Depositions of Brazilian breakaway clergy announced: Anglican Ink, April 20, 2013 April 21, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil, Anglican Ink, Secession.comments closed
The Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil (IEAB) has deposed five São Paulo clergy following the secession of their congregations from the province last month to revert to their pre-1975 status as overseas chaplaincies of the Church of England.
Read it all in Anglican Ink.
Waldo offers his support to TEC loyalists in South Carolina: Anglican Ink, December 3, 2012 December 3, 2012
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Ink, Secession, South Carolina, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Andrew Waldo, Diocese of Upper South Carolina, Mark Lawrence
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The Rt. Rev. Andrew Waldo
The Bishop of the Diocese of Upper South Carolina has offered his support to national church loyalists in the Diocese of South Carolina in their battle with Bishop Mark Lawrence.
In his 2 Dec 2012 Advent letter to the church, Bishop Andrew Waldo did not offer ecclesiastical oversight to the 5 to 12 South Carolina congregations that did not back the 17 Nov 2012 vote for secession, his offer of pastoral support lays the ground work for their absorption in to his diocese.
Bishop Waldo wrote this “Advent find South Carolina Episcopalians with an open wound, our armor pierced by our inability across diocesan boundaries to navigate the challenges of living and staying together in disagreement.”
Read it all in Anglican Ink.
Ghost marriages split Sudanese diocese: The Church of England Newspaper, June 24, 2011 p 9. June 27, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Episcopal Church of the Sudan, Secession, Syncretism.comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Tribal jealousies and theological tensions have split the Episcopal Church of the Sudan’s Diocese of Bor. On June 13, the day after Archbishop Daniel Deng consecrated Bishop Ruben Akurdit Ngong, supporters of his defeated rival in the May 14 election announced they were quitting the Episcopal Church to form the Lutheran Church of Sudan.
In a letter given to the new bishop, five dissident clergymen protested the lack of spiritual and physical development in the diocese. The five also denounced the diocese’s toleration of “Ghost marriages”, saying the Nuer tribal custom was incompatible with Christian teaching.
A form of levirate marriage, Ghost marriages among the Nuer tribe occur when a married male dies before he is able to produce a son. Tribal custom dictates that an unmarried male relative of the deceased stand in as husband until a male heir is born. No formal marriage ceremony is contracted, and the dead husband continues to be regarded as the head of the family—and any issue from the ghost marriage are recognized as being the children of the deceased.
Once a male heir is born, the ghost marriage ends and the man is freed to start his own family—but remains obligated to provide for the deceased’s family.
Anthropologists believe the custom serves economic and religious ends for Nuer. The dead man’s wealth remain within his own family and his widow is protected from economic hardship.
The Nuer also believe that unless a man produces a male heir, his ghost will haunt his family bringing misfortune if no son was produced in his name.
The Episcopal Church of the Sudan has seen several schisms over the past 25 years. In 1986 the first Primate of the Sudan, Archbishop Elinana Ja’bi Ngalamu, refused to step down when he reached the age of mandatory retirement. The House of Bishops subsequently elected a new primate, Archbishop Benjamin Wani Yugusuk, but quickly split with bishops dividing on tribal lines in support of the two primates.
Archbishop George Carey was able to resolve the schism in 1992 and reconcile the two factions. However, in December 2003, two deposed bishops led by the former Bishop of Rumbeck, the Rt. Rev. Gabriel Roric Jur formed the Reformed Episcopal Church of the Sudan (RECS). In 2004 the RECS split and five of its bishops led by Bishop John Machar Thon of Duk Diocese formed the Anglican Church of the Sudan (ACS).
A further schism within the ACS occurred when the ACS Bishop of Rumbek Abraham Mayom Athian broke away to form his own Anglican Church of Sudan in Rumbek. The newly styled Archbishop Mayon has consecrated at least ten bishops for his church, sources in Sudan tell The Church of England Newspaper.
This month’s schism in Bor is notable in that instead of forming a fifth Anglican Church in South Sudan, the dissidents are forming the country’s first Lutheran Church.
The Anglo-Catholic movement is dead, Catholic bishop claims: The Church of England Newspaper, Mar 4, 2011 p 6 March 7, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Ordinariate, Church of England Newspaper, Roman Catholic Church, Secession.comments closed
Anglo-Catholic bishops in happier days. The Archbishop of Canterbury with episcopal members of the SSC in 2005.
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Anglo-Catholic movement within the Anglican Communion is dead, the Roman Catholic bishop overseeing the Australian Ordinariate has claimed.
In an interview published on February 26 in The Record, the newspaper of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Perth, Bishop Peter Elliott of Melbourne cautioned those “who still claim to be Anglo-Catholics and yet are holding back.”
“When are you going to face realities? … there’s no place for a classical Anglo-Catholic in the Anglican Communion anymore,” Bishop Elliott said.
The Bishop chided Anglo-Catholics where were “tempted to make a desperate last stand by just staying where they are,” Bishop Elliott told a meeting of prospective converts in Perth last week.
“Permit me to suggest that it is a waste of time and spiritual energy to cling to such a dangerous illusion,” said the Bishop, a former Anglican.
“Let me quietly invite you to lay down weapons of controversies that are now pointless, to set aside endless intrigues which lead nowhere, to walk away from futile conflicts which cannot build up the body of Christ in charity. Accept the invitation of the vicar of Christ on earth.”
Pope Benedict XVI was a “gentle man” who had offered the Ordinariate with “no ulterior motives.”
“His apostolic offer is clear. There is no deception here. He calls you to peace.”
Created in November 2009 in response to pleas from the leaders of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), the Ordinariate is a structure within the Roman Catholic Church for former Anglicans who wish to enter into full communion with Rome whilst preserving liturgical and other elements of their Anglican heritage.
However, the former Bishop of Quincy, the Rt Rev Keith Ackerman, in an interview published last month, noted that defining an Anglo-Catholic was not an entirely straightforward procedure. Broadly speaking, the principal Anglo-Catholic groups could be broken down into five parties: Anglo-Papalists who looked to Rome; the Anglo-Orthodox who looked to the Ecumenical patriarch and the churches of the East; the traditional High Church party; those in the Catholic breakaway groups generally called the Continuum; and the Affirming Catholic group whose members include Archbishop Rowan Williams and former US Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold.
