Updated Friday
A statement from the standing committee now appears on the diocesan website.
——-
The Diocese of Dallas has joined the list of ECUSA dioceses seeking “alternative primatial oversight”, according to the Associated Press in this report yesterday: Dallas’ Episcopal diocese joins others in bishop rift.
The Episcopal Diocese of Dallas on Wednesday joined a growing rejection of the church’s newly elected bishop because she supports same-sex relationships.
Bishop James M. Stanton, the head of Dallas’ diocese and its 40,000 members, wrote a letter asking Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams for a “direct pastoral relationship” from overseas instead of being under the American church and its new leader.
The diocesan website does not yet contain anything about this though. Neither does the personal website of the bishop, James Stanton. Since the report appeared in the Dallas Morning News it can’t have escaped the attention of Dallasites. So in the absence of any statement to the contrary, I presume it is true.
Update titusonenine has this press release also.
Update And also this statement from the Standing Committee.
Oh it’s true all right. I can forward emails from the Bishop and the Diocesan Standing Committee which confirms this, if necessary.
And BTW – the Bishop might *think* he “leads” all 40,000 of us, but he’d be sadly mistaken if he truly believes it. From a rough guess based upon votes at our last Diocesan Convention, he had about a 70% majority for his policies. However, it’s another question entirely whether 70% of us would actually follow him out of the Episcopal Church…
Dallas’s statement appears to be somewhat different to me from all the others. The others were appealing to the ABC for the appointment of Alternative Primatial Oversight; Dallas was appealing to the ABC for direct oversight. Am I correct in seeing this distinction? Does this imply that the Network really isn’t of one mind on how to proceed at this point (ditto no further calls for a Province X…)
Dallas seems to have realized that “alternative primatial oversight” is an animal that doesn’t exist in the present order of things. What Dallas seems to be asking for is for the ABC to acknowledge it (and all of the APO requesters) as another independent province of the Anglican Communion. What Dallas seems to be trying to avoid is a situation where TEC can characterize their action as individual acts of “leaving the church.” If the whole diocese as a corporate entity were to be “transferred” by the ABC to another province they could argue that all the property, etc., would… Read more »
The diocesan website now has a letter from their standing committe posted. And it IS interesting to see that they’re asking the ABC for direct oversight, not “ALPO” – maybe they want to ensure their Lambeth tea party invitations? 🙂