This document is signed by the following nine persons:
Most Rev Dr Peter J. Akinola (Nigeria)
Most Rev Dr Bernard Amos Malango (Central Africa)
Most Rev Dr John Chew Hiang Chea (South East Asia)
Most Rev Ian Ernest (Indian Ocean)
Most Rev Dr Mouneer Hanna Anis (Jerusalem and the Middle East)
Most Rev Emmanuel Musaba Kolini (Rwanda)
Most Rev Justice Ofei Akrofi (West Africa)
Most Rev Henry Luke Orombi (Uganda)
Most Rev Dr Fidèle Dirokpa (Congo)
The full text can be found here.
Communiqué of the Global South Primates, Shanghai, October 30, 2007
1. The visit of the Global South Primates to the People’s Republic of China has given us an opportunity to meet and reflect on the present situation facing the Anglican Communion and what we have to do to move forward while remaining grounded in the Word of God and preserving its catholicity and apostolicity.
2. We are saddened that all the decisions and recommendations made at the several meetings of the Primates since 2003 and the Windsor Report have not been duly respected. In view of the current crisis, it is imperative to call for faithfulness to the Word and the tradition we have received, and move to build up a momentum for the transformation of our common life. We see the crisis as a call to an Anglican renewal of faith as part of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church, and to move forward in mission and evangelism within the wider church and the world.
3. Since the colonial past, no consolidation of the essence of communion has been made on the part of the Mother Church and of the churches in the West. What is at stake is the very nature of Anglicanism – not just about sexuality but also about the nature of Christ, the truth of the Gospel and the authority of the Bible. We reject the religion of accommodation and cultural conformity that offers neither transforming power nor eternal hope.
4. There is today an urge to reject subservience and call for mutual responsibility. The Instruments of Communion should be given the needed attention so that they can really enable mutual respect and faithfulness to what holds us together – the faith once delivered to the saints. Our call is to work towards the equipping of God’s people so that we can be a faithful people of God and for God.
5. We are experiencing a sense of belonging in the spirit of communion in the Global South. This strengthens the structures that facilitate cooperation, conversation and accountability.
6. It is clear to us that the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church (TEC) has not given an unequivocal response to the requests of the Primates at Dar es Salaam. Therefore we affirm the conclusion that the Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa (CAPA) has reached in the communiqué of their meeting in Mauritius in October 2007 that “a change in direction from our current trajectory is urgently needed” because “we want unity but not unity at any expense”.
7. In view of our desire to move forward:
7.1 We call for an urgent meeting of the Primates to receive and conclude the draft Anglican Covenant and to determine how the Communion should move forward;
7.2 We urge that the proposed Lambeth Conference 2008 be postponed to a later date when bishops of all the provinces in the Communion can participate in a spirit of true collegiality and unity in the faith;
7.3 We request the Steering Committee to start preparations for the 4th Encounter of the Global South in 2008;
7.4 We receive with thanks the report of the Economic Empowerment Consultation in Accra, Ghana, in September 2007, and encourage the Task Force to continue to develop programmes to help our churches to be increasingly self-supporting;
7.5 We commend the work of the Theological Education and Formation Task Force, especially the drafting of the Anglican Catechism in Outline (ACIO), and urge our dioceses to make it available to all strata of leadership in preparation for its formal adoption in the first quarter of 2008;
7.6 We call upon bishops of the Global South and the Anglican Communion to write to their churches to explain the current situation and ask them to pray for the Communion at this crucial time which would lead to reformation and transformation.
8. We give thanks to God for the life and ministry of the following Primates who will be retiring in 2007 and we pray that they will have a blessed retirement:
“I… urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.” (Jude 3)
81 CommentsAn open letter to my fellow Primates.
53 CommentsGrace and peace to you from God our Father and our One and Only Saviour Jesus, the Christ.
I write on the 490th anniversary of that moment in Church history when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Cathedral in Wittenberg in which he asserted, among other things, that the truth of the gospel must always take precedence over the structures of the church. It is becoming increasingly clear that we are facing a similar situation today. While it has been my hope that we would be able to share these reflections face to face it seems unlikely that we will be called to meet together in the near future and so I offer these thoughts by letter.
