Updated Saturday evening
Pat Ashworth reports in today’s Church Times Southern Cone offers haven to disaffected US dioceses.
George Conger had New haven for US dioceses on offer in the Church of England Newspaper.
The Diocese of San Joaquin has published a Pastoral Letter to be Read in All Churches of the Diocese of San Joaquin this Sunday or the following Sunday. This reports on the offer made by the Southern Cone and then says:
Should the second reading of the Constitutional changes receive the necessary two thirds of each order voting affirmatively next month, this will mean that the Diocese is free to accept the invitation of the Province of the Southern Cone. This enables us: 1) to receive the protection contemplated by the Primates in Dar Es Salaam that was originally agreed to by the Presiding bishop, but later rejected by the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church; 2) to remain a diocese with full membership within the Anglican communion where the orders of our clergy are recognized; and, 3) to assure that we remain within the Anglican Communion through a Province in full communion with the See of Canterbury. According to well-informed sources, the Archbishop of Canterbury has been fully informed of the invitation of the Province of the Southern Cone and described it as a “sensible way forward.” Indeed, it is the sensible way forward and a decision by the Diocese to move in this direction is by no means irrevocable as was seen during the 1860’s when the Dioceses of the Southern States left the Episcopal Church and at the conclusion of the Civil War returned to the Episcopal Church without punitive action. As the Southern Cone invitation makes clear, the Diocese may return to full communion with the Episcopal Church when circumstances change and the Episcopal Church repents and adheres to the theological, moral and pastoral norms of the Anglican Communion, and when effective and acceptable alternative primatial oversight becomes available.
Read the whole document in pdf format here.
Concerning this matter of “well-informed sources” Andrew Brown has today commented in the Church Times press column as follows:
…The Times followed it up four days later with a version that added two things. The first was a claim that the Archbishop of Canterbury thought this “a sensible way forward”. This was not attributed, though it was in quotes as direct speech: when I rang Lambeth Palace, the spokesman had no idea when or even why the Archbishop might have said any such thing. Perhaps it was in his secret unity talks with the Pope…
Update
The Diocese of Fort Worth voted on its proposed constitutional changes today. Episcopal News Service has a report: Fort Worth convention approves first reading of constitutional changes:
The 25th annual convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth November 17 gave the first of two approvals needed to amend its constitution and remove accession to the Constitution and Canons of General Convention, as well as several canonical amendments that eliminate mention of the Episcopal Church.
Speaking in a news conference following the convention’s conclusion, Fort Worth Bishop Jack Iker said the decisions “marked a firm resolve about moving forward together, recognizing that there are parts that are not fully behind the path we’ve chosen, but the debate is always characterized by respect and honesty.”
“It’s important to note that the decisions made today are preliminary decisions that need to be ratified by another convention,” he added.
Meeting at the Will Rogers Memorial Center in Fort Worth, Texas, the convention also thanked the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone for its invitation offering the diocese membership “on an emergency and pastoral basis.” Iker and the diocesan Standing Committee are to prepare a report on “the constitutional and canonical implications and means of accepting that invitation.” Attending the convention was Bishop Frank Lyons of Bolivia in the Southern Cone.The convention noted that the diocese wishes “to remain within the family of the Anglican Communion while dissociating itself from the moral, theological, and disciplinary innovations of the Episcopal Church…”
titusonenine has more detailed voting figures.
I wish folks would stop misrepresenting what happened during the US Civil War. Here it is as simply as possible: with the creation of what they thought to be a new nation, the dioceses of the Confederacy felt that they had, necessarily, to become a separate “national church” — just as PECUSA had necessarily become independent from England at the Revolution. (See the Preface to the US BCP.) While England eventually recognized the latter (as the national independence became de jure as well as de facto, the United States never recognized the secession of the Confederate States, and neither did… Read more »
May we have a clarification from Lambeth Palace in time for the San Joaquin vote?
I like the rather nuanced response from the English Crown to the attempted secession of the Confederacy.
