The Advisory Committee of Communion Partners has issued A Response to the Pentecost Pastoral Letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury.
(To discover who exactly the signatories are, scroll to the bottom.)
I failed to link earlier to the statement from the Chicago Consultation which doesn’t seem to have made it yet to the consultation’s own website. So I have copied it here below the fold.
Another statement comes from The Associated Parishes for Liturgy and Mission. That one is here: look for The Convent Station Statement on the changing ethos of the Anglican Communion Sunday, June 13, 2010
Andrew Goddard has written at Fulcrum: Reflections on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Pentecost Letter: A pathway for Anglican spiritual renewal?
8 CommentsFrom a press release by the Anglican Church in North America:
The Anglican Church in North America has 614 congregations in 20 dioceses. More than 200 other congregations are ministry partners with the Anglican Church, including the congregations of The Anglican Mission. The Anglican Church represents more than 100,000 Christians in North America.
Previous reports here, here, and here.
This short PDF file explains where these congregations came from.
23 CommentsENS reports: Secretary general says Episcopal Church should have expected consequences for Glasspool consecration
The Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Communion, told the Episcopal Church’s Executive Council June 18 that when Diocese of Los Angeles Bishop Suffragan Mary Glasspool was ordained as the church’s second openly gay, partnered bishop, the church ought to have known that it would face sanctions.
However, he said that in the recent removal of Episcopal Church members from some Anglican Communion ecumenical dialogues “the aim has not been to get at the Episcopal Church, but to find room for others to remain as well as enabling as full a participation as possible for the Episcopal Church within the communion.”
Kearon claimed that the communion’s ecumenical dialogues “are at the point of collapse” and said that the last meeting of the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, of which Jefferts Schori is an elected member, “was probably the worst meeting I have experienced.”
“The viability of our meetings are at stake,” he added…
For earlier reports of the meeting, see Executive Council quizzes Secretary General.
In a formal statement issued after the meeting, available from ENS here, the Council said this about the encounter with Kearon:
The 45-minute session on Friday with invited guest Canon Kenneth Kearon was carefully prepared for by the Standing Committee on World Mission, who wrote the thoughtful and substantive questions that made clear our commitment to being an inclusive church while also deeply committed to classic Anglicanism and deepening our relationship with our sisters and brothers across the Communion.
Canon Kearon began by describing the beginning of the current tensions as the increasing “problem of growth and diversity in the Anglican Communion.” This statement was significant to a body that has long seen diversity in the Body of Christ as an opportunity and has sought to base its actions on the baptismal promise that we will seek and serve Christ in all people and respect the dignity of every human being.
The questions sought clarification on the presenting issues, including the Archbishop of Canterbury’s removal of appointees from The Episcopal Church to ecumenical bodies and Canon Kearon’s statement that The Episcopal Church does not “share the faith and order of the vast majority of the Anglican Communion.” He also responded to concerns about incursions by other provinces of the Communion. He acknowledged that the Archbishop of Canterbury considers certain activities of the Province of the Southern Cone to constitute an incursion, but is awaiting clarification about the extent of these activities from the primate of that province. However, such ongoing breaches of the moratorium on incursions do not rise to the same level of departure from the faith and order of the Communion as does the full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered Christians.
The Council very much appreciated the chance to meet with Canon Kearon, who agreed to respond in writing to additional questions from members of the Council.
The Living Church also has a report, see Kenneth Kearon Defends Archbishop’s Decisions.
63 CommentsUpdated Friday evening
The Church Times reports on last Sunday’s service at Southwark Cathedral, in a sidebar to the story headlined Bishops criticise USPG cuts.
Doffed: the Presiding Bishop of the US Episcopal Church, Dr Katharine Jefferts Schori, was asked by Lambeth Palace not to wear her mitre when she visited Southwark Cathedral last Sunday. As a consequence, she carried it under her arm. In her sermon, she spoke of the fear of strangers: “There’s something in our ancient genetic memory that ratchets up our state of arousal when we meet a stranger — it’s a survival mechanism that has kept our species alive for millennia by being wary about strangers. But there’s also a piece of our make-up that we talk about in more theological terms — the part that leaps to judgement about that person’s sins. It’s connected to knowing our own sinfulness, and our tendency toward competition.” She urged the congregation to lose the “defensive veneer that wants to shut out other sinners”.
In a letter to The Times, a group of 15 clerics in the Southwark diocese, mostly conservative Evangelicals, criticised the invitation: “We seriously question the judgement of those who have not withdrawn their invitation to her after her recent consecration of Mary Glasspool,” a partnered lesbian. She also spoke at the Scottish Synod, where she talked of her Church’s “radical hospitality”. At the USPG annual meeting, she was upbraided by the Archbishop of Cape Town, the Most Revd Thabo Makgoba: the support for same-sex partnerships had communicated “a measure of uncaring at the consequent difficulties for us”
In a related story, the Church of England Newspaper has this report by George Conger Bishop Jefferts Schori rebuffs Dr. Williams’ call for restraint. It includes this:
The June 2 public letter follows upon private communications between Bishop Jefferts Schori and Dr. Rowan Williams about her continuing role in the councils of the Anglican Communion.