Bishop Ackerman, who was deposed by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori for allegedly abandoning the communion of the Episcopal Church, currently serves the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).
“The point is,” Bishop Ackerman told Virtueonline, “it is rather difficult to characterise an Anglo-Catholic. The vast majority may well agree that an Anglo-Catholic is one who believes in the reality of the continuation of a pre-1540s Church in England and as with a number of the principles of the Oxford Movement.”
However, among American Anglo-Catholics, the “vast majority” have “have always believed and taught that they are Catholics but not Roman Catholics.”
Canada–two more parishes quit: CEN 3.20.09 p 9 March 23, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Canada, Anglican Church of North America, Church of England Newspaper, Secession.comments closed
Two British Columbia parishes have quit the Anglican Church of Canada and have affiliated with the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC). The votes by St Matthias in Victoria and St Mary’s Nanoose Bay increase the breakaway group’s ranks to 28 parishes served by three former Anglican Church of Canada bishops and 73 priests and deacons.
By a vote of 170 in favor and 10 opposed, St Matthias withdrew from the diocese on March 8 and joined the traditionalist breakaway group led by Bishop Don Harvey, the former Bishop of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador. The congregation has left its property to the diocese and a remnant group and on March 15 began worshipping at a local community center.
The 200 members of St Mary’s Church on Feb 8 also voted to quit the diocese. However the rural congregation has stayed in its building and is engaged in litigation with the diocese over its ownership.
On March 12, Bishop James Cowan of British Columbia accused the breakaway group of being dishonest and divisive. Those who had quit had given “us assurances” that “they would never do what they have just done.” ANiC had also been dishonest in its “presentation of the facts” which had “allowed them to lead others to leave the diocese. I am shocked by this and see, under the guise of lofty intent and purity of motive, instead the subversion of the mission of the Church,” he said.
“I pray that all those who are acting in this way will repent and be restored to a place of peace somewhere in the greater Body of Christ on earth,” Bishop Cowan wrote.
However, Bishop Harvey said he was “delighted to welcome” the congregations. “By aligning with the Anglican Network in Canada, they join a growing movement of Anglicans throughout North America seeking to remain in the mainstream of global and historic Anglicanism.”
Indians quit US church: CEN 3.20.09 p 9. March 23, 2009
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| Members of nine congregations closed last year on a Sioux Indian reservation have quit the Diocese of South Dakota and formed the Lakota Oyate Episcopalian Church.
On March 14, the clergy and members of the nine redundant rural churches created the new group, which they say will not be affiliated with either the Episcopal Church or its rival Anglican Church in North America, to oversee the reservation churches. Speaking to the Rapid City Journal, Lori Ann Two Bulls said the group has petitioned the tribe’s Land Committee to transfer ownership rights to the church properties from the diocese to the Lakota Oyate Episcopalian Church. It asked the tribal council to allow it to “continue operating the churches expelled by The Episcopal diocese,” she explained. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
Second Fort Worth Diocese Created: CEN 2.23.09 February 23, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Fort Worth, Secession.comments closed
| Episcopalians loyal to the national Church in New York have formed a second Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth at a special convention held Feb 7.
The new diocese, formed around five congregations and individual Episcopalians who declined to follow the majority out of the Episcopal Church into the Province of the Southern Cone, invited the Bishop of Kentucky, the Rt Rev Edwin Gulick to serve as its provisional bishop for the next six months, and elected diocesan officers. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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Another bishop “released” in the US: CEN 1.31.09 p 7. January 31, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Canon Law, Church of England Newspaper, Fort Worth, Secession.comments closed
US Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori has “released” the Assistant Bishop of Fort Worth from the ordained ministry, saying that she had accepted the voluntary renunciation of orders given her by the Rt. Rev. William Wantland.
On Jan 23, Bishop Schori stated this action was taken in response to the Forward in Faith leader’s letter of Nov 15. She wrote that Bishop Wantland “stated that as a result of the Diocese of Fort Worth’s recent attempt to realign with the Province of the Southern Cone, ‘I am . . . now canonically affiliated with the Southern Cone and its Primate, The Most Rev. Gregory Venables.’ Bishop Wantland then declared that ‘I am no longer a member of the Episcopal Church.” These statements make clear that Bishop Wantland has chosen to leave the Episcopal Church and that he no longer wishes to carry out the responsibilities of ordained ministry in this Church.”
As a result she had accepted “Bishop Wantland’s voluntary renunciation of his Orders in the Episcopal Church and have removed and released him from our ordained ministry.”
Bishop Wantland responded that the Presiding Bishop was either a liar or a fool. In a statement released by the Diocese of Fort Worth, Bishop Wantland said his Nov 15 letter “specifically declared that ‘I am not resigning my Orders’,” and that her actions did not conform to church canons.
“I can only conclude that either you (1) do not understand the plain and fairly simple language of either the Canons or my letter to you, or (2) have deliberately violated the Canons for your own purposes and contrary to your obligation as a Christian not to bear false witness,” he said.
The Bishop of Fulham, the Rt. Rev. John Broadhurst, on Jan 23 said Forward in Faith was “appalled” by Bishop Schori’s “intentional disinformation and abuse of Church Law.” He noted that while she acknowledged that Bishop Wantland had transferred to the Province of the Southern Cone, her claim to then have deposed him from his clerical orders was a demonstration of “her disregard for other provinces of the Anglican Communion and the canons of her own TEC denomination.”
“Clearly her statements misrepresent Bishop Wantland’s letter,” Bishop Broadhurst wrote.
Written to respond to cases where a bishop leaves the Episcopal Church for the Roman Catholic church, the canon used by Bishop Schori against Bishop Wantland states the “bishop is released from the obligations of all ministerial offices, and is deprived of the right to exercise the gifts
Vatican signals there will be no enclave for former Anglican clergy in Rome: CEN 12.19.08 p 5. December 18, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Roman Catholic Church, Secession.comments closed
The Vatican will not create an enclave within the Roman Catholic Church for Anglicans opposed to women clergy and the ‘gay agenda’, Rome’s La Civiltà Cattolica predicts.
