More from Tom Wright
An extremely long interview with Tom Wright conducted in June 2004 for the Living Church is now appearing on the interviewer’s blog:
I will add links here to the newly promised 7 when published.
Hat tip to KH for finding this.
Tom Wright Bishop of Durham issued a press release on 10 December, which currently appears only at this URL. Complete text below the fold.
1 CommentDavid Hope television interview
David Hope the Archbishop of York, was interviewed this morning on the BBC television programme Breakfast with Frost.
The transcript of the interview is here.
A newspaper report in today’s Sunday Times published in advance of the public transmission is here:
Britain can’t be called Christian, says archbishop
Jayne Ozanne radio interview
Jayne Ozanne, the author of the document reported on yesterday was interviewed this morning on the BBC Radio programme Sunday together with Bishop John Gladwin.
Listen here with Real Player. The interview lasts about 6 minutes.
BBC blurb:
0 CommentsNow if you are a Christian prepare to have your timbers shivered. This is your future, according to a senior Anglican.
“I see a time of great persecution coming, which will drive Christianity all but underground in the West. I believe this will primarily take the form of social and economic persecution, where Christians will be ridiculed for their faith and pressurised into making it a purely private matter. Meanwhile the established Church will continue to implode and self destruct”.
It’s a bleak picture- but there is a ray of light. The writer sees a new church arising – which will “fast become an underground resistance movement”.
The author of this vision is Jayne Ozanne who has just finished a 6 year stint on the Anglican Church’s Archbishops’ Council. Also speaking is the Bishop of Chelmsford, John Gladwin who is still a member of the Archbishops’ Council.
apocalypse when?
The Times has chosen to devote considerable space today to a confidential document leaked to them, addressed to the Archbishops’ Council, and written by Jayne Ozanne, who is completing a six-year stint as an appointed member of the Council.
Church faces implosion and life underground, says senior adviser
There is also a background note on the author:
Brilliant career of evangelist marketing expert
Ms Ozanne attends this parish in the Diocese of London.
and more significantly a leader article:
Lost souls – An apocalyptic warning from within the Church of England
Extracts from both the news article and the leader column below the fold.
10 CommentsAnswerable to Parliament
Sir Stuart Bell is the Second Church Estates Commissioner. The work of the Church Commissioners as a whole is described here. As part of the Commissioners’ accountability to Parliament, MPs may ask the Commissioners questions in the House of Commons. This task is performed by the Second Church Estates Commissioner, who is an elected Member of the House of Commons.
There is a new website, still in beta, TheyWorkForYou.com, which makes reading Hansard much easier. Recent entries for the Second Church Estates Commissioner in the House of Commons look like this:
6 December 2004
Written answers: Church Commissioners
This system would be even more useful if it were to be applied to the speeches of bishops in the House of Lords.
0 CommentsRobin Eames interview
Update
On Friday 10 December, Robin Eames issued this statement:
“I have been dismayed that certain remarks of mine in a telephone interview with the Church of England Newspaper have been taken completely out of context to mean I believe the Windsor Report will not have much effect. Nothing could be further from my hopes and convictions for the Windsor Report which contains the unanimous recommendations of the Lambeth Commission after a year’s prayerful work. Those unanimous recommendations are already receiving widespread and thoughtful study and response. They will now go to the Primates Meeting in February with my full endorsement as Chairman of the Commission. Some of the recommendations relate to long-term adjustments to the way we do things as Anglicans and will need a process of continued study and discussion. Other unanimous recommendations relate to immediate problems and need to be implemented by the Primates. I would again emphasise that the Lambeth Commission Report contains the unanimous recommendations of a widely representative body of Anglicans from around the world. The Report has my full support and endorsement as Chairman of the Lambeth Commission and represents my own personal views on the problems facing the Anglican Communion at this time.”
The Church of England Newspaper has a major story this week: an interview with Robin Eames.
