Updated Tuesday
While Dallas has withdrawn its request, the Diocese of Pittsburgh is proceeding full speed ahead in this matter of primatial oversight. The diocesan convention will be held next weekend (while the installation of the new PB takes place in Washington DC) and will be asked to vote on this resolution. The key paragraph reads:
RESOLVED, that the Bishop and Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh in good faith hereby join with the other dioceses of the Episcopal Church who are appealing to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primates of the Anglican Communion, and the Panel of Reference for immediate alternative Primatial oversight and pastoral care so that a unifying solution might be found to preserve an authentic Anglican community of witness within the United States of America and provide pastoral and apostolic care to biblically orthodox Anglicans in this country regardless of geographical location; and
The diocesan website has, incidentally, amended its notice concerning the text of the appeal:
…It explains why the dioceses involved believe that a different form of oversight is necessary (see editor’s note) and what that oversight might look like…
…Editor’s Note: Mary Francis Schjonberg of ENS helpfully pointed out here that “APO” was not used to describe the appeal by all those who ultimately signed the combined request that is linked above. I replaced “APO” with “A different form of oversight” in the text above to allow for the various terms used by bishops and diocesan bodies in their initial individual appeals. – Peter Frank, director of communications.
To get the full flavour of what the leadership of the Pittsburgh diocese thinks, you really need to read in full the address delivered by Bishop Duncan when he received an honorary doctorate from Nashotah House.
Update Tuesday
Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh has published briefing papers in response to this resolution, you can read them here, here, and here.
In re: Bishop Duncan’s address at Nashotah House, I am intrigued by his use of the phrase “Recovery of an Anglican Magisterium.” I suspect he really means the invention of one, though I’m happy to be corrected. Primarily, have Anglicans ever used the term “magisterium” outside of ecumenical conversation, so can we truly recover something that is not part of our discourse? At any rate, the word doesn’t appear in the index of Sykes’ and Booty’s “The Study of Anglicanism.” Second, the Bishop rightly explains Hooker’s ordering of Scripture, Reason, and Tradition, but then says Scripture is to be interpreted… Read more »
I found the words “unifying” and “authentic” bemusing. It is unifying to ask for alternative oversight i.e. to form an alternative? “Authentic” infers that the existing church is not and that only their interpretation is. Again we look at a move to stifle diversity and claim that this being done on legitimate “unifying” tenets. Much more palatable than contemplating that they are “high control” freaks who like things their way. Or else they will sabotage and slander that which does not grovel in its flattery to their “perfect” paradigms. Most especially, if it is going to encourage women or other… Read more »
“So, did we start our path to error by embracing the Scottish prayer of consecration? Is the 1928 the epitome of ultimate apostasy and the ’79 beyond the pale?” I believe that the 1928 BCP was not well received by more conservative Episcopalians, and that one of the targets was the prayer for social justice included at the end of the book with other prayers for different occasions. It was found to be ‘socialist’ in content. So I guess we have fallen far, far from the perfection of 1662. I await with interest the use of this book and its… Read more »
From the Dio Pittsburgh’s Standing Committee Resolution (submitted to their dio convention, for action):
“WHEREAS, the Bishop and Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh recognize that the 75th General Convention of the Episcopal Church has elected to walk apart from the Anglican Communion through its failure to submit to the call, the spirit or the requirements of the Windsor Report”
This is what leaves me gobsmacked. Who the heck is the Diocese of Pittsburgh, to have the *authority* to make such a (false!) “recognition”? :-0
As a member of the Diocese of Pittsburgh for nigh on 35 years, I am appalled by what this Bishop has done to a perfectly good Episcopal Diocese. It has become, in the words of a member of the ECUSA higher echelon, “a cult”. If you could see how some of these people adore this Bishop, it would make you ill. It has made me ill, on many occasions. Please keep us in prayer, thank you!
Sue
Wrote Sue Boulden: “As a member of the Diocese of Pittsburgh for nigh on 35 years, I am appalled by what this Bishop has done to a perfectly good Episcopal Diocese.” I, too, am appalled by what the so-called Network bishops have done to the Episcopal Church, creating division… division… division. If it is not the inclusion of gays and lesbians in the Church, it is the ordination of women and their election to key offices in the Church, PB Katharine Jefferts Schori in particular, and/or the Prayer Book authorized by General Convention. 30+ years ago I was a priest… Read more »