more on DEPO and Connecticut
Nine days later, there is no further news of who else will serve on the Panel of Reference. However, via the Living Church we do know something more about how Peter Carnley sees it working: Archbishop Carnley: Panel will aid Mediation Process.
…The Panel of Reference will be an independent body, Archbishop Carnley said. It will offer pastoral advice and mediation. It is not an adversarial processes leading to a judgment. It will work with some of the differences experienced by parishes, dioceses, and provinces. Services will be offered to a national church at the request of its Primate. Participation will be voluntary.
In cases when an alternative bishop has been requested, Archbishop Carnley prefers to think of it as “alternative episcopal ministry” rather than “alternative episcopal oversight.” The diocesan bishop still has jurisdiction, but another bishop will provide ministry to the parish, diocese, or province in question.
The Archbishop of Canterbury will refer requests to the panel. It has not been decided whether to request services through their bishop or directly to Canterbury, Archbishop Carnley stated.
Archbishop Williams will send letters of invitation soon to a short list of candidates for the other panel members. It is intended to have membership representing the geography of the entire Anglican Communion. Consideration will be given to gender and the different orders of ministry. Lay members are likely to be canon lawyers. Theological experts may be consulted, according to Archbishop Carnley, who explained that the Anglican Communion Office will probably provide a secretary and legal advisor.
The first meeting of the Panel of Reference may be held in July, although Archbishop Carnley said most work will be done electronically to save costs. Work will probably be divided among subgroups, instead of the entire panel dealing with every case. The entire panel will probably only meet together once a year or so…
We also have more from Connecticut. An ENS release,written by the director for communications and media in that diocese, says: Connecticut – Question of authority unresolved.
Whether or not six priests will acknowledge the authority of the diocesan bishop is the central issue of an ongoing dispute in Connecticut.
The “Connecticut Six,” as they have become known in the media, want to be released from their ordination vows of obedience to Diocesan Bishop Andrew D. Smith, with whom they disagree about Smith’s support of the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire in 2003. The six, all rectors of congregations, are also demanding suspension of selected canons governing financial obligations, ordination procedures, and clergy succession…
The controversy in Connecticut is widely seen as part of a strategy by the American Anglican Council (AAC), and its affiliate the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes, to realign the Anglican Communion by replacing the Episcopal Church USA with a network of conservative dioceses and parishes. At one point, it appeared that the six rectors and their congregations wanted to create a “mini-diocese” within Connecticut.
Last spring, in response to their request, Smith offered to work with the six conservative parishes using the DEPO model — a temporary measure of approximately two years during which Smith would delegate some of his authority for pastoral care to a conservative bishop agreeable to both sides. During that time, the parish and bishop would continue to work intensively at reconciling their differences. Smith has spoken with several conservative bishops willing to serve as a delegated bishop for the parishes…
Additionally, two letters to the editor of the Living Church from clergy in that diocese, criticise even more strongly the stance taken by the “Connecticut Six”. These are in reply to a Living Church editorial of 1 May headlined Harsh Treatment. The letters, which have not appeared on the TLC website but are circulating on many email lists, are reproduced below the fold.
0 CommentsConnecticut and DEPO
I have reported earlier on the situation in the Diocese of Connecticut.
Recent developments this week include:
The Day 900 Show To Support Embattled Clergymen
Bristol Press ‘Connecticut Six’ rally at State Capitol
Some 900 people, including nine bishops from other states, attended a church service, and then 120 people including at least one bishop, from Pittsburgh, attended an outdoors rally. Those bishops who were expected to attend the service are listed here and a raft of press coverage is linked from here.
Update This report in the Hartford Courant Episcopal Clergy At Capitol Denounce Church On Gay Issue contains more details:
During the hourlong rally, speaker after speaker railed against the Episcopal Church and its leaders…
Bishop Robert Duncan of the diocese of Pittsburgh and head of the Anglican Communion Network said, “We are here to warn the people of this nation that there is a counterfeit abroad in the land that looks and sounds like the real thing but has no currency when you try to spend it.”
Duncan called on the supporters to “oppose the false message of unity for the sake of unity,” uphold what he called the historic faith and order of the church and “choose to uphold the sanctity of marriage, and chastity outside of marriage.”
Other visiting bishops included Bishop Donald Harvey of Newfoundland, the leader of the Anglican Communion Network in Canada; Bishop Jack Iaker of Fort Worth, Texas; Bishop James Adams of Western Kansas; retired Bishop Fitzsimmons Allison of South Carolina; retired Bishop Andrew Fairfield of North Dakota; and Bishop Samuel Chukuka of Nigeria.
Elsewhere I have been criticised for not understanding the supposed shortcomings of the American DEPO plan.
The following noteworthy people, among others on the Lambeth Commission,
- Archbishop Drexel Gomez, Primate of the West Indies
- Archbishop Josiah Iduwo-Fearon, Archbishop of Kaduna, the Anglican Church of Nigeria
- Archbishop Bernard Malango, Primate of Central Africa
- Bishop James Terom, Moderator, the Church of North India
- Bishop N Thomas Wright, Bishop of Durham, the Church of England.
said this about DEPO (my emphasis added):
In this regard, we commend the proposals for delegated episcopal pastoral oversight set out by the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church (USA) in 2004. We believe that these proposals are entirely reasonable, if they are approached and implemented reasonably by everyone concerned. We particularly commend the appeal structures set out in the House of Bishops policy statement, and consider that these provide a very significant degree of security. We see no reason why such delegated pastoral and sacramental oversight should not be provided by retired bishops from within the province in question, and recommend that a province making provision in this manner should maintain a list of bishops who would be suitable and acceptable to undertake such a ministry. In principle, we see no difficulty in bishops from other provinces of the Communion becoming involved with the life of particular parishes under the terms of these arrangements in appropriate cases.
It was NACDAP that issued “A Statement of Acceptance of and Submission to the Windsor Report 2004” , now signed by some 30 bishops. The Bishop of South Carolina said:
“The response of the House of Bishops did not rise to the level expected by the Communion. We heard a call for submission, and we who are unequivocally prepared to submit have responded accordingly.”
But that “statement of submission” omits any reference to this part of the Windsor Report.
The Diocese of Connecticut has published a note explaining exactly how DEPO would work in that diocese. It is in PDF format, but an accessible copy is now here.
The subject will no doubt be reviewed by the newly appointed Panel of Reference. This move was welcomed earlier in the week by Frank Griswold, see Presiding Bishop welcomes appointment of Panel of Reference chair.
Update for a counter-argument against all this, from Kendall Harmon, see On the Inadequacy of DEPO.
14 Commentsmore response to NACDAP
The Bishop of California Bill Swing has again attacked NACDAP on his diocesan site and in the Witness with This Mutiny Will Fail; the Church Will Abide. After summarising remarks made by another, unnamed, but easily recognisable bishop, he comments:
There have been people inside the Episcopal Church and outside the Episcopal Church who have been plotting our church’s demise long before there was an Episcopal election in New Hampshire: for almost half a century. The plotters have been living in a fury of win-lose for generations. Finally, they have assumed that they cannot win and take control of the Episcopal Church so they seek to destroy it and assume control as the orthodox remnant. Timing is everything for them. They see the present moment as the perfect storm where wealthy American ideologues and angry African bishops and cultural divides and shocked ecumenical and interfaith partners converge to assist their victory.
What they don’t realize is that the Episcopal Church has more staying power than they suppose. When our bishops, priests, and deacons took a solemn oath at ordination vowing to be loyal to the doctrine, discipline, worship of the Episcopal Church, we meant it. Millions of laity for hundreds of years have confirmed their faith in context of the Episcopal Church — in good times and bad. Together we gave our sacred honor to the revelation of God in Christ as lived out in the Episcopal Church. Our history has been earned with countless sacrifices. We have all been embarrassed as well as enhanced; won some, lost some. With prayer, sweat, and endurance we have built cathedrals, seminaries, religious communities, youth camps, schools, social ministries, hospitals, and churches. We will abide. Although the Southern Cone finds us unacceptable, we will abide. Even though the Archbishop of Canterbury and the primates and Anglican Consultative Council sever us from their fellowship, we will abide. Personally, I don’t think that the Archbishop of Canterbury would ever do that, but should he dismiss us, we will abide.
