Updated Thursday evening
Episcopal News Service has published a letter written to the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church, USA by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. In this letter she reviews and comments on process related to deposition, inhibition, renunciation and resignation of bishops.
The full text of the letter is at Presiding Bishop writes to House of Bishops on process, canons.
Update
The Living Church has published an article by George Conger headlined Memorandum Concludes Presiding Bishop is Subverting Constitution and Canons.
Thursday evening update
The Anglican Communion Institute has published the “Presentment Memorandum” mentioned in the above report, read the full text here.
Clear, concise, and yes, COMPASSIONATE: God bless our PB! 🙂
This is nothing more than an admission that the canons were trampled. Saying “the canons are what I say they are” won’t cut it. Lawyer after lawyer, on the reappraiser side(!), has disavowed the violations.
I am indeed very happy that KJS showed such disregard for them. When the violations come under scrutiny of outside legal authorities, which they will when she moves forward with the lawsuits in California, it will raise an unholy stench.
JCF, I ask you to carry out this exercise: Go back and read Ms Shori’s Easter message – shallow ramblings. Now, re-read this current statement, a subtle legal brief. Do you honestly, for a second, believe that she wrote it? That she would put her name on the end of it constitutes outright plagiarism.
Apparently the deposition “shoes” are beginning to pinch.
robroy: Why do you rejoice? I cannot see any joy in this situation regardless of the legitimacy of the PB’s actions.
Living Church has done what sensationalist TV news and newspapers always do when a lawsuit is filed: they run the accusations contained in a complaint or indictment without including sufficient legal or factual context to be fully understood by the reader or viewer, and without waiting to hear (or caring to include) the other side of the argument. Let’s not compound the error here, friends: this “Memo” is merely a brief on behalf of the anti-Katherine, anti-Robinson, anti-inclusion crowd that states accusations against her. She has responded to these accusations in other forums, and will no doubt do so again.
Interesting that we seem to have an organised phalanx of conservatives from Stand Firm, even though there is barely as liberal poster left there….all been banned!
Yet again, more grandstanding from the conservatives. They wish to leave their church – they should have the honesty not to try and nick the silver on their way out.
“JCF, I ask you to carry out this exercise: Go back and read Ms Shori’s Easter message – shallow ramblings. Now, re-read this current statement, a subtle legal brief. Do you honestly, for a second, believe that she wrote it? That she would put her name on the end of it constitutes outright plagiarism.” What nonsense. It’s only plagiarism if the author is unaware of it or has not given permission. If a lawyer or other staff member at TEC wrote this with the intention of having it come out over KJS’s signature, then it’s not plagiarism. That’s a regular,… Read more »
robroy, you may be so used to petty insults like “Ms Shori” from your prolific postings on conservative boards like StandFirm that they are now second nature to you, but they demean you more than her.
She is a Bishop and a Doctor of Philosophy and a Doctor of Divinity, so “Bishop Schori” or “Dr Schori” would be fine.
“Shallow ramblings” is a strange description of PB Schori’s writing style, coming as it does from a denizen of sites where the frankly pedestrian pronouncements of a certain Southern Cone Presiding Bishop are routinely greeted as though they were newly-discovered supplements to the Biblical canon.
Saw, by the way, where you got the official Sarah Hey’s “Tip of the Cap” a few weeks or so back for going out into the World, doing good work in dark places (here, I suppose?) Congratulations. I’m sure that we all appreciate it as well.
The most galling thing to me in the Conger article is the retreat to the use of the mantra “plain meaning.” Don’t they realize that most are aware that it really means “what I want it say,” interpreting in just the way they accuse others of doing? If meanings were always “plain” we would need neither theologians nor lawyers. Both professions have the fundamental principles of textual ambiguity and interpretation at their cores.
“Both professions have the fundamental principles of textual ambiguity and interpretation at their cores.”
Lawyers do.