The press officer to the Secretary General of the Anglican Consultative Council has confirmed to The Church of England Newspaper that Canon Kenneth Kearon hand delivered a letter from Dr. Williams to Bishop Jefferts Schori at the April 17 consecration ceremony of Bishop Ian Douglas of Connecticut.
The chancellor to the Presiding Bishop, David Booth Beers, told bishops attending the May 24 to 28 Living Our Vows bishops’ training programme at the Lake Logan Episcopal Center in North Carolina that in this letter Dr. Williams had asked the Presiding Bishop to consider absenting herself from meetings of the Anglican Communion’s Standing Committee and the Primates Meeting in light of the Episcopal Church’s violation of the moratoria on gay bishops and blessings, those present tell CEN.
Speaking to a group of bishops during an informal after dinner session, Mr. Beers stated the Presiding Bishop had rejected the Archbishop of Canterbury’s suggestion, observing that he had no authority to remove her from the Primates Standing Committee as she had been elected by the North and South American primates. She also objected to Dr. Williams’ claim to have the authority to ban her from the councils of the church.
One of the bishops at the evening encounter told CEN that speculation on the future structures of the Communion was also shared by Mr. Beers with the bishops. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s press office did not respond to requests for clarification on Mr. Beers’ comments, while a spokesman for the Presiding Bishop declined to comment on “speculation and conjecture.”
Other reports:
Diana Butler Bass at Beliefnet Mitregate: The Anglican Crisis Over Women’s Hats
Maggi Dawn Mitregate: the latest church row
Friday evening update
According to the American Anglican Council in an article headlined Jefferts Schori: “We were not asked to withdraw” the following exchanges took place at the press conference following the Executive Council meeting in Maryland today:
Robert Lundy, American Anglican Council: Presiding Bishop, my question is in regards to the election of a new representative for The Episcopal Church to the Anglican Consultative Council. Was that new representative Bishop Ian Douglas and if so, will you and Bishop Ian Douglas be attending the next Standing Committee meeting of the ACC?
Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori: We expect those elections to happen this afternoon and yes I expect the representatives of The Episcopal Church to be present at that meeting.
President Anderson: We’re looking forward to the election. We have two candidates in both positions that are open. . .
David Virtue, Virtue Online: My question is for the Presiding Bishop. In light of events recently concerning the Archbishop’s Pentecost letter and the TEC being asked to withdraw several ecumenical leaders from the ACC, will the Presiding Bishop and Executive Council consider cutting the 40% budget of the ACC? Has that been discussed?
Jefferts Schori: Your first observation is not accurate. Members of Ecumenical dialogues were removed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion. We were not asked to withdraw. We were not asked to withdraw from the Anglican Consultative Council. There has been no discussion here of reducing our offering to the Anglican Communion Office.
Mary Francis Schjonberg, Episcopal Life: At the beginning of this presentation this morning, what was your general sense that the way he (Kenneth Kearon) sees things may not be the way The Episcopal Church sees things. At the end of the session, do you think there was any greater understanding on his part or on the Council’s part about the situation in the Communion?
Anderson: I’d like to say in response to that one of the comments that Secretary Kearon made in his opening remarks struck me particularly where he mentioned that some of the issues that they have identified in the Anglican Communion and one of them, a presenting issue, is diversity. In the first place, I don’t think that The Episcopal Church sees diversity as an issue in the same way in which Secretary Kearon presented it of being seen from his viewpoint. I did not see any change in that by the time we had finished talking. I didn’t see any concrete evidence that there was a particular newly developed line of understanding becoming perhaps both ways.
Jefferts Schori: I think we look forward to the possibility of…upon further reflection that all participants in the conversation this morning they have had their understanding increased.
And two more #mitregate articles
RNS Daniel Burke It’s hats-off to female bishop, and not in a good way
Ruth Gledhill Mitregate: The Sequel
34 CommentsUpdated yet further Thursday afternoon
An audio recording of the Presiding Bishop’s sermon is now available on the cathedral website, along with the text.
Go to this page.
Also, in the afternoon, the Dean of Southwark made comments about the morning event in his sermon, text here.
This morning there is some comment about the event in the Diary column of the Guardian. Read that over here.
Updates
ENS reports from the TEC Executive Council meeting now proceeding in Maryland, that Lambeth Palace tells presiding bishop not to wear symbol of office.
In the week before her visit, the presiding bishop said, Lambeth pressured her office to provide evidence of her ordination to each order of ministry.
“This is apparently a requirement of one of their canons about the ministry of clergy from overseas,” she said.