I genuinely grieve that we have all reached this moment. But this is not the last moment, only a passing moment. There will be fairer days, and in the light I expect to see the Episcopal Church afloat on the deep and sailing. This mutiny will fail. The Episcopal Church will abide.
Another view of NACDAP plans can be found in What would +Rowan do? by Thomas Bushnell.
7 CommentsBishop Duncan: We're the Anglicans here
The Living Church carries a long interview with Robert Duncan. The full text is here.
An extract to give the flavour:
TLC: So, as a body within the Episcopal Church, what’s your “lifespan”?
Bishop Duncan: Well, of course we claim to be, constitutionally, the Episcopal Church. And there’s every evidence, both from what the Windsor Report says and what the primates said in accepting it, in their communiqué in Northern Ireland, that we are the Anglicans. If the Episcopal Church’s constitution says that we’ll be constituent members of the Anglican Communion, and the Anglican Communion now says, Episcopal Church, you’re in time out. In fact, you’re not only in time out, but it appears you’re making a decision to walk apart. If in General Convention 2006 the Episcopal Church determines to walk apart, then the question we ask is, who is the Episcopal Church? And our legal basis will be to say, we are, of course, because they have broken the constitution.
TLC: Do you think General Convention will be the turning point?
Bishop Duncan: Oh, yeah. The Presiding Bishop has made it clear, and he made it clear in Northern Ireland, that this church has thought about this, prayed about this, and is committed to this course, and there’ll be no turning back. And I think he reads the situation right. We also believe there’ll be no turning back. We intend, one of the issues for us going into General Convention, and we will be in General Convention, is to attempt to force this Church to make a very clear decision, unmistakably clear as to whether they’re going to walk with the Communion and repent from these actions, return to standard Anglican practice, or really going to move forward. They call it moving forward; we call it walking apart.
If they determine to move out, well, then they’ve determined to move out. We’re the Anglicans here. We’ll also stand in a way that says, we’re the Episcopal Church where we are. You know, there’ll be infinite court battles, but it’ll be very interesting, since the Communion will have said the Episcopal Church walked apart, and the Episcopal Church’s Constitution says that you’ve got to be constituent members, and we’re the only ones they recognize as constituent members, so who’s the Episcopal Church, legally? It’ll be very interesting time. I mean, we don’t want to go to court, but it’s quite clear the Episcopal Church is always ready to go to court, and this time I think they might not be so willing to go to court, because we think there’s every reason they’ll lose.
Some further analysis and quite a lot of comments on this can be found at The Questioning Christian in two posts: The Revolutionaries (Finally?) Hoist Their Flag and Bishop Duncan Needs Better Lawyers. Additionally, Fr Jake has comments here. For comments from conservatives, read titusonenine.
More critique
Mark Harris has now weighed in with Emerging Corporate Megalomania
NACDAP provokes responses
Following a recent meeting in Texas, NACDAP has issued two documents: ACN Council Communiqué and Windsor Action Covenant.
This has provoked several strong responses: The Fat is in the Fire: The Network and the Windsor Action Covenant and also Windsor, DOA. But clearest of all is this from the Bishop of California, Bill Swing: The House of Bishops: All for One and Some for Something. Some extracts from these:
Bill Swing asks NACDAP these questions:
1. Why do you usually avoid House of Bishops meetings? And why will you not go to the altar rail and receive Communion alongside your sister and brother bishops?
2. Rumor has it that you receive lots of money from private foundations and give it to support African bishops who, in turn, will attack the Episcopal Church. Is there an audit of your receipts and disbursements? Could I review it? What are the goals of the foundations that financially support you? What African bishops receive your money? What American Episcopalians whom you know are on the staffs of African bishops?
3. If the bishops of the Episcopal Church are not invited to Lambeth Conference 2008 but the Network bishops with Bishop Robert Duncan as head are invited, will you attend?
4. What are the names of Network bishops who have consulted lawyers to ascertain the possibilities of someday separating “Network properties” from “Episcopal Church properties?”
5. In what situations around the USA is the Network in conversation with individual congregations, strategizing as to how the congregation can leave the Episcopal Church, take its assets, and join the Network?
6. It is stated that Bishop Duncan is on record as promising “to wage guerilla warfare on the Episcopal Church.” Is this true? Also on the House floor he has been accused of paying lay people of his diocese to go to a neighboring diocese to try to persuade conservative members to leave the Episcopal Church and join the Network. Is that true?
Mark Harris writes:
This Covenant is an attempt to hijack the Windsor Report and make it the instrument of the realignment effort. It is yet another effort to spin an advisory committee’s report into a partisan litmus test.
…All of this would be of no great import if it were not for the last pledge, not bulleted, which is the real basis of the covenant, and its only focus. That last pledge states, “If General Convention chooses finally to walk apart, I will not follow, but will remain a faithful Anglican, God being my helper.”
This then is the opening salvo of the battle of General Convention. One may be sure that the Network will come to Convention with pledge lists of persons who they contend will not be bound by General Convention action IF the Convention “chooses finally to walk apart.” And of course, it will be the Network and its leadership that will want to determine if General Convention has so chosen.
This Covenant is a marshalling of numbers, and an attempt to get members of this Church to pledge disavowal of actions of General Convention, leadership of the bishops of their dioceses, if not viewed as “Windsor Dioceses” and teaching of their clergy, if not viewed as “Windsor Parishes.” Its purpose is to implement resistance to any leadership other than that of the realignment groups, and in particular the Network itself.
The fat is in the fire and the play is unfolding. It is time to be watchful. It is not a time to be nice, for these are not nice times.
J-Tron notes:
21 CommentsIt’s heart breaking. It really is. The Windsor Report has some deep flaws. But I have remained hopeful that it can be a starting point, a place to facilitate communication and unity. Certainly the folks who produced it had that hope for it. The Network does not. It chooses instead to use Windsor as a weapon, a method of labeling and relabeling those who it dislikes. This is an especially interesting development considering the Network’s own deep criticism of Windsor in the days after it came out. Now all of a sudden the Network wants to embrace Windsor, but only in so far as it pushes us forward into the rift.
…But the enemy that presents itself in the Network is not that of ultra-conservatism or homophobia. The enemy that presents itself in the Network is the evil of pride, deceit, lust for power, and a thorough drive to divide the Church. Not all members of the Network are engaged in this kind of behavior, but the Network perpetrates it on behalf of all who it calls “orthodox,” leaving those on the so-called right who truly wish to be in communion without a voice.
I call on Anglicans and Episcopalians of good conscience, whatever their political stripes or feelings about human sexuality, to reject the evil, schismatic vision that the Network is trying to perpetrate. If we have to split in the end, let it be because we have tried every possible remedy, every conceivable avenue of dialogue, and nothing else seems like it can be done. Let it not be because a small group of the power hungry possessed swept us into armageddon like battle with our friends and neighbors for the purpose of fulfilling their own ambitions….
letters between bishops
Update a public statement by the Bishop of Dallas has been published here
Some correspondence has emerged:
- The Living Church published this dated 21 April: Letters Express Bishops’ Concerns to Archbishop of Canterbury, Presiding Bishop
- Episcopal News Service published this on the same day: Griswold asks bishops for clarification on letters.
The Living Church reports:
In the May 1 print issue of the magazine, TLC reported that the April 6 letter to Archbishop Williams was written to clarify some points made in a letter which was hand-delivered to him following the March 11-16 House of Bishops’ meeting at Camp Allen in Navasota, Texas.
The two letters of 6 April were signed by a total of 21 bishops, including 18 diocesan bishops (there are 100 domestic US dioceses plus several overseas dioceses within The Episcopal Church). The letter to Rowan Williams asks for a meeting at the end of May. No mention of this letter or request is included in the other letter to Frank Griswold.
The signatures include the diocesans of 10 out of 11 of the “NACDAP” dioceses (Albany, Central Florida, Dallas, Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, Quincy, Rio Grande, San Joaquin, South Carolina, Springfield, Western Kansas.), except Keith Ackerman of Quincy, and also two suffragans and an assistant bishop serving in NACDAP dioceses.