Headline accusations by George Conger may cause Robroy to rejoice, but they cause me to want to know: (a) the names of the “consortium of bishops and church leaders” who commissioned the “legal memorandum”; (b)the name of the legal “authority” who wrote it; and (3)the full contents of the 7000 word document. Perhaps Robroy has seen this document and could point us to a reference where we can read it and be enlightend by a reading of this “legal opinion” authored by an unknown “authority” who was commissioned by an unidentified “consortium of bishops and [so-called] church leaders.” Also, could… Read more »
I think that we may have missed the point; the assembly of the Diocese in question VOTED to remove itself from the authority of the Episcopal Church. This is and was Church democracy and KJS has no right to overturn that decision because she does not agree with it. If we live in a democratic Church we should have the courage to stand by that democracy and allow these Dioceses to continue their ministry under a different authority. It was NOT Bishop Scofield who removed the Diocese, it was the ELECTED body of the Diocese to took the vote; we… Read more »
Mr. Conger has repeatedly misrepresented the course of proceedings in the Diocese of Los Angeles’s suit against St. James Newport Beach et al. I have read many of the pleadings and briefs in that case, attended oral argument at the Court of Appeal, and have read and digested the Court of Appeal’s decision, and all of the cases cited in that decision. Mr. Conger’s “reporting” regarding that case are no more or less than acting as a press agent for the attorneys for St. James. He may possibly be capable of understanding what’s going on, but it’s clear he has… Read more »
I was once of the opinion George Conger valued a reputation for fair and accurate reporting, but as Richard Zevnick says, in recent years his style has become – well, just as he describes.
Sadly this has left many still believing his present offerings are reasonably balanced even if told from the conservative perspective – and they are deceived
Mark Wharton wrote: This is and was Church democracy and KJS has no right to overturn that decision because she does not agree with it. If we live in a democratic Church we should have the courage to stand by that democracy and allow these Dioceses to continue their ministry under a different authority. For good or ill, Mark, the Episcopal Church is not democratic in that sense, any more than it is congregational. It is republican in structure (in the technical, not partisan, sense), and arguably a parliamentary republic, with more accountability to the central body of the General… Read more »
“I think that we may have missed the point; the assembly of the Diocese in question VOTED to remove itself from the authority of the Episcopal Church.”
You could as well argue, Mark Wh., that the Confederate States voted to leave the USA (or that the Germans voted to invade Poland!). It doesn’t change the facts that an unconstitutional, uncanonical vote is, BY DEFINITION, null&void!
“It was NOT Bishop Scofield who removed the Diocese, it was the ELECTED body of the Diocese to took the vote; we should standby their right and the right of any diocese to do the same.”
Weren’t they misled into this?
Or at least the Standing Committée seemed to claim so after the fact…
To Robert: Actually, the report of the memorandum by Mr. Conger not relevant for my ebullience. Numerous reappraising lawyers had already condemned the violations of canon law. I was worried that KJS might simply call another meeting and “do things right.” Fortunately, this missive gives evidence that she apparently feels that she cannot veer from the present course of folly. Fr Jake, David Booth Beers, KJS can try attempt verbal contortions to twist the plainly stated words but it doesn’t matter. This will end up being subjected to legal scrutiny by neutral third parties who will make short work of… Read more »
“the assembly of the Diocese in question VOTED to remove itself from the authority of the Episcopal Church. This is and was Church democracy”
Try this one: “the sovereign state of South Carolina VOTED to secede from the Union. This is and was democracy.”
Surely you remember how that one turned out.
Another parallel: South Carolina is too small to be its own country, and too big to be its own insane asylum.
“I think that we may have missed the point; the assembly of the Diocese in question VOTED to remove itself from the authority of the Episcopal Church. This is and was Church democracy and KJS has no right to overturn that decision because she does not agree with it.” Nobody–not even KJS–is saying they can’t go; she’s saying they can’t take TEC’s property with them…and that includes the intellectual property (if you will) of the name “Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin”. That all belongs to TEC and to those inhabitants of the SJ Diocese who wish to remain affiliated with… Read more »
“It was NOT Bishop Scofield who removed the Diocese, it was the ELECTED body of the Diocese to took the vote; we should standby their right and the right of any diocese to do the same.”-M. Wharton
The body, what they might want to call themselves have the right to do whatever they please. And they can go find some old storefront, airport hanger or high school gym for their schismatic bigoted bunch.
Robroy, you’ve wandered off into the bizarre.
I’ll agree that +KJS’s Easter message was weak. There was nothing wrong with what was there. (Environment good.) But there was a lot missing – like, oh, the resurrection.
However, it is not uncommon in the real world that the rest of us populate to have various people draft correspondence for our signature.
In fact, if Archdeacon Tunde could admit that someone besides Archbishop Akinola occasionally pens things for him as well, then they wouldn’t look so silly with non-credible denials.