Venables said he would make his formal response about the proposed meeting to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the spiritual leader of the Anglican church, who was asked by Hiltz to organize the meeting.
Friday morning update
I should have included earlier this Open letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates of the Anglican Communion by Bishop Don Harvey
5 September, 2008
After consulting with my Primate, Archbishop Gregory Venables, I report with great sadness that two Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) churches under my jurisdiction – St Matthews (Abbotsford, BC) and St Matthias and St Luke’s (Vancouver, BC) – received letters on 26 August 2008, informing them that the Bishop of New Westminster had taken action on 10 July 2008 to seize control of those parish properties. The letters also notified the wardens, trustees and parish councils that Bishop Michael Ingham had dismissed and replaced them and ordered the clergy to vacate the church buildings by mid-September. It is clear that our other two ANiC parishes in Vancouver, St. John’s Shaughnessy and Church of the Good Shepherd, will receive the same action in the near future…
Saturday evening update
The Living Church has an interview headlined Bishop Venables: Canadian Primate’s Proposal a ‘Publicity Stunt’.
“I talked to Fred about this at Lambeth, but it never occurred to me that a private discussion would become public without us both agreeing first,” Bishop Venables told The Living Church. “It looks more like a publicity stunt than a serious desire for dialogue.
“What more is there to discuss? I told him why I was doing this and he told me how he felt about it,” Bishop Venables said. “Boundary crossing is not the primary issue. It is a secondary issue resulting from the communion-splitting action of blessing sexual sin by the U.S. and Canadian churches.”
First, see this earlier report about a legal action in which Calvary Church asked a court to appoint a monitor to “inventory and oversee property held or administered by the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.”.
Today, there was a news report in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Episcopal Diocese prepares for secession vote.
In response to a lawsuit led by one of its parishes, the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh has agreed to have a court-appointed neutral party inventory all of its property and assets as it prepares for a final vote on seceding from the Episcopal Church.
The agreement between representatives of the diocese and Calvary Episcopal Church, Shadyside, came after a hearing yesterday before Joseph M. James, president judge of Common Pleas Court. In 2005, he oversaw a settlement after Calvary sued the diocese to prevent the transfer of property from the denomination to individual parishes…
The diocese will pursue “a fair and equitable distribution of property” if the realignment resolutions pass, said its spokesman, the Rev. Peter Frank.
The diocese also agreed yesterday to permit parishes that oppose secession to divert diocesan support payments to escrow accounts that would remain in the Episcopal Church.
The agreement assumes that new leaders affiliated with the church will be elected for Pittsburgh if Bishop Duncan secedes.
“It is highly likely that Bishop Duncan and the other leadership of the diocese will purport to separate from the Episcopal Church, and it is our position that the court order of Oct. 14, 2005, addresses what will happen in that regard,” said Walter DeForest, attorney for Calvary.
“It is certainly the position of Calvary that the new leadership of the diocese will be in charge of those assets.”
And later in the day, a press release was issued by the Diocese of Pittsburgh: Statement on the Sept. 8 Court Hearing.
“On Sept. 8, there was a hearing before Judge James in the Calvary litigation. Calvary took the position that the Realignment vote will violate the 2005 Stipulation and that Calvary was entitled to the appointment of a “monitor” to take over the financial affairs of the Diocese. Calvary first initiated this request in a July 2008 filing. Since July, we have documented with the Court the Diocese’s strong opposition to Calvary’s position, and the fact that Diocese has consistently complied with the Stipulation since it was signed, and will continue to comply with the Stipulation after the Realignment vote. The Diocese always has been, and remains committed to administering Diocesan assets for the beneficial use of all parishes and institutions of the Diocese, regardless of any parish’s position on Realignment.
“The relief Calvary sought — a court-appointed monitor who would effectively run the financial affairs of the Diocese — was not what was done yesterday. To the contrary, we proposed the appointment of an independent third-party (called a “Special Master”), who will have no role regarding the operation of the Diocese. Rather, the Special Master will review all Diocesan financial records and make recommendations to the Court regarding which property is covered by which provisions in the 2005 Stipulation (i.e., what is Diocesan property and what is parish property). The appointment of a Special Master has no impact on whether TEC or its representatives can make any claim to any property. These issues will be addressed at a later date. We have clearly stated our position that the minority who oppose Realignment are not entitled to seize the assets of the Diocese. If necessary, we will vigorously pursue this position in litigation…Second, this press release GROUP ANNOUNCES PANEL TO ARGUE CASE FOR STAYING WITH EPISCOPAL CHURCH was issued by Across the Aisle. See this earlier report on that group.
One of the speakers on that panel,The Rev. Bruce Robison, Rector, St. Andrew’s, Highland Park, has written this Reflection on San Joaquin and Pittsburgh.
Ann Rogers has written Episcopalians weigh options as secession vote draws near in today’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
As a final vote approaches on whether the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh should secede from the national church, local Episcopalians who want to remain part of the New York-based denomination are meeting to plan for their future.
“A Hopeful Future for the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh: An Alternative Solution” will present reasons for opting to stay in the Episcopal Church.
It will also present what may happen with property, a new diocesan government and other issues if Bishop Robert Duncan and most local Episcopalians change their allegiance to the theologically conservative Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, which covers six nations in southernmost South America…
You can read more about this event here, or read the whole press release here.
More from the newspaper report:
…Across the Aisle has made a deliberate effort to include theologically conservative, moderate and liberal members. Another steering committee member is the Rev. James Simons, rector of St. Michael of the Valley, Ligonier, who was a staunch supporter of Bishop Duncan on all issues except the decision to leave the Episcopal Church.
Although Mr. Simons shares Bishop Duncan’s belief that many Episcopal leaders no longer uphold classic Christian doctrines or sexual ethics, he has said that he does not consider secession a good way to address problems in the church.
“We have reached ‘across the aisle’ in peace to those who are committed to Jesus Christ but who have different interpretations of scripture and events and who wish to remain part of one church,” Mr. Simons said.
Peter Frank, a spokesman for the Diocese of Pittsburgh, said that “people are free to meet to discuss their future … If they wish to no longer be part of the diocese [after a vote to realign], we will do our best to make that as painless and charitable as possible.”
More background information here.
Update Even more background information is at Episcopal Life Online here.
The Bishop of Washington has some critical comments: The Lambeth Conference: The turning point that wasn’t.
The bishops of the Diocese of Dallas liked it a lot: Lambeth: Interview with the bishops.
The Presiding Bishop listened: Hearing the call.
Readers will recall this item.
Several contributors to Covenant-Communion have written an open letter, which you can read at A Word in Time: An Open Letter to the Anglican Communion Also available as a PDF here.
It starts out:
We the undersigned contributors to www.Covenant‐Communion.com believe that “a word in time” is now needed in order to assist the Communion to move forward in a constructive manner following the Lambeth Conference. We would like to speak such a word by specifically addressing the points Bishop Bob Duncan raises in his email to Bishop Gary Lillibridge, which has now been made public with Bp. Duncan’s permission…
Bishop Pierre Whalon, who is Bishop in Charge, Convocation of American Churches in Europe has written On polygamy, homosexuality, and generosity.
Updated Wednesday evening
The authenticity of this email has now been confirmed and the original recipient identified as Bishop Gary Lillibridge of the Diocese of West Texas. See Bishop Duncan Shares Concerns on Windsor Continuation Group.
The following email has now appeared on several blogs.
From: Duncan, Bob [mailto:Duncan@pitanglican.org]
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 12:35 PM
To:*********
Subject: Windsor Continuation Group ConcernsDear *******,
It was very good to be with you at Lambeth. I especially appreciated the time we spent together looking at the relationship between the Common Cause Partners and the Communion Partners, as well as considering issues that are before the WCG.
I thought that you might appreciate hearing from me about concerns the approach of the WCG has caused for me and for all the Common Cause Partners.
The WCG proposes “cessation of all cross-border interventions and inter-provincial claims of jurisdiction.” There are at least four serious problems with the thinking surrounding the work of the Windsor Continuation Group in this regard.
The first difficulty is the moral equivalence implied between the three moratoria, a notion specifically rejected in the original Windsor Report and at Dromantine.
The second is the notion that, even if the moratoria are held to be equally necessary, there would be some way to “freeze” the situation as it now stands for those of us in the process of separating from The Episcopal Church. The three dioceses of Pittsburgh, Quincy and Fort Worth have taken first constitutional votes on separation with second votes just weeks away. We all anticipate coming under Southern Cone this fall, thus to join San Joaquin. This process cannot be stopped — constitutions require an automatic second vote, and to recommend against passage without guarantees from the other side would be suicidal.
The third reality is that those already separated parishes and missionary jurisdictions under Rwanda, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and Southern Cone (including Recife) will never consent to the “holding tank” whose stated purpose is eventual “reconciliation” with TEC or thevAnglican Church of Canada. (It was obvious to all at Lambeth that the majorities in the US and Canada have no intention of reversing direction.)