The presiding bishop said both the ordination and mitre issues put the Very Rev. Colin Slee, Southwark’s dean, “in a very awkward position.”
She called the requirements “nonsense” and said, “It is bizarre; it is beyond bizarre.”
A commenter on another thread has linked to a picture showing the Presiding Bishop carrying her mitre.
The full text of the Overseas and Other Clergy (Ministry and Ordination) Measure 1967 can be found here, and further context can be found at this TA article from February 2005 (scroll down to Question 56 and follow the links).
A comment from the thread below has been republished in this article at Episcopal Café:
jdd commenting on the story that the Archbishop of Canterbury gave the Presiding Bishop permission to preach and preside at Southwark Cathedral on the condition that she not cover her hair…
As to precedents:
Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold wore a mitre at Southwark Cathedral in 2006, see Griswold wore mitre at Southwark.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori wore a mitre when she preached at Salisbury Cathedral in 2008, see Salisbury diocese welcomes Presiding Bishop, Sudanese bishops for pre-Lambeth hospitality initiative. See this picture.
Ruth Gledhill has written about this on her blog, see Bishop crossed in mitre row. Another picture there too.
The story in The Times is headlined Female US bishop forced to carry mitre in ‘snub’ by Lambeth Palace, but that is behind a paywall.
94 CommentsUpdated again Wednesday evening
I published a couple of cross-border intervention footnotes recently to other articles, see here, and also here. That was after the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, Kenneth Kearon wrote a letter in which he indicated some doubts in this area.
Today, Episcopal Café joins the campaign for better information on this topic.
Has the Church of Nigeria formally engaged in boundary crossing? The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Secretary General of the Anglican Consultative Council do not know.
On their respective websites the Church of Nigeria and CANA openly confess that the Church of Nigeria is formally in violation of the boundary crossing moratorium…
See It’s formal: CANA is a diocese of the Church of Nigeria.
Referring to the recent Virginia court decision involving CANA/Anglican District of Virginia:
…The Virginia Supreme Court Decision said the ADV congregations lost the case because, as ADV claimed (and as you can see, still claim), they were a branch of the Church of Nigeria.
This information is offered to assist the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Secretary General in their inquiries into whether the Province of the Church of Nigeria has engaged in and continues to engage in crossing boundaries of another province of the Communion in violation of the moratorium against such intervention.
And there is this further document dated May 2010 from the ACNA website [PDF] that lists all the cross-border interventions and notes that:
During this period of transition, bishops within ACNA will retain membership in the House of Bishops of the province in which they were members prior to the formation of ACNA.
H/T to the Café and to Albany Via Media.
Update Wednesday evening
ENS reports that Communion secretary general due to attend Executive Council meeting
31 CommentsThe Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Communion, is to speak to the Episcopal Church’s Executive Council here on June 18.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told the council at its opening plenary session that Kearon would engage with the council in a question-and-answer session at 9 a.m. on the last day of the council’s June 16-18 meeting at the Conference Center at the Maritime Institute.
His presence at the meeting will come 11 days after he announced that he had sent letters to five Episcopal Church members of the inter-Anglican ecumenical dialogues with the Lutheran, Methodist, Old Catholic and Orthodox churches “informing them that their membership on these dialogues has been discontinued.” Kearon also said on June 7 that he had written to the Episcopal Church member of the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity Faith and Order (IASCUFO), withdrawing her membership and inviting her to serve as a consultant to that body…
WATCH has issued the following statement.
33 CommentsMOVING FORWARD ON WOMEN BISHOPS – CALL TO ACTION!
WATCH supports the draft legislation proposed by the Revision Committee as a framework for moving forward without further delay. But this represents a significant compromise.
The ideal
WATCH has always campaigned for the simplest possible legislation for women bishops, that is, a Single Clause Measure. This is the only way of having women bishops without discrimination. A Single Clause Measure would have brought women in the Church of England under the protection of the Equality Act. It would also have put us in step with all other Anglican Provinces that have consecrated women as bishops. Most importantly it would have signaled that the Church now values women as much as men. What is being proposed falls short of this ideal.The current proposals
The draft legislation provides for the consecration of women as bishops with special arrangements for those with conscientious difficulties by way of delegation from the diocesan bishop under a statutory Code of Practice. This is the approach that Synod approved after lengthy debate in July 2008.Under the proposals, each diocesan bishop would be required to draw up a Scheme in her or his diocese that takes account of a national Code of Practice and provides local arrangements for the performance of certain Episcopal functions in relation to parishes with conscientious difficulties.
In addition such parishes would be able to request, when there is a vacancy, that only a male incumbent or priest-in-charge be appointed.
A compromise for WATCH
It is a significant compromise for WATCH to consider supporting anything short of a Single Clause Measure. However, the Revision Committee has listened to all viewpoints and investigated the practical possibilities with great care. Their lengthy report is a testament to the enormous patience and generosity of their process.The Revision Committee’s proposals
- Allow for the consecration of women as bishops
- Maintain the integrity of the church and the episcopate
- Make provision for those who are opposed to women becoming bishops
There seems to be a consensus emerging across the moderate mainstream that this is a good basis for moving forward.