In an October article entitled Catholic Anglican Relations after the Lambeth Conference (La Relazione tra Cattolici e Anglicani dopo la Conferenza di Lambeth) the semi-official Jesuit bi-weekly stated the “corporate unity” under discussion between the Vatican and traditionalist Anglicans “will not be a form of uniatism as this is unsuitable for uniting two realities which are too similar from a cultural point of view as indeed are Roman Catholics and Anglo-Catholics.”
“The Holy See, while sympathetic to the demands of these Anglo-Catholics” for corporate reunion, “is moving with discretion and prudence.” Opposition to the ordination of women to the ordained ministry and to gay bishops and blessings “is not enough,” the newspaper said. Anglo-Catholics should be motived not by a rejection of Anglicanism but by the “desire to join fully the Catholic Church,” Fr. Paul Gamberini SJ wrote.
Anglican – Catholic relations have been in a downward spiral in recent years, prompting some traditionalists to quit the Anglican Communion for Rome. A number of Anglo-Catholic groups have also petitioned the Vatican to allow whole communities—parishes, religious orders, dioceses to be received en masse, and allowed to maintain their Anglican orders and liturgical forms.
A public acknowledgment of these behind the scenes negotiations came on July 5 when the prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) Cardinal William Levada responded to an Oct 2007 request for reunion from the bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC)—a 300,000 member group of “Continuing” Anglicans outside the structures of the Anglican Communion.
The cardinal assured TAC “of the serious attention which the Congregation gives to the prospect of corporate unity raised in that letter”, and said that “as soon as the Congregation is in a position to respond more definitively concerning the proposals you have sent, we will inform you,” as the “situation within the Anglican Communion in general has become markedly more complex.”
Less than a week after Cardinal Levada wrote to the TAC bishops, 1333 Church of England bishops, priests and deacons signed an open letter protesting General Synod’s decision to authorize women bishops. Should they quit the Church of England for the Roman Catholic Church, they would likely be welcomed into the Roman Catholic Church through the vehicle of the 1980 Pastoral Provision created by Pope John Paul II, which allowed married Anglican priests to be received as Catholic priests, Fr. Gamberini said.
La Civiltà Cattolica stated that after the Nov 4 1992 General Synod vote that “extended to women the ordained ministry, about one thousand pastors have abandoned the Anglican Communion of England: 480 of them have decided to be ordained priests in the Catholic Church, 90 of them are married. Some estimate that about half a million Anglo-Catholics have left the Anglican Communion in recent decades.”
However, this infusion of Anglo-Catholics into the Roman Catholic Church would not necessarily lead to the creation of an Anglican uniate rite under papal oversight, Fr Gamberini said.
The Vatican was loathe to intervene, he added, citing Pope Benedict XVI’s July 17 comment that he hoped “schisms and new breaks can be avoided, and that a responsible solution will be found” to the Anglican crisis.
While the Vatican has carved out an exception to its clerical celibacy rule for these former Anglican now Roman Catholic priests, it has yet to permit married ex-Anglican Roman Catholic bishops. Married ex-Anglican bishops functioning as Roman Catholic bishops would not be unprecedented, however. In December 1959, Pope John XXIII received a married ex-Anglican priest consecrated as a bishop of the schismatic Igreja Católica Apostólica Brasileira into the Roman Catholic Church.
Married with seven children, Bishop Salomão Barbosa Ferraz was not re-ordained upon his reception in the Catholic Church and upon being named Titular Bishop of Eleutherna on May 10, 1963 was not re-consecrated. Active at the Second Vatican Council, Bishop Ferraz appears to have been the only modern day married Roman Catholic bishop.
Fort Worth bishop deposed, but he denies renouncing orders: CEN 12.12.08 p 7 December 14, 2008
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US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has deposed Fort Worth Bishop Jack Iker from the ordained ministry, saying she had received a written statement from the Anglo-Catholic leader renouncing his orders. However, the Fort Worth bishop denies having denounced his orders.
Writing to the US House of Bishops on Dec 5, Bishop Schori defended her actions saying her estimation of the Anglo-Catholic leader’s intent and her interpretation of his press statement released after she began legal proceedings on Nov 20 to remove him from office could be construed to meet the requirements of the canons.
In her letter to the House of Bishops explaining her decision, Bishop Schori said that she had taken “this course rather than seeking consent of the House of Bishops to Bishop Iker’s deposition for abandonment of the Communion of this Church because I believe it to be a more pastoral response to Bishop Iker’s clear expression of his desire not to be a part of the Episcopal Church at this time.”
On Nov 20 Bishop Schori suspended Bishop Iker from office pending a hearing before the House of Bishops. In response, Bishop Iker issued a statement to the media saying “Katharine Jefferts Schori has no authority over me or my ministry as a Bishop in the Church of God. She never has, and she never will. Since November 15, 2008, both the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth and I as the Diocesan Bishop have been members of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. As a result, canonical declarations of the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church pertaining to us are irrelevant and of no consequence.”
Bishop Schori told the US Bishops that this “public statement” had made “clear” Bishop Iker’s desire to “leave the Episcopal Church and that he no longer wished to carry out the responsibilities of ordained ministry in the Church. Accordingly, I have, with the consent of my Council of Advice, chosen this day to accept Bishop Iker’s voluntary renunciation of his Orders in the Episcopal Church and have removed and released him from our ordained ministry.”
She argued that her actions “fits squarely within the canons,” adding that her decision to interpret the press statement as meeting the requirements of the canon was an act of kindness that “increases the hope for reconciliation with Bishop Iker and his followers at some point.”
On Dec 6, Bishop Iker stated Bishop Schori was “misleading the Church and misrepresenting the facts,” and denied having made a declaration of voluntary renunciation of his orders.
The Episcopal Church’s Canon III.12.7 governs the renunciation of a bishop’s ministry and requires that a voluntary renunciation be initiated by the bishop who desires to quit the church.
The bishop “shall declare, in writing, to the Presiding Bishop a renunciation of the ordained Ministry of this Church, and a desire to be removed therefrom.”
“I have not written to the Presiding Bishop making any such declaration or request,” Bishop Iker said, adding that he hoped the “House of Bishops will hold her accountable for her continued abuse of the canons.”
One traditionalist bishop within the Episcopal Church told The Church of England Newspaper that while it was a “forgone conclusion” that Bishop Iker would be deposed by the House of Bishops, the presiding bishop’s decision to circumvent the canons was unfortunate. However, he said there “was no will” within the House of Bishops to challenge her.