It has been repeatedly stated and most succinctly summarized in the report, ‘Road to Lambeth’ we face a two fold crisis in the Anglican Communion: a crisis of doctrine and a crisis of leadership, in which the failure of the “Instruments” of the Communion to exercise discipline has called into question the viability of the Anglican Communion as a united Christian body under the common foundation of faith. (See the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral)
The Church of Nigeria is not interested in territorial expansion. The failure to resolve these dual crises has been at the heart of the decision by our Church and a number of other Global South Provinces to offer encouragement and oversight to a growing number of clergy and congregations in the USA. These pastoral initiatives are not and should not be seen as the cause of the crises.
Although they have variously been described as “interventions” “boundary crossing” or “incursions” — they are a direct and natural consequence of the decision by The Episcopal Church (TEC) to follow the path that it has now chosen.
These pastoral initiatives undertaken to keep faithful Anglicans within our Anglican family has been at a considerable cost of crucial resources to our province. There is no moral equivalence between them and the actions taken by TEC. They are a heartfelt response to cries for help. We acted in accordance with the Gospel mandate. Had TEC, against all godly warnings, not taken actions that tore the fabric of our beloved Communion there would be no need for hundreds indeed, thousands of its members to seek pastoral, episcopal and now primatial care elsewhere.
It has been suggested that our actions violate historic Anglican polity and early church tradition with particular reference made to the Council of Nicea. This assertion is both hollow and made in bad faith since those who make it are more than willing to ignore historic biblical teaching on the uniqueness of Christ, the authority of the Scriptures and the call to moral obedience. With regard to Nicea – while there was concern for proper order there was even greater commitment to maintaining right teaching. This can be seen by the provision of godly bishops and clergy in places where the incumbents were proponents of false teaching.
The world needs to understand that the situation that we now confront is not primarily about structure or conferences but about irreconcilable truth claims. It is worth remembering that in the Biblical narratives religious structures have often been the enemy of revealed truth. When these structures become obstacles, YHWH, in his own way and at a time of his own choosing removed them and brought His people back to Himself. Of course there is value to preserving Anglican structures but we must never do so at the expense of the people for whom our Lord Jesus the Christ gave his life.
Until the Communion summons the courage to tackle that issue headlong and resolve it we can do no other than provide for those who cry out to us. It is our earnest prayer that repentance and reconciliation will make this a temporary arrangement. One thing is clear we will not abandon our friends.
When we met in Dar es Salaam, after a great deal of effort, we suggested a way forward that had the support of all those present – including the Presiding Bishop of TEC. The House of Bishops and Executive Committee of The Episcopal Church quickly rejected this proposal on the grounds that it apparently violated their canons. We now have a counter proposal from TEC and yet there is no indication that it will meet the needs of those for whom it is supposedly designed. This endless series of proposals and counter proposals continues with no apparent conclusion in sight. Sadly, it is becoming increasingly clear that the only acceptable end as far as TEC is concerned is the full capitulation of any who would stand in opposition to their biblically incompatible innovations- this we will never do. There is a way forward – we have written and spoken repeatedly about it – the time for action is now.
I believe that we Primates must meet in the next few months to respond to the crisis that now confronts us. The situation in The Episcopal Church is deteriorating rapidly. Lawsuits are escalating and I have just heard that Bishop Bob Duncan is now threatened with ecclesiastical trial by the Presiding Bishop for his faithful attempts to find a way to protect his faithful members and diocese. Other godly bishops are under the same threat. Their only crime is a desire to continue their Christian pilgrimage as faithful Anglicans. This situation will affect all of us. We dare not let our love for the historic structures of our beloved Communion, important as they are, allow us to destroy its future. We are losing members. We are losing time. We are losing our integrity as an important part of the One, holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
“Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision”. Joel 3:14
+Peter Abuja,
All Saints Day, 2007
Just two weeks to go before the InclusiveChurch residential conference, Drenched in Grace. A description of the programme can be found here.
Keynote speakers –
Over 15 workshops will cover the spectrum of Anglican concerns, from women in the episcopate to inclusive liturgy, and from the Millennium Development Goals to welcoming transgendered people.