All these factors lead us to believe that WATCH should support the proposals at Synod. However, this is a compromise so that we can move ahead with women bishops NOW and be as inclusive as we can without compromising the integrity of the episcopate or of women.
Statement from WATCH (Women and the Church) in response to the Bishop of Durham’s recent comments appealing for further delay in consecrating women as bishops
1 CommentThe Bishop of Durham has suggested to his Diocesan Synod (21 May 2010 at http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Diocesan_Address_May_2010.htm) that the Church of England should delay moving forward with the proposed legislation to allow women to be bishops and engage in further theological debate.
WATCH welcomes the Bishop of Durham’s clear support for the ordination of women, but takes issue with his call for delay. As Bishop Tom himself said in his address, the move to the ordination of women ‘has been debated and decided by the whole church meeting in solemn conclave’. Bishop Tom has himself long argued that ordaining women is right according to the Bible.
From Australia comes this report that:
There is a growing backlash against women being treated as equals in churches around Australia, with some women being pressured not to become priests. Barney Zwartz reports on the battle looming.
Read Men lead, women obey? from the Melbourne Age.
14 CommentsENS has published the full text of the sermon preached at Southwark Cathedral this morning. See Presiding bishop preaches at Southwark Cathedral in London. The text is copied here, below the fold.
23 CommentsInclusive Church has issued this open letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
64 CommentsSt John’s Vicarage
Secker St
London SE1 8UF10th June 2010
Dear Archbishop
We are writing to express our grave concern about the contents of your Pentecost letter and its consequences applied with such speed by the Anglican Communion Office.
Your letter opens with a reminder of the joy of Pentecost, when “we celebrate the gift God gives us of being able to communicate the Good News of Jesus Christ in the various languages of the whole human world”. But the result of your proposals – to summarily remove from those Communion bodies to which you directly appoint, those provinces which are in your view in breach of the moratoria – is a diminishing of the diversity of the Anglican Communion and a silencing of the different languages in which we are called to speak.
Our concerns are three-fold.
First, it is clear from the actions of the Secretary-General of the Anglican Communion that the application of the sanctions is one-sided and disproportionate. The Anglican Church of North America may now provide cover for the Bishops previously ordained by Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya but these provinces remain committed to them and the actions which made the emergence of ACNA possible, actions carried out in direct violation of the moratorium that you asked for. It would be farcical to suggest they are no longer breaking the moratoria just because they have been successful in generating a breakaway body to provide local cover for the result of their acts. The Secretary-General is “seeking clarification” regarding the Southern Cone and Canada. However, without consultation, he has proceeded in removing members of The Episcopal Church from Communion bodies. This kind of punitive exclusion will do nothing to promote the “path of mutual respect and thankfulness that will hold us in union and help us grow in that truth.”
Second, by proposing these actions you are not strengthening but diminishing the distinctiveness and the contribution of the Anglican voice to our ecumenical dialogue. It is clear that all the major churches are engaged in the struggle to acknowledge and include LGBT Christians. The Anglican Communion has been more open than most about its struggle, and has earned the respect of many of our partners in this. By excluding those provinces which have been able, despite deep controversy and through profound study and prayer, to include both those who welcome LGBT Christians and those who do not, you are empowering the Anglican Communion to speak with a voice which does not reflect its truth; it is, in short, inauthentic. Further, it fails to acknowledge the terrible persecution which is experienced by LGBT Christians, and those who uphold human rights as reflecting crucial Gospel values, in many of those provinces which are at the forefront of opposition to TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada. Your previous statements opposing homophobia and seeking generosity from (among others) the Church of Uganda are undermined by these actions.
Third, the actions proposed and taken appear to pre-empt the consequences of the draft Covenant. You reiterate that “the Covenant is not envisaged as an instrument of control”. And yet, by these sanctions you are prefiguring the life of the Covenant by already excluding from Anglican dialogue those who do not have majority support – creating, by default, track 2 churches. It is increasingly clear, as discussions about the Covenant continue, that whatever its original intentions it is already becoming an instrument of control, an additional “instrument of unity” which will achieve precisely the opposite.
By excluding TEC and possibly the ACoC in this way, the voices are also silenced of the thousands of members of the Church of England for whom the life of TEC and the ACoC is a source of joy and thanksgiving – for whom the full inclusion of LGBT Christians within our parishes is already a reality, even though the structures and senior hierarchy of the Church of England are unable to acknowledge this reality.
You stress the urgency of mission. The result of these actions is further to undermine the mission of the Church of England, and to cause despair amongst those who are trying to enable all to understand the love of God. Supporters of Inclusive Church have spoken with you on a number of occasions about the vital urgency of speaking generously about the breadth of Christian experience. Unless we do, we will be unable to re-engage with the communities we seek to serve in this country and who are bemused by the Church of England’s continuing rejection of LGBT Christians.