The interview is on the CEN website in two parts:
Robin Eames: The Eternal Optimist, part 1
Robin Eames: The Eternal Optimist, part 2
There is also a news report based on the same material:
American Church ‘never likely to face discipline’
One of Anglicanism’s most senior leaders has signalled that the American Church is never likely to face discipline for its decision to consecrate the Anglican Communion’s first practising gay bishop.
The Irish Primate, Archbishop Robin Eames, warned that the Communion’s conservative provinces should not expect calls to be answered for the American Church and diocese of New Westminster, which authorised same-sex blessing rites, to be punished.
In an interview with The Church of England Newspaper, Archbishop Eames, the Chair of the Lambeth Commission, urged the warring factions to avoid recriminations and look to the future.
Dr Eames, the Archbishop of Armagh, said: “I would welcome decisions [at February’s Primates’ meeting] more if they’re directed to how we deal with the nature of Communion rather than reiterating ‘they did something wrong’ or ‘they didn’t express regret’.
“I think we need to move on in terms of what have we learned from this – I’m a great believer in trying to learn the lessons of these things. I think we must move on.”
Primates from the Global South had demanded the expulsion of the American Church and New Westminster diocese if they refused to repent for their actions, but the Windsor Report took no action against them.
“Expulsion was one of the things that confronted us,” Archbishop Eames said. “We didn’t fudge the issues, but I have to be a realist and recognise that maybe there won’t be expressions of regret.”
The African Church is preparing to become self-sufficient in a bid to separate itself from Western liberalising influences and has planned to build more of its own theological colleges. Its Primates have vowed to continue crossing provincial boundaries to provide pastoral oversight to orthodox parishes ostracised by their liberal Church.
Archbishop Eames said that the meeting of Primates in February would mark the start of attempts to implement the Windsor Report, but conceded that the homosexuality crisis had changed the Anglican Church.
“We’re going to have to take some decisions on some of the proposals on the Windsor Report. The Council of Advice, [for example], needs to be looked at. We’ll need to see if people have moved on in their thinking from the positions that they took up before the Windsor Report was published.
“I’d have hoped that what the report has drawn attention to will provide a clearer roadmap as to how to deal with other differences that arise in the future. Those differences are going to come as the world develops and the Church develops and the Communion develops. There are going to be issues that will divide.
An extract from the interview itself is below the fold.
3 CommentsACI responses to Mark Dyer
Earlier I posted an article with links to two very lengthy presentations (one transcribed, one in audio only) by Mark Dyer, who was the only ECUSA member of the Lambeth Commission, about the Windsor Report. I noted there that conservatives had reacted strongly against his interpretations, with both ACI and IRD publishing responses.
Today ACI has published a further lengthy article by Andrew Goddard: A Critique of Mark Dyer’s Explanation of the Windsor Report, as recorded at Virginia Seminary (note that the October date on this page is self-evidently incorrect)
The ACI has also very usefully published A Complete Compendium of Tom Wright on Windsor which includes all his recently published articles on the topic, plus some additional comments not previously seen. This is item 5 in the compendium, about two-thirds down the page. The page also includes a sermon preached on 31 October, and a copy of Oliver O’Donovan’s article ‘The Only Poker Game in Town’ which can be found on the Fulcrum website but only as a pdf file.
0 Commentstrouble in Harare
The Church Times reports this week on this.
CAMPAIGNERS against the pro-Mugabe Bishop of Harare, the Rt Revd Nolbert Kunonga, are increasing pressure to have him brought to trial in a church court.
Charges were filed against the Bishop, including one for incitement to murder, in October 2003 (see below). The Archbishop charged with forming the court, the Most Revd Bernard Malango, has so far been unable to do so, despite constant pressure from those who say that the Bishop is bringing the Church into disrepute.
It emerged on Tuesday that lawyers for the campaigners have now applied to a secular court to compel Archbishop Malango to bring proceedings against Bishop Kunonga…
Courts used to end delays over bishop
A further article featuring a interview with Pauline Makoni will not appear on the Church Times website until later. I will add the link here in due course.