Download the brochure with booking form (PDF) here.
34 CommentsA further report from Canada: in the Anglican Journal Solange de Santis writes that Bishops continue moratorium on same-gender blessings .
…Meanwhile, there was a general consensus that the bishops’ pastoral statement, issued last April, was useful, said Bishop Spence. Some liberals find it attractive as it permits them to celebrate a church service with a civilly-married gay couple; some conservatives appreciate the fact that it does not allow same-sex weddings or blessings and, in essence, continues a moratorium on blessing ceremonies first imposed by the bishops in 2005. (New Westminster responded to the moratorium by limiting blessings to eight parishes that had requested permission earlier.)
Integrity, a support group for gay Anglicans, wrote to Archbishop Hiltz asking that the house of bishops lift the moratorium. He said after the closed session that his response to Integrity will be that “the position of the house as outlined in the pastoral statement remains.” The bishops did not “entertain any changes” in it, he said…
That pastoral statement can be found in this page.
She reports in detail on how various dioceses feel about such blessings:
In terms of consultation, bishops Barry Clarke of Montreal and John Chapman of Ottawa each said they have not yet reached a decision on how they will act upon the votes of their synods. “It was useful to have a conversation with dioceses in the same position,” said Bishop Chapman, who added he wanted to see the decisions of the diocese of Niagara, whose Nov. 16-17 synod was scheduled to vote on the blessings issue. “I don’t want to act alone, but I don’t think I’ll need to. There is movement in the church (toward further acceptance of gay people); there is no going back.”
In open session, bishops discussed the reactions in several dioceses to the General Synod votes last June that said same-sex blessings do not contravene core church doctrine but declined to affirm dioceses’ authority to offer them. Reaction was fairly quiet in Western Newfoundland, Brandon (Manitoba) and Calgary, said their respective bishops, Percy Coffin, Jim Njegovan and Derek Hoskin.
Bishop Jim Cowan said seven priests in his diocese of British Columbia, angered that they may not offer same-sex blessings, signed a petition asking to have their permission to officiate at weddings withdrawn from the diocese and will make other provisions for marriages to take place at their churches.
Bishop Spence said the reaction in Hamilton, Ont.-based diocese of Niagara was a “firestorm” after General Synod. “There is frustration that Niagara, which has held the line, is not allowed to go forward (with same-sex blessings),” he said. If the matter arises again at synod, “my expectation is that I will not be able not to give my assent,” he said. (Niagara’s 2004 synod voted in favor of blessings, but Bishop Spence withheld his consent in favour of church unity.) On the other hand, the diocese contains clergy who lead the conservative Anglican Essentials group and was to be the location of a major meeting of that group in late November, after the synod. “If we are faced with parishes that decide to leave the diocese, we will need legal responses to that,” said Bishop Spence.
Read the whole article for what the bishops thought about the New Orleans meeting and JSC report thereon, and also on their concerns for the activities of a Canadian retired bishop who has participated in irregular consecrations of bishops who intend to minister to conservatives in the U.S.
33 CommentsEpiscopal Café has drawn attention to a dissertation on this topic:
Episcopal Church is not divisible
Bishops thinking of leading their dioceses out of The Episcopal Church seem to have missed lessons on church history somewhere along the line. The Diocese of Pittsburgh’s vote on Resolution 1, as reported in A House Dividing yesterday is based on the idea that Dioceses are free standing entities. This reading of history has no basis in fact according to scholars of American history.
In 1959, James Allen (Jim) Dator, Professor, and Director of the Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies, Department of Political Science, University of Hawaii at Manoa, wrote a dissertation on The Government of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America: Confederal, Federal, or Unitary? It was accepted by the Faculty of the Graduate School (School of Government) of The American University, Washington, DC, in 1959 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
The complete dissertation is here.
The whole Episcopal Café article is here. It summarises some key conclusions of the dissertation. In particular:
…after carefully reviewing the various drafts of a constitution for PECUSA, and the Church’s Constitution as adopted on October 2, 1789, I conclude two things:
(1) The Church’s constitution was NOT made in imitation of the US Constitution. Thus, while the US Constitution is a federal system, giving the states certain rights and the central government other rights, “there is not explicit in the Church’s Constitution of 1789 any definition of a division of powers [between the dioceses and the General Convention], even though the framers of that Constitution had models of both the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution before them” (p. 53).