They also include 8 other diocesans who do not belong to NACDAP:
- David Bane Diocese of Southern Virginia
- James Folts Diocese of West Texas
- Bertram Herlong Diocese of Tennessee
- Edward Little Diocese of Northern Indiana
- John Lipscomb Diocese of Southwest Florida
- Bruce MacPherson Diocese of Western Louisiana
- Wallis Ohl Diocese of Northwest Texas
- Don Wimberly Diocese of Texas
The research mentioned in the letters can be found here.
The Living Church has published a further item.
0 CommentsConnecticut update
Further Update 27 April
This commentary has been published by Via Media USA
Update 25 April
There is an editorial in the Living Church about Connecticut: Harsh Treatment
Many thanks to commenters who posted links to news reports on this last week, while I was away from home.
The New York Times carried several reports:
22 April Dissident Priests Not Punished, but Their Fate Is Still Unclear
21 April Dissident Episcopal Priests Are Called Part of a Strategy
18 April Episcopal Clergy to Meet on Dispute Over Gay Issues
In the 21 April story, we read this:
…But as the bishop of Connecticut, Andrew D. Smith, prepared to suspend the priests, he described them as local troops in a nationwide strategy by conservative Episcopalians to secede and then establish a “replacement” church that would take the place of the Episcopal Church U.S.A. in the world Anglican Communion.
In an interview at his office in Hartford on Tuesday, the day after a meeting with the priests that seemed only to deepen the impasse, Bishop Smith said that the priests never had any intention of returning to the fold. Instead, he said, they were bent on “kind of a ‘Please, go ahead and shoot me’ ” approach that would make him a villain and win them public support.
Bishop Smith said the priests were following a strategy laid out in a memo written in December 2003 by a member of the American Anglican Council, a group of orthodox Episcopal parishes that includes those led by the six priests. The memo laid out steps that priests can take to distance and then eventually sever themselves from the parent church.
The memo said the strategy would “generate significant public attention” and added that the church authorities, knowing “well how conservatives could quickly become the ‘victims’ in the public mind,” would be reluctant to discipline priests.
“If you read that memo and then look at what happened there, there are a lot of similarities,” Bishop Smith said…
Meanwhile, the AAC republished the whole story from the NYT and also this press release.
The News page of the Connecticut diocesan website contains many useful links to statements, including a pdf copy of the letter of 27 May 2004 from the six parishes in which they list their demands:
- We seek the immediate care and pastoral oversight of a bishop acceptable to us who:
a) affirms Holy Scripture, the ancient creeds, and the 39 Articles.
b) Upholds the 1998 Lambeth Resolution on human sexuality.
c) Neither supported the election, consecration and ministry of V. G. Robinson as bishop, nor supports the ordination of any unchaste homosexuals to ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church.
- We seek suspension without prejudice of the canons and resolutions of the Diocese of Connecticut requiring an assessment of funds in support of diocesan mission and ministry.
- We seek a one-year review of these DEPO Agreements in consultation with the Archbishop of Canterbury on behalf of the Primates of the Anglican Communion or their appointed designee,
- We seek a written agreement that guarantees that the future succession of clergy in our parishes rests in the hands of the vestries, our search committees, and our DEPO bishop.
- We seek a written assurance that you and the Diocese of Connecticut will not foster a ministerial environment that is hostile to our parishes’ mission and ministries.
Developments in Connecticut
The AAC and NACDAP have issued two statements concerning the dispute in Connecticut between the bishop and six conservative parishes.
First, this one announces that six prominent NACDAP/AAC clergypersons will preach this Sunday, one in each of the six parishes.
…Bishop Smith accuses the six of “abandonment of communion,” even though he has failed to provide evidence to support his charge and ignored the plea by Anglican Church leaders for restraint and latitude on the part of American bishops in conflict with their priests on fundamental issues of Anglican theology. Bishop Smith supports theological innovations regarding human sexuality embraced by the 2003 General Convention of the Episcopal Church that are contrary to Scripture, to the traditional teaching of Anglicanism, and to positions firmly supported by the leadership of the Anglican Church comprising over 70 million members worldwide. The six Connecticut clergy and congregations targeted by Bishop Smith are biblically orthodox and remain faithful to apostolic faith and order upheld by the worldwide Anglican Communion…
Second, this one is an open letter from a total of seventeen NACDAP/AAC-related bishops (12 of them diocesans) addressed to the bishop and the standing committee of the Diocese of Connecticut.
12 Comments…What are we to do? We have agreed as bishops not to cross diocesan boundaries. But was not this moratorium based on other moratoria being observed as well, and on the maintenance of status quo as regards actions against the conservative minority? Were not the commitments we made to one another at the March meeting of the House of Bishops also based on the assumption of the functioning of the Panel of Reference, called for by the Primates in February 2005? And was it not notification of their intent to appeal to the Panel of Reference by the six parishes, given by letter to the Bishop of Connecticut, that immediately precipitated the threat of inhibition and deposition of the clergy of those parishes?
We also ask: was Title IV, Canon 10, intended to be used against clergy who have resolutely maintained their commitment to the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, as these clergy have? What about due process and right to ecclesiastical trials, both of which are denied when this Canon on Abandonment of Communion is used in this way? Who is it that has abandoned the Communion?
This is a painful letter for us to write. We pose much of this letter as questions. Is there some way to head off the terrible confrontation that now appears inevitable, not only in Connecticut, but also among us bishops? Please know that we are more than eager to be part of the resolution of this crisis in every appropriate way.
“The whole world is watching”, as we used to observe in the sixties. We do not seem to be commending the faith that is in us in any way that the watching world can appreciate or fathom. Whatever shall we do to reverse the course of the scandal that besets us?
ECUSA decides about Nottingham
Yet Another Two Updates
The Bishop of Pittsburgh doesn’t like it either. He has issued A Statement from the Moderator of the Anglican Communion Network.
What the response of the Episcopal Church’s Executive Council to the 2005 Primates’ Communique gives with one hand, it takes away with the other. While it gives an appearance of complying with the Primates’ request, in actuality it does not. The Primates asked the ECUSA delegation to withdraw from the Anglican Consultative Council (AAC) – the only appropriate response is therefore to stay at home.
The American Anglican Council doesn’t like it at all, see this statement which includes:
The Executive Council’s letter to the Anglican Consultative Council is manipulative and deceptive. The Primates were clear and direct in their call to the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada:
“…we request that the Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada voluntarily withdraw their members from the Anglican Consultative Council for the period leading up to the next Lambeth Conference. During that same period we request that both churches respond through their relevant constitutional bodies to the questions specifically addressed to them in the Windsor Report as they consider their place within the Anglican Communion.” (cf. paragraph 8)
While the language of the Communiqué is gracious and diplomatic, the intent is crystal clear—the American and Canadian Churches have been told to stand down from the Anglican Consultative Council. In addition, they have been presented with a clear choice to permanently walk together or walk apart. The parameters for “walking together” are also definitive: the Episcopal Church must repent of its heretical actions and embrace once more in word and in practice the faith and order of Anglicanism. We cannot accept that the Executive Council does not understand what the Primates have requested, and therefore we must assume that this is a deliberate plan to circumvent and ignore the full intent of the Communiqué.
The Executive Council is setting up an opportunity to lobby and influence the ACC meeting. Given the fact that ECUSA is insisting on such a presence, it seems a matter of justice and fair play that those who are excluded from ECUSA and isolated because they stand against revisionism should also be present and “available for conversation and consultation”. We call upon the Anglican Consultative Council to deny the Executive Council’s request; however, if the ECUSA delegation attends, we believe it is critical to include voices that offer a very different perspective, one that is consistent with Scripture and the accepted faith and order of the Anglican Communion.
No mention at all by the NACDAP Moderator or by the AAC of this paragraph in the communiqué:
16. Notwithstanding the request of paragraph 14 of this communiqué, we encourage the Anglican Consultative Council to organize a hearing at its meeting in Nottingham, England, in June 2005 at which representatives of the Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada, invited for that specific purpose, may have an opportunity to set out the thinking behind the recent actions of their Provinces, in accordance with paragraph 141 of the Windsor Report.