The fourth matter is that the legal proceedings brought by TEC and ACC against many of us have been nowhere suspended by these aggressor provinces, with no willingness to mediate or negotiate though we have proposed it repeatedly, not least since Dar es Salaam.
For your information, I have written to John Chew and Donald Mtetemela in a similar way. I have also written to the Global South Primates who signed the open letter dated 3 August.
I hope this finds you well. As I pledged when we saw each other, I will do what I can to keep you informed of thinking among the Common Cause Partners, and will do what I can to see that any solutions imagined include both the Communion Partners (on the inside) and the Common Cause Partners (most of whom are on the outside of TEC, or on their way out.)
Blessings to you and yours,
+Bob
Katie Sherrod reports this message was issued yesterday evening:
Sent: Saturday, August 16, 2008 9:42 PM
Cc: Bishop Iker
Subject: Ad Clerum: StatementTo the clergy,
The following statement has been released jointly by Canon Charles Hough, Fr. William Crary, Fr. Christopher Stainbrook, and Fr. Louis Tobola in reference to the document released earlier this week concerning a June meeting between them and Bishop Kevin Vann.
Bishop Iker and the Standing Committee have asked that it be conveyed to you via Ad Clerum. It will be sent to all convention delegates and alternates as well.
Suzanne Gill
+++++
From: Fathers Crary, Hough, Stainbrook, and Tobola
Date: August 16, 2008
To: The Clergy and People of the DioceseWe wish to emphasize:
1. That the documents and our conversation with Bishop Vann solely ever represented the four priests named.
2. In retrospect, we regret our choice of timing for starting these conversations.
3. We deeply regret the phraseology of the document which has caused hurt and division.
4. We remain fully committed to the goal of this Diocese, as plainly stated by Bishop Iker, to realign with an Orthodox Anglican Province.Respectfully submitted,
The Very Rev. William A Crary, Jr.
The Rev. Canon Charles A. Hough, III
The Very Rev. Christopher C. Stainbrook
The Rev. Louis L. Tobola, Jr.
To see the earlier document mentioned, go here.
And there is another interesting document on the Fort Worth website, titled FAQs on “Fiduciary Duty”.
Back in January, we reported on a letter published by a group of Pittsburgh clergy not associated with “Progressive Episcopalians…” who were not prepared to support the diocesan plan for “realignment”. See Pittsburgh: disagreement in the ranks.
Now one of that same group has published a Narrative Regarding the Signing of the January 29th Statement by 12 Clergy of the Diocese of Pittsburgh which contains a detailed history of how that statement came to be made.
Earlier there was The Case For Staying in the Episcopal Church.
More background on this is at Preludium where Mark Harris has written In Pittsburgh there are preparations for a storm.
There is also a further stage in the legal dispute between the diocese and Calvary Church, see this ENS report from last month, PITTSBURGH: Parish wants court-appointed monitor to oversee possession, use of diocesan property.
Updated Thursday evening to add link to ENS article
According to Episcopal Café:
The Standing Committee of the Diocese of Quincy is studying the question, “Shall the Diocese of Quincy separate from the Episcopal Church?”
It has distributed a 35-page document, “The Church in Crisis: A Resource for the Diocese of Quincy,” to every member household in the diocese. The standing committee says it contains “reliable information on the current situation.”
The document is a 2.3 Mbyte PDF file and can be found via this page (follow Download link to extract the PDF itself).
Episcopal Café has more analysis of the content of the document at Quincy studies separation.
Quincy, with an Average Sunday Attendance of 1105 in 2006, is not the smallest diocese in The Episcopal Church.
The Diocese of Springfield is next door to Quincy and has an Average Sunday Attendance of about 2400.
Detailed ten year statistics for all dioceses are available in a PDF here.
Update Wednesday evening
There are reports about this in the Living Church Quincy Delegates will Consider Separation in November and also Quincy, Springfield Plan Joint Meeting.
Update Thursday evening
Episcopal News Service has a long article, QUINCY: Diocese offers ‘resource’ for making realignment decisions by Joe Bjordal and Mary Frances Schjonberg
…In a cover letter, the diocesan Standing Committee said that the 35-page document resulted from requests following a meeting last May attended by “all priests with a parish, mission or cure” and all elected officials of the diocese, clergy or lay. The reported purpose of the meeting was to begin “a discernment exercise where self-selected groups were asked to discern the following question: ‘Shall the Diocese of Quincy separate from the Episcopal Church? If so, why and how? If not, then why not?’”
Called “The Church in Crisis: A Resource for the Diocese of Quincy,” the document was included in a mailing sent to households on the mailing list of The Harvest Plain, the diocesan newspaper.
Also included in the mailing was a video recording of a presentation by Archbishop Gregory Venables, primate of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, to the Diocese of Forth Worth in March…
Updated again Wednesday morning
The Dallas Morning News has this report: Episcopal priests from Fort Worth may be looking at Catholicism.
A delegation of Episcopal priests from Fort Worth paid a visit to Catholic Bishop Kevin Vann earlier this summer, asking for guidance on how their highly conservative diocese might come into “full communion” with the Catholic Church.
Whether that portends a serious move to turn Fort Worth Episcopalians and their churches into Catholics and Catholic churches is a matter of dispute.
The Rev. William Crary, senior rector of the Fort Worth diocese, confirmed that on June 16 he and three other priests met with Bishop Vann, leader of the Fort Worth Catholic diocese, and presented him a document that is highly critical of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.
The document states that the overwhelming majority of Episcopal clergy in the Fort Worth diocese favor pursuing an “active plan” to bring the diocese into full communion with the Catholic Church…
The document was published yesterday by Katie Sherrod and can be found in full at So. How do you feel about being Roman Catholic?
Update Tuesday evening
Bishop Jack Iker has issued a statement, headed A Statement by Bishop Iker on Roman Catholic Dialogues. It reads, in part:
…The priests who participated in this meeting with Bishop Vann have my trust and pastoral support. However, in their written and verbal reports, they have spoken only on their own behalf and out of their own concerns and perspective. They have not claimed to act or speak, nor have they been authorized to do so, either on behalf of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth or on my own behalf as their Bishop.
Their discussion with Bishop Vann has no bearing upon matters coming before our Diocesan Convention in November, where a second vote will be taken on constitutional changes concerning our relationship with the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. There is no proposal under consideration, either publicly or privately, for the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth to become part of the Roman Catholic Church. Our only plan of action remains as it has been for the past year, as affirmed by our Diocesan Convention in November 2007. The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth intends to realign with an orthodox Province as a constituent member of the worldwide Anglican Communion…
Wednesday morning update
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has Episcopal priests propose aligning Fort Worth diocese with Catholic church.
Katie Sherrod has written on her own blog, That Wild Uncontrollable Force.
Watching Lambeth unfold was like watching one of those foreground/background optical illusions where, as you stare at the picture, either the profile of a beautiful young woman moves to the foreground or the image of an old woman moves forward while the young woman’s image disappears. It is almost impossible to see them both at the same time.
Lambeth was the same-there were two Lambeths occurring simultaneously, one out in front, the other in the background.
The Lambeth of the Indaba and Bible Study groups was the one in the foreground most of the time. But at key points, the Lambeth of the Windsor Continuation Group [WCG] and the group writing the Reflections documents moved out of the background into sight…
Jim Naughton has written at Comment is free The archbishop’s hands are tied, not ours.
The politics of the church make Rowan Williams act against his beliefs on gay marriage. We don’t have to do the same.
Extensive research has proven that I am not the Archbishop of Canterbury. Neither, in all likelihood, are you. These facts, in hand for some time now, acquired new significance yesterday with the revelation that Rowan Williams, who is the Archbishop of Canterbury, believes, what a great many Anglicans believe, namely: “that an active sexual relationship between two people of the same sex might … reflect the love of God in a way comparable to marriage, if and only if it had about it the same character of absolute covenanted faithfulness.”
I linked last week to three reports in London newspapers about what Bishop Cathy Roskam was alleged to have said about husbands beating their wives.
These reports all referred to the Lambeth Witness as the source of the quotes, rather than to any Episcopal Church news briefing.
The relevant issue of the Witness is available as a PDF here.
Bishop Roskam’s own response to the press reports can be found on her blog (scroll down to item 9) and is reproduced in full below the fold here (emphasis added).
Bishop Roskam’s blog, #9, July 31, 2008
Imagine my horror to read in an English newspaper this morning a headline that screamed Woman Bishop Says Third World Clergy Beat Their Wives over a picture of yours truly. The article went on to quote very selectively from an interview I had given as one of the press briefers a couple of days ago when the theme of our day was Equal in God’s Sight: When Power is Abused. Let me tell you a bit about the day itself. The program originated from the Spouses Conference under the able leadership of Jane Williams, wife of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The bishops and spouses met together in plenary, men one one side of the tent and women on the other. Jane Williams gave the first theological reflection on violence. She said in the course of it that violence done in the body of Christ is violence done to the body of Christ. Dr. Jenny Te Paa followed with remarks about the program to follow, saying that the morning’s focus would be solely on violence against women and girls.