Firstly there was the recognition of the southern states right to rebel – Pissed off Lincoln a whole lot – a bit like Rowan musing about a “confessing” church(?).
Then when things were going well for the Confederacy there almost came a point of actual recognition.
Then there was a change of fortunes and the PM breathed a sigh at almost having backed a losing horse …..
Seems vaguely familiar?
Canterbury needs to start putting all the moral leadership brakes on the vigorous spinning realignment gears pretty soon, or else England will be faced with claims that this virulent manner of new conservative Anglican life on the ground has simply moved on, and that is that is that. At that point, Canterbury will pretty much be under the de facto equivalent of new con-evo house arrest – like Bhutto in Pakistan, or Suu Kyi in Myanmar – though most invisibly compared to those examples. Then – given those well-spun webs of realignment circumstance and of realignment circumstantial claims/assertions – we… Read more »
I want to know how the departing American dioceses’ liturgy ( with its “Romanist errors and innovations ” , such as prayers for the dead incense,Holy water , benediction of the Blessed Sacrament …invocation of the Holy mother of God etc) can be accomodated by the canons of the Southern Cone? If Southern Cone don’t look out, they could end up like the Reformed Episcopal Church being taken over by Hifgh Church Anglicans. Isn’t it ironic…Pittsburgh ( which is more evangelicl)can’t go to Southern Cone because it has women priests. Yet The Anglo-catholic diocese can! So Southern Cone have opened… Read more »
I am trying to figure out why the Archbishop would regard the Southern Cone’s offer to San Joaquin and others as sensible when he did not seem to regard Venables’ annexation of the Diocese of Recife in Brazil as sensibile. The principle involved would seem to be the same.
“why the Archbishop would regard the Southern Cone’s offer to San Joaquin and others as sensible …..”
Take it from me Jim, I have it on the very highest authority, that Rowan thinks the Southern Cone “scheme” is a bag of dog doodoo …..
Anyone can play this game.
“that Rowan thinks the Southern Cone “scheme” is a bag of dog doodoo …..”
Having just ploughed through one of his books…. please tell me those are his own words!
Worth reading this from Dr Goddard
http://anglicantheologyethics.blogspot.com/2007/11/tecs-divisions_17.html
The lines are being drawn in this country as well. Council of General Synod is meeting, as are the “Network bishops” No surprise then about the timing of Don Harvey’s announcement. He is quoted in a local paper as saying that there will be an announcement from the Network this week that will be “an historic moment”. Now, given that the Anglican Church of Canada has never been all that large, I fail to see how what is obviously going to be an announcement of border crossings by the Southern Cone will be in any way “historic”, but that is… Read more »
Ford: “So what is his problem?” Hard to say. Strikes me it could be anything from honest theological dissent to foiled ambition. Did +Don ENL&L see himself as a potential Primate? I’m struck, at this moment and for no particular reason, by the notion that the uberLiberal Ingham of New Westminster was prepared to accept and submit to the election of the uberConservative Buckle of Yukon as Metropolitan of that province. All the more amazing since Buckle of Yukon had actually engaged in a bit of border-crossing of his own vis-a-vis the dissenting parishes in New West. And I am… Read more »
Well, it’s intereting that what seemed at first to be “the gay issue” has now, I believe more honestly, morphed into issues with the “direction the Church is taking”. It’s about conforming the Gospel to the world, did you notice that? I am always amused by that argument, as if it’s something new, we’ve never compromised the Gospel before. What way has this actually occurred? The HoB refused to authorize SSBs. Liturgical reform, though poorly done in this country I think, is fact. Women can be ordained. It was Harvey’s about face on that issue that brought about the OOW… Read more »
Primitive. That is the only word to describe this backwater “theology” and the resultant behavior. The west is now full into a postmodern world complete with quantum physics, and all its implications, facing world-wide problems such as global warming, starvation, war, and terrorism, and here these primitives scream about who dates who. Christian? I hardly think so.