Clearly a significant disagreement then between both of them and the ABC:
Further Update
Archbishop of Canterbury commends Executive Council letter
In a communication to Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams extended thanks to the Episcopal Church’s Executive Council for its decision to withdraw its three American members from official participation in the Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Nottingham, England in June.
“I have just received the news of the decision about ACC. Thank you all,” Williams said. “I can guess how hard it will have been, but you have acted very generously and constructively and I hope this will bear the fruit that it should…”
The Executive Council of ECUSA has decided to withdraw its representatives from official participation in the ACC at Nottingham this June. The full statement is published by ENS here. The key paragraph is:
We are mindful that Christ has made us members of one body, and that no part can say to any other “I have no need of you.” At the same time we wish to express our openness to the concerns and beliefs of others. In the spirit of the Covenant Statement recently adopted by our House of Bishops, we voluntarily withdraw our members from official participation in the ACC as it meets in Nottingham. As an expression of our desire “to bear one another’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2), we are asking our members to be present at the meeting to listen to reports on the life and ministry we share across the Communion and to be available for conversation and consultation.
Update Press coverage of this:
Associated Press Episcopalians accept no-delegates request and also this squib
Knight Ridder/Chicago Tribune U.S. Episcopal Church to sit out council over issue of gay bishops
Reuters U.S. church withdraws from key Anglican body
New York Times (This report also deals with another current American story) Connecticut Episcopalians Defy Bishop Over Gay Issues
Living Church Observers Will Attend ACC Meeting
Anglican Journal
U.S. church will bow out of international meeting
A first-hand account of the meeting on a blog
48 Commentsviews around the Communion
Each of these articles deserves reading in full.
Beliefnet’s Deborah Caldwell has an interview with Frank Griswold which you can read at The Battle Rages On.
In some of the Episcopal Church-related blogs you were quoted last week as singling out six Americans for having “detrimentally influenced” church proceedings. What did you say?
What I said was that there were notices put on the tables in Ireland describing “acts of oppression” within the Episcopal church that were highly inaccurate and I got up and said, “This kind of information is untrue. It’s taking facts and slanting things from a particular perspective. And I said, ‘In scripture Jesus tells us the devil is the father of lies, and lying is his nature.’” Therefore this kind of material is really evil. And I said my sense is—and I didn’t assign it to any particular people—I feel that there is evil pressing on this meeting. And I said that any one of us can be caught in patterns of evil. Any one of us can misrepresent things to our own advantage.
I repeated it last week in Texas to the House of Bishops when I described my participation in the primates meeting. And I said there were several Americans in the hotel in Newry, including [Pittsburgh Bishop Robert William] Duncan—but I made no connection between those people and the piece of paper I was describing, and the misrepresentations on it…
Do you think the liberal movement within the Anglican Communion will win this battle?
Yes. When I look at the history of the church, I can see all kinds of dreadful moments when something was trying to happen, and it was just too much for the system at that moment. I look at Galileo. Teachings that supposedly were heretical and contrary to what everyone “knew was true” over time shifted or reversed themselves—and our truth was enlarged.
The other thing I would say is, if I may quote Jesus in the Gospel of John: “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now; however, when the spirit of truth comes, the spirit will take from what is mine and reveal it to you.” This says to me that the truth in some way is always unfolding and being enlarged.
I find it curious that with no strain or difficulty we accept the fact that we’re learning more about the world we live in; we’re learning more about the human person—physiology, psychology, all of it. Why is it that we can expand our consciousness in every area other than sexuality, but when we come to sexuality everything has to be fully revealed and contained in scripture by one particular reading? You might ask why God didn’t just tell us in the beginning? For some reason God didn’t, and we have to grow into truth. And I think we’re always growing into truth. I look at the ordination of women in the Episcopal tradition; that was a break if you looked at it in terms of the past, but if you accept truth as organic and ongoing then you can say, “This is an enlargement of our understanding of ministry rather than a hideous break with what has been.”
Anglicans Online has an article by Pierre Whalon entitled The Ghost of Bishop Pike, Revisited.
…Furthermore, we are talking about the General Convention. Our system of government looks like the American secular politics we are so familiar with, but in fact, it differs significantly. The Constitution of the United States calls for a strong central government, while the Episcopal Church Constitution explicitly prevents one. We are a confederation of dioceses, essentially the same structure since Bishop William White designed our polity in the 18th century.
As a result, legislation is rarely binding upon all the dioceses. General Convention’s resolutions are non-binding, unless they change the constitution or canons, including revising the Prayer Book. Using the General Convention to effect change in the church is an ungainly process at best, not only because the balance of the Houses of Deputies and Bishops is not offset by a strong president and independent judiciary, but also because of the problems inherent to a body of nearly one thousand voting members.
And when it comes about, change by legislation creates a division between winners and losers. As a result, following a trend in secular politics, lots of interest groups have formed to influence the Convention in one direction or another. As the decisions of Convention have evolved, so have these groups, clustering together along the political spectrum.
These clusters of groups at either end of the spectrum curiously resemble each other. Their rhetorical style is similar, inventing lexicons of invective like “heterosexist” and “homoerotic.” They organize fundraisers to pay for campaigns to lobby Convention. Each, sadly, has invited the other to leave the church. Now since Lambeth 1998, both are involved in a struggle to persuade the larger Communion that theirs has the right to be considered the “real” American Anglican province. Our side must win and the other side must lose, even if we must involve the whole world. In style, at least, they are so similar…
Dale Rye who is a lawyer in Texas has written On Thinking with the Church.
…That brings us to the crucial reason: my personal opinion is irrelevant…
In the case of Anglicanism, such matters are traditionally decided through the painstaking process of collective discernment described by Hooker, among others. This method expresses the Anglican doctrine of the church, our ecclesiology. Decisions are not imposed from outside or above. Instead, we engage in a Socratic dialogue that incorporates persons from every order of ministry and every jurisdiction (both all those linked vertically in a hierarchy and all those linked horizontally in communion). We ground our discussions on scripture, but we also give a role to common sense, both the historical common sense we call tradition and the contemporary common sense we call the consent of the faithful. Eventually, we either come to an agreement that defines the Anglican position on an issue and that forces those who cannot conscientiously live with the agreement out, like the 17th century Recusants and Separatists, or we agree to disagree while remaining in fellowship, like the Puritans and Arminians.
Some of the differences that Anglicans have agreed to live with hardly qualify as unimportant. The discrepancy since the 1840s between High and Low Church dogmas on the means of grace goes well outside the historical scope of tolerable adiaphora; they diverge as widely as Luther or Calvin and the Council of Trent. Except that both sides agree that the question is essential to salvation, their answers are incompatible and cannot both be true. Nevertheless, since the Church (my church, which is neither Lutheran nor Roman Catholic) has declined to condemn either view, my personal opinion that one side or the other is a heterodox betrayal of the Gospel is irrelevant. In this, as in all things, a loyal Christian submits his judgment to the authority of the Church.
That is why the process issue and the question of polity are so important to those of us who find ourselves in the middle of the sexuality dispute. We are anxious to believe as the Church teaches, but who has the human authority under God to teach in the name of the Church? What are we to do when our rector says “yes,” our bishop says “no,” our national church says “yes,” and the Primates’ Meeting says “no?” Anglicans have been lucky enough for 450 years to avoid this sort of divided loyalty (except perhaps during the English Civil War). That luck has enabled us to “muddle through” without ever facing the issue of who has the final authority to speak for our church during a dispute between two—or more—organs of the body, all of whose oversight we would normally heed.
The original Art. XXXVII declared that national churches should be free of foreign jurisdiction. Whatever Henry VIII’s motivation, subsequent Anglicans made this a theological principle. Men like Jewel and Hooker argued from the New Testament that each distinct cultural and political society should have its own church under native leadership responsive to their community’s needs. That is why the Church of Scotland could choose to be Presbyterian, while the Church of England remained Episcopalian, and why everyone took it for granted that there would be an autonomous Episcopal Church in the USA. As John Henry Newman insisted—both before and after his conversion—if the Anglican divines were wrong on this point there is no excuse for separation from Rome. The long-standing consensus was plainly stated by all the Lambeth Conferences from 1868 to 1988: any structures beyond the national churches (barring a genuinely ecumenical council) were only consultative, not authoritative.