A really excellent theatre company then performed a very moving piece on the conversations and healings of women by Jesus. This powerful and moving drama included the woman taken in adultery, Jairus’s daughter, the woman with the hemorrage who touched Jesus’s garment, the woman who could not stand up straight until Jesus heals her on the Sabbath, and, with an added twist, the parable of the Prodigal Daughter.
The play was immediately followed by the reading from 2 Samuel 13:1-22, the rape of Tamar. Dr. Gerald West led the Bible study on this passage. We shared in groups of three in response to six or seven questions. Then there was some sharing in plenary before Jenny Te Paa returned to bring the program to its conclusion.
So it was on this day that I was one of the press briefers for the Episcopal Church. And no, I did not say that clergy in the Third World beat their wives! In fact I said nothing about violence in the developing world per se. All my comments were made in the context of the pervasive nature of violence against women all around the world. The only area I singled out was our own context, siting the recent spate of murders in the New York area of women, and sometimes their children also, by husbands or boyfriends. But of course, those comments were not quoted.
In Lambeth 1998 Jack Spong, then the Bishop of Newark, made some very hurtful comments to the press about African bishops that sting people to this day. We made a big mistake then by not addressing his comments at the time. I was not going to make that mistake again. I asked for a point of personal privilege during the afternoon plenary today and addressed the matter. I stated unequivocally that I never said—nor would I say—that clergy in the third world beat their wives. I told them of the context of what was quoted and told them of what had been omitted. I apologized for anything I might have said that led to misunderstanding toward my brother bishops or jeopardized already difficult ongoing conversations at this conference. I said that if anyone had any further question, I would wait after the session at the back of the room and be happy to speak with them. I also suggested that they ask some of our partners in other parts of the world if the person in the article bore any resemblance to the person with whom they had been working all these years.
Afterward a couple of bishops had a few questions for clarification, but many bishops from both near and far came over to express their understanding and support, for which I am very grateful. ENS will also issue a statement I am told and I will continue to do what I can to clear the air about this matter.
I have to say it is very disheartening after all these years of building relationships around the globe to think of these lies going out over the internet to people who don’t know me and who will believe what was said. At the same time, I also need to reiterate that violence against women remains a problem the world over, and all of us within the church and in the larger society must do all we can to prevent it.
Preaching to the converted
Gene Robinson is the Anglican church’s only openly gay bishop. He was denied an invitation to this week’s Lambeth conference but came anyway and on Sunday gave a dramatic sermon in London disrupted by heckling. What’s all the fuss about? Stephen Bates explains, while political sketch-writer Simon Hoggart, theatre critic Lyn Gardner and gay atheist Gareth McLean review the bishop’s performance.
Giles Fraser made his own comments earlier, in Here’s to you, Mr Robinson.
Christopher Landau of the BBC has a report Sexuality stance ‘embarrasses’ Anglicans.
Episcopal News Service has this report by Matthew Davies of her Sunday activities in Salisbury, Salisbury diocese welcomes Presiding Bishop, Sudanese bishops for pre-Lambeth hospitality initiative.
Jim Naughton has published some further reflections on the event, at Live: the sermon, the protester, the press, etc. Part II.
He also corrects some misinformation elsewhere, viz:
1. It is true that many people in the Episcopal Church would like to get us out from under Resolution B033, the legislation passed on the last day of our 2006 General Convention which calls upon “Standing Committees and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.” This isn’t a secret. Numerous dioceses have already submitted resolutions to next year’s General Convention asking that the legislation be repealed, or superseded. If this legislation passes (a big if—I am not sure there are enough votes in the House of Bishops to get the job done) a gay candidate would have a better chance of being elected and confirmed. The notion that if the legislation passed we’d immediately elect another gay bishop is speculative. The notion that we’d suddenly have five or six is hallucinatory. At this point, it is not even possible to know for which dioceses will be electing bishops, which priests would be chosen as candidates, or how the internal dynamics of the dioceses would affect the elections. (I have gone on about this at some length because I have had calls from three reporters about this story this morning.)
2. Integrity has not provided cell phones for all of the Episcopal bishops attending the Lambeth Conference—or even for those sympathetic to its agenda. The Episcopal Church has provided cell phones for all its bishops—and their spouses, too, I believe.
Those who are not yet satiated with information about last night can find even more material here:
Full video of the sermon is here.
The Bishop of New Hampshire’s own blog is here.
Updated Thursday evening
ENS has also published a news article about this, see PITTSBURGH: Parish wants court-appointed monitor to oversee possession, use of diocesan property by Mary Frances Schjonberg.
Lionel Deimel reports from Pittsburgh in an article titled Calvary’s Cavalry Again Rides to the Rescue:
As the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh heads toward a “realignment” vote on October 4, 2008, when Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan plans to declare the entire diocese removed from The Episcopal Church to become a diocese of the province of the Southern Cone, loyal Episcopalians in Pittsburgh are becoming increasingly anxious about the looming apocalypse. Yesterday, however, they were given some reason to cheer, as Calvary Church attorney Walter P. DeForest rode to court on his white horse to file papers with the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County. Calvary is petitioning the court to appoint a “monitor to inventory and oversee property held or administered by the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh to assure compliance with this court’s order of October 14, 2005,” as well as to request “creation of an additional escrow account(s)” for parishes concerned about the use of their funds by the diocese for the benefit of a church other than The Episcopal Church…
The legal filing for this case is available as a PDF here.
And there is additional background from 2006 here.
A trial court in Virginia has given a ruling in favour of parishes in Virginia that argued they could leave the US Episcopal Church and retain their property. Note that there are still two more levels of court in Virginia (an intermediate appeal and then the state’s highest court) that could hear this matter and decide differently, and it’s possible this might go all the way to the US Supreme Court.
Episcopal Life Online
Virginia court rules application of ‘Division Statute’ is constitutional
Associated Press
Va. judge: church secession law is constitutional
The Washington Times
Virginia judge affirms parish property rights
Reuters
U.S. Episcopal Church dissidents win court ruling
Chicago Tribune
Va. judge sides with breakaway Episcopal churches
This last article starts:
A Civil War-era law that lets Virginia churches keep their property when leaving a denomination where a “division” has occurred is constitutional, a county judge ruled Friday (June 27), siding with 11 former Episcopal parishes.
Fairfax County Judge Randy I. Bellows’ ruling on the 1867 law stops short of awarding the property to the parishes, but it hands them a major legal win. “It’s a resounding victory and very broad,” said Steffen Johnson, lead counsel for several of the congregations. “There are just a few loose ends to tie up.”
Dave Walker in the Church Times blog has Judge sides with breakaway Episcopal churches in Virginia. This includes links to two earlier Church Times articles which give the background to this case.
Here is the response of the Diocese of Virginia to the court’s ruling.
Court Issues Opinion on Division Statute Constitutionality and Other Statutory Issues
This includes links to the texts of the rulings.
Episcopal News Service has Bishop gets state approval for new corporation.
Bishop Robert Duncan has established this new corporation. He initiated this action some eighteen months ago.
The Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church, Harold Lewis has written all about this in his newsletter. Read the full details here (PDF).
The Bishop of California, Bishop Marc Andrus has issued a pastoral letter to his diocese. Read it in full at Pastoral Letter Regarding Same-sex Marriage.
Naturally, he is responding to the recent California legal judgement, and to subsequent reactions to that. But the most distinctive feature of his recommendations is this:
I urge you to encourage all couples, regardless of orientation, to follow the pattern of first being married in a secular service and then being blessed in The Episcopal Church. I will publicly urge all couples to follow this pattern.
This pattern is of course normal (and unavoidable) in many parts of Western Europe (though not the UK) and some other countries. Nevertheless Bishop Andrus has been criticised for proposing it in California.
Some news reports of this:
ENS California bishop urges all couples to seek civil union first, then church blessing
Living Church Bishop Andrus Plans Ad Campaign to Attract Same-Sex Couples
San Jose Mercury Episcopal bishop praises ‘fundamental right of all people to marry’
Following on from this development, it is now announced that the “expressed threat of deposition of the Diocesan Bishop at a September meeting of the House of Bishops” is the justification for changing the date of the diocesan convention.
9th June, A.D. 2008
St. Columba’s DayTO ALL CLERGY AND LAY DEPUTIES TO THE 143RD ANNUAL CONVENTION:
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,After extensive consultation, and with the consent of the Standing Committee, I am moving the time and place of the 143rd Annual Convention of the Diocese to Saturday, October 4th, 2008, at St. Martin’s Church, Monroeville.
Registration of clerical and lay deputies will be from 7:30 - 8:30 a.m. The Convention Eucharist will begin at 8:30 a.m. The business session of Convention will begin immediately following the Eucharist. Lunch will be served at midday. It is anticipated that all matters required to come before the Annual Convention will be complete during the afternoon, with adjournment at the completion of said business.
