Katie Sherrod reports this message was issued yesterday evening:
Sent: Saturday, August 16, 2008 9:42 PM
Cc: Bishop Iker
Subject: Ad Clerum: StatementTo the clergy,
The following statement has been released jointly by Canon Charles Hough, Fr. William Crary, Fr. Christopher Stainbrook, and Fr. Louis Tobola in reference to the document released earlier this week concerning a June meeting between them and Bishop Kevin Vann.
Bishop Iker and the Standing Committee have asked that it be conveyed to you via Ad Clerum. It will be sent to all convention delegates and alternates as well.
Suzanne Gill
+++++
From: Fathers Crary, Hough, Stainbrook, and Tobola
Date: August 16, 2008
To: The Clergy and People of the DioceseWe wish to emphasize:
1. That the documents and our conversation with Bishop Vann solely ever represented the four priests named.
2. In retrospect, we regret our choice of timing for starting these conversations.
3. We deeply regret the phraseology of the document which has caused hurt and division.
4. We remain fully committed to the goal of this Diocese, as plainly stated by Bishop Iker, to realign with an Orthodox Anglican Province.Respectfully submitted,
The Very Rev. William A Crary, Jr.
The Rev. Canon Charles A. Hough, III
The Very Rev. Christopher C. Stainbrook
The Rev. Louis L. Tobola, Jr.
To see the earlier document mentioned, go here.
And there is another interesting document on the Fort Worth website, titled FAQs on “Fiduciary Duty”.
Hmm the preps in Fort Worth and Pittsburg are fascinating to watch, shifting, flowing, back and forth. I read the chancellor’s argument to be that, whatever views one may hold about the ethics of violating bonds and commitments of trust between, say, the diocese and TEC – the law will properly shelter those involved in a breach by defining that the diocesan-provincial relationship does not rise to the high Texas status of being a ficudiary trust. If liberals or progressive believers were depending on this sort of clever parsing – so clearly indebted to state law where the diocese is… Read more »
“We remain fully committed to the goal of this Diocese, as plainly stated by Bishop Iker, to realign…”
It does make one wonder why xIker has not been deposed from TEC already.
Lord have mercy!
…..Hmm the preps in Fort Worth and Pittsburg are fascinating to watch, shifting, flowing, back and forth.
Describes waves on the seashore….but alas Storms are coming.
What is truly amusing is that Pittsburgh is quite low church, Calvinistic and evangelical, in the tradition that formed Trinity Seminary Ambridge. Fr. Worth, from what I have learned, is anything but. Lots of smoke and no girl zone, unlike “Quitsburgh”. And yes, it is getting tiresome to keep hearing “orthodox” Anglicans. I suspect that many of us on this site have forgotten more of the Coverdale Psalter of the 1928 (1662?) book that most of them would even remember.
Rowan has already shown us with some flair and panache that one may believe one thing and do another.
‘I read the chancellor’s argument to be that, whatever views one may hold about the ethics of violating bonds and commitments of trust between, say, the diocese and TEC – the law will properly shelter those involved in a breach by defining that the diocesan-provincial relationship does not rise to the high Texas status of being a ficudiary trust.
If liberals or progressive believers were depending on this sort of clever parsing … ‘
I asked last Tuesday on an earlier thread, “Can anyone imagine an outcome in which Jack Iker will settle for a solution in which he will no longer be a bishop?” Here are four of his clergy – some of his strongest supporters – wolfing down crow – “regret”, “deeply regret” – to prove the point.
The flaw in http://www.fwepiscopal.org/resources/fiduciary.html
is:” are not trustees of a VALID trust in favor of TEC” (emphasis supplied)
The whole memo rests on the Dennis Canon and its predecessors being invalid
This item in the recantation ‘4. We remain fully committed to the goal of this Diocese, as plainly stated by Bishop Iker, to realign with an Orthodox Anglican Province.’ cannot coexist logically with the existence of direct dialogue between the four priests and the local RCC ordinary. Unless the future contains two realities: the diocese aligning with some Orthodox Anglican Province, but without these priests who have moved to Rome Sweet Home.
I doubt very much if the ‘Anglican’ churches in Africa would have put up with so much from one of their bishops. They seem to depose or discipline bishops very quickly and very easily for far less. Perhaps this IS an area where we should tow the African line?
…..Hmm the preps in Fort Worth and Pittsburg are fascinating to watch, shifting, flowing, back and forth.
When you say “preps”, do you mean preparations, or preppys (people who went to prep school, or at least live like they did, including not a few Episcopalians), or do you mean pERps, for perpetrators?
Conifer, like you, many of us are ‘pining’ to try to find something sensible coming out of this mini-fiasco in Pittsburg. Commentator is right when he says that the African Primates would never countenance such ‘insurrection’ from one of their diocesan bishops. There is the well-known case of one of the Primates ‘de-frocking’ one of his diocesan bishops, merely because he had the temerity to usggest that the sexuality issue ought to be discussed, and that homosexuals should be listened to. Had Iker been a rebel (with or without a cause) in Africa, he would have been disposed of very… Read more »
“While it is our hope that TEC does not file frivolous lawsuits, we cannot guarantee that it will refrain from such a sad and abusive course of action”. With reference to the above statement, appearing over the signature of the Diocesan Chancellor of Fort Worth, one wonders whether he might consider the action of the Diocesan and his cohorts to be other than ‘a sad and abusive course of action’ – in their vilificiation of their national Church body and expecting that Church to be nice to them by handing over the property that has been paid for by past… Read more »
“Orthodox Anglican Province”
There ain’t no such creature.
Told you so..it was too good to be true.
all this talk of mass exodus to Rome whether it be in Fort Worth or England is pie in the sky.
Somehow the vision of the old lady schoolmarm/wicked witch of the west pedaling away on her old bike with Toto in the basket comes to mind, while the Texas twister slowly winds up over the horizon.