New American Province looms: CEN 12.05.08 p 1. December 4, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Canada, Church of England Newspaper, GAFCON, Secession, The Episcopal Church.comments closed
The Third Province movement in North America will be the topic of a special meeting at Lambeth Palace today (Dec 5). The Archbishop of Canterbury is scheduled to meet with the Gafcon primates’ council and will be briefed on plans to form a province for traditionalist Anglicans in the United States and Canada.
On Nov 11, Kenyan Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi told The Church of England Newspaper that a meeting had been tentatively set with Dr. Rowan Williams in London for Dec 5. He said the timeline under which the Gafcon primates were working was that on Dec 3 the leaders of the Common Cause Partnership would gather in Wheaton, Illinois to endorse a draft constitution for the emerging province.
The Gafcon archbishops: Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya, Peter Akinola of Nigeria, [Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda] Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone, Valentino Mokiwa of Tanzania, Henry Orombi of Uganda, Justice Akrofi of West Africa would then meet on Dec 4 in London to receive and endorse the agreement and bring it to Dr. Williams the following day.
Speaking to the congregation of Truro Parish in Fairfax, Virginia on Nov 30, Bishop Martyn Minns publicly confirmed the proposed timeline adding that the Gafcon primates were also planning on briefing the primates standing committee the day before the start of the Jan 31-Feb 6 Alexandria Primates meeting-however, US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori will likely miss the pre-conference session as she is scheduled to attend the Episcopal Church’s Executive Council meeting from Jan 29-31.
A Lambeth Palace spokespersontold CEN that Dr Williams would meet Archbishops Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya, Peter Akinola of Nigeria, Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda, Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone and Henry Orombi of Uganda at the Old Palace in Canterbury today. The meeting had been set “at their request” the spokesperson said. However, she declined to describe the proposed agenda.
A senior member of the Gafcon leadership team said it would be a mistake to assume they were waiting upon Dr. Williams’ word before work began on the Third Province. He told CEN the Gafcon primates would not adopt a confrontational approach over the Third Province and would be happy for Dr. Williams to sign on to the plan. However, he noted that under the existing legal structures of the Anglican Communion, Dr. Williams’ endorsement was not a prerequisite for their creation of the new Common Cause province in North America.
Membership in the Anglican Consultative Council determines membership in the Anglican Communion. Article 3 of the Constitution of the Anglican Consultative Council vests the authority to make members with the primates: “With the assent of two-thirds of the Primates of the Anglican Communion, the council may alter or add to the schedule” of members.
While it is technically possible for a vote on a third province to come before the primates’ meeting in Alexandria, and then be forwarded to ACC-14 in May for action, it is unlikely as the necessary constitutional work in forming a CCP-based North American province will not be completed.
Final approval within North America could take up to two years as the synods of the four breakaway Episcopal dioceses: San Joaquin, Pittsburgh, Quincy and Fort Worth will have to endorse the constitution over two meetings of their convention, while the Reformed Episcopal Church, the Anglican Mission in the Americas, the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, and the Kenyan and Uganda overseen churches in North America and other CCP members must ratify the constitution and amend their own governing documents so as to bring its terms into force.
Should the primates agree to the creation of a Third Province at their 2011 meeting, the matter would be brought before ACC-15 in 2012. While special meetings of the ACC and the primates can be called on the initiative of their standing committees, no such meeting has ever been called, and the current political climate within the Anglican Communion does not favor expedited action.
The status of the members of the Third Province within the Anglican Communion during the interval between Dec 3, 2008 and final approval by the ACC, would likely be under dispute. However, under custom established in the case of the Church of South India and existing church canons the status of the individual churches would be determined by its relationship to one of the existing primates of the Anglican Communion. The four breakaway US dioceses, the Anglican Network in Canada, and the African-overseen parishes and jurisdictions would continue in their present form as de facto members of the Communion—while ecclesial entities such as the Reformed Episcopal Church would be outside the Communion.
While in the 20th century, many came to assume that Anglicanism was cotemporaneous with the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the governing constitutions and canons of a number of provinces affect their link to the Communion through fealty to the Book of Common Prayer, or to shared doctrine. The “muddiness” of Anglicanism ecclesiastical structures, the Gafcon senior source tells the CEN, prevents decisive or speedy action in resolving the disputes.
Legal framework set for new Third Province in North America: CEN 12.04.08 December 4, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Canada, Church of England Newspaper, GAFCON, Secession, The Episcopal Church.comments closed
| Leaders of the Third Province movement sidestepped the contentious issue of women clergy last night, and have endorsed a provisional constitution and canons governing the emerging Third Province in the Americas.
“God did a great work today,” Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan told supporters at a church service in Wheaton, Illinois at the end of the Dec 1-3 gathering, as the disparate members of the Common Cause Partnership (CCP) of Anglican traditionalists in the US and Canada “came together with the proposed draft of the constitution and canons” and after discussing each proviso, “adopted unanimously” each article of the code. This was “staggering considering who was around the table” said Bishop Duncan — the moderator of CCP and now the interim primate and archbishop of the provisional province. Comprised of approximately 700 congregations with an average Sunday attendance of 100,000, the newly created Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) boasts Anglo-Catholics, Evangelicals, Charismatics, and a variety of traditionalists at odds with the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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Fort Worth Bishop is inhibited over vote: CEN 11.28.08 p 3 November 30, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Fort Worth, Secession.comments closed
US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has suspended Fort Worth Bishop Jack Iker from the ordained ministry for backing his synod’s Nov 15 vote to quit the Episcopal Church and join the Province of the Southern Cone.
While the Nov 21 notice of inhibition directing Bishop Iker to recant of his sins within 60 days or face expulsion, came as no surprise to Episcopal Church watchers, internal documents show a lessening of support within the church’s hierarchy for Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s campaign of preemptive discipline of conservative bishops.
Her inhibition of Bishop Iker also appears to have introduced a new interpretation of the disciplinary canons for bishops. The requirement that the church’s three senior bishops endorse the inhibition of a bishop—which had been deemed irrelevant to the case against Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan in September—has been reinstated in the case of Bishop Iker.