Meanwhile similar details are contained in the BBC radio report on the Sunday programme. Listen with Real Audio here.
3 CommentsIt’s not only President Robert Mugabe and the Government of Zimbabwe which is mired in controversy, the Anglican bishop of Harare is being taken to court by some members of his diocese. They say it is a last resort as the Anglican communion has let them down by refusing to act against the Bishop. They accuse Bishop Kunonga of falsifying minutes, withholding church finance records and even of incitement to murder. It has been alleged that the pro-Mugabe Bishop diverted 1.3 million dollars into an account of which he was the sole signatory and that in October 2003 he seized a white owned farm close to the city, evicting black workers in order to move his son into the 2,000 acre property. Pauline Makoni is a lay councillor at the Harare Cathedral and one of those involved in the campaign. Roger [Bolton] asked her how much support she’d received from the people in the diocese of Harare for her actions. So why can’t the Anglican Communion do more to help Pauine Makoni and the Harare diocese? We asked the Anglican Consultative Council for an interview but no-one was available to comment. However Roger is joined by the Bishop of Southwark, Tom Butler whose own diocese has links with churches in Zimbabwe.
Improvisation: the Drama of Christian Ethics
In The Times yesterday Stephen Plant wrote about a book by Samuel Wells, previously published in the USA,
Improvisation: the Drama of Christian ethics whose British edition is imminent.
Stephen Plant’s article can be read in full here: How to face moral problems in a fluid world.
An extract is below the fold.
Nick Ralph writes:
0 CommentsI thought this was a tremendously helpful insight into our ethical decision-making as Christians. We need to be reminded that what we are often trying to negotiate is not easy. Whether conservative or liberal, there are often no Biblical verses which will immediately supply an answer to complex issues in a modern world. All we can do then, as this article suggests, is to rehearse, and dance perhaps like Sydney Carter’s Lord of the dance, trying to learn the way the steps work so that we can improvise new steps in the ethical theatre in which we now play. I cannot help but find it appealing and wonder if it might perhaps help us, at least to understand each other better, in the plays we are currently trying to interpret.
David Hope warns of "implosion" risk
The Archbishop of York, Dr David Hope, has warned that the Anglican church is on the brink of “implosion” over the divisive issues of the ordination of homosexual clergy and women bishops.
In an interview with The Telegraph on the eve of his retirement as the second most important clergyman in the Church of England, Dr Hope, 64, said that the Church’s “fundamental Christian message” was in danger of being lost in the midst of disagreement over differences that were “neither here nor there”.
Here is the key passage from the interview:
“What I do worry about is whether or not by so concentrating all our hopes and energies on these two particular issues, we are imploding on ourselves,” he said. “If you take people back to the Christological controversies of the first five centuries of the church, there were huge fallings out. Have we not learned the lessons from that? At the end of the day, what is the business of the church? It’s about bringing people to Jesus Christ and about living the life of Jesus Christ. Whatever the divisions, those are the key issues.
“The infighting puts off both young and old people. If it [the Church of England] doesn’t see this in a much larger context of the whole Christian doctrine of creation, redemption and sanctification, it will allow itself to implode on these two issues. We need to turn ourselves outwards.
“If you go to a hospice where they’re working with the dying, they’re not asking you whether you’re in favour of women bishops or whether you’re gay or any of this, that or the other. The important thing is that the work of the persons there actually engages.”
The full article:
Church is imploding, says Archbishop of York
Press Association report based on this:
Church ‘About to Implode’ over Gays and Women, Archbishop Warns
Update
A good review of David Hope’s views on various topics can be found in this blog entry by Fr Jake.
Los Angeles: Orombi's reply to Bruno
Uganda is a long way from Los Angeles, but yet was close enough to Pittsburgh for Archbishop Henry Orombi to have been a guest at their diocesan convention on 5/6 November, see picture here.
