Updated Monday Tuesday Wednesday and Saturday
Two years ago, the Rector, Senior Warden and Vestry of Calvary Church filed suit against the Bishop and Assistant Bishop of Pittsburgh, and various members of the Standing Committee and Board of Trustees of the Diocese. This past week, Joseph James, President Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County signed a court order, which rendered as binding an “amicable agreement” between the Defendants and the Plaintiffs…
Read the whole article in the Calvary parish magazine here
Read the court order here (PDF)
Read the press release of PEP here
There is as yet no now a mention of this matter at the Pittsburgh diocesan website.
Saturday The diocesan website now contains further interpretative commentary in Diocese Offers Perspective on Settlement
Nor from the NACDAP, which is also mentioned specifically in the settlement, see this quote from the PEP release:
The agreement also deals with an important point not raised in the original lawsuit. The diocese has agreed that parishes may decline membership in the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes. The Network, headed by Bishop Duncan, is a small collection of dioceses and parishes scattered throughout the Episcopal Church that have isolated themselves from the more moderate elements of the church. Ten parishes in the Diocese of Pittsburgh have indicated their unwillingness to participate in the Network, and PEP hopes that this stipulation will encourage others to make similar declarations.
Tuesday
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a report by Steve Levin which is headlined
Lawsuit settlement upholds canon law of Episcopal Church.
The Pittsburgh Tribune Review has Diocese, parish settle suit.
Wednesday
The Living Church reports this also: Pittsburgh Property Case Settled.
Well, I can’t imagine how this could have turned out better for the loyal Episcopalians in Pittsburgh – esp. considering this Diocese is the home of the infamous Geoff Chapman, author of the schismatic “Chapman memo.” (see Simon’s excellent report on this in the archives)
I am *so* blogging this tomorrow… 🙂
Hmmm: I’m not so sure, Simeon. Some important safeguards have been recognized for Calvary (et al), true. However, the decision still anticipates “even if a majority of the parishes in the Diocese might decide not to remain in the Episcopal Church of the United States of America” (or, according to the Calvary website’s characterization “Otherwise put, this means that in the event that some congregations leave ECUSA”). Call me an “Anglican ultramontanist” (if you will *g*), but I simply DO NOT ACCEPT THIS. *People* can leave their parishes, but *parishes* CANNOT leave the ***Episcopal*** Church! [This is not to say… Read more »
I suspect that JCF has spotted the problem lurking here. Bp Duncan has been *reasonable* in coming to a *mutual agreement* to enable his dissenting parishes to leave if they want.. Something no nice liberal ECUSA bishop would ever countenance, it seems!!
Here’s another revision for the Much Revised American Episcopal Version: “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a conservative church to leave the kingdom of ECUSA”!
Dave: Get real! “Reasonable” and “mutual” are definitely not adjectives one could ever ascribe to “Slash and Burn” Bob Duncan. His game plan from Day One has been to implode ECUSA and ransack the store. Passing a diocesan council resolution saying that if you don’t like what GC does you can locally nullify it hardly sounds reasonable to me. The Chapman Memo (which came out of Diocese of Pittsburgh by one of Bob’s people) is certainly not mutual. What surprises me is why a presentment hasn’t been made against Duncan, Iker, and Co. for abandoning the communion. By the way,… Read more »
“Bp Duncan has been *reasonable* in coming to a *mutual agreement* to enable his dissenting parishes to leave if they want..” But +Duncan’s dissenters have NEVER been interested in leaving, and he knows it. It would seem that +Duncan’s strategy is changing (I’m not sure exactly which way, at this point). Hopefully, he’s seen the writing on the wall of the Dennis Canon, and is planning on keeping-on, keeping-on in ECUSA (and continuing to annoy the living daylights out of the majority ;-/). I’m afraid, however, that he will leave the *ECUSA Diocese of Pittsburgh* (to form some as-yet-to-be-determined jurisdiction… Read more »
Peter is right, Dave. “Parishes don’t “leave.” People leave.” And just as it would be wrong for my parish to leave the Diocese of Dallas and try to take our property with us (as much as I’d dearly love to see that sometimes…), it’d be equally wrong for +Duncan & his AAC cronies to try and leave with things which *don’t belong* to them. That pesky 8th Commandment gets in the way, don’t ya know…
JCF wrote ” if the recalcitrant minority—within ECUSA as a whole—leaves, then some parishes will have to be closed”
Dear JCF, That is exactly the attitude that Bp Duncan exposed as intransigent and spiteful! Liberal ECUSA would rather see orphaned churches and empty buildings…. “There is no-one so blind….”
“What surprises me is why a presentment hasn’t been made against Duncan, Iker, and Co. for abandoning the communion.”–Peter
Indeed! What are people waiting for, GC 2006?
Dave, you have to understand where I’m coming from:
+Duncan&Co = homophobia
homophobia = *evil*
Seen in that light (though I have infinite patience to work through these issues with all Episcopalians ***within the democratic polity of ECUSA***), then why *wouldn’t* I prefer to see schismatic congregations closed, than carry on the work of the Father of Lies? Seen from my POV (God help me, I *hope* it’s the Gospel), it’s only logical.
Dear JCF I don’t think Bp Duncan is a *homophobe*, any more than homosexuals are just *perverts*.
Accusations of *evil* are easy to throw around! But hardly “full of grace and truth”…
What he has agreed to is gracious!
Dave wrote: “Dear JCF I don’t think Bp Duncan is a *homophobe*,…What he has agreed to is gracious!” Dave, Duncan has got you snowballed. Maybe Duncan doesn’t hate gays, maybe he does. But, to call his actions “gracious” requires either being drunk or high. Duncan is a snake. Have you forgotten the Chapman Memo? Nothing terribly “gracious” about that. Everything Duncan is doing is “under the table” so he can implode ECUSA and have Akinola name him Pope of the Neo-Puritans in North America. If Duncan were gracious, he’d resign…now. I read somewhere else that Via Media is preparing a… Read more »
Dear Dave: you’re welcome to your opinion.
But as far as *this homo* is concerned, *I* (not the ‘phobes) am going to DEFINE “homophobia”!
If I “throw around accusations of evil”, I hope I do so *only* following the example (and infused with the Spirit) of Christ (and if I don’t—Lord have mercy!)
“I read somewhere else that Via Media is preparing a strategy to take down Duncan, Iker, and Co. after GC 2006 in case of a “worse case scenario” by the ACC and Network. I hope Duncan is #1 on the presentment list.”–Peter
Amen!!!
I really find it hard to understand the venom directed against the Bishop of Pittsburgh. (Almost as hard as I find it to understand the way “Septic Tanks” pronounce his diocese!)
From what I can gather, he’s the kind of bloke that Forward in Faith UK would regard as unsound on ordaining the ladies, but otherwise OK, like +John Ebor:, +Pete Willesden, +Thomas Dunelm: or +Michael Roffen: – certainly not an ultra-conservative.
Alan Harrison wrote: “I really find it hard to understand the venom directed against the Bishop of Pittsburgh…. From what I can gather, he’s the kind of bloke that Forward in Faith UK would regard as unsound on ordaining the ladies, but otherwise OK, like +John Ebor:, +Pete Willesden, +Thomas Dunelm: or +Michael Roffen: – certainly not an ultra-conservative.” Dear Alan, it’s all part of the *warm-up* to the attempted “outlawing” of the NACDAP and AAC by ECUSA’s liberals and a legal grap for the dioceses and parishes. Just Ad-hominem attacks to undermine the authority of the leaders, especially the… Read more »