The period of engagement for which you call will not be served by putting in place further exclusionary structures. It is only the conservative extreme of the Anglican Communion which appears to support – indeed, to encourage – further division. We are profoundly supportive of the sort of frank and open conversations for which you too hope. Therefore, a question – how do you anticipate these conversations being fruitful when decisions have already been taken which further reduce the status of LGBT Christians and those who welcome them?
Yours sincerely
Canon Giles Goddard
Chair, IC
Rebecca Paveley reports in the Church Times Primates of Canada and US ‘distressed’ at plans for Anglican sanctions.
An extract from Bishop Katharine’s pastoral letter appears on the Comment pages of the paper.
Bishop David Hamid notes that the sanctions being imposed by the Anglican Communion Office extend to Europe, see Archbishop of Canterbury’s Pentecost Letter: A European Consequence.
Andrew McGowan has written an excellent analysis in The Anglican Babel: A view from Australia. Read it all, but here is an excerpt:
… ++Katharine is still right here, however, and ++Rowan wrong. He is wrong in a tragic way—seeking, doubtless at great personal cost, a unity in the terms that existing Anglican Communion structures assume or require, but which in fact has now escaped us.
++Rowan is wrong in identifying the TEC ‘Communion Partners’ or others ‘who disagree strongly with recent decisions’ as those who want to be aligned with the Communion’s general commitments. I believe the vast majority of the members of TEC, including its leaders, do want to be aligned with the Communion’s general commitments and are, with specific and well-known exceptions. I have no more desire than the Archbishop of Canterbury to brush past the difficulties those exceptions present; but when did attitudes to homosexuality, rather than to the Creeds or the Sacraments, come to define the ‘Communion’s general commitments’?
This is an ecclesiological as well as a theological mistake, in that it characterizes the Communion not by its vast common depth of faith and hope, framed in specific and diverse history, but by the conversations of the thin layer that constitutes the ‘instruments of unity’, whose success has of late been desultory, and future significance increasingly uncertain.
++Rowan is also wrong in equating the positions in Inter-Anglican bodies such as IASCUFO with representation of the Communion as a whole. This is precisely the sort of context where Anglicans need to have the breadth of visions and voices that might take us forward in faith and charity, even if it is to a place of mutual disagreement and realignment. The removal of a TEC member of IASCUFO makes it a weaker body in all respects.
The position is slightly different regarding exclusion of TEC from the ecumenical dialogue groups, but the result no more inspiring; our dialogue partners may indeed now have a better chance of knowing ‘who it is they are talking to’—they will know precisely that they are talking only to some of us.
And while numerous commentators have suggested there are power grabs or constitutional problems with the dis-invitations, few have noted that membership of such bodies has never before been seen as a question of delegation, or of representing national Churches; rather their members have been chosen for expertise, and with a necessary diversity that reflects our own (than you Bruce Kaye for this point).
Not all blame, even for these specific missteps, should be laid at the feet of the Archbishop of Canterbury or of the Anglican Communion Office. It is patronising to conservatives in the ‘Global South’ and elsewhere to absolve them of responsibility. But here is where the singling out of TEC, at least as it appears in Canon Kenneth Kearon’s subsequent letter, becomes inexplicable (nb., after a week or two of no clarification, maybe change ‘inexplicable’ to ‘outrageous’). Most groups who have disregarded the other moratorium, of cross-border interventions, have not been mentioned in the prescriptions for dis-inviting participation in international bodies…
Fr Jake also has an analysis, see The Dark Side of Canterbury…Perhaps
4 Comments…What if, in a desperate move to hold the Anglican Communion together, Dr. Williams is playing a very dangerous political game?
In order to play such a game, the role of Archbishop of Canterbury would have to be seen as a postition from which one can wield power. Ecclesiastical power, in this case. But a manifestation of power just the same, even in its weakened form in today’s reality.
One way to have others recognize your power, your authority, your ability to dominate another, is to proclaim that certain people must be punished for their actions. Check.
But by what criteria would the person attempting to solidfy their power choose the victim that would set the example? Of course they would choose the one who is the most desperate to hold on to the bonds signified by the relationship with the one doling out the punishments.
So, in this case, who would be the most desperate? I would suggest that would be TEC…
In California, another property dispute continues:
The California Supreme Court agreed June 9 to hear an appeal in the six-year property dispute between a Newport Beach church that broke away from the Diocese of Los Angeles and the Episcopal Church. The dispute began in 2004 when a majority of members of the Newport Beach congregation, citing theological differences, voted to disaffiliate from the diocese and the Episcopal Church. The group renamed itself St. James Anglican Church, realigned with the Anglican Church of Uganda and attempted to retain property and assets. The group is now part of the Diocese of Western Anglicans in the Province of the Anglican Church in North America.