On Aug 26, attorneys for Bishop Schori submitted a 64-page indictment to the Episcopal Church’s Title IV Committee. Bishop Schori believed the Anglo-Catholic leader had “so repudiated the doctrine, discipline and worship” of the church by his “persistent position that the Diocese may choose whether or not to remain a constituent part of the Episcopal Church,” that he should be found to have “abandoned the Communion of this Church.”
Bishop Schori’s lawyer, David Booth Beers asked the committee to address the charges on an “expedited basis, specifically, if at all feasible, before the next meeting of the House of Bishops on September 17, 2008.”
The Title IV Committee declined to deliberate at an expedited pace, and on Sept 12 and Oct 3 Mr. Beers provided further documents in support of its contentions. In his Oct 3 letter, the presiding bishop’s attorney said that his client “has asked you consider again the evidence” against Bishop Iker. Mr. Beers noted the deposition of Bishop Duncan had now set a precedent that permitted a bishop to be deposed for bad thoughts, without recourse to having committed bad acts..
However, the Title IV committee again refused an expedited request to act on the conspiracy charges and did not act until after the Nov 15 secession of the Diocese of Fort Worth. On Nov 20 the committee found that “Bishop Iker, according to his own reported statements and the statements issued by the Diocese of Forth Worth,” was serving as bishop of the “realigned” diocese and had accordingly abandoned the Communion of the Episcopal Church.
Unlike the case of Bishop Duncan, where the three senior bishops of the church had declined as a group to inhibit him, Bishop Iker was inhibited with the “consent” of the Bishops of Texas, Southeast Florida and Virginia. During the Duncan affair, Mr. Beers had argued that the “consent” of the three bishops for inhibition was not a prerequisite for discipline of the Pittsburgh bishop.
On Nov 24, Bishop Iker responded that “Katharine Jefferts Schori has no authority over me or my ministry as a Bishop in the Church of God. She never has, and she never will.”
He noted that since the synod vote, “both the Episcopal Diocese of Forth Worth and I as the Diocesan bishop” have been members of the Southern Cone. “As a result”, he added, Bishop Schori’s declarations “pertaining to us” are irrelevant and of no consequence.”
The President of the Forth Worth Standing Committee, the Rev. Thomas Hightower called upon Bishop Schori to “desist from any further actions in our diocese and that she refrain from any further border crossing.”
Fort Worth bishop inhibited: CEN 11.24.08 November 24, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Fort Worth, Secession.comments closed
| US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has suspended Fort Worth Bishop Jack Iker from the ministry of the Episcopal Church on the grounds of having backed his diocese’s secession to the Province of the Southern Cone.
While the Nov 21 notice of inhibition came as no surprise to Episcopal Church watchers, internal church documents show a resistance by the review committee to punish Bishop Iker on the basis of his beliefs—resisting Bishop Schori’s push to discipline the Fort Worth bishop before his diocese quit the Episcopal Church. Bishop Schori’s inhibition of Bishop Iker also appears to have introduced a new interpretation of the disciplinary canons for bishops. The requirement that the church’s three senior bishops endorse the inhibition of a bishop—which had been deemed irrelevant to the case against Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan in September—has been reinstated in the case of Bishop Iker. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper’s Religiousintelligence.com |
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Diocese of Recife facing legal action: CEN 11.21.08 p 6. November 24, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil, Church of England Newspaper, Secession.comments closed
The Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil (IEAB) has filed suit against the breakaway Diocese of Recife seeking to gain control of the diocese’s properties.
On Oct 30, Bishop Robinson Cavalcanti stated that “following the example of their allies in the USA and Canada” the IEAB has “filed a suit against the Diocese of Recife in Pernambuco’s State court seeking to annul our juridical identity.”
They are “intent on the seizure of certain key properties (including the Cathedral and the Diocesan Central Office), in which for so long we have carried out the tasks of evangelism, thus posing a direct threat to our mission and social outreach.”
The Provincial Secretary of the Brazilian Church, the Rev. Francisco da Silva declined to comment on the litigation, but documents filed with the court allege that following the mass deposition in 2005 of Bishop Cavalcanti and 32 members of the Recife clergy, along with the secession of approximately 95 percent of the church’s members, the church properties should now be turned over to the IEAB.
Historically the small Anglican Church in Brazil was supported by two doctrinally and geographically distinct groups, with the Episcopal Church of the US supporting the church in Southern Brazil and the Church of England supporting the church in the Northeast of the country. Recife followed a different path of theologically development than the southern dioceses and retained an Evangelical identity while the southern dioceses moved into the Affirming Catholic camp. At the 1998 Lambeth Conference, Bishop Cavalcanti was the sole Brazilian bishop to vote with the majority in support of Resolution 1.10 on Human Sexuality.
Following his 2005 deposition from the IEAB, Bishop Cavalcanti and his diocese was given shelter in the Province of the Southern Cone. While repeated public calls for reconciliation have been made by the leaders of the IEAB, no action has ever been taken to resolve the dispute.
“As a diocese, we have never surrendered to the option of unlimited comprehensiveness, nor capitulated to the absolute relativism that marks the post-modern liberal revisionism of the Brazilian Province,” the Recife Standing Committee said on Oct 30.
“Neither have we accepted the attempt to force us into ‘continuing church’ status. We are part of the Anglican Communion, part of the Global South, partners of the Networks of the Anglican Communion in the US and Canada, partners of the Common Cause Movement, of GAFCON, signing on to the Jerusalem Declaration and the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, in permanent dialogue with all the orthodox expressions of Anglicanism, seeking to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit in this slow, difficult, but inevitable realignment,” they said.
However, “geographical and cultural distances often cause us to feel isolated and make it difficult for us to be heard and understood,” by the Western churches. “We hope that Anglican leaders, and the Gafcon Primate’s Council, to whom we appeal, and particularly those who share with us the same principles, sincerity and transparency, may exercise discernment with regard to reports concerning us, so that justice may be done to our identity and dignity as we seek a stable institutional future for our diocese within the Anglican Communion,” they said.
Fort Worth votes to secede from Episcopal Church: CEN 11.17.08 November 17, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Fort Worth, Secession.comments closed
| The Anglo-Catholic movement in America is dead, the Rt Rev Jack Iker said following the secession of the Diocese of Fort Worth from the Episcopal Church on Nov 15.
