Updated again Monday
The Diocese of San Joaquin today voted for a different amendment to its constitution than the one previously published.
The resolution actually passed can be seen here.
The previous proposal can be seen here.
The Associated Press reported it this way: Calif. Diocese Snubs Episcopal Church. Reuters has U.S. diocese favors break with Episcopal Church.
The Living Church says California Dioceses Take Opposing Sides on Human Sexuality.
The bishop’s address to the convention is on the diocesan site.
The New York Times has its own report on this: Episcopal Diocese Votes to Secede From Church by Laurie Goodstein in New York and Carolyn Marshall in Fresno, Calif. They write in part:
…The vote by the diocese is one more step in a carefully planned strategy by conservative Episcopalians in the United States and primates of Anglican provinces, many in the developing world, to unite the conservatives, claim the mantle of Anglicanism and isolate the Episcopal Church, the 2.3-million-member American branch in the Anglican communion, which claims 77 million members worldwide…
…The Bishop of San Joaquin, John-David Schofield, told the convention on Thursday, “This amending process is the first step in the removal from our constitution of any reference to the Episcopal Church because, in our opinion, they have decided to walk apart from the Anglican Communion.”
The wording of the resolutions was changed at the last minute, leading to widespread confusion among the delegates. But Bishop Schofield told the convention that the wording was changed after a recent meeting in Virginia between conservative American bishops and other leaders and conservative primates from other provinces in the Anglican Communion. The global primates advised the Americans to “remain flexible and allow them to provide the necessary leadership for us,” by holding off on specifying what structure, or bishop or province, would replace the church’s relationship with the diocese.
One crucial amendment effectively erases the borders of the diocese so that it could eventually absorb parishes in other parts of the state or elsewhere in the country that wish to break with the church, Mr. Petz said.
Another amendment says that if the bishop and his coadjutor bishop are absent, unable to act or removed, the standing committee, a lay group, would become the “ecclesiastical authority.” The thinking behind this provision, Mr. Petz said, is that it could prevent the church from taking over the diocese by removing the bishop and coadjutor…
Update Monday
Episcopal News Service has published its report of this: San Joaquin convention seeks to sever diocese from Episcopal Church
Well, perhaps there are many nits to pick in Bishop Schofield’s address – the accuracy of his account of recent history, for example; but others will do so, and probably better than I. Two things did strike me, especially in light of recent discussion here and elsewhere in the blogosphere. First, he specifically cited issues of ecumenical discussion and hope for union with Eastern Orthodoxy and with Roman Catholicism. Several recent discussions I’ve run across have noted that these are not the only large, international bodies of Christians with whom we interact ecumenically, much less nationally and locally in the… Read more »
“Citing ecumenical issues with only a part of the Body illustrates Bishop Schofield’s inclinations regarding centralization of authority, and, in my opinion, clericalism.”
Yes Marshall, clericalism, but then they go and say
“Another amendment says that if the bishop and his coadjutor bishop are absent, unable to act or removed, the standing committee, ***a lay group***, would become the “ecclesiastical authority.””
I believe that the the Dio SJ is trying a “shotgun” approach to schism. “You don’t like one rationale? Here, we have another. And another. Whatever works (with the California courts).”
Sad, sad, sad…
Of course it is a painful temporary bummer to have conservative believers bear such consistently false witness about you – whether you are a progressive or a queer person or some other sort of alternative Anglican believer. Shall this false witness separate any of us from God or from following Jesus to the best of our fallible conscience or fallible abilities? Not, surely thanks to God’s grace. In the Father’s house are many mansions. And, so it seems at the moment, all the newly conserved and newly purified conservative belivers will get together by themselves in one set of Anglican… Read more »
“++Rowan Writes to the Episcopal Majority
He says, “I fully accept that I have no jurisdiction in the USA and I have not sought and am not seeking to impose any new structure.”
http://admiralofmorality.blogspot.com
Is San Joaquin’s Standing Committee really a “lay group”? In most dioceses it consists of clergy and lay members. That the Standing Committee becomes the Ecclesiastical Authority in the absense or disability of a Bishop is in keeping with the national Canons.
“With this much momentum, I predict we just ain’t seen nothing yet. The near pending Primates Meeting will be a newly conserved circus maximus. Replete with presuppositions and exclusive definitions blaring like trumpets as the Anglican gates are commanded to be closed, once and for all.” – Drdanfee. Anglicanism has become a soap opera of the Network ‘cult’ leaders and their GS cohorts defending all male patriarchy threatened by the emancipation of women and gays, with equal access to ordination. And NOW ECUSA even has a female PB! No wonder she is being denounced as a ‘heretic’ when she teaches… Read more »