Andrew Hutchison was interviewed in the Canadian Anglican Journal Primates call for breathing space.
In a candid interview with Anglican Journal, Archbishop Hutchison said he was disappointed with the boycott of the eucharist by some primates as well as with a “failure of leadership” on the part of the Archbishop of Canterbury. On one occasion some delegates were not informed that a number of primates would not be able to attend the meeting because they were having a dinner party with some conservative U.S. Episcopalians who had been monitoring the meeting from the nearby village of Newry. “I think when primates come together to do their business they should be permitted to do that, without outside interference,” he said. “There was a feeling that we (primates) were not fully in control of our agenda.”
Archbishop Williams had known about the party but did not try to stop it, he said. “Virtually nothing was done about it except that following the exodus of those people, (he) did apologize to the whole plenary session and did state how inappropriate that had been.”
There were also moments, he said, when he was profoundly disappointed as some primates glossed over their own provinces’ struggles with the issue of homosexuality. Fourteen dioceses in the Church of England regularly allow blessings, he said, and “in one diocese alone, I suspect there have been more blessings than have ever occurred in Canada,” he said. “But it’s all done unofficially, in the shadows rather than out in the light of day. So there is a profound sort of hypocrisy here.”
The Sydney Morning Herald interviewed Henry Orombi in African Anglicans flex their conservative muscle.
4 Comments“The language is flowery, the meaning is … we suspend you,” Orombi told the Herald yesterday. “But it’s put in the most beautiful language that the English would like to put it. It’s a polite way of saying, ‘please leave the room’.”
Orombi speaks from a position of growing influence, having helped channel discontent among conservative dioceses mainly in Africa and Asia into action against the US church that even the Archbishop of Canterbury was forced to accept with an air of resignation.
He also comes from a position of numerical strength, with the Anglican churches of Uganda and Nigeria making up almost 50 per cent of the world’s Anglicans.
As Orombi views it, it’s the US church and other Anglican liberals that are on the outside looking in. Anglican conservatives are mobilising worldwide, marking a return to the purity of biblical teaching and breaking free of the strictures of denominational consensus…
But there can be no reconciliation without the liberal North Americans repenting – and that means abandoning the openly gay bishop of New Hampshire, Gene Robinson.
“If Gene Robinson is going to the next Lambeth [conference] then we aren’t going, and if we don’t go there is no Lambeth.”
Robinson’s sin is to be openly gay. While progressives argue a church tradition of inclusiveness, Orombi has taken a hard line on gay issues. In Uganda, homosexuality is a crime punishable by life imprisonment.
Homosexuality, the archbishop says, contravenes Biblical teachings that go back to the first God-sanctified man-and-woman union of Adam and Eve, and are reinforced in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah and the words of the apostle Paul. It was a “misuse of sexual organs” as God designed them, and society’s “stamp of approval doesn’t make it normal”.
But a Melbourne Anglican, Dr Muriel Porter, said yesterday that the “second-order” issue of homosexuality should not govern who is acceptable to the worldwide Anglican faith and it was time for “good people” in the church to speak out…
“I would like to ask the Archbishop of Uganda and his church if they have launched an all-out offensive against his Government to change the law so that homosexual people are not facing life imprisonment,” Porter says. “That is the very least they should be doing if they are requiring the US church to take action against Gene Robinson.”
ECUSA HoB – Thursday morning reports
Telegraph Jonathan Petre Liberals delay appointing new bishops
Washington Post Alan Cooperman Episcopalians Halt Ordaining of Bishops
New York Times Laurie Goodstein Episcopal Dispute Over Gay Policies Halts All U.S. Bishop Appointments
Religion News Service via Beliefnet Episcopal Church to Freeze Same-Sex Blessings, Elections of All Bishops
Houston Chronicle Episcopalians ban consecration of new bishops
and the latest writethrough of the Associated Press report by Rachel Zoll Episcopalians ban OK of new bishops
From Canada, so focused on Dromatine rather than Camp Allen:
Canadian Press Anglican Church ‘broken’ over same-sex debate
ECUSA HoB – more news
Further statements are promised later today.
Update From the House of Bishops: ‘A Word to the Church’ has now been issued. Key paragraphs are:
At our meeting in Salt Lake City in January 2005 we said that we would “commit ourselves to a more thorough consideration of the range of concrete actions identified in the [Windsor] Report at our House of Bishops meeting in March 2005.” We also said we believe it is extremely important to take the time to allow the Holy Spirit to show us the way to deepen our communion together.
We believe that the Covenant Statement we have made has been achieved under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Our Covenant expresses remarkable convergences among us during these days and emerged from our mutual desire to speak as one House embracing widely divergent points of view. We sensed a profound solidarity and willingness to bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2).
We pray that this Covenant Statement will be seen by brother and sister Anglicans as responding to some of their concerns. We pray that our overwhelming support for the Covenant may be a sign to them of our unwavering commitment to life in communion.
We pray as well that our Covenant will be useful for us all in healing relationships and opening the way for renewed solidarity in the service of Christ’s work of reconciliation. We believe our Covenant Statement is a reflection of a fresh spirit of mutual forbearance and reconciliation among us. We faced into our deep divisions with an openness that has not characterized our recent past. We believe this marks the beginning of a new day in our life together as bishops and as the Episcopal Church.
Meanwhile, The Living Church has published this report:
Presiding Bishop: Primates “Out for Blood” at Meeting which says that:
Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold identified by name six Episcopalians for having detrimentally influenced the course of the primates’ meeting in remarks to the House of Bishops at their March 11-17 spring retreat at Camp Allen in Navasota, Texas.
The devil is a liar and the father of lies and the devil was certainly moving about Dromantine, the site of the primates’ meeting in Northern Ireland, the presiding Bishop said, according to accounts from several bishops who spoke to THE LIVING CHURCH on the condition that their names not be revealed. The primates were “out for blood,” Bishop Griswold told them.
The Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh; the Rev. Canon Bill Atwood, general secretary of the Ekklesia Society; the Rev. Canon Martyn Minns, rector of Truro Parish, Fairfax, Va.; the Rev. Canon David Anderson, president of the American Anglican Council; the Rev. Canon Kendall Harmon, canon theologian of the Diocese of South Carolina; and Diane Knippers, president of the Institute for Religion and Democracy, were singled out for opprobrium by the Presiding Bishop for their behind-the-scenes roles at Dromantine…
Picture of all six available here
Update
A further report from George Conger is posted at the website of The Living Church: Bishops Declare ‘Time for Healing’
The Archbishop of Canterbury has issued the following statement:
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has welcomed the Covenant statement issued yesterday by the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America (ECUSA), during their spring meeting in Camp Allen in Texas.
“I welcome this constructive response from ECUSA’s House of Bishops. They have clearly sought to respond positively to the requests made of them in the Windsor Report and in the Communiqué issued after the recent Primates Meeting. It is clear that there has been a real willingness to engage with the challenges posed.”
First press reports on last night’s statement:
Larry Stammer Los Angeles Times Clash Over Gay Episcopal Bishops Delays New Ordinations
Reuters U.S. Anglicans set moratorium on gay bishops
Rachel Zoll Associated Press No Episcopal bishops confirmed for a year
ECUSA bishops respond to Windsor/primates
Episcopal News Service reports that:
The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church adopted, by nearly unanimous vote late this afternoon, “A Covenant Statement” that includes “a provisional measure to contribute to a time for healing and for the educational process called for in the Windsor Report” (full text of Covenant Statement is here).
The Covenant Statement includes the following items:
Relating to the WR request for an expression of regret:
2. We express our own deep regret for the pain that others have experienced with respect to our actions at the General Convention of 2003 and we offer our sincerest apology and repentance for having breached our bonds of affection by any failure to consult adequately with our Anglican partners before taking those actions.