Read ENS LOS ANGELES: California Supreme Court to hear Newport Beach breakaway group’s appeal.
The statement from St James Anglican Church is here.
Cross-border interventions note:
The ACNA Diocese of Western Anglicans explains itself here. Another page gives details of the involvement of the Provinces of Uganda and the Southern Cone which preceded its formation. That is copied in full below the fold.
ENS reports: Virginia diocese, Episcopal Church prevail with state Supreme Court
Statement from the Diocese of Virginia:
Court Rules in Favor of Diocese; Division Statute Does Not Apply
The Diocese of Virginia is gratified by the Supreme Court of Virginia’s ruling that the 57-9 “Division Statute” was incorrectly applied by the Fairfax County Circuit Court. The statute has forced faithful Episcopalians to worship elsewhere for over three years. The Supreme Court has sent the matter back to the lower court for further proceedings. The Diocese will demonstrate that the property is held in trust for all 80,000 Episcopalians who worship in Virginia.
“This decision brings us one important step closer to returning loyal Episcopalians, who have been extraordinarily faithful in disheartening and difficult circumstances, to their church homes,” said the Rt. Rev. Shannon S. Johnston, bishop of Virginia. “We are extremely grateful for this opportunity to correct a grievous harm. The Episcopal Church has and will continue to stand by its people, its traditions and its legacy – past and future. We look forward to resolving this matter as quickly as possible and bringing our faithful brothers and sisters back to their home churches.”
Added Henry D.W. Burt, secretary of the Diocese, “In light of this decision and its clear implications, I hope the leadership of CANA will now provide access for the continuing Episcopal congregations to worship as Episcopalians at their home churches during this interim period.”
Read the full opinion (PDF).
Statement from the Anglican District of Virginia:
Anglican Congregations Disappointed in Virginia Supreme Court Decision
Also over here on the CANA website.
FAIRFAX, Va. (June 10, 2010) – The nine Anglican District of Virginia (ADV) congregations that are parties to the church property case brought by The Episcopal Church and the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia are reviewing today’s Virginia Supreme Court ruling overturning the Fairfax County Circuit Court’s ruling in the case and remanding it back to the Circuit Court for further proceedings. The Episcopal Church and Diocese of Virginia had appealed a ruling in favor of the congregations to the Virginia Supreme Court.
“We are disappointed with today’s ruling and will review it as we consider our options. This is not the final chapter in this matter. The court’s ruling simply involved one of our statutory defenses, and these properties are titled in the name of the congregations’ trustees, not in the name of the Diocese or The Episcopal Church. So we continue to be confident in our legal position as we move forward and will remain steadfast in our effort to defend the historic Christian faith,” said Jim Oakes, chairman of the Anglican District of Virginia, which is the umbrella organization for the nine Anglican congregations.
“As the Virginia Supreme Court’s opinion recognizes, there is clearly a division within The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia. Those divisions are a result of the actions of The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia to fall out of step with much of Christendom by choosing to redefine and reinterpret Scripture. They chose to sue our congregations when our churches in good conscience could not continue down their path. We are sorry The Episcopal Church has chosen to go its own way. Their choice to be a prodigal church does not give them the right to take our houses of worship with them. The legal proceedings have been an unfortunate distraction from all the good work our churches are doing to advance the mission of Christ. Ultimately, we know that the Lord is in control and our congregations will continue to put our trust in Him, not in secular courts or buildings. Our doors remain open wide to all who wish to worship with us,” Oakes concluded.
Cross-border interventions note: ADA explains:
The Anglican District of Virginia (www.anglicandistrictofvirginia.org) is an association of Anglican congregations in Virginia. Its members are in full communion with constituent members of the Anglican Communion through its affiliation with the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), a missionary branch of the Church of Nigeria and other Anglican Archbishops.
And from here:
The Anglican District of Virginia is made up of 34 Member Congregations (and counting!) in Virginia, Maryland, Washington, DC and North Carolina…
Footnote 7 of the judgment lists:
12 CommentsThe nine congregations are: The Church at the Falls – The Falls Church, in Arlington County; Truro Church, Church of the Apostles, and Church of the Epiphany, Herndon, in Fairfax County; St. Margaret’s Church, Woodbridge, St. Paul’s Church, Haymarket, and Church of the Word, Gainesville, in Prince William County; Church of Our Saviour at Oatlands, in Loudoun County; and St. Stephen’s Church, Heathsville, in Northumberland County.
Updated again Friday afternoon
Two items from the Swanwick conference:
Bishop Katharine calls on Anglicans to ‘speak truth to power’
The presiding bishop of The Episcopal Church in the US has called on Anglicans to help defeat injustice and human suffering.
Speaking at the USPG Annual Conference yesterday, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said ‘missional partnerships, whether Anglican, Christian or inter faith’ were essential for building a worldwide ‘community of peace and justice’.