The full text of Archbishop Orombi’s reply to Bishop Bruno’s letter, dated 3 November, inviting him to come to a meeting in Los Angeles, has now been published. You can read that reply here. The original report about Bishop Bruno’s invitation is here.
The letter from Orombi concludes:
Our churches in Los Angeles came to us like children who were running away from home, and we have offered them a safe place to be. So for us, the first question that must be asked is Why are they running away? We didn’t look for them or hunt for them. We are responding to a need. And, we will continue to respond to a need until the local problem is resolved; we will not relinquish them into a spiritually dangerous situation. Therefore, we see no need for a meeting until you and the Diocese of Los Angeles have repented of your participation in and promotion of unbiblical behavior and teaching.
What the Windsor Report said was (my emphasis added):
150. In these circumstances we call upon the church or province in question to recognise first that dissenting groups in their midst are, like themselves, seeking to be faithful members of the Anglican family; and second, we call upon all the bishops concerned, both the ‘home’ bishops and the ‘intervening’ bishops as Christian leaders and pastors to work tirelessly to rebuild the trust which has been lost.
and also:
11 Comments155. We call upon those bishops who believe it is their conscientious duty to intervene in provinces, dioceses and parishes other than their own:
* to express regret for the consequences of their actions
* to affirm their desire to remain in the Communion, and
* to effect a moratorium on any further interventions.We also call upon these archbishops and bishops to seek an accommodation with the bishops of the dioceses whose parishes they have taken into their own care.
Pittsburgh lawsuit: the diocese responds
A page of “Frequently Asked Questions” has been posted on the website of the Diocese of Pittsburgh.
The FAQ confirms that Bishop Duncan and his Standing Committee are serious about the threat of expulsion of two parishes from his diocese:
7. Are the Bishop and Standing Committee serious about invoking Canon XV, Section 6 dissolution?
Yes. The notice was recommended reluctantly and the strong preference of the Bishop and the Standing Committee is that it will not be necessary to pursue dissolution. Diocesan leaders intend to do their part to achieve reconciliation. Nevertheless, the Standing Committee would not have recommended this course if the diocesan leadership was not prepared to follow through if necessary.
The whole idea that a diocese can simply expel a parish with whom it is in dispute is extremely difficult to understand.
The FAQ is also interesting for the interpretation it puts on the Dennis Canon, described as “controversial”:
3. What is the Dennis Canon?
The essence of the “Dennis Canon” (Title 1, Canon 7, Section 4 of ECUSA’s canons) is this statement: “All real and personal property held by or for the benefit of any Parish, Mission or Congregation is held in trust for this Church and the Diocese thereof in which such Parish, Mission or Congregation is located.”
Those that brought this lawsuit claim that by virtue of this canon, controversial since its adoption in 1979, ECUSA has a trust interest (constructive or express) in all parish real estate and assets irrespective of how the title is held or the source of the funds used to acquire the property.
This is the same Canon which is discussed in some detail in this email exchange (pdf file) between Robert Devlin, and Michael Woodruff in the documents filed earlier.
2 CommentsWindsor Report: official ECUSA comments so far
Many commentators appear to be convinced that ECUSA will not accept the specific recommendations made in the Windsor Report which are directed to that body. What ECUSA official bodies have in fact said so far is listed below.
The House of Bishops, immediately prior to the release of the report said, on 28 September, see ENS 092804-1:
The report of the Lambeth Commission will be released in mid-October. We are committed to a gracious reception of the report in a spirit of humility and to a willingness to learn how we might best be faithful and responsible partners in the Anglican Communion. It is our intention to gather as provincial Houses of Bishops during the autumn and then to meet as a House of Bishops early in the new year to study and appropriate the work of the Commission.
Presiding Bishop Griswold issued some preliminary reflections regarding the Windsor Report at the time of the report’s publication on 18 October.