Relating to a moratorium on episcopal elections:
3. The Windsor Report has invited the Episcopal Church “to effect a moratorium on the election and consent to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate who is living in a same gender union until some new consensus in the Anglican Communion emerges” (Windsor Report, para. 134). Our polity, as affirmed both in the Windsor Report and the Primates’ Communiqué, does not give us the authority to impose on the dioceses of our church moratoria based on matters of suitability beyond the well-articulated criteria of our canons and ordinal. Nevertheless, this extraordinary moment in our common life offers the opportunity for extraordinary action. In order to make the fullest possible response to the larger communion and to re-claim and strengthen our common bonds of affection, this House of Bishops takes the following provisional measure to contribute to a time for healing and for the educational process called for in the Windsor Report. Those of us having jurisdiction pledge to withhold consent to the consecration of any person elected to the episcopate after the date hereof until the General Convention of 2006, and we encourage the dioceses of our church to delay episcopal elections accordingly. We believe that Christian community requires us to share the burdens of such forbearance; thus it must pertain to all elections of bishops in the Episcopal Church. We recognize that this will cause hardship in some dioceses, and we commit to making ourselves available to those dioceses needing episcopal ministry.
Relating to a moratorium on public rites of blessing for same sex unions:
4. In response to the invitation in the Windsor Report that we effect a moratorium on public rites of blessing for same sex unions, it is important that we clarify that the Episcopal Church has not authorized any such liturgies, nor has General Convention requested the development of such rites. The Primates, in their communiqué “assure homosexual people that they are children of God, loved and valued by him, and deserving of the best we can give of pastoral care and friendship” (Primates’ Communiqué, para. 6). Some in our church hold such “pastoral care” to include the blessing of same sex relationships. Others hold that it does not. Nevertheless, we pledge not to authorize any public rites for the blessing of same sex unions, and we will not bless any such unions, at least until the General Convention of 2006.
Relating to participation (or otherwise) in the Anglican Consultative Council:
12 Comments6. As a body, we recognize the intentionality and seriousness of the Primates’ invitation to the Episcopal Church to refrain voluntarily from having its delegates participate in the Anglican Consultative Council meetings until the Lambeth Conference of 2008. Although we lack the authority in our polity to make such a decision, we defer to the Anglican Consultative Council and the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church to deliberate seriously on that issue.
Bishop Duncan reports to his diocese
Episcopal Church to Decide Whether to “Walk Apart” from Communion
By Lionel Deimel, President, Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh
Monroeville, Pennsylvania — February 28, 2005 — Following a service of Evening Prayer, Bishop of Pittsburgh and Moderator of the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes, the Rt. Rev. Robert W. Duncan, offered a perspective on the recent Primates meeting at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, Monroeville. He took questions from the mostly friendly audience after his presentation.
The message of Duncan’s presentation was that the U.S. and Canadian churches have fractured the Anglican Communion, and, that unless they repent of their “innovations,” they, but not him or the diocese he leads, will be outside of it.
Duncan began by reading his statement of February 25, in which he called the clarity of the communiqué from the Primates “breath-taking.” The bishop, who had traveled to Northern Ireland to be able to hear from the Primates directly about their meeting, said that his remarks were based on meeting with 17 of the 35 attending Primates over three days. The church leaders pressed five points, he said. (Audio of the bishop’s presentation, though not of the question period, can be found on the diocesan Web site, along with a description of it.)
First, the teaching in Network dioceses, the teaching of the Anglican Mission of America, and that of other Anglican traditionalists, is the teaching of the Anglican Communion. “There is no other,” Duncan asserted. Both on matters of Scripture and on human sexual behavior, the present teaching of the Anglican Communion is represented in the 1998 Lambeth resolution 1.10 on Human Sexuality.
Secondly, Duncan reported that the Primates told him to “go back to North America and help people make the choice.” The synodical bodies of the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada have been given time to accept or reject the Windsor Report. It is clear “that to hold the innovations of the General Convention of 2003 or the innovations of the General Synod of Canada in 2004 is to make a decision to walk apart from the Communion.”
According to Duncan, his supporters were encouraged to “flood the system” embodied in the “panel of reference” the Archbishop of Canterbury is urged in the Primates’ communiqué to establish. The task of this panel, he said, is “to guarantee adequacy of protection for orthodox minorities in places where they have been on the run or under duress.” Some 70 congregations are presently attempting to put themselves under conservative, non-Episcopal-Church bishops, and Duncan indicated that he plans to turn these cases over to the Archbishop immediately.
Duncan’s fourth point was that the Primates with whom he met insisted that all groups representing “missionary Anglicanism” in North American must be united under his leadership. The Primates are tired of dealing with the “alphabet soup” of AAC, AMiA, REC, FiFNA, etc.
Finally, the Bishop of Pittsburgh reported that the conservative primates wanted to send the message to the American orthodox to “grow up.” Conservatives, like progressives, want their own way and complain when they fail to get it. Duncan told his flock that it is in a “spiritual battle of immense proportion.” Referring to 2 Timothy 4:3–7, he said, “We’d like to keep the faith, but we have a harder time running the race and fighting the fight.” Summarizing, the five instructions, Duncan said simply, “Expect to suffer.”
Many of the queries during the question period involved “what ifs” and explanations of the mechanics of the decision-making that will be taking place as a result of the Primates’ decisions.
The first speaker, like most of those raising the more difficult issues, was a member of Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh. She spoke of being a casualty of the battle the bishop is leading and of being a “pariah” because she attends a church not supportive of his goals. Not all Primates, she asserted, share the views of those to whom Duncan spoke. The bishop, in response, pointed out that all Primates in attendance, including Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, subscribed to the Primates’ communiqué.
Duncan was asked if he, like the Primates, would pledge to neither cross diocesan boundaries without permission nor encourage others to do so. He replied that the Primates believe that the work of the panel of reference would make such actions unnecessary. He warned, however, “I can say to you that what I will encourage is that the orthodox throughout this country are honored and given a place, and I will do whatever I have to do to see that they are given a place.” According to Duncan, the Primates agreed not to interfere in existing arrangements involving foreign bishops overseeing churches in the U.S. Duncan cited parishes in the Dioceses of Oklahoma and Los Angeles as being part of this agreement. It is unclear how this reputed agreement might affect the lawsuit brought by Bishop of Los Angeles Jon Bruno against three congregations in his diocese claiming now to be in the Ugandan Diocese of Luweero.
Asked what he would do as Bishop of Pittsburgh if the Episcopal Church were to do as he anticipates it will and chooses “to step outside the Communion,” Duncan replied, “I intend to serve the [conservative] majority here,” raising questions about the relationship of the diocese to General Convention in such an eventuality.
Supporters and opponents of the bishop’s position each expressed frustration that mission suffers when the church is taken up with internal divisions. Duncan agreed that this was inevitable, in spite of his best efforts, and blamed the American churches for diverting the Primates from issues of HIV/AIDS, debt relief, etc., at their recent meeting.
Duncan said that he would support all congregations, even those progressive ones who saw their views as prophetic and opposed to those of the Communion. He spoke of believing that all congregations should be “free,” while noting that he no longer believes that about property—alluding to the ongoing lawsuit that resulted from his attempt to have the diocese declare that parish property is owned by individual congregations. In all dioceses, we should operate out of charity, he suggested.
Duncan criticized Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold for discouraging the House of Bishops from acting on the Windsor Report before it was received by the Primates. The Church of England, on the other hand, saw no barrier in the timing to acceptance of the report. He called the Presiding Bishop’s action a delaying tactic and complained of the members of the House of Bishops that “we talk gracefully but act in power.” Duncan suggested that the action of the Primates might have been less harsh had the House of Bishops been more forthcoming with a conciliatory response at their recent Salt Lake City meeting. According to Duncan, Primates saw the North American churches as arrogant and considered the positions of the leaders of the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada as “startling.”
In response to other questions, Duncan described the church as being on a path of “mutually assured destruction.” “The majority,” he said, is “working to eliminate the minority, and the minority has sufficient power to resist the majority until it is eliminated.” He described the election of the next Presiding Bishop as a “plebiscite on which direction the church will go.”
2 Commentschurch and state in Virginia
Update Monday 7 February
This bill is dead. See Religious property bill killed in Senate
A bill that would have given congregations that break away from their denomination leverage to retain control of church property died Monday in the state Senate.
Its sponsor, Sen. William Mims, recommended that the measure be referred back to the Senate General Laws Committee, effectively killing the bill.
“My hope is, Mr. President, that it can be solved in the legislative session next year,” said Mims, R-Loudoun.