By a margin of almost four to one, the 225 members of the Fort Worth Synod meeting at St Vincent’s Cathedral in Bedford, Texas, on Nov 14-15 passed the second readings of five constitutional amendments severing America’s last traditionalist Anglo-Catholic diocese from the Episcopal Church and adopted a motion affiliating with the Province of the Southern Cone. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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Diocese of Quincy votes to leave Episcopal Church in bishop’s absence: CEN 11.16.08 November 16, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Quincy, Secession.comments closed
| The Diocese of Quincy has quit the Episcopal Church and affiliated with the Province of the Southern Cone, making it the third diocese to quit the American church over its leftward theological drift.
On Nov 7 delegates to the diocesan synod meeting at St John’s Church in Quincy, Illinois, approved the second and final reading of a constitutional amendment withdrawing from the Episcopal Church. The vote was 41-14 in the clergy order and 54-12 by the laity. A second resolution affiliating the diocese with the Southern Cone pending the creation of a Third Province in North America was approved 46-4 in the clergy order and 55-8 in the lay order. One of the US church’s smallest dioceses, Quincy comprises 24 congregations spread across rural west central Illinois. Traditionally Anglo-Catholic, Quincy was one of three dioceses in the Episcopal Church that did not ordain women clergy. Four congregations are expected to remain within the Episcopal Church. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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Fort Worth on the verge of secession: CEN 11.13.08 November 13, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Fort Worth, Secession.comments closed
| Delegates to the Diocese of Fort Worth’s annual synod will decide this Saturday whether to quit the Episcopal Church, a move which would make it the fourth American diocese to secede and affiliate with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone.
The stronghold of the Anglo-Catholic movement in the Episcopal Church, Fort Worth has long been at odds with the Episcopal Church over innovations of doctrine and discipline championed by its liberal hierarchy. One of only three dioceses that did not ordain or license women clergy, Fort Worth now remains alone within the American church in rejecting women’s orders, after Quincy quit this past week and San Joaquin left in 2007. Fort Worth bishop the Rt Rev Jack L Iker said he was “confident” the second reading of the secession bill would pass this week’s synod on Nov 15. The “only question is by how much” he told ReligiousIntelligence.com. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper’s RelligiousIntelligence.com |
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Another parish quits the USA church: CEN 11.07.08 p 6. November 7, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Rio Grande, Secession.comments closed
| The steady spate of parish defections from the Episcopal Church continued unabated last week, as a Texas parish announced it had quit the Diocese of the Rio Grande.
On Oct 21 the vestry of St Francis on the Hill in El Paso, Texas voted to quit the Episcopal Church. Parish spokesman Ron Munden stated the “separation was mandated by the congregation and ratified by the vestry.” Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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Bishop of Quincy to step down: CEN 11.07.08 p 7. November 7, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Quincy, Secession.comments closed
Anglo-Catholic leader, the Rt. Rev. Keith L. Ackerman, the Bishop of Quincy has announced his retirement due to ill health with effect on Nov 1. The announcement by the leader of Forward in Faith in the United States comes one week before his diocesan synod will vote on whether to secede from the Episcopal Church.
The Oct 30 statement said that after conferring with his family, the diocesan leaders and his physicians he would retire from “his administrative duties as executive officer of the Diocese.”
However, he stated he planned on remaining in the “Diocese for some time and will make himself available, under arrangement with the Standing Committee, to perform Episcopal acts and provide spiritual counsel to members of the Diocese.”
Bishop Ackerman has been plagued by ill health for several years, and was unable to preside at the 2007 session of diocesan synod that took the first steps towards secession from the Episcopal Church. A leading figure among the conservative bishops at Lambeth as well as the June Gafcon Conference in Jerusalem, the bishop’s decision to retire is not being seen by conservatives as a retreat from battle for the American church, but a withdrawal due to ill health.
In his statement announcing his retirement Bishop Ackerman noted he had “no intention of abandoning the diocese but will continue to provide spiritual and pastoral support as asked by the Standing Committee.”
Forward in Faith added that Bishop Ackerman would remain in office as President of the North American chapter, and that it was “his intention during his retirement to devote himself more fully than has been possible hitherto to this ministry.”
The American House of Bishops must vote to accept Bishop Ackerman’s resignation, before it takes official effect. Should his diocese vote to quit the Episcopal Church on Nov 8—as is expected—and Bishop Ackerman offer his pastoral services to the breakaway dioceses, given the current mood of the US House of Bishops in the wake of the deposition of Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan, it is likely that Bishop Ackerman’s resignation will be refused and he would be brought to trial for “abandonment of communion” and deposed, one serving American bishop told The Church of England Newspaper.
Rebel parish defends vote to leave in absence of its rector: CEN 10.31.08 p 6. November 3, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Canada, Church of England Newspaper, Secession.comments closed
Charges leveled by the Diocese of Brandon that the secession of St. Bede’s parish in Manitoba was unlawful due to the absence of the rector from the parish meeting, are unfounded the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) tells The Church of England Newspaper.
On Oct 15 the congregation of St. Bede’s Church in Kinosota, Manitoba held a parish meeting under the presidency of its nsm curate, the Rev. Jona Weitzel, and voted 29 to 1 to quit the Diocese of Brandon for ANiC—the ecclesial “life boat” created by the Province of the Southern Cone for Canadian traditionalists pending the creation of a second province for the US and Canada.
Parish incumbent the Rev. Robert Bettson claimed the vote was unlawful telling the Anglican Journal, “I am the rector of the parish, and was not consulted about the meeting, which the canons of the diocese require.”
However, the congregation charged Mr. Bettson with having neglected the parish, thereby forfeiting his right to preside at parish meetings, claiming that in the year he had been rector, he had only been to the parish two times.
Mr. Bettson was “fully aware” of the Oct 15 congregation meeting, ANiC spokesman Marily Jacobson said. He removed the “legally posted notice of the congregational meeting” tacked to by the vestry on the church’s front door, replacing it “with a notice of his own saying the meeting was cancelled.”
He also told members of the congregation on his second visit to the parish, on Sept 28, he would attend the meeting, ANiC said.
Brandon’s Canon 32 states that the parish incumbent shall convene parish meetings. However, “In the case of the absence of or neglect by the incumbent, the churchwardens shall convene such meetings, and such meetings shall be chaired by either one of the churchwardens or by another parishioner, elected by the meeting.”