The date and place of the Annual Convention having been previously set, I am announcing this change under the provisions of Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution of the Diocese. The expressed threat of deposition of the Diocesan Bishop at a September meeting of the House of Bishops is the “sufficient cause.”
The election and certification of all lay deputies is required by June 30th.
Pre-Convention materials will be distributed as required by the Rules of Order. Pre-Convention Hearings will be scheduled in three regions of the Diocese, with dates already set as:
Sunday, September 21, 3 p.m. at Christ Church, Greensburg
Wednesday September 24, 7 p.m. at St. Martin’s, Monroeville
Monday, September 29, 7 p.m., St. Stephen’s, SewickleyThe original convention dates for 7-8 November are being held for a “Consultation on Moving Forward in Mission.” This will be an important first opportunity for shaping our corporate life as we move beyond October’s realignment vote.
Please keep every aspect of this momentous Convention in your prayers.
Faithfully in Christ,
+Bob Pittsburgh
Updated Friday
The Pittsburgh diocesan website has published the resolutions to be proposed to the diocesan convention: See this page here.
The resolutions are in a PDF file here.
They are reproduced in full below the fold.
Friday update
Episcopal Café draws attention to information originally at Preludium concerning the financial provisions being made by the senior staff of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. Joan Gunderson writes:
“The situation in Pittsburgh is such that even if Bishop Duncan were to be deposed at a House of Bishops meeting in September, the Standing Committee would go forward with the vote at convention to eliminate the accession clause from the diocesan canons. In fact, the diocesan leadership decided at its spring leadership retreat to move the convention forward to the first weekend in October (usually first weekend in November) so that there would be less time between such a deposition and the convention.
Please note that Bishop Duncan has assured himself of a comfortable transition. He has built a retirement house on land owned by the diocese and he and his wife have been deeded (as of November 2007) a life interest estate (to the longest lived survivor) in that house. The diocese also loaned Bishop Duncan the money to build that house (terms not in the public record.) In addition we understand that he AND Bishop Scriven have signed consultant contracts with the diocese for two years at full pay which will go into effect SHOULD BISHOP DUNCAN BE DEPOSED.
The Standing Committee has an overwhelming majority that supports ‘realignment,’ but there is one member who signed a public letter saying he was not realigning. This person is working hard to encourage parishes to stay in TEC. Trying to bring members of the standing committee up on charges before ‘realignment’ would be useless because the group (‘The Array’) that would conduct any Title IV proceedings is itself packed with supporters of realignment. Furthermore, there is no provision for trying the 4 lay members of Standing Committee.
However, rest assured that there are people planning for the future of the EPISCOPAL diocese of Pittsburgh. The group doing the planning represents the full cross section of those who will still be Episcopalians AFTER convention. This includes clergy and parishes who until this year have voted for all the measures put forward by those now pushing ‘realignment.’ We are a larger group than you might think.”
Later on David Wilson, a priest of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, President of that Standing Committee and a supporter of Bishop Duncan’s writes with this small correction to Joan’s words:
Just to set the record straight, the consultancy contracts are for one year not two and also include Canon Mary Hays as well as the two bishops.
Resolutions to be Forwarded to the 143rd Diocesan Convention
Deemed in proper form by Diocesan Council
RESOLUTION ONE
New Canon I (All subsequent Canons to be Renumbered Accordingly)
Provincial Membership within the Anglican Communion
The Diocese of Pittsburgh shall be a member of that Province of the Anglican
Communion known as the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone.
RESOLUTION TWO
WHEREAS, Diocesan Provincial Realignment is a matter to be considered by the 143rd
Annual Convention in the form of a second reading of a series of Constitutional changes;
and
WHEREAS, a new Canon I establishing Provincial alignment with the Anglican
Province of the Southern Cone is also proposed; and
WHEREAS, the decision of Convention takes effect immediately, and supersedes all
local existing provisions to the contrary; and
WHEREAS, many congregations will have to consider how to alter their By-Laws and/or
Articles of Incorporation should the constitutional changes and new Canon I be adopted;
and
WHEREAS, some congregations will require a season of discernment about whether to
accept re-alignment or to petition to break their union with Convention; and
WHEREAS, charity and generosity continue to be embraced as virtues in diocesan life
where matters of fidelity and direction profoundly divide us;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, by this 143rd Annual Convention of the Episcopal
Diocese of Pittsburgh, that all parishes of the diocese shall have twenty-four months to
bring their By-Laws and/or Articles of Incorporation into conformity with the Provincial
alignment adopted by this Convention; and be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Diocesan Council shall have the authority to lengthen
the discernment period on a parish by parish basis, as shall seem wisest to Council and to
the representatives of particular parishes; and be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, that negotiation between any parish seeking to break its union
with Convention over the matter of Provincial alignment shall be undertaken with
Christian grace and charity, and conducted in good faith, consistent with the
Constitutions and Canons of the Diocese, consistent with all legal obligations, and
consistent with the settlement of debts and other diocesan interests related to the parish
property or assets.
RESOLUTION THREE
WHEREAS, the Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (the “Diocese”) has
this day voted to realign with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone of America
(“Province of the Southern Cone”); and
WHEREAS, as a consequence of such realignment the Constitution and Canons of the
Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America otherwise known as The
Episcopal Church are no longer applicable to the Diocese, any Parish of the Diocese, or
any Clergy of the Diocese; and
WHEREAS, neither the Constitution and Canons of the Province of the Southern Cone
nor the Constitution and Canons of the Diocese address certain matters of administration,
discipline and order that would benefit from a written and publicly available set of
policies;
BE IT RESOLVED, that the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church be
adopted as advisory policies, until a more comprehensive set of Constitution and Canons
can be developed and approved by the Diocese, to provide guidance in those areas of
administration, discipline and order that are not otherwise covered by the Constitution
and Canons of the Diocese.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, for the avoidance of doubt that it be understood that the
adoption of the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church as advisory policies by
the Diocese should in no way be interpreted to suggest that The Episcopal Church has
any authority over the Diocese, any Parish of the Diocese, or any Clergy of the Diocese.
Updated again Friday morning
Episcopal News Service reported first that Episcopal Church, San Joaquin diocese amend property dispute, and then later that Merrill Lynch freezes disputed San Joaquin diocesan accounts pending court ruling.
The Diocese of San Joaquin has a press release about it, Diocese of San Joaquin files amended lawsuit.
California newspapers are reporting it:
Stockton Record Rift deepens for dioceses in S.J. County
Modesto Bee Episcopal church: San Joaquin diocese bishop tried to transfer titles
Central Valley Business Times Episcopal Church diocese sues former bishop
Thursday evening update
A statement has been issued by the Southern Cone diocese, The Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin has fully complied with California State Law. Another copy is here. It starts out:
The following facts are given to correct and clarify recently published misunderstandings and misstatements regarding legal claims against the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin
All actions taken by the Diocese of San Joaquin were authorized by its governing bodies, namely, its Standing Committee and its Diocesan Council, along with Bishop Schofield. These actions were done in complete compliance with California law and were done to secure the property until a California court can rule on the issue of ownership. One of these actions was to retitle accounts held at Merrill Lynch; assets were not moved from Merrill Lynch. The property in question is owned by the Diocese and its parishes and not the Episcopal Church. The Diocese expects a favorable ruling by the California court on the issues of property ownership.
The Diocese of San Joaquin is a California unincorporated association that is governed by the California Corporations Code and its own internal Constitution and Canons (akin to bylaws). The Diocese is a corporate person; a legal entity recognized by the civil courts. In California, an unincorporated association is governed by majority vote of its members. There is nothing in the governing documents of the Episcopal Church which forbade or limited the right of the Diocese of San Joaquin from withdrawing and taking its property with it…
The Bakersfield Californian reports Frozen assets won’t shut down Anglicans or Episcopalians.
Since the last report here, the Standing Committee of the diocese issued this statement:
Standing Committee Statement on Threatened Deposition
Editor’s Note: The Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh has released the following statement regarding the threatened deposition of Bishop Robert Duncan at the September 2008 meeting of The Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops. Their statement has been faxed and mailed to the office of the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church.
The Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh is saddened to learn the Presiding Bishop and her chancellor will continue to press for the deposition of our Diocesan Bishop, Robert W. Duncan, Jr. for the Abandonment of Communion at the September 2008 House of Bishops Meeting. Although we recognize the authority of the Episcopal Church to discipline and remove its ministers for violations of its canons, we believe Canon IV.9, Sec.1 has been misapplied and Canon IV.9, Sec.2 has been misinterpreted in this instance.Should our Diocesan Bishop be validly deposed pursuant to the requirements set forth in the canons, the Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh is prepared to exercise its role as the Ecclesiastical Authority of this diocese.
Unanimously affirmed by the Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, May 27, 2008.
And this weekend, a meeting was held at St Andrew’s Church Highland Park, which has been reported on in some detail by Lionel Deimel. Read the report at Resigned to Realignment.