Thabo Makgoba Addressing Anglican Differences – Spirit and Culture at the Foot of the Cross
‘Jesus Christ is the standard for discerning the path between authentic cultural expression and flawed syncretism, between ensuring we do not quench the Spirit and yet properly testing what we believe may be the Spirit’s leading’ said Archbishop Thabo Makgoba. He was addressing the USPG Annual Conference in Swanwick, England, on ‘Mission Realities for Southern African Anglicans – and their Wider Implications’.
Follow the link above and scroll down for the full text of his address. Here is one extract:
I am convinced that in our current situation within the Communion neither have we done, nor are we continuing to do, enough of this sort of listening to one another. We do not understand one another and one another’s contexts well enough, and we are not sufficiently sensitive to one another in the way we act. Autonomy has gone too far. I do not mean that we should seek a greater uniformity – I hope it is clear I am saying nothing of the sort. But we risk acting in ways that are so independent of one another that it becomes hard for us, and for outsiders, to recognise either a committed interdependent mutuality or a common Christian, Anglican, DNA running through our appropriately contextualised and differentiated ways of being.
Bishop Katharine, what I am going to say next is painful to me, and I fear it may also be to you – but I would rather say it to your face, than behind your back. And I shall be ready to hear from you also, for I cannot preach listening without doing listening. It sometimes seems to me that, though many have failed to listen adequately to the Spirit at work within The Episcopal Church, at the same time within your Province there has not been enough listening to the rest of the Anglican Communion. I had hoped that those of your Bishops who were at the Lambeth Conference would have grasped how sore and tender our common life is. I had hoped that even those who, after long reflection, are convinced that there is a case for the consecration of individuals in same sex partnerships, might nonetheless have seen how unhelpful it would be to the rest of us, for you to proceed as you have done.
There are times when it seems that your Province, or some within it, despite voicing concern for the rest of us, can nonetheless act in ways that communicate a measure of uncaring at the consequent difficulties for us. And such apparent lack of care for us increases the distress we feel. Much as we understand that you are in all sincerity attempting to discern the best way forward within your own mission context, we ask you to be sensitive to the rest of us.
Let me immediately add that, if there were certain others here, I would speak to them equally frankly. Cross border visitations and other moratoria violations have undermined not only your polity, but wider attempts to handle disagreements in a godly way before the face of the watching world. I will also add that, outside the scope of the moratoria, there are too many other shameful and painful ways that ‘gracious restraint’ has not been exercised by various different individuals and groups from all manner of perspectives. These too destructively exacerbate our attempts to live truly as a Communion, and contribute to the way that disagreements over human sexuality and its handling have come to dominate the life of the Anglican Communion to a disproportionate and debilitating extent. When I am interviewed, when I participate in radio phone-ins, no matter what the ostensible topic, again and again I find myself derailed by questions on this. I have to say this undermines our witness; dissipates energies that ought to be spent on the true priorities of mission; and distorts the focus and agenda of the Communion’s common life to an increasingly detrimental degree.
Updates
ENS has a report, ‘Witnessing to Christ Today’: Presiding bishop, Southern Africa primate address USPG conference.
This has links to videos as well:
Video: Presiding bishop addresses USPG on ‘Witnessing to Christ Today’
[Episcopal News Service] Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori delivers a keynote address June 9 on the theme “Witnessing to Christ Today,” during the annual meeting of USPG-Anglicans in World Mission in Swanwick, England.
Video: Archbishop of Cape Town Thabo Makgoba addresses USPG conference
[Episcopal News Service] Archbishop of Cape Town Thabo Makgoba delivers a keynote address June 10 as part of the USPG-Anglicans in World Mission annual conference. Makgoba speaks on the theme “Mission Realities for Southern African Anglicans — and their wider implications.
Video: USPG panel tackles issues concerning mission, Anglican identity, human sexuality, environment
[Episcopal News Service] Archbishop of Cape Town Thabo Makgoba and Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori join the Rev. Mark Oxbrow, international director of the Faith2Share network, for a panel discussion June 9 that focuses on issues of local and global mission, Anglican identity, human sexuality and environmental concerns. The discussion was held during the USPG-Anglicans in World Mission annual conference in Swanwick, England.
Colin Coward reports, Thabo Makgoba and Katharine Jefferts Schori model the possibility of creative dialogue at the USPG Conference.
8 CommentsUpdated Thursday morning
Earlier roundups here, and here.
Ruth Gledhill at The Times has Warring Anglicans removed from ecumenical faith group.
Also Commentary: Pentecost and the Anglican schism.
Anglican Journal has reports from Canada:
Mission possible…when the Anglican Communion works together, says Kearon
Deeper partnership possibilities: Both churches ‘have the ability to speak truth to power,’ says U.S. Presiding Bishop
A much more user-friendly copy of this same article is now here.