ANiC attorney Cheryl Chang told CEN that though the “incumbent has declared the meeting ‘illegal’ and improper, we are simply saying there is evidence that he has been absent and/or neglected the parish, having only attended there two times in the over one year plus he has been rector.”
“In our view, we have taken a proper interpretation of the Canon,” the congregation said, while ” the incumbent and diocese disagree. “
Canadian parish quits, but forgets to tell priest: CEN 10.24.08 p 8 October 24, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Canada, Church of England Newspaper, Secession.comments closed
A rural Manitoba congregation has quit the Anglican Church in Canada for ANiC—the breakaway group overseen by the Province of the Southern Cone—but neglected to tell its vicar they were going.
On Oct 15 the congregation of St. Bede’s Church in Kinosota, Manitoba held a parish meeting under the presidency of its nsm curate, the Rev. Jona Weitzel, and voted 29 to 1 to quit the Diocese of Brandon for ANiC.
However, the parish incumbent, the Rev. Robert Bettson told the Anglican Journal the secession vote was not lawful. “I am the rector of the parish, and was not consulted about the meeting, which the canons of the diocese require,” he said.
Mr. Bettson said he had dismissed the parish wardens and the diocese would assert its ownership of St Bede’s, for the continuing congregation. Built in 1842, St. Bede’s is one of the oldest Anglican parishes on the Canadian prairie.
“It is a great joy to welcome the people of St Bede’s into a faithfully Anglican Church family,” said Bishop Malcolm Harding, ANiC suffragan bishop and acting territorial archdeacon for the Prairie Provinces. “By aligning with the Anglican Network in Canada, they join a growing movement of Anglicans throughout North America seeking to remain in the mainstream of global and historic Anglicanism.
The rector of the five-church South Parkland parish, Mr. Bettson said he had prevented the defection of a second parish led by Ms. Weitzel, St. Michael and All Angels in McCreary, after he persuaded the parish wardens to cancel the secession vote.
With the acquisition of St Bede’s, ANiC now numbers 22 congregations spread across Canada under the metropolitan oversight of Bishop Gregory Venables of Argentina.
In his charge to the Brandon synod on Oct 16, Bishop James Njegovan did not discuss the secession of St Bede’s but had sharp words for his predecessor, Bishop Harding, one of the leaders of ANiC.
He stated that “in Nov of 2007 my predecessor Malcolm Harding, our fifth bishop, voluntarily relinquished the exercise of ministry in the Anglican Church, meaning that for all intents and purposes he was ‘laicized’; that is he could no longer exercise any ordained ministerial function within the Church and could not use ministerial titles or wear clerical vesture. Following the ancient practice and polity of the church, this would apply not only within the Anglican Church of Canada, but also within all Churches in Full Communion with us, such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and all the Churches of the Anglican Communion.”
Bishop Harding’s support of the breakaway Canadian parishes violated canon law and custom, Bishop Njegovan said, adding that “the promotion of schism within the Church has always been considered an even greater evil than heresy in that if flies directly in the face of the Scriptural call to unity.”
ANiC Bishop Donald Harvey disputed Bishop Njegovan’s assertions as “unkind” and “unprecedented.”
“Bishop Harding and I are full members of the House of Bishops of the Province of the Southern Cone,” Bishop Harvey wrote on Oct 19. “As such we have been authenticated as bishops in the worldwide Anglican Communion and our Orders and Offices are accepted worldwide – with the unfortunate exception of some, but by no means all, dioceses of the Anglican Church of Canada.”
Bishop Harding “deserves far better treatment and respect than has been afforded him by the Bishop of Brandon,” Bishop Harvey wrote, adding that “such unchristian behaviour is completely unacceptable.”
California vote to depose priests may backfire for Episcopal Church: CEN 10.24.08 p 6. October 23, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Property Litigation, San Joaquin, Secession.comments closed
The loyalist faction of the Diocese of San Joaquin has charged 52 clergymen of the diocese with having “abandoned the communion of the Episcopal Church” and has asked provisional Bishop Jerry Lamb to depose them, unless they “recant” their sins and “return to the Episcopal Church” within six months.
The Oct 17 statement was issued by the Standing Committee of the “Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin,” a provisional body created by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori after the Diocese of San Joaquin voted to secede last year.
However, legal analysts note that by charging the 52 clergymen with “abandonment”, the provisional diocese has dealt itself a potentially fatal blow in its litigation with Bishop John-David Schofield and the “Anglican” diocese, as it may constitute an admission that the group led by Bishop Lamb is not a lawfully constituted entity.
In the provisional diocese’s press statement, the standing committee asserted the 52 clergymen had violated the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church by their “support of attempts to remove the diocese from the Episcopal Church, and their repudiation of the ecclesiastical authority of the Episcopal Church” and Bishop Lamb.
It believed that “individuals may voluntarily leave the church. Parishes and diocese are integral parts of the church, and may not leave without the express consent of the governing bodies of the church”—a point contested by the breakaway group, and also not found in the Episcopal Church’s constitution and canons.
However, legal analyst and canonical scholar A.S. Haley notes that “by charging these 52 clergy with ‘abandonment’, the pseudo-diocese of San Joaquin is making a legal admission that these same clergy were canonically part of its makeup over the past eleven months.”
This may prove fatal to the Bishop Lamb group’s legal challenge to the diocese, Haley said, as it is an admission that “when the pseudo-diocese held its special convention last March 29, those 52 [clergy] then counted towards the determination of whether a quorum of its clergy were in fact present to transact lawful business, such as the approval of the Rt. Rev. Jerry A. Lamb as provisional bishop, and authorizing him to commence litigation against the Rt. Rev. John-David Schofield.”
Under the rules of the diocese, a quorum to conduct business at a convention must include one-third of all the clergy. At the convention that voted for secession in Dec 2007, 82 clergy, including most of the 52 charged with abandonment were present. At the special convention called by Bishop Schori on March 29, 2008, only 21 clergy were present—28 were required for a valid quorum.
Mr. Haley noted that the absence of a valid quorum meant that “the business transacted on March 29 was null and void. Bishop Lamb was not validly approved as Provisional Bishop; the ‘standing committee’ that was purportedly elected was not validly chosen, and currently has no valid authority to charge any clergy with ‘abandonment’, and neither Bishop Lamb nor his “diocese” is a proper party plaintiff in the current lawsuit.”