(2) PECUSA was created as a unitary and not a federal government: “In summary, neither Bishop White’s “Case”, nor the “Fundamental Principles” of 1784, nor the “General Ecclesiastical Constitution” of 1785, nor the “General Constitution of 1786,” nor the Constitution of 1789 provided explicitly for a constitutional division of powers. Such a division of powers is an essential manifestation of both federal and confederal governments. Neither is there any other evidence to indicate that the Constitution is one of a confederation. Indeed, as far as the written Constitution is explicitly concerned, the Church’s government is unitary” (p. 54).
There is a lot more. Do read at least the whole of the Cafe article.
40 CommentsThe correspondence which started last January has recently resumed.
See the most recent letters:
Andrew to Giles on 16 September
Giles to Andrew on 3 November
This correspondence appears on both InclusiveChurch and Fulcrum. For the context see here.
25 CommentsThe Primate of Nigeria has told the Nigerian Tribune why “Nigerian bishops are insisting” on the postponement of next year’s Lambeth Conference. Curiously enough though, the headline uses the word may and the article also says
“According to Akinola, Nigerian bishops had not “fully decided” on whether they would attend.”
Why we may boycott Lambeth Conference – Akinola
From the official Nigerian provincial website: ‘WE MUST FORGET ABOUT BRITAIN’ NIGERIAN BISHOP TELLS ANGLICANS
And last month This Day gave strong editorial support to Nigeria: Akinola’s Anti-Gay Campaign.
60 CommentsThe Church of Nigeria announced previously that it had chosen four more American-based priests to be consecrated as CANA bishops, “at a date and place yet to be determined”.
A subsequent CANA announcement explained that:
Immediately following the Council (December 6-8), the consecration will be performed on Second Advent, December 9, 2007. Both events will be held in the northern Virginia region. The Council (December 6-8) will be hosted at Church of the Epiphany in Herndon, near Dulles Airport; stay tuned for an announcement regarding the site for the consecration (December 9).
Now, it has been announced that the consecration of those four is scheduled for December 9, a Sunday afternoon, at 2 PM at the Church of the Epiphany in Herndon, Virginia.
44 CommentsDave Walker of CartoonChurch fame is reporting fully on this story over at SPCK reports (latest), so just read it all there.
Update on Durham Cathedral SPCK, see this.
20 CommentsUpdated again Sunday morning
Episcopal News Service has a further detailed report, Pittsburgh convention approves first reading of constitutional changes.
The Living Church has an extremely short report.
Newspapers:
New York Times Pittsburgh Episcopal Diocese Votes to Leave the Church
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Episcopal Diocese votes to leave
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Episcopal bishop won’t ‘abandon’ his local sheep
Associated Press Pittsburgh Diocese backs a split
Press Releases:
Progresssive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh Chooses Path to Separation
Update
Apologies for the earlier erroneous information. I wrote earlier:
How close was this vote? Read this.
We have opened the way to seeking membership in another province of the Anglican Communion, should delegates so decide a year from now. But how significant a single vote can can be. We passed it 109-24 in the clerical order (the usual supermajority), but by 118 to 58 in the lay order (with one abstention). One switch from “aye” to “nay” and we would have lacked the requisite two-thirds majority…
This turns out to be incorrect. Only simple majorities are required. The Pittsburgh constitution reads:
7 CommentsArticle XV
Alteration of the Constitution
This Constitution, or any part thereof, may be altered in the following manner only: The proposed alteration or amendment shall be submitted in writing to the Annual Convention, and if approved by a majority of each Order, shall lie over to the next Annual Convention, and if again approved, by a majority of each Order, the Constitution shall then stand altered or amended as proposed.
Simon Barrow writes about a special feature this week on Religion and Public Life in the Economist . See The Predictable New Wars of Religion?
The Economist feature is here: In God’s name.
Jay Lakhani writes in the Guardian that All faiths must accept pluralism.
Jonathan Sacks appears twice today. In The Times he writes that The search for meaning must begin outside the self.