An extraordinary story is unfolding in Virginia where the state legislature is currently in session.
The Washington Post reported it as Virginia Bill Would Alter Rules on Church Property saying in part:
RICHMOND, Feb. 1 — A bill before the Virginia Senate has alarmed the Episcopal Church and other mainline Protestant denominations that are deeply torn over the ordination of gay ministers and the blessing of same-sex marriages because, they say, the measure would give local congregations unprecedented powers to break away from their national denominations.
Several major church groups on Tuesday urged lawmakers to reject the bill, which they said would entangle state government in church politics.
The bill, now on the Senate floor, would allow congregants to vote to leave their denominations and keep their church buildings and land, unless a legally binding document such as a deed specified otherwise.
The Post also ran an editorial column yesterday opposing the legislation Taking Sides which starts out:
YOU MIGHT expect that in its short legislative session the Virginia General Assembly would have more important business than intervening in internal arguments within the Episcopal Church over gay rights. But a bill pending in the state Senate would make it far easier for Episcopal congregations upset at the church’s consecration of a gay bishop in New Hampshire to bolt from the national church yet keep their buildings and property. The bill, championed by Sen. William C. Mims (R-Loudoun), responds to a real problem: Mr. Mims argues persuasively that Virginia law on the subject is archaic. But his bill would make matters worse, not better. It should be voted down.
The Associated Press carried Virginia’s religious leaders blast church property bill
Other papers in Virginia have also reported and commented on this development:
Richmond Times-Dispatch Churches fight Senate bill – They warn measure is government meddling in affairs of churches
The Falls Church News-Press said in an editorial
Loudoun State Sen. William Mims’ Senate Bill 1305, which would empower local congregations within a church denomination to control their own property, is a blatant, self-serving attempt to cause the state legislature to weigh in on behalf of dissidents within the Episcopal Church opposed to the recent consecration of an openly-gay bishop. Northern Virginia is a hot bed of local Episcopal congregations, including the Falls Church Episcopal Church, that are threatening a schism within the larger Episcopal denomination, but are currently deterred by the fact that the larger church controls the destiny of their property. Mims is a member of one of those dissenting churches.
The Roanoke Times had Senate may skirt church property measure
The Hampton Roads Daily Press published an editorial Internal affairs which concludes with these words:
This is not territory on which the General Assembly should be treading. It is a direct, frontal attack on the right of a denomination to manage its affairs, both with the faithful and with those who leave its flock.
The bill comes from an unsavory source: a relentless, multi-front campaign to constrain the rights and protections of homosexuals. Does anyone believe that the General Assembly would be intervening if the decamping churches were in favor of gay rights?
The Episcopal dioceses of Virginia and across the nation – and other denominations – are trying, in their varied ways and with their varied challenges, to address the rift over homosexuality and larger issues, both doctrinal and social. For the General Assembly to intrude in internal church governance, especially in a way so clearly favoring one faction, is likely unconstitutional and is definitely dangerous and offensive.
The full text of the legislative proposal can be found here.
In case you thought this was nothing to do with the American Anglican Council, they have published this press release enthusiastically supporting the proposal. And copied it over here to make sure we all see it.
3 CommentsHow big is the AAC and the Network?
The Living Church has just published an article by Joan Gundersen who is an officer of Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh. Neither of these organisations has the article on their own website, but it does appear on the website of Via Media Dallas: The Center Still Holds.
This article, which was written in July 2004 but only published in January 2005, contains some statistics on the membership of NACDAP and the AAC, which are now of course partially out of date. I have therefore corrected them below where I can, and added emphasis. Further corrections welcomed.
Of the 100 dioceses within the United States, so far only
nineten have joined the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes. Of more than 7,300 parishes in the Episcopal Church, only 4 percent are affiliated with the American Anglican Council (AAC), and one-third of those are in theninenetwork dioceses. Roughly one-third of the dioceses of the church have no AAC affiliates.Although there is no public listing of individual parishes affiliated with the network, apparently only about 70 have done so. For example, in the Diocese of Pittsburgh, home of network moderator Bishop Robert W. Duncan, approximately 27 percent of diocesan communicants belong to parishes that have officially repudiated the network. Groups supporting tolerance of diversity have arisen in 12 dioceses [11 of which have]
withstrong AAC presences, and these groups have formed a national alliance called Via Media USA to preserve the traditional Episcopal openness to different perspectives and scriptural interpretations.
Separately the Network has this week published a letter from Bishop Robert Duncan which says:
Six convocational deans – serving the vast areas of our country (including some 200 congregations and 300 clergy) that are in non-Network dioceses – have devoted much of their energies to what has become the creative engine of the Anglican Communion Network.
The apparent discrepancy between these two reports in the number of congregations in non-Network dioceses is noticeable, and cannot be entirely explained by the delay in publication, especially since one more diocese has joined the network since July, reducing the number of congregations outside Network dioceses. Another factor might possibly be the inclusion of some non-ECUSA congregations and/or clergy in Bp Duncan’s figures, but in any case it remains an extremely small proportion of ECUSA. At least 80 of the 200 claimed congregations would be in the FiF Convocation. (Thanks to Dr Gundersen for her additional research.)
What is frustrating is the lack of information on the Network website. Not even the number of Network dioceses is correctly given, let alone a list by name of these dioceses, published for all to see. The AAC website is no better at publishing its membership statistics.
11 Comments6 ECUSA bishops comment
Earlier I linked to an American TV report on PBS which included (as TV programmes so often do) tiny snippets from several bishops. They have now published an additional page (hat tip to KH) which contains what appear to be longer extracts from the interviews which they conducted. Here is the page:
Read the comments of six Episcopal bishops after the recent House of Bishops meeting, January 12-13, 2005 in Salt Lake City
The bishops are: Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, Edward Salmon of South Carolina, Mark Sisk of New York, Charles Jenkins of Louisiana, Katharine Jefferts Schori of Nevada and Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold.
Reading these longer remarks (total length around 7000 words) is time-consuming but gives a much better understanding of how these bishops view what has happened so far.
Comment
Now that I have read all of this myself, I note that both Bishop Salmon and Bishop Duncan, while making clear their criticisms of the majority, also make some positive comments about the House of Bishops meeting and about the “Word to the Church” statement. Samples of this:
Bishop Duncan:
We had a very good statement come from the House of Bishops today (January 13), but it didn’t promise any action other than to regret what it was that we had done in the Communion by the way in which we did what we did. What a number of us have seen is very clearly necessary was that we actually had to make a statement that says we submit to this, and some of us have done that. This is really all about the rest of the world dealing with the American church, and the rest of the world at this point receives what it is we’ve said today. The words we spoke — they sounded right. Whether the action will follow out of those words is what remains to be seen.
…The statement is better than I would have expected. It at least begins with saying we are deeply sorry for the trouble we’ve caused…
Bishop Salmon:
6 CommentsThe Windsor Report is not something that you would have a yes or a no to. There were four significant things that they asked of us, and one of the ones that the English House asked specifically was the issue of moratorium, and what we’ve done is said we will deal with that, but we’re not going to deal with it until March. I think the primates will be looking at what we have decided and draw a judgment on it.
…I think that there was an attitudinal change among a number of people who said, “We do not like what has happened to us and the Communion, and we want to keep the bonds of the Communion,” and that came from people who would be in positions exactly opposite where Bishop Duncan and I would be, who would have voted on the other side. I think that what has happened is that in this space of time, the travail we have gone through has had an effect on people. I think when a number of people in that room said, “We are deeply sorry for what has happened and how this has affected the whole Communion,” there were people on all sides of the spectrum who meant that. I think there was progress there. How that is going to work out, I don’t think anybody knows. But it certainly was different from any House [of Bishops] meeting that I have attended before.
yet more on the American bishops
The Church Times carries a report of the American House of Bishops meeting, ECUSA offers its apology for ‘hurt’ caused.
Its final paragraph, on the website, reads:
Bishops in the conservative Anglican Communion Network (ACN) immediately criticised the House of Bishops for “failing to issue a definitive statement on moratoria”. Twenty-one of them signed a statement calling for ECUSA to comply in full with the unanimous recommendations of the Windsor report. Their “statement of acceptance of and submission to” the report, issued through the ACN, concluded with a commitment to “engage with the Communion in our continuing study of the biblical and theological rationale for recent actions”.