On Sunday, June 1, 2008, St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, in the Highland Park neighborhood of Pittsburgh, held a forum and panel discussion on Bishop Robert Duncan’s plan for “realignment.” Duncan, who has been determined to have already abandoned the communion of The Episcopal Church and is awaiting a vote by the church’s House of Bishops on his deposition, is attempting to change the constitution of the diocese and to transfer the entire diocese from The Episcopal Church to another Anglican Communion province, most likely South America’s province of the Southern Cone. The only bishop ever to have tried this ploy, John-David Schofield, late of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, was deposed shortly after doing so. It is unclear whether Episcopal bishops will, this time around, shut the barn door before the horse gets out…
Updated Tuesday
The Provisional Bishop of San Joaquin has received an invitation to the Lambeth Conference.
According to Dan Martins writing about this today:
…In the meantime, “mum” seems to be the word from Fresno on Bishop Schofield’s travel plans post-GAFCON…
Tuesday update
The Living Church reports that Bishops Schofield, Lamb Both Attending Lambeth.
Meanwhile, Episcopal News Service reports in Episcopal Church, San Joaquin diocese amend property dispute that:
The Episcopal Church (TEC) and the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin on June 2 amended their complaint in a lawsuit seeking recovery of diocesan real estate and financial assets, adding Merrill Lynch and the “Anglican Diocese Holding Corporation” as defendants.
“The main reason for the amendment is that we have obtained information that John-David Schofield has actually been transferring both real property and investment accounts (the latter held by Merrill Lynch) to non-Episcopal entities, including specifically a new corporation known as the Anglican Diocese Holding Company,” said Heather Anderson, an attorney with the Goodwin Procter law firm based in Washington, D.C.
The San Joaquin diocese, along with TEC, sued Schofield and several Episcopal legal entities that he asserts the right to control on April 24 “to establish who is the true incumbent of Corporation Sole, which owns most of the real estate of the diocese and accounts such as the investment fund and trust fund” containing more than $4 million in cash, diocesan chancellor Michael Glass told a gathering in San Joaquin on May 31.
“We are just trying to set aside those transactions,” Glass told the “Day of Discernment” conference of about 80 people at Holy Family Church in Fresno on May 31. “We are not going after money or punitive damages, which we are entitled to. We simply want to undo the transactions and have the court declare that John-David Schofield has no more right or authority to purport to act on behalf of the diocese or Corp Sole and to stop doing so.”
Bonnie Anderson, who is president of the House of Deputies of the General Convention of The Episcopal Church, has made a statement about the Lambeth Conference to a Conference for Religion Writers. You can read that statement in full at Rowan Williams and “the distinctive charism of bishops” on Daily Episcopalian.
Update: Episcopal News Service has now also published this text.
Here’s a snippet:
…I think that the Archbishop has given up trying to get our bishops to take an independent stand on the future of the moratorium of same sex blessings for instance, and is now moving to “plan B” and turning his attention to encouraging our bishops to understand their “distinctive charism” as bishops, perhaps in a new way. I envision Archbishop Rowan pondering in, to use his word, “puzzlement” why these bishops of the Episcopal church don’t just stand up and exercise their authority as bishops like most of the rest of the bishops in the Communion do. Why would our bishops “bind themselves to future direction for the Convention?” Some of us in TEC in the past have thought that perhaps the Archbishop and others in the Anglican Communion do not understand the baptismal covenant that we hold foundational. Perhaps they just don’t “get” the way we choose to govern ourselves; the ministers of the church as the laity, clergy and the bishops, and that at the very core of our beliefs we believe in the God- given gifts of all God’s people, none more important than the other, just gifts differing. We believe that God speaks uniquely through laity, bishops, priests and deacons. This participatory structure in our church allows a fullness of revelation and insight that must not be lost in this important time of discernment. But I think our governance is clearly understood. I just don’t think the Archbishop has much use for it…
Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry reports:
Trinity School for Ministry held its 30th commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 17 at Trinity Cathedral in downtown Pittsburgh. Forty-nine students graduated, including five Doctor of Ministry, 31 Master of Divinity, five Master of Arts in Religion, one Master of Arts in Mission and Evangelism, six diploma students and one Certificate of Work Accomplished for an African student completing his studies in Africa. The Most Rev. Peter Akinola, DD, Archbishop of Nigeria, delivered the commencement address. His son, Emmanuel, was one of the graduates.
The full text is available here as a PDF file.
Two unrelated recent articles from Episcopal Church commentators worth reading:
Doug LeBlanc wrote for Episcopal Life about Staying involved.
Since I began reporting on the Episcopal Church in the early 1990s, conservatives have gone through a few different regroupings: Episcopalians United begat the American Anglican Council, which begat the Anglican Communion Network, which begat the Common Cause Partnership. An important change since General Convention in 2003 is that each regrouping has brought many conservatives ever closer to leaving the Episcopal Church. I was beginning to wonder what any remaining conservative presence within TEC might look like in the next few years.
I was fairly sure we did not need another group with a national headquarters, a logo and regular conferences. I believed that conservatives within TEC needed to find some way between the poles of departure and mere acquiescence to the more provocative resolutions of General Convention.I’ve now heard some encouraging notes for a conservative future within TEC. Two hours of audio, posted on the website of St. Andrew’s Church in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina (PBinSC.notlong.com), suggest that the conservative future sounds assertive rather than aggressive and hopeful rather than despairing…
Andrew Gerns watched the press conference held earlier this week in New York City, and wrote this article: Taking an appreciative path at Lambeth.
The conventional wisdom is wrong. At least about the Lambeth Conference.
I watched the video news-conference by The Rev. Dr. Ian Douglas and the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts-Schori yesterday. I had these big ideas about live-blogging it, but that wasn’t practical. I am glad I didn’t. In attempting to draw immediate conclusions, I would have missed the heart of the story.
My gut feeling was very positive…that the attempt is to build a basis for resolution of thorny issues by building on relationships. But I was still perplexed, at a time when Anglican divisions are at their highest and most delicate…how can we move forward? And when everyone is itching for a solution (theirs) how can consensus be reached?
The Diocese of Chicago is not the only body claiming to be Anglican in the environs of Chicago.
Jason Byassee has written a fascinating article in the Christian Century describing the fragmentation taking place there. The article is titled Splitting up.
There are some very interesting comments about this article, including several by its author, in Jason Byasee: Anglican angst in Illinois and Beyond at titusonenine.
The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) issued this announcement:
21st May, 2008.
For Release to all Media Houses:
ELECTION OF TWO BISHOPS
The Episcopal Synod of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), met at the Cathedral Church of Saint James the Great, Ibadan, Oyo State, on Wednesday, May 14, 2008, and elected the Venerable Akintunde Popoola of All Saints Church, Wuse, Abuja to the See of Offa, Kwara State, where the incumbent was recently translated. Also, the Venerable Geoffrey N. Chukwunenye of All Saints Church, Surulere, Lagos, was elected to the newly created See of Oru in Imo State.
The date and venue for their consecration will be announced later.
Signed
Venerable AkinTunde Popoola
Director of CommunicationsN.B : In Anglican ecclesiastical terminology a See is the area of jurisdiction of a diocesan bishop while Translation, as applied to a serving bishop, means transfer to another diocese
Secretariat:
24, Douala Street, Wuse P. O. Box 212, ADCP, Abuja, Nigeria.
Tel: +234-9-523-6950, 523-0987/9,
Fax: 523-1527, 523-0986.
E-mail: communication@anglican-nig.org
Website: www.anglican-nig.org
The Episcopal Church, USA held a press conference in New York on the Lambeth Conference today. It featured the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church and the Rev. Dr. Ian Douglas, professor at Episcopal Divinity School and a member of the Conference’s design group.
You can watch the entire press conference here.
Related news story:
Lambeth Conference will help bishops strengthen partnerships, Jefferts Schori tells media
And earlier:
Lambeth Conference will focus on equipping bishops for mission
Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh (PEP) has issued Realignment Reconsidered a point-by-point rebuttal to the 8-page handout from the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, Frequently Asked Questions About Realignment (both documents are PDF files).
The PEP press release: Pittsburgh Episcopal group disputes diocese’s defense of schism
…“Diocesan leaders have been telling parishes that realignment is both proper and innocuous; we believe it is neither,” explained Lionel Deimel, PEP board member and principal author of the new document. “Parishes who trust what they are being told—conveniently packaged by the diocese in “FAQ About Realignment”—risk losing both their parish property and their status within the Anglican Communion.”
According to the new document, “It is the position of The Episcopal Church, supported overwhelmingly by diocesan chancellors and legal scholars, that a diocese cannot properly remove its accession clause from its constitution, nor can it remove itself from The Episcopal Church.” PEP cites events in the Diocese of San Joaquin as evidence that The Episcopal Church will act boldly to protect its interests.