Over in the Daily Telegraph he is interviewed by Rachel Sylvester and Alice Thomson in Jonathan Sacks’s solution to family breakdown.
Also at the Daily Telegraph Christopher Howse asks Why should abortion be thought wrong?
In the Church Times Giles Fraser asks Is football in a moral bubble?
The Tablet has a review by Michael Northcott Americans Who Sing For Zion of two books, God’s Own Country and Allies for Armageddon.
18 CommentsThe Diocese of Pittsburgh has voted in favour of Resolution One, which starts out this way:
RESOLVED, that Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution of the Diocese of
Pittsburgh be, and it hereby is, amended and restated in its entirety to read as follows:The Church in the Diocese of Pittsburgh is a constituent member of the Anglican
Communion, a Fellowship within the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of those duly constituted Dioceses, Provinces and regional churches in communion with the See of Canterbury, upholding and propagating the historic Faith and Order as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer.RESOLVED FURTHER, that a new Section 2 of Article I of the Constitution of the Diocese of Pittsburgh be, and it hereby is, adopted to read as follows:
The Diocese of Pittsburgh shall have membership in such Province of the Anglican
Communion as is by diocesan Canon specified.
Read the rest of it in a PDF file here.
The diocesan press release about this says:
Clergy and deputies to the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh’s 142nd Annual Convention strongly approved a resolution that begins the process of amending the diocesan constitution. If the amendment passes a second reading, slated for November of 2008, a future diocesan convention would be able to realign the diocese to another province of The Anglican Communion if it so chose.
Deputies voted 118 to 58 with one abstention to approve the change. Clergy voted 109 to 24 in favor. An effort to instead return the diocese to full “accession” to The Episcopal Church was defeated by voice vote.
“This vote does not change the diocese’s current affiliation with The Episcopal Church. In fact, nothing at all changes until such a time as the next annual convention approves a second reading of the proposed amendment,” said Bishop Robert Duncan…
Bishop Duncan’s address to the convention can be found in full here.
His letter in reply to the one from the Presiding Bishop is as follows:
1st November, A.D. 2007
The Feast of All SaintsThe Most Revd Katharine Jefferts Schori
Episcopal Church Center
New York, New YorkDear Katharine,
Here I stand. I can do no other. I will neither compromise the Faith once delivered to the saints, nor will I abandon the sheep who elected me to protect them.
Pax et bonum in Christ Jesus our Lord,
+Bob Pittsburgh
Episcopal News Service has this report by Mary Frances Schjonberg: Pittsburgh bishop declines Presiding Bishop’s offer of reconciliation.
78 CommentsThere is a very detailed article by Auburn Faber Traycik in the Christian Challenge which is titled TEC: “Clarified All…Questions”?
Also, the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church passed a resolution at its recent meeting, which ENS reports on as follows:
10 CommentsAs it concluded its three-day fall meeting at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Dearborn, Michigan, the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church thanked the House of Bishops for its efforts that resulted in a statement to the Anglican Communion issued in September.
However, Council Resolution NAC026 said that where the bishops’ statement called “particular attention to the application of [General Convention] Resolution B033 to lesbian and gay persons, it may inappropriately suggest that an additional qualification for the episcopacy has been imposed beyond those contained in the constitution and canons of the church.”
Two new articles arising from the recent Williams/Howe correspondence:
PARISH IS THE BASIC UNIT OF THE CHURCH IN AMERICAN ANGLICANISM by Rev. Dr. Tim Smith and Rev. George Conger.
The Parish is the basic unit of the church in American Anglicanism. Local property rights prevailed throughout early American Anglicanism. Centralization of control using the corporate model which began to be used in the early 1900s – has failed the purposes of the Church. Any new order should return to the foundational roots of American Anglicanism…
The Archbishop’s Letter to Central Florida: Scarcely Innocuous by T.W. Bartel
26 CommentsOn 14 October 2007 the Archbishop of Canterbury wrote to Bishop John Howe of Central Florida full text here… The Archbishop appeared to remove the national church and province from any significant role in his understanding of Anglican polity. He also seemed to suggest that a ‘Windsor-compliant’ diocese would be in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury, separate from the relationship of the diocese to its province.