Video report includes highlights from an address by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori (the Episcopal Church)
Update
Anglican Essentials has transcripts of the press conference held by Kenneth Kearon:
See here, and more recently also here.
Here’s a sample:
11 CommentsNeal[e] Adams, Anglican Journal: What about Nigeria and Rwanda?
I simply do not know whether Nigeria or Rwanda have formally through their Synod or through a resolution in their House of Bishops have decided [to break the moratorium regarding cross-border interventions.]
There are three sets of letters going out, one to The Episcopal Church members [Americans] who are on ecumenical dialogues or who are on the Faith and Order Commission. The second letter is to the Primate of Canada [Fred Hiltz], to clarify whether the Province has made a decision on the question of same-sex blessings. He may have addressed that in his primatial address. And thirdly, there’s a letter to the Primate of the Southern Cone Greg Venables asking him about the status of the intervention he has been involved with. His is the only intervention referred to in the Windsor Continuation Report. As a start we’re addressing those three areas and we await the responses – not where an individual bishop has broken one of the moratoria.
The Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori is currently visiting the UK. Three items in her itinerary are:
Continued from here.
Simple Massing Priest has The end of authentic Anglicanism.
Colin Coward has What the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Secretary General should really be doing.
An earlier news report published by ENS by Neale Adams CANADA: Hiltz supports Episcopal Church, echoes objections to proposed sanctions
Associated Press Anglicans cut Episcopalians from ecumenical bodies
Religion News Service Episcopalians Booted from Anglican Bodies Over Gay Bishops
Anglican Journal Facing the consequences: Anglican Communion takes action against The Episcopal Church (previously linked in our Canadian synod coverage)
3 CommentsENS has a report on what the Presiding Bishop said to the Canadian General Synod.
See Marites N. Sison Presiding bishop describes Canterbury’s sanctions as ‘unfortunate’
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has described the decision by Lambeth Palace to remove Episcopalians serving on international ecumenical dialogues as “unfortunate … It misrepresents who the Anglican Communion is…”
Update
A partial transcript of the press conference is available at the Anglican Essentials website, see Press conference with TEC Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts-Schori. Some excerpts:
Q: On the sanction imposed by the ABC on TEC for the ecumenism committee, the argument was that because of what has happened TEC doesn’t represent the faith and order of the communion. Is that fair? Secondly, how is it going to effect the work of TEC since you have a very strong interest in ecumenism?
KJS: Certainly our bilateral conversations will continue. I think it’s very unfortunate because it misrepresents who the Anglican communion is: we have a variety of opinions on these issues of human sexuality. People act as though one resolution from the 1998 Lambeth conference decided this for all time. If you look at the history of the Lambeth conference, they have gone back and forth: one in the 20s said that contraception was inappropriate and the next one said, yes it was appropriate and by the time you got 2 or 3 further down the road, it was the duty of families to plan. So our understanding about ethical issues evolves as it needs to, because our context evolves. For the Anglican communion to say to the Methodists or the Lutherans that we only have one position is inaccurate. We have a variety of understandings and, no we don’t have consensus on the hot-button issues of the moment.
and
4 CommentsQ: Has the ABC responded adequately to cross border interventions?
KJS: I don’t think he understands how difficult, painful and destructive it’s been, both in the ACoC and TEC. When bishops come from overseas and say, well, we’ll take care of you, you don’t have to pay attention to your bishop, it destroys pastoral relationships. It’s like an affair in a marriage: it destroys trust and I believe it does spiritual violence to vowed relationships. It is a very ancient teaching of the church that a bishop is supposed to stay home and tend to the flock to which he was originally assigned.
Q: you mentioned in your Pentecost letter – from the duelling Pentecost letters – “we note the troubling push towards centralised authority “ in response to Rowan Williams. Is not the resistance to cross-border interventions a similar push towards central authority on a smaller scale?
KJS: The resistance to cross-border interventions is for the reasons I’ve pointed out: it destroys pastoral relationships. It prevents any possibility of reconciliation; it prevents growth in understanding among people who disagree. The idea that one person in one location in the world can adequately understand contexts across the globe and decide policy across the globe, I think contravenes traditional Anglican understanding of local worship in a language understood by the people. This is what we were arguing about 500 years ago.
Doug LeBlanc has reported at the Living Church that the Letter Affects Five Episcopal Leaders.
Earlier he had written Archbishop’s Letter Could Affect 30 Leaders.
The Living Church also published an editorial, An Invitation to Grow Up.
At Episcopal Café John Chilton wrote Disinvitations raise constitutional questions.
Also Jim Naughton wrote The incredible shrinking Archbishop of Canterbury.
Mark Harris wrote What makes The Episcopal Church so “Special” in the Archbishop’s eyes?
Adrian Worsfold at Pluralist Speaks has written Someone Should Remove Williams.
And he also published Rounding Up: The Opposition Grows.
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