PEP hopes that “Realignment Reconsidered” will encourage Episcopalians in Pittsburgh to examine the risks and benefits of realignment more critically. “It is ironic,” suggests PEP secretary Alfred Mann, “that people want to break away from a church that is so tolerant of different views, but that toleration seems to be one of the characteristics of The Episcopal Church they most dislike.”
Lionel Deimel gives some background to the document here.
Some extracts from the document can be found at Episcopal Café.
I reported earlier on the letter sent to the Primate of Uganda, Archbishop Henry Orombi.
On Thursday he responded to this. The full text of his letter is below the fold.
Episcopal News Service reported on this in Uganda archbishop responds to Presiding Bishop’s objection to his ‘incursion’ into Georgia by Matthew Davies.
14th May 2008
The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
The Episcopal Church USA
815 Second Avenue
New York, NY
Dear Bishop Katharine,
I received word of your letter through a colleague who had seen it on the internet. Without the internet, I may never have known that you had written such a personal, yet sadly ironic, letter to me.
Unfortunately, you appear to have been misinformed about key matters, which I hope to clear up in this letter.
1. I am not visiting a church in the Diocese of Georgia. I am visiting a congregation that is part of the Church of Uganda. Were I to visit a congregation within TEC, I would certainly observe the courtesy of contacting the local bishop. Since, however, I am visiting a congregation that is part of the Church of Uganda, I feel very free to visit them and encourage them through the Word of God.
2. The reason this congregation separated from TEC and is now part of the Church of Uganda is that the actions of TEC’s General Convention and statements of duly elected TEC leaders and representatives indicate that TEC has abandoned the historic Christian faith. Furthermore, as predicted by the Primates of the Anglican Communion in October 2003, TEC’s actions have, in fact, torn the fabric of the Communion at its deepest level.
3. May I remind you that the initial reason the Lambeth Commission on Communion was appointed was because of unbiblical decisions taken by TEC in defiance of repeated warnings by all of the Anglican Instruments of Communion. The Windsor Report was produced and accepted in amended form by the Primates at our meeting in Dromantine, Northern Ireland, in February 2005. It is, therefore, quite ironic for you to be quoting the Windsor Report to me. Nowhere in the Windsor Report or in subsequent statements of the Instruments of Communion is there a moral equivalence between the unbiblical actions and decisions of TEC that have torn the fabric of our Communion at its deepest level and the pastoral response on our part to provide ecclesiastical oversight to American congregations who wish to continue to uphold the faith once delivered to the saints and remain a part of the Anglican Communion. Your selective quoting of the Windsor Report is stunning in its arrogance and condescension.
4. You and your House of Bishops rejected outright the Pastoral Scheme painstakingly devised in Dar es Salaam, and to which you agreed. You have, therefore, left us no choice but to continue to respond to the cries of God’s faithful people in America for episcopal oversight that upholds and promotes historic, biblical Anglicanism.
5. An important element of the Dar es Salaam agreement was the plea by the Primates that “the representatives of The Episcopal Church and of those congregations in property disputes with it to suspend all actions in law arising in this situation.” This was something to which you gave verbal assent and yet you have initiated more legal actions against congregations and clergy in your short tenure as Presiding Bishop than all of your predecessors combined. I urge you to rethink, suspend litigation and follow a more Christ-like approach to settling your differences.
Finally, I appeal to you to heed the advice of Gamaliel in Acts 5.38ff, “Leave these [churches] alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop [them]; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”
Yours, in Christ,
The Most Rev. Henry Luke Orombi
ARCHBISHOP OF CHURCH OF UGANDA.
Updated Thursday evening
Scroll down for the response by Archbishop Orombi
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has written to Archbishop Henry Orombi.
See Episcopal News Service Ugandan primate’s ‘incursion’ into Georgia violates Windsor Report, Presiding Bishop notes.
Archbishop of Uganda Henry Orombi’s actions to visit a Savannah congregation on May 14 without the invitation of Episcopal Bishop of Georgia Henry Louttit “violate the spirit and letter of the work of the Windsor Report, and only lead to heightened tensions,” Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori wrote in a May 12 letter to Orombi.
“We are more than willing to receive you for conversation, dialogue, and reconciliation, yet you continue to act without speaking with us,” Jefferts Schori wrote in her letter sent by email. “I hope and pray that you might respond to our invitation and meet with representatives of this Church.”But noting that Orombi’s planned visit comes without Louttit’s invitation, “I must protest this unwarranted incursion into The Episcopal Church,” Jefferts Schori wrote in her letter.
According to reports, Orombi plans to meet May 14 with clergy and laity who voted in October 2007 to disaffiliate with the Episcopal Church. The group continues to occupy historic Christ Church, Savannah, while the continuing Episcopal congregation meets at Savannah’s Church of St. Michael and All Angels. Christ Church, Savannah, dates from 1733.
The full text of Jefferts Schori’s letter follows.
May 12, 2008
The Most Revd Henry Luke Orombi
Archbishop of Uganda and Bishop of Kampala
PO Box 14123
Kampala
UGANDA
EAST AFRICA
My dear brother,
I understand from advertising here that you plan to visit a congregation in the Diocese of Georgia on 14 May of this year. The diocesan, Bishop Henry Louttit, has not given any invitation for you to do so, nor received any information from you about your planned visit. I must protest this unwarranted incursion into The Episcopal Church. I am concerned that you seem to feel it appropriate to visit, preach, and exercise episcopal ministry within the territory of this Church, and I wonder how you would receive similar behavior in Uganda. These actions violate the spirit and letter of the work of the Windsor Report, and only lead to heightened tensions. We are more than willing to receive you for conversation, dialogue, and reconciliation, yet you continue to act without speaking with us. I hope and pray that you might respond to our invitation and meet with representatives of this Church.
I remain
Your servant in Christ,
Katharine Jefferts Schori
cc:
Bishop Henry Louttit
Archbishop Rowan Williams
Update Thursday evening
Archbishop Henry Orombi has responded to this letter in an email published at Stand Firm which you can read here.
The Diocese of Pittsburgh has issued an announcement Pittsburgh Bishops to Attend Lambeth Conference.
Bishops Robert Duncan and Henry Scriven confirmed today that they will be attending both the Global Anglican Future Conference in Jordan and Jerusalem in June and the Lambeth Conference of Bishops in Kent, England, this July and August.
“After consulting with the people of Pittsburgh and our friends around the globe, we have come to the conclusion that it is necessary for us to be present at both gatherings,” said Bishop Robert Duncan.
The Global Anglican Future Conference is focused on moving forward with the work and witness of the church even as the crisis in the Anglican Communion over discipline and biblical authority continues. It brings together hundreds of bishops who have, as a matter of conscience, decided not to attend the Lambeth Conference, as well as other bishops who believe that global partnerships and the current conflicts necessitate their presence at both meetings. Among those going to Jerusalem and Jordan are many of the strongest supporters of orthodox Anglicans in North America. “We will be among friends, focused squarely on the Gospel, and dealing openly with how we build the missionary relationships, covenantal boundaries and responsible structures for the future of Anglicanism,” said Bishop Duncan.
Bishops Duncan and Scriven will then join some six-hundred bishops and archbishops (about two-thirds of all Anglican bishops) who will be attending the Anglican Communion’s once-a-decade Lambeth Conference of Bishops. “Given the expense and the stated-intent of the Archbishop of Canterbury that Lambeth can no longer be considered a decision making council of the church, choosing to be present was not easy,” said Bishop Duncan. In an effort to limit costs connected to the meeting, an estimated $12,000 per attending bishop and spouse for the entire two-and-a-half week Lambeth Conference, Bishop Duncan will attend July 16-25 and Bishop Scriven will attend July 26 - August 3.
Both bishops believe it is important that the diocese be represented throughout the Lambeth Conference, if for no other reason than to provide an alternative perspective on the situation in The Episcopal Church. “Those who accuse us of abandoning the Anglican Communion will certainly be present and vocal. It is important for us to be able to respond directly to their claims about the situation in The Episcopal Church and our place in the Communion,” added Bishop Duncan. As with the Global Anglican Future Conference, both Pittsburgh bishops will also work to strengthen missionary partnerships with bishops from every corner of the world.
Bishop Scriven asked that Pittsburgh Episcopalians pray for both meetings. “We hope that many join us in praying for God’s clear presence and guidance in the Holy Land and Canterbury. With God, all things are possible,” he said.
Updated Thursday evening
Episcopal News Service has published a letter written to the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church, USA by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. In this letter she reviews and comments on process related to deposition, inhibition, renunciation and resignation of bishops.
The full text of the letter is at Presiding Bishop writes to House of Bishops on process, canons.
Update
The Living Church has published an article by George Conger headlined Memorandum Concludes Presiding Bishop is Subverting Constitution and Canons.
Thursday evening update
The Anglican Communion Institute has published the “Presentment Memorandum” mentioned in the above report, read the full text here.
The Bishop of New Hampshire is currently in England for the UK launch of his book, In the Eye of the Storm.