In a letter to Bishop Bob Duncan of Pittsburgh, by contrast, Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori makes very clear that the national church and its constitutional structures are a very sharp reality.
Timothy Bartel takes issue with the Archbishop:
What are we to think of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s recent letter to the Bishop of Central Florida, which asserts that ‘any diocese compliant with Windsor remains clearly in communion with Canterbury and the mainstream of the [Anglican] Communion, whatever may be the longer-term result for others in The Episcopal Church’? According to Lambeth Palace, that letter was ‘neither a new policy statement nor a roadmap for the future’ of the Communion. It was written simply to discourage conservative clergy and parishes in Central Florida and elsewhere from forsaking a ‘Windsor-compliant’ diocesan bishop and seeking refuge in foreign jurisdictions—and it simply repeats ‘a basic presupposition of what the archbishop believes to be the theology of the Church’, namely, that ‘theologically and sacramentally speaking, a priest is related in the first place to his or her bishop directly, not through the structure of the national church’…
Updated again Friday evening
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori on October 31 inhibited Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania Bishop Charles Bennison from all ordained ministry pending a judgment of the Court for the Trial of a Bishop. The Title IV Review Committee issued a presentment for conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy against Bennison on October 28.
Read the full ENS report: Pennsylvania bishop inhibited from ordained ministry.
The two counts of the presentment center on accusations that Bennison, when he was rector of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Upland, California, did not respond properly after learning sometime in 1973 that his brother, John, who worked as a lay youth minister in the parish, was having an affair with a 14-year-old member of the youth group. John Bennison was also married at the time, according to the presentment.
The bishop is accused of not taking any steps to end the affair, not providing proper pastoral care to the girl, not investigating whether she needed medical care, taking three years to notify the girl’s parents, not reporting his brother to anyone, not investigating whether his brother was sexually involved with any other parishioners or other children, and seeking no advice on how to proceed. The presentment says Charles Bennison reacted “passively and self-protectively.”
The second count of the presentment accuses Bennison of continuing to fail in his duties until the fall of 2006. John Bennison became ordained during this time and the bishop is accused of not preventing his brother’s ordination, or his ultimately successful application to be reinstated as a priest after having renounced his orders in 1977, or his desire to transfer from the Diocese of Los Angeles to the Diocese of California. John Bennison was forced in 2006 to renounce his orders again when news of his abuse became public.
Updates
The Standing Committee of the Diocese of Pennsylvania has issued a statement. TitusOneNine has a copy of it here.
Episcopal News Service has a detailed report: PENNSYLVANIA: Standing Committee upholds Presiding Bishop’s decision to inhibit bishop.
The Standing Committee website has more links.
55 CommentsKatharine Jefferts Schori Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church USA has written to Robert Duncan Bishop of Pittsburgh. The full text of this letter has been published by ENS and also appears here, below the fold.
According to Episcopal News Service similar letters will follow to other bishops who are actively seeking to withdraw their dioceses from the Episcopal Church.
Read the full report by Jan Nunley Presiding Bishop reaches out to bishops attempting to withdraw dioceses.
…Of those dioceses considering “realignment,” Springfield appears not to have yet acted, and Quincy declined in its recent diocesan convention to pass a proposed canonical revision.
Fort Worth’s convention, meeting November 14-15,is set to consider the first reading of a constitutional amendment that would remove accession to the Constitution and Canons of the church, as well several canonical amendments that eliminate mention of the name of the Episcopal Church. Jefferts Schori intends to send a letter to Bishop Jack Iker, who advocates these changes, before the convention notifying him that such a step would force her to take action to bring the diocese and its leadership into line with the mandates of the national Church.
A similar canonical change is set to come before the Diocese of Pittsburgh’s convention November 2-3, and Jefferts Schori has written to Pittsburgh’s bishop in this regard (see link to letter cited above).
In December the Diocese of San Joaquin is scheduled to hear the second and final reading of its constitutional accession amendment, a proposed act that may prompt “more dramatic action” beforehand…
A year ago, the Presiding Bishop also wrote to Bishop John-David Schofield of San Joaquin.
66 Comments