On 5 November, see ENS 110804-3, the Executive Council said:
As the Episcopal Church begins to receive the Windsor Report of the Lambeth Commission on Communion, we invite all congregations, dioceses and provinces of the church to take time to read and discuss the report. The church needs to explore the Commission’s vision of how we are called to a deeper communion with one another as a reflection of the inner communion of the triune God. The church also needs to reflect on the Commission’s recommendations about how the Anglican Communion might function amid differing views.
Our church’s reception of the report will be enhanced as you share your reflections with bishops and members of this Council. The House of Bishops will meet in January, and the Council will meet in February. It is especially important that all orders of ministry, including lay people, contribute to the church’s reflection. The Presiding Bishop would like to be informed by these deliberations as he meets with the Primates in February. We affirm his intention to appoint a group to respond to the Windsor Report’s invitation that the Episcopal Church explain the rationale for consecrating a bishop living in a same-gender relationship.
The consultations of the coming months are just the beginning of our church’s reception of the Windsor Report, for the principal response should be made by the 2006 General Convention. We believe our role as Executive Council is to help prepare deputies, bishops and the church at large for the discussions that will take place at Convention. As we considered the report, we were assisted by Bishop Mark Dyer, the Episcopal Church’s representative on the Commission, and Bishop James Tengatenga of Southern Malawi, who shared perspectives as an African church leader.
Full text of the Executive Council message is here.
0 CommentsMark Dyer on the Windsor Report
Bishop Mark Dyer is the retired Bishop of Bethlehem (Pennsylvania, USA). He currently teaches at the Virginia Theological Seminary and worships at St. Mary’s, Arlington. He was the only ECUSA representative on the Lambeth Commission. Since the publication of the Windsor Report he has been speaking at many venues across the USA.
An audio tape of his remarks to the clergy of the Diocese of Virginia, on 15 November at Richmond, Virginia can be heard here. This is a very detailed analysis of the Windsor Report. Although it is very long, it is well worth listening to in full.
A transcript of his remarks at the Virginia Theological Seminary on 5 November can be found here.
Some of Bishop Dyer’s views have been strongly contested by American conservatives, see for example
Mark Dyer’s Departure from Theology and Faith Criticized
Mark Dyer, The Virginia Report, and the Promise of The Windsor Report.
Dyer Lecture Twists Windsor Report
Readers of TA must form their own views and are welcome to comment here.
Addition
Here is the statement from Bishop Mark Dyer issued to ENS at the time the Windsor Report was published.
Windsor Report: Reception Process
The Anglican Communion News Service has announced in ACNS 3914 that the Lambeth Commission web site has been expanded and developed for the Reception Process of the Windsor Report.
The new site brings together the three strands of the Commission’s work, including all documentation and materials related to the composition of the Windsor Report 2004, commission news and related articles, and all up-to-date information on the now ongoing Reception Process.
Users of the site are able to submit their own views across a range of categories – general responses, ecumenical comment, and answers to questions posed by the Primates’ Standing Committee – in relation to this Reception Process.
The questions, most of which were first listed in ACNS 3909 ,are reproduced below.
The site also includes a section in which official responses to the Windsor Report will be posted. So far it includes 11 items by Primates and Provinces of the Communion.
There is also now a Summary Guide to the report, available here.
0 CommentsLos Angeles reacts to Windsor report
Los Angeles is a long way from Pittsburgh.
Larry Stammer of the Los Angeles Times reports that Bishop Jon Bruno has said he will observe a personal moratorium on blessing same-sex unions. However, he said his priests were free to continue officiating at homosexual ceremonies. He also wants to seek reconciliation with dissenting parishes.
Episcopal Bishop to Stop Blessing Same-Sex Unions
(There’s also an Associated Press version of the same story here Bishop wants parishes back)
At the same time, the Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, bishop of the six-county Los Angeles diocese, called for an international church summit in Los Angeles, including dissenting African bishops who have claimed jurisdiction over the three parishes.