In fact, this description of the signatories is not quite accurate. Not all the signers of the statement are bishops whose dioceses are members of the Network of Anglican Communion Diocese and Parishes. There is an analysis of the signatures below the fold. But since the meeting, no additional signatures have been announced, not even that of Terence Kelshaw, Bishop of the Diocese of the Rio Grande, which is a Network member.
4 CommentsECUSA HoB: more information and views
Addition
Here is a report, from The Living Church via titusonenine Special Meeting of Bishops Only a Beginning which includes the following:
In requesting a point of personal privilege to announce that he would be moving to the adjacent hallway to collect signatures for a statement pledging full support for the recommendations of the Windsor Report, the Rt. Rev. Edward L. Salmon, Jr., Bishop of South Carolina, closed out the special House of Bishops meeting in Salt Lake City Jan. 12-13 in much the way it began: with two somewhat different agendas in evidence.
Bishop Salmon – who emphasized that he will continue to attend future House of Bishops meetings and, while there, reveal his intentions forthrightly to his colleagues – did not stay to vote for the final version of “A Word to the Church From the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church.”
Before the bishops had returned to their respective dioceses, Bishop Salmon had the signatures of 20 colleagues on “A Statement of Acceptance of and Submission to the Windsor Report 2004.”“I don’t think we are going to get anywhere if we don’t take the Windsor Report seriously,” Bishop Salmon said. “The response of the House of Bishops did not rise to the level expected by the Communion. We heard a call for submission, and we who are unequivocally prepared to submit have responded accordingly.”
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First, ENS has published a report of the Utah meeting: Bishops sign supplemental statement following ‘Word to the Church’. This includes an interview with Bishop Edward Salmon of the Diocese of South Carolina:
Yet the group of 21 bishops agreed that the response “didn’t go far enough, and that the Windsor Report asked us to deal with three issues directly,” South Carolina Bishop Edward L. Salmon Jr. told ENS in a January 19 telephone interview. He said the supplemental statement — which was neither received nor regarded by the House of Bishops as a minority report — was not intended as an “in-your-face response” but rather as an honest assessment of views shared by the signatories. “What we wanted people to hear is that the bishops who signed this statement were willing to respond to the requests of the Windsor Report.”
Salmon said the bishops engaged in “some very frank discussion” with each other during the meeting, which spanned 11 hours and was closed to visitors and the media. The South Carolina bishop, whose regular attendance and participation at House of Bishops meetings throughout the 15 years of his episcopate has been praised by his peers, emphasized the importance of clear conversation around issues: “I don’t think people can do business without frank discussion… I don’t think we’re ever going to get anywhere if we’re not willing to talk to each other seriously.”
Salmon said the group of 21 would have preferred the House of Bishops “to respond at the front end” of its recent meeting on matters of moratoria on ordaining additional openly gay bishops, and on blessing same-sex unions. He said that deferring this conversation to the House of Bishops’ upcoming March meeting “sends a message” to the Communion, and asked “what does that behavior mean?”
The majority of bishops voted, however, to wait for the Primates’ response before addressing the moratoria issues, and acknowledged that far-reaching decisions must be put not only to the House of Bishops, but also to the full General Convention. “Obviously, we’re not in agreement,” Salmon said.
Second, there is a report in the Denver Post of remarks by Bishop Rob O’Neill of the Diocese of Colorado: Episcopal cleric lauds apology from bishops:
In a pastoral letter this week to Colorado’s 35,000 Episcopalians, Bishop Rob O’Neill endorses what he called a “heartfelt and sincere” apology from U.S. bishops for failing to consider the global ramifications of elevating a gay bishop.
… “It is evident that the House (of Bishops) as a whole highly values the relationship of the Episcopal Church to the worldwide Anglican Communion, (and) wishes to remain within its fellowship,” O’Neill wrote.
He said in an interview he believes the apology represents “significant progress.”
But conservatives have criticized it as not going far enough.
The Rev. Ephraim Radner of Pueblo, a traditionalist, said the bishops’ meeting in Salt Lake largely put off tougher decisions, and he expressed skepticism about holding the U.S. church and the wider communion together.
Third, there has been further, lengthy criticism of the HoB statement by Andrew Goddard on the ACI website: Fruits of Repentance. In relation to the wording of the apology offered, the issue appears to be the failure of the HoB to quote WR verbatim, i.e. by not including these exact words:
“[to express its regret that] the proper constraints of the bonds of affection were breached”
What the bishops actually said was:
“we as the House of Bishops express our sincere regret for the pain, the hurt, and the damage caused to our Anglican bonds of affection by certain actions of our church”
A fragment of Goddard’s argument:
8 CommentsBut is that not what the Windsor Report sought? Certainly, it is part of what it sought and that is perhaps a sign of hope. However, the gulf between the Pastoral Letter’s construal of regret and repentance and that of the Report is clear when examining the words of the key para 134, cited and accepted in the minority report. In addition to regret for consequences – which is present in the Pastoral Letter – the Report asks ECUSA “to express its regret that the proper constraints of the bonds of affection were breached in the events surrounding the election and consecration of a bishop for the see of New Hampshire” (italics added). In that key phrase lies the fault-line between the vision of the Communion implicit in the Pastoral Letter and that found explicitly in the minority report and the Windsor Report.
Windsor report: more views
Each of the following items deserves to be read in full. Don’t judge them simply on the basis of my quotes: it’s very hard to represent such articles in summary form.
Revised Item the Anglican Communion Institute has today published two further articles criticising the ECUSA HoB statement, thereby breaking the URL previously listed for the first one.
First, the Anglican Communion Institute has asked Where Is ECUSA on The Windsor Report? (this URL will not last, but I cannot predict what it will change to when this article moves from their front page). Predictably the ACI finds fault with the ECUSA HoB statement.
Our main question is this, Does the ECUSA genuinely believe it has a special Communion understanding at odds with that set forth in The Windsor Report? If so, could it state this in clear and unambiguous ways?
Second, Bishop Jack Iker of the Diocese of Fort Worth has published BISHOP IKER’S REPORT on the Response of the House of Bishops to the Windsor Report:
At the conclusion of an all-day special meeting of the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church to respond to the Windsor Report, it was decided that little would be said, and even less would be done, to try to resolve the crisis that divides us. In a nutshell, the Bishops expressed their desire to remain full members of the Anglican Communion, while continuing to reject the clear teaching of the Communion on matters of sexual morality.
Third, Bishop Samuel Howard of the Diocese of Florida has published his Response to the Meeting of the House of Bishops but only in PDF format. This includes a statement agreed last December by all the Bishops of the Fourth Province (southeastern U.S.):
0 Comments“We welcome with gratitude the work of the Lambeth Commission on Communion.
We believe that the recommendations of the Windsor Report regarding expressions of regret and voluntary moratoria with respect to communion-damaging actions are well-considered and appropriate. We also believe that the call for a rigorous communion-wide study and discernment process on the matters of human sexuality that challenge us would strengthen us as a communion. We commit ourselves to full participation in these processes, including the participation of gay and lesbian Christians as called for by the Windsor Report.
To make a right beginning, we as the House of Bishops of Province IV express our own sense of sincere regret for the damage caused to the proper constraints of our Anglican bonds of affection by the consecration to the episcopate of a homosexual person living in a committed relationship and by the perceived authorization of public rites of blessing for same sex unions.We further recommit ourselves to our membership in the Anglican Communion.
We commit ourselves as bishops to refrain from consent to the consecration to the episcopate of any person living in a same sex relationship and to the authorization of public rites of blessing for same sex unions until the General Convention of 2009, subject to reconsideration at that time. Recognizing the authority of the General Convention in our polity, as well as our own Episcopal responsibility for leadership, we invite the General Convention of 2006 to affirm our commitment on behalf of the Episcopal Church as a whole. It is our intention that our voluntary decision to refrain from such actions will allow time for the depth of study and discernment on issues of human sexuality requested by the Windsor Report.
We further commit ourselves to respect the boundaries of provinces and dioceses and call upon our brother and sister Anglican bishops to join with us in this commitment.”