Thinking Anglicans

San Joaquin news

There is a further development in relation to the Diocese of San Joaquin (previous report here). ENS reports:

…A steering committee has been appointed to begin to reconstitute the Fresno-based Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, while a second priest has been appointed as “interim pastoral presence” in the Central California Valley diocese.
“The steering committee has been formed and there are about 20 people involved,” said the Rev. Canon Robert Moore, appointed by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori as an interim pastoral presence late last year.

“It is important for people both inside and outside California to understand that this committee represents a broad spectrum of theological positions,” Moore said. “We are really trying to stay away from designations like liberal and conservative, because it is very important to the Presiding Bishop that it be a representative group of people.”

Moore confirmed that the Rev. Canon Brian Cox, 16-year rector of Christ the King Episcopal Church in Santa Barbara in the Diocese of Los Angeles, also has been appointed as an interim pastoral presence in San Joaquin.

“He is, by his own description, a well-known conservative and trained in reconciliation work,” Moore said. “The hope is that he will be able to reach out to additional folks. He and I are now beginning a healing kind of reconciliation process,” he added…

Read the full report here. Also the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church, meeting this past week, said in a letter that:

…The transformation we have witnessed in the Diocese of Central Ecuador gives us hope in light of the attempt of the Bishop and Convention of the Diocese of San Joaquin to remove their diocese from The Episcopal Church and transfer it to another province in the Anglican Communion.

We are deeply concerned for those who are members of The Episcopal Church but now find themselves in parishes or dioceses attempting to depart. To the members of The Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, know we stand with you. Your struggles and needs inform our prayers, deliberations, and plans. This is a new and unfamiliar landscape for all of us. We stand with you and commit ourselves to provide pastoral care, to aid in re-organization, and to support legal actions necessary to retain the assets of the diocese for ministry. We will hold clergy leaders accountable to their vows to uphold the doctrine, discipline and worship of this Church, and lay leadership accountable to the fiduciary responsibilities of the offices they hold. Up to $500,000 of income from trust funds will be made available in the calendar year 2008 to support the mission work of the Diocese of San Joaquin and similarly situated dioceses…

The full letter text is available as PDF file here.

The Living Church also has a report on this.

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