Bruno said he wanted to seek an accommodation in the controversy that erupted in August when the three parishes unilaterally declared that they had left the diocese and the U.S. Episcopal Church over differences involving Scripture and homosexuality. They said they had placed themselves under the jurisdiction of the Anglican Church in Uganda.
But only hours after Bruno disclosed his moratorium and summit proposals Tuesday, they were rejected by Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi, primate of the Anglican Church in Uganda, and Bishop Evans Kisekka of the Diocese of Luweero in Uganda. The Episcopal Church is the U.S. wing of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
The diocesan website also carries this report of local responses to the actions of the three dissenting parishes:
Grassroots support grows as bishop calls for inclusion which also contains the following statistics on how the three parishes held votes on whether to stay in ECUSA:
According to statements by the three rectors, each congregation held a meeting to vote on the question of remaining within the Episcopal Church or joining the Diocese of Luwero. Of the 1,218 members of St. James’ Church, 292 attended the meeting. Of those attending, 280 voted in favor of the motion; 12 were opposed. At All Saints, 141 of 429 parishioners voted, 131 in favor of secession. At St. David’s, the vote was 68 to 12, out of 125 members (membership numbers are taken from the “communicant in good standing” statistics published in the 2003 Journal of Convention, and include children).
The LA Times also says:
Bruno also sent word of his positions to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Williams, who had written the Los Angeles bishop Nov. 9, called Bruno’s proposal a “generous response” to bring about reconciliation.
Meanwhile, Bruno said Tuesday he would indefinitely delay filing church charges against a retired Episcopal bishop in Texas, the Rt. Rev. Maurice M. Benitez, who is standing in for the African bishops in overseeing the three breakaway parishes. But Bruno is proceeding with the civil lawsuits seeking to regain control over the parishes.
Bruno also disclosed Tuesday that he had authorized another bishop to provide pastoral — but not legal — oversight of Christ the King Church in Santa Barbara, which has also objected to the stands that Bruno and the national church have taken on homosexuality. That church has not seceded and remains under Bruno’s authority.
Addition
Another recent report from the Long Beach Press-Telegram
Church shift protested
25 object to what they say are anti-gay practices at All Saints, which left local diocese.
Pittsburgh: Calvary responds to Duncan
Calvary Episcopal Church has responded to the remarks made by Bishop Duncan with this press release:
…Bishop Duncan has now asserted at the Diocesan Convention that this lawsuit (which seeks to enforce the constitution and canons of the National Church and the Pittsburgh Diocese) could be a basis for expelling Calvary and St. Stephen’s from the Diocese. That assertion has no support in the Diocesan canon providing for dissolution of relationships with parishes, and we are fully confident that such expulsion would never be upheld by either the National Church or the Court. Actually, the Bishop’s very assertion shows the legitimacy of Calvary’s and St. Stephen’s concern that the constitution and canons of the National Church will not be respected in this Diocese…
Canon XV, Sec. 6, Canons of the Diocese of Pittsburgh
“The Convention may, by a two-thirds vote, dissolve its union with any Parish. Provided, however, that . . . notice of said propo sed action shall have be en given in the preceding Annual Convention.”
Below the fold, is a long article by the Rector of Calvary, Harold Lewis published in the current issue of the parish magazine Agape available as a PDF file on the parish site.
3 CommentsPittsburgh diocesan lawsuit
There has been a interesting development in the lawsuit to which Robert Duncan took such exception recently. The official court website has published the most recently filed papers. Unfortunately they are in the format of a 3 Mb PDF file. If you have broadband, you can read the whole thing for yourself here.
It contains as attachments a number of documents written by NACDAP people. Andrew Grimmke at CESLD has kindly extracted several of these into smaller files, which anyone should be able to read with Adobe Acrobat Reader. For full details of all of these go here.