There has been extensive press and broadcast coverage:
BBC Williams criticised by gay bishop
The Hardtalk interview can be viewed here but only for a week after transmission date.
He was also interviewed on the Sunday radio programme:
Gene Robinson
The issue of homosexuality continues to tear the Anglican Communion apart in the build-up to the 2008 Lambeth Conference. In June the conservatives who oppose the ordination of gay priests will meet in Jerusalem, in what some see as an alternative conference. Many of these will refuse to go on to Canterbury for the main meeting in July.Meanwhile the gay Bishop, Gene Robinson, whose consecration brought this dispute to a head, shows no sign of backing out of the limelight. His latest book In the Eye of the Storm is published this week by the Canterbury Press. He explained why he wrote it.
Listen here (7 minutes).
Guardian Riazat Butt Williams disappoints God in not taking a stand, says gay bishop
The Times Gay rites; New Hampshire’s Bishop Gene Robinson is about to enter into a civil union
Daily Telegraph Gene Robinson: ‘It is a sin to treat me this way’
And the Church Times blog is following the story, here, and again in Can Lambeth bar Gene Robinson from preaching in England?
Bishop Robinson did speak in London, in a church, in 2005. It caused a fuss then, see here. And was reported fully in the Church Times as shown here.
About the book:
Read the preface by Desmond Tutu here.
Read three quotes printed on the back cover here.
Updated Wednesday evening
ENS reports Fort Worth visit an ‘unwarranted invasion,’ Presiding Bishop tells Southern Cone primate:
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has advised Southern Cone Presiding Bishop Gregory J. Venables in an April 29 letter that his planned May 2-3 visit to address a special convocation of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth “with the expressed purpose of describing removal to the Province of the Southern Cone is an unwarranted invasion of, and meddling in, the internal affairs of this Province.”
The ENS report contains the full text of her letter. It also goes on to report on the formation of Steering Committee North Texas Episcopalians. You can read more about that body at this post by Katie Sherrod at Desert’s Child.
Wednesday evening update
The Bishop of Fort Worth has published a letter written in response to the Presiding Bishop’s letter. It is contained in this PDF file or there is an html copy here. He also wrote a blog comment about the letter which is reproduced here.
Following up on the report above concerning Steering Committee North Texas Episcopalians, there is this report in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Episcopal group against Fort Worth diocese’s secession which includes this paragraph:
Fort Worth Diocese Bishop Jack Iker said in a statement Tuesday that the steering committee is “a self-selected vigilante group whose only stated purpose is ‘to remain in The Episcopal Church’ no matter what — and regardless of what TEC believes or practices. They espouse a blind institutional loyalty that borders on institutional idolatry.”
Then, there is this from the Living Church Presiding Bishop in Dallas: “Have You Been Watching San Joaquin?” which includes the following:
Clergy and laity from the Diocese of Fort Worth comprised a little less than half of those attending the reception. Their questions dominated, with some pleading with the Presiding Bishop for “help to get us out of the wilderness we now find ourselves in.” Fort Worth is one of several dioceses that are likely to consider leaving The Episcopal Church when their conventions are held this fall.
Bishop Jefferts Schori assured her questioners that a plan similar to the one employed in San Joaquin has already been prepared. When the Fort Worth delegation declared that they have been forgotten in this battle, the Presiding Bishop replied, “Have you been watching San Joaquin? They were not forgotten and now show dynamic signs of new life. You will not be forgotten, either.”
Throughout much of the question-and-answer session retired Bishop Sam B. Hulsey of Northwest Texas stood in the back of the parish hall. Last January Bishop Hulsey held an organizational meeting for clergy from the Diocese of Fort Worth, offering continuing care to those who wish to remain with The Episcopal Church, an action to which Bishop Jack Leo Iker of Fort Worth objected. Since then Bishop Hulsey has visited a handful of Fort Worth congregations.
See also Katie Sherrod’s blog comments here.
Meanwhile, Mark Harris reports in detail on The Plans of Fort Worth as revealed in the documents he has made available here, which comprise a draft of “The Fort Worth Plan” and of an associated “Canon 41”.
Updated Sunday morning
The Diocese of San Joaquin has issued this press release (PDF):
Michael O. Glass, Esq., Chancellor to the Diocese of San Joaquin has provided notice that on April 24, 2008, the Diocese of San Joaquin and the Episcopal Church filed a Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief in Fresno County Superior Court to reclaim possession of the real and personal property belonging to the Diocese. Glass said, “The primary defendant is John-David Schofield, the former bishop of the Diocese who was recently deposed from the episcopate by the Episcopal Church on March 12, 2008 as a result of his attempts to remove the diocese from the Episcopal Church. Such actions are contrary to the Canons and Constitution of the Episcopal Church and the Diocese.”
Mr. Glass added that prior to the filing of the Complaint, the current Bishop of the Diocese of San Joaquin, the Rt. Rev. Jerry A. Lamb, attempted to secure Mr. Schofield’s timely turnover of Diocesan assets and property. “Mr. Schofield did not agree to this request,” said Glass.
Bishop Lamb has emphasized that the Diocesan leadership and the Episcopal Church have a canonical, fiduciary and moral duty to protect the assets and property of the Church for the Church’s mission. Lamb said, “While it is regrettable that legal action is necessary, the Diocese and the Episcopal Church have no other viable option but to seek the intervention of the Court to recover the property and assets of the Diocese.”
“Regardless of the necessity of proceeding with the litigation,” Bishop Lamb continued, “the diocesan leadership and I remain committed to reconciliation with clergy and parishes that are still trying to understand their relationship with the Episcopal Church.”The Bishop has recently sent letters to all clergy in the diocese inviting them to meet and enter into dialogue with him directly on these issues. The Diocese is also preparing for a three day faith-based reconciliation seminar in June and further programming regarding rebuilding and reconciliation in its October diocesan convention.
For further information please contact Michael O. Glass, Esq., Chancellor to the Diocese of San Joaquin at mglass@diosanjoaquin.org, or the Rt. Rev. Jerry Lamb, Bishop of the Diocese of San Joaquin at jerrylamb@diosanjoaquin.com or 209.952.0006. For information about the Diocese of San Joaquin, see its website www.diosanjoaquin.org.
The Complaint document can be found here (PDF).
Also, Bishop Jerry Lamb has sent a letter of complaint to the Primate of the Southern Cone, Bishop Greg Venables. The PDF of the letter is here. The body of the letter reads as follows:
Peace be to you in the Risen Christ.
I have been informed of your intention to visit the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin on April 29, 2008. I understand you will be preaching and celebrating the Eucharist at St James Cathedral in Fresno, California.
As you know the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church deposed John-David
Schofield on March 12, 2008. I was nominated, selected and installed as the Provisional Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin on March 29, 2008.
I strongly protest your visit to this Diocese without my invitation or permission. Your
visit would violate the traditions of the ancient church as understood in the Anglican
Communion. It also violates the Windsor Report and statements from subsequent meetings of the Primates since the Windsor Report.
I strongly urge that you cancel your meeting in the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin
scheduled for April 29, 2008. I also strongly urge you to refrain from interjecting yourself into the internal affairs of the Episcopal Church, the only Anglican Church in the United States.
The Anglican Communion Network issued a press release (not found on this website) titled Realignment Complete, San Joaquin Refocuses on Mission and Ministry.
Episcopal News Service has a report: San Joaquin diocese, Episcopal Church file suit to regain property.
Sunday morning update
Bishop Schofield has issued this statement:
To the clergy and parishioners of San Joaquin -
We recognize that the news of a lawsuit from the Presiding Bishop and the representatives of Remain Episcopal in Stockton, may be unsettling. However, please be assured that we have been expecting this litigation and the contents contain no surprises. Please know that our legal team has been at work for some time. They are optimistic and remain unperturbed by The Episcopal Church’s most recent action. What our legal counsel has accomplished on our behalf is already proving most helpful in defense of property and assets despite the fact that this preparatory work had to be done without the benefit of seeing what the Episcopal Church intended to do.
Furthermore, I want to remind you that in spite of the claims by The Episcopal Church, nothing in their current Constitution and Canons prohibits a diocese from leaving one province and moving to another. Also, just as we stood together for the sake of our witness to the Gospel at our Convention in December, so now will we continue to stand together for that same witness. I will continue to respond to those who disagree with us in a Christian and charitable manner and I trust that you will, as well.
Thank you for the trust that you have placed in me as your bishop and senior pastor, and know that I will continue to honor that trust with God’s help.
Faithfully, yours in Christ,
+John-David
The Diocese of Virginia announces that National Hierarchical Churches Support the Diocese of Virginia in Opposing Virginia Law Section 57-9 . The press release starts out:
A number of national hierarchical churches have filed an Amici Curiae arguing that §57-9 division statute of the Virginia Code “cannot withstand constitutional challenge.” The constitutionality of this statute is being examined in the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia’s case to preserve Episcopal Church property. The brief, filed on April 24 in support of the Diocese’s position, calls §57-9 “hopelessly infused with religious concepts” and demonstrates how this section of Virginia Code ignores the theologically-based structures of hierarchical churches throughout the Commonwealth in violation of the U.S. and Virginia constitutions.