If the diocese had argued the 52 secessionist clergy were no longer members of the diocese for purposes of a quorum, so that the rump group of 21 comprised a lawful quorum, “that would have deprived them of their ability to depose those clergy,” Mr. Haley noted.
By seeking to punish the 52 secessionist clergy, the provisional diocese led by Bishop Lamb, may well have scuppered its legal claim to the breakaway diocese’s property, Mr. Haley suggested.
Canadian parishes quit Church: CEN 10.10.08 p 6. October 13, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Canada, Church of England Newspaper, Secession.comments closed
Two more Ontario parishes have voted to quit the Anglican Church of Canada and join the breakaway Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC). At parish meetings on Oct 4, St Peter’s Church in Hamilton seceded from the Diocese of Niagara and St George’s in Ottawa quit the Diocese of Ottawa to come under the episcopal oversight of ANiC Bishop Donald Harvey and Presiding Bishop Gregory Venables of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone.
Parish electors voted 130 to 27 at St George’s, and 42 to 1 at St Peter’s to approve secession.
“It is a great joy to welcome the people of St George’s and St Peter’s into a faithfully Anglican and unabashedly Christian organization,” said the Ven. Charlie Masters of ANiC. “By aligning with the Anglican Network in Canada, they join a growing movement of Anglicans throughout North America seeking to remain in the mainstream of global and historic Anglicanism.”
With last week’s secession of St Aidan’s in the Diocese of Huron to ANiC, the breakaway group under the metropolitan authority of Bishop Venables now numbers 21 parishes across Canada.
However it was “the Canadian church or parts of it that have broken away,” not St Peter’s, parish rector the Rev. Canon Sandra Copland said. “We are aligning with the worldwide Anglican church,” she explained.
The Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, Archbishop Fred Hiltz has denounced the defections of parishes to ANiC, accusing Bishop Venables of overstepping the mark in providing episcopal support for distressed conservatives, and called for an end to the cross border raids. His oversight for embattled conservatives would end, Bishop Venables has explained, only when the underlying issues that caused the defections have been resolved.
Pittsburgh dicoese votes to split from the Episcopal Church: CEN 10.10.08 p 5. October 11, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Pittsburgh, Secession.comments closed
The Diocese of Pittsburgh has quit the Episcopal Church to affiliate with the Province of the Southern Cone. Meeting at the Church of the Ascension in Oakland, Pennsylvania on Oct 4, clergy and lay delegates to the diocesan convention passed the second reading of a constitutional amendment permitting secession.
By margins of 121 to 33 in the clergy order and 119 to 69 in the lay order, the diocese: its clergy, congregations and lay members, became the second diocese to quit the Episcopal Church. “We deeply value our shared heritage and years of friendship with those still within that denomination, but this diocese could not in good conscience continue down the road away from mainstream Christianity that the leadership of The Episcopal Church is so determined to follow,” diocesan spokesman the Rev. Peter Frank said after the vote.
However, US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori denounced the move in a statement released after the decision was announced arguing the secession vote was unnecessary. “I have repeatedly reassured Episcopalians that there is abundant room for dissent within this Church, and that loyal opposition is a long and honored tradition within Anglicanism.”
Schism was a “more egregious error than charges of heresy,” she said, adding that she would assist those wishing to remain affiliated with the national church to “reorganize the Diocese and call a bishop to provide episcopal ministry.”
The Rev. James Simons, a member of the Pittsburgh Standing Committee, announced after the vote he would not follow the diocese out of the church, and that he would work with the national church to create a new ecclesial entity for Pittsburgh area Anglicans who wish to remain part of the Episcopal Church. Mr. Frank said the diocese expected some of its 70 parishes to withdraw from the Diocese and affiliate with a mission district likely to be created by the Episcopal Church.
However, a spokesman told The Church of England Newspaper, it was incorrect to say, as had the Presiding Bishop, that the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh would “reorganize.” By its vote, the legal and ecclesial entity known as the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh ended its affiliation with the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, but did not change its name or end its legal existence.
Those parishes and clergy wishing to remain part of the national church were free to create a new ecclesial entity in association with the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, he noted. However, under US civil and canon law, the name, assets and orders of the Diocese of Pittsburgh did not belong to those who wished to be part of the national church. Bishop Schori has argued that it is not possible for dioceses to leave the Episcopal Church. However, nothing in the constitution and canons of the Episcopal Church prevents dioceses from seceding from the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. The issue will likely be settled through civil litigation in the US state courts.
In 2007 the Province of the Southern Cone agreed to provide “temporary emergency shelter” to North American dioceses and congregations. Under the canons of the Southern Cone, Pittsburgh has not been formally received as a new diocese of the province, but has been given temporary metropolitan oversight by the Southern Cone’s Primate, Bishop Gregory Venables of Argentina, pending the creation of a new province of the Communion in North America.
Following the close of the convention, the Diocesan Standing Committee invited Bishop Robert Duncan to serve as acting bishop of the diocese, pending the election of a new bishop at a special convention scheduled for Nov 7. Bishop Duncan is expected to be the sole candidate on the ballot.
Following his deposition from office by the House of Bishops last month, Bishop Duncan was received into the House of Bishops of the Province of the Southern Cone and has served as an administrative consultant to the diocese. He did not preside nor preach at the Oct 4 convention.
At the press conference following the convention, the President of the Standing Committee, the Rev. David Wilson said the diocese would permit parishes who wished to be part of the national Episcopal Church to leave with their property, as the diocese was committed to a “charitable” legal separation.
New York parish quits Episcopal Church: CEN 10.09.08 October 9, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Secession, Western New York.comments closed
| The largest parish of the Diocese of Western New York has quit the Episcopal Church for the Province of the Southern Cone.
Meeting at the diocesan offices in Buffalo on Oct 7, the Rev Arthur W Ward, Jr, rector of the 1,100-member St Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in Tonawanda, informed the Rt Rev Michael Garrison that the parish clergy and congregation would vacate the parish properties by early December and form a new congregation affiliated with an overseas province of the Anglican Communion. The defection of St Bartholomew’s represents a significant loss, as it provides approximately ten per cent of the diocese’s communicants and was asked to provide eight per cent of its income. “People may come and go, but St Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in Tonawanda will continue,” Bishop Garrison said after the meeting. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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