First, here is an exchange of emails between Bob Duncan the bishop and Hugo Blankenship the lawyer concerning the latter’s discussions in England in December 2003 with John Rees who was the legal adviser to the Lambeth Commission.
Second, Mainstream Meeting 11/20/03 appears to be notes from the meeting in London referenced in this AAC press release dated 17 December, which said:
The Network was initially established at a gathering of mainstream Anglican leaders in London on November 20, 2003. The leaders included several bishops, including four Anglican Primates and Bishops Edward L. Salmon of the Diocese of South Carolina, James B. Stanton of the Diocese of Dallas, Jack L. Iker of the Diocese of Ft. Worth, and Robert W. Duncan of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. At the meeting, the U.S. bishops drafted a Memorandum of Agreement that outlines the process for establishing the Network. In keeping with the Preamble to the Constitution of ECUSA, the Memorandum of Agreement pledges to “uphold and propagate the historic faith and order, fulfilling the Church’s apostolic mission”.
Third, here is a Draft Proposal for Overseas AEO dated 3 March 2004 and authored by Alison Barfoot.
There is more in the original file.
0 Commentsmore from the Church Times on women bishops
Here are the further Church Times articles published on 5 November that were not available on the web at that time:
Adding another obstacle to unity By Jonathan Baker
No more half measures by Stephen Trott
When God calls us, it is as humans by Jane Shaw
Also some summaries of what the report says:
Women bishops: issues of theory and practice
Rochester Report: critical questions raised by the ordination of women bishops
Rochester report: a theory of change
Pittsburgh diocesan goings-on
Anglicans Online has reports in its News Centre today of some of these extraordinary events, but here is more detail.
The Diocese of Pittsburgh has issued three press releases:
Constitutional amendment overwhelmingly approved
The amendment gives the diocese the constitutional foundation needed to differ with the national church when the diocesan convention determines the national body’s decisions “to be contrary to the historic faith and order of the one holy catholic and apostolic church.” In those cases, the amended constitution makes clear that “the local determination shall prevail.”
To be approved, the resolution had to be passed by majorities of both clergy and lay delegates. Among clergy, 79 voted in favor, 14 against, and 8 abstained. Lay delegates also passed the constitutional amendment by a lopsided margin, with 124 in favor, 45 against and 3 abstentions.
Churches involved in lawsuit should reconsider, says Bishop
Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan asked two parishes of the Diocese, Calvary Episcopal Church in East Liberty and St. Stephen’s Church in Wilkensburg, to reconsider their 13-month-old lawsuit against both bishops and 16 other clergy and lay leaders of the Diocese on November 6.
In order to encourage that process and bring the issues involved to resolution, Bishop Duncan gave notice that the union of those congregations to the diocese might properly be considered the next time the Convention of the diocese meets. Diocesan canons provide that the Convention may dissolve its connection to a parish in cases where there are egregious breeches of church faith or church order. The Bishop said that it was the deepest hope of the Standing Committee that invoking this provision might help everyone understand the gravity of what is at issue, and that there must be some better way than Christians suing one another in court. The bishop stated in making the announcement that he hoped this would actually move forward a process of reconciliation and restoration.
Misinformation in Post-Gazette article damaging to diocesan mission
Unfounded speculation, printed in the November 4 Pittsburgh Post – Gazette under the headline “Episcopal diocese ponders future,” is not only untrue, but damaging to the unity and mission of Pittsburgh Episcopalians, said Bishop Robert Duncan.
Dealing with the last one first, here is the newspaper report:
Episcopal diocese ponders future
Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh issued two press releases, each dealing with one of the other two items:
Pittsburgh Episcopal Diocese Pursues Divisive Course
Bishop Threatens Parishes with Expulsion
and the local newspaper reported on them in these terms:
Episcopalians here defy U.S. church
Local bishop pressures two Episcopal churches
Here is the report from Episcopal News Service
Pittsburgh convention approves nullification of national actions