When the Court ruled on April 4 that the 57-9 statute allowed for the CANA congregations to file their claims to take Episcopal Church property, the Court explicitly acknowledged that constitutional issues remain and scheduled a hearing on those issues on May 28, 2008.
At issue is the government’s ability to intrude into the freedom of the Episcopal Church and every other church in Virginia to organize and govern themselves according to their faith and doctrine. The implications of the Court’s ruling reach beyond the Episcopal Church, as evidenced by the number of denominations signing on to the Amici filing.
The Diocese of Virginia welcomes the filing of the Amici Brief from:
1. United Methodist Church
2. African Methodist Episcopal Church
3. African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
4. Worldwide Church of God
5. The Rt. Rev. Charlene Kammerer, Bishop of the Virginia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church
6. W. Clark Williams, Chancellor of the Virginia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church
Read the full text of the brief as a PDF file here.
TA has not reported any stories from the USA for two whole weeks. Time to catch up on some items from there.
Gregory Venables will be visiting Fresno, on 29 April, see details here.
And then he will be visiting Fort Worth, see details here.
Meanwhile the Living Church reports San Joaquin Incorporation Likely Faces Court Test. It also reports that there will be No Pre-Lambeth Meeting for House of Bishops.
The Bishops in the State of Ohio have taken a public stand on state legislation that seeks to secure equal access to housing and employment opportunities for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons. See Bishops Support Legislation Protecting Civil Rights of Gay and Lesbian Persons.
New lawsuits have arisen in Ohio and in Central New York.
Covenant has published The Hard Case Making Bad Law by Dale Rye. He starts out:
I have been asked to comment on the letter opinion of April 3 in the Virginia parishes case. My initial reaction: this 88-page document is probably about as well educated a discussion as we are likely to see from any of the judges dealing with the Episcopal/Anglican meltdown. My simultaneous reaction: that means we are all—liberals and conservatives alike—in a heap of trouble. My explanation may take awhile, but be patient… I will get there.
I must preface this by warning that I am not a member of the Virginia bar, and that Judge Randy Bellows’ letter opinion is expressly and exclusively based on a Virginia statute—Va. Code Sec. 57-9(A)—that has no analogue in Texas or most other states. That is, in fact, one of the most important things to remember when reading the opinion. The court honestly believes that it has put to one side all of the issues raised by the religion clauses in the U.S. and Virginia Constitutions; those are to be decided at a subsequent hearing on May 28. Other constitutional issues (including the Contracts Clause) will not be heard until the final hearing in October. Thus, the April 3 opinion has no direct application outside Virginia. Only a lawyer from that state can estimate how likely the decision is to hold up on subsequent appeals.
What I will comment on are the ways in which this decision illustrates why secular litigation was a spectacularly bad idea for all the parties to this dispute. Under the “hard cases make bad law” principle, this case (and those like it in other states) have the potential to seriously damage the constitutional rights of Christians-and all other religious practitioners-throughout this country. The problem with inviting an outsider in to clean your house is that he may throw out your treasures while trying to dispose of the trash. Ultimately, you may find yourself in possession of a place that is no longer recognizably your home…
Earlier reports in previous article.
New York Times Neela Banerjee Virginia Judge Allows Case on Episcopal Property to Proceed
Washington Post Michelle Boorstein and Jacqueline L. Salmon Court Ruling Boosts Breakaway Churches
Time David Van Biema The Episcopal Property War
Washington Times Julia Duin Va. judge sides with breakaway Episcopal parishes
Institute on Religion and Democracy Court Rules in Favor of Departing Virginia Churches
Church of Nigeria CANA magnanimous in victory
Updated again Friday night and republished
The long-awaited Virginia court ruling has arrived. It is favourable to the breakaway congregations.
The PDF file containing the full text of it is here (4.5MB).
Episcopal Café has this summary of the situation, Judge rules: Advantage CANA.
Julia Duin has Breakaway Episcopal parishes awarded property, assets in the Washington Times.
No doubt other reports will follow. The full report is 88 pages. To give the flavour, two excerpts are reproduced below the fold.
Lunchtime additions
Diocese of Virginia press release
Anglican District of Virginia press release and CANA press release.
Evening additions
Associated Press Matthew Barakat Fairfax judge rules in favor of breakaway congregations
Reuters Michael Conlon US judge rules for Episcopal Church secessionists
Washington Post Michelle Boorstein Judge’s Initial Decision Favors Breakaway Churches
Ruth Gledhill has this blog article, Judge rules for Virginia ‘orthodox’.
Friday night additions
Episcopal News Service Office of the Presiding Bishop, Diocese of Virginia respond to preliminary court ruling
and also Mary Frances Schjonberg Virginia judge issues preliminary ruling on application of state statute
Fairfax Times Gregg MacDonald Fairfax judge rules against Episcopal Church
Letter from the Bishop of Virginia
Letter from the Reverend John Yates
Summary
The only way in which this Court could find a “division” not to exist among the pertinent entities in this case is to define the term so narrowly and restrictively as to effectively define the term out of existence. The ECUSA and the Diocese urge upon this Court just such a definition and further assert that any definition other than the one for which they argue would render the statute unconstitutional. The Court rejects this invitation. Whether or not it is true that only the ECUSA’s and the Diocese’s proposed definition can save 57-9(A) from constitutional infirmity, there is no constitutional principle of which this Court is aware that would permit, let alone require, the Court to adopt a definition for a statutory term that is plainly unwarranted. Rather, the definition of “division” adopted by this Court is a definition which the Court finds to be consistent with the language of the statute, its purpose and history, and the very limited caselaw that exists. Given this definition, the Court finds that the evidence of a “division” within the Diocese, the ECUSA, and the Anglican Communion is not only compelling, but overwhelming. As to the other issues in principal controversy, the Court finds the Anglican Communion to be a “church or religious society.” The Court finds each of the CANA Congregations to have been attached to the Anglican Communion. Finally, the Court finds that the term “branch” must be defined far more broadly than the interpretation placed upon that term by ECUSA and the Diocese and that, as properly defined, CANA, ADV, the American Arm of the Church of Uganda, the Church of Nigeria, the ECUSA, and the Diocese, are all branches of the Anglican Communion and, further, CANA and ADV are branches of ECUSA and the Diocese.
——-
VI.) Conclusion:
ECUSA/Diocese argue that the historical evidence demonstrates that it is only the “major” or “great” divisions within 19th-century churches that prompted the passage of 57-9, such as those within the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches. ECUSA/Diocese argue that the current “dispute” before this Court is not such a “great” division, and, therefore, this is yet another reason why 57-9(A) should not apply. The Court agrees that it was major divisions such as those within the Methodist and Presbyterian churches that prompted the passage of 57-9. However, it blinks at reality to characterize the ongoing division within the Diocese, ECUSA, and the Anglican Communion as anything but a division of the first magnitude, especially given the involvement of numerous churches in states across the country, the participation of hundreds of church leaders, both lay and pastoral, who have found themselves “taking sides” against their brethren, the determination by thousands of church members in Virginia and elsewhere to “walk apart” in the language of the Church, the creation of new and substantial religious entities, such as CANA, with their own structures and disciplines, the rapidity with which the ECUSA’s problems became that of the Anglican Communion, and the consequent impact-in some cases the extraordinary impact-on its provinces around the world, and, perhaps most importantly, the creation of a level of distress among many church members so profound and wrenching as to lead them to cast votes in an attempt to disaffiliate from a church which has been their home and heritage throughout their lives, and often back for generations. Whatever may be the precise threshold for a dispute to constitute a division under 57-9(A), what occurred here qualifies.
For the foregoing reasons, this Court finds that the CANA Congregations have properly invoked 57-9(A). Further proceedings will take place in accordance with the Order issued today.
The Diocese of Pittsburgh has this announcement:
Bishop Duncan’s Attorney Protests Lack of Response from The Episcopal Church Document Actions
In a letter sent March 28, John H. Lewis, Jr., attorney for Bishop Robert Duncan, protests the behavior of The Episcopal Church’s national office. He notes that not only has there been no response to Bishop Duncan’s March 14 statement that he considers himself “fully subject to the doctrine, discipline and worship of this church,” but that The Episcopal Church’s national office has neglected to distribute Bishop Duncan’s letter and other information to House of Bishops.
Lewis goes on to note what appears to be “the deliberate failure of The Presiding Bishop to follow the Canons” in the purported depositions of Bishops William J. Cox and John-David Schofield.
The full text of Lewis’ letter is available here (pdf).
Update: Bishop Robert Duncan, Bishop Henry Scriven and Melanie Contz began again receiving emails from the House of Bishops at approximately 1 pm on Monday, March 31. Bishop Duncan’s March 14 response to the Presiding Bishop has also been added to the College for Bishops website.