Posted on 12/09/2007 2:13:02 PM PST by Huber
In an historic move that surprised virtually nobody, the Diocese of San Joaquin voted to leave the Episcopal Church (TEC) and realign with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone becoming the first diocese in the nation to formally leave TEC.
Delegates to the 48th diocesan convention voted by orders, 70-12 clergy and 103-10 in the lay order, to effectively remove all references to the Episcopal Church from its constitution and describe the diocese as "a constituent member of the Anglican Communion and in full communion with the See of Canterbury."
The vote was overwhelming to leave. San Joaquin Bishop John-David Schofield asked for a moment of silence in deference to those who opposed the change, reminding the gathering that he "knows what it feels like to be a minority" before the vote tallies were read.
"This is a historic moment...a vote for freedom," Schofield told the gathering of about 88 clergy and 113 lay delegates meeting at St. James Cathedral in Fresno. He reminded the gathering that the diocese as a whole was realigning and said that clergy who reject the move have time to discern whether or not to accept the invitation to join the Southern Cone. The vote was taken after about 30 minutes of emotional debate, often interrupted by applause.
One delegate told the Episcopal News Service that the vote was ironically "a good thing. We can get on with our ministry, now that this diocese is free of this poison," she said, referring to the rancor surrounding the issue of leaving.
"The Episcopal Church receives with sadness the news that some members of this church have made a decision to leave this church," said Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. "We deeply regret their unwillingness or inability to live within the historical Anglican understanding of comprehensiveness. We wish them to know of our prayers for them and their journey. The Episcopal Church will continue in the Diocese of San Joaquin, albeit with new leadership," ENS reported. A handful of delegates vowed to "remain episcopal".
In his convention address on Friday, Schofield told delegates he would retire within two years, by General Convention 2009 "with no reasonable hope for an orthodox successor" and a return to "where we were before last December's convention. Canon laws will be introduced to make it impossible for dioceses and persons to leave."
Although the move makes San Joaquin the first diocese in the nation to separate from the Episcopal Church, Schofield predicted that more dioceses will follow. Flanked by Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan and Bolivia Bishop Frank Lyons from the Southern Cone province, Schofield told a gathering of reporters December 7 that the consecration of an openly gay bishop in 2003 was merely a "flashpoint" for those who had had "enough because of the liberal theology of the Episcopal Church."
"Those who want to remain Episcopalians, but reject the biblical standards of morality, the ultimate authority of the Bible, and the biblical revelation of God to us in His Son the only savior of mankind, will in the end be left solely with a name and a bureaucratic structure," he said.
The central California-based diocese represents about 8,500 Episcopalians in 47 congregations, at least five of whom Schofield predicted will opt to remain with the Episcopal Church.
Schofield characterized Venables' invitation to align with the Province of the Southern Cone as a "Godsend" for Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, allowing for disagreeing factions to still remain within the Anglican Communion. The Province of the Southern Cone has about 22,000 members and encompasses Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay.
Lyons also told reporters that Williams approved of the new affiliation and described it as "a sensible way forward."
But, the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, Anglican Communion secretary general, disagreed. "I would be surprised to hear that the Archbishop would formally support such a development which is contrary to the Windsor Report," he said in a November 27, 2007, letter to a Fort Worth delegate who had asked for verification of similar assertions Lyons made during the Texas diocese's November 17 convention.
Delegates to the Fort Worth diocese's 25th convention also gave the first of two approvals to dissociate from the Episcopal Church. Similarly, Pittsburgh delegates on November 2 voted for realignment. Delegates at Quincy's October 20-21 annual synod, however, chose to remain with the Episcopal Church, at least for the immediate future.
Schofield said San Joaquin congregations wishing to remain with the national church may retain their property, as long as they don't owe the diocese money. "I just wish the Episcopal Church was as generous in the other direction," he said.
He said that nothing will change immediately as the diocese waits to see what, if any, action the Presiding Bishop will take. "On Monday, the doors won't be locked."
Chancellor Kenneth VanRozeboom gave a lengthy report to convention detailing the legal implications of the move. Schofield said the diocese is monitoring the decision in the property disputes between the Diocese of Los Angeles and four breakaway churches which are awaiting a hearing before the California Supreme Court.
He characterized such litigation as being "like cannibalism, like Christians eating each other. Christians should not be taking Christians to court," he said. Regardless of the outcome in Los Angeles, the future remains murky because that decision involves "churches, not dioceses." Schofield concluded that any litigation "will be a fairly long, drawn-out process."
Bishop Schofieldwas warned by Mrs. Jefferts Schori not to attempt to leave the Episcopal Church with the properties and threatened legal action if he did so. She warned Schofield that any constitutional changes would "implicitly reject the Church's property and other canons."
As recently as June, the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church warned that actions by Episcopal Church dioceses that changed their constitutions in an attempt to bypass the Church's Constitution and Canons were "null and void."
Jefferts Schori said that any attempt to affiliate with the Southern Cone would amount to abandoning the communion of the church and amounted to "violating your own vows to uphold the doctrine, discipline, and worship of this Church."
END
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. Wow, this is a major development, isn’t it? What do you think?
From Rorate Caeli, this excerpt from Cardinal Dias’s homily at the opening of the jubilee of Lourdes:
“The struggle between God and his enemy still takes place, even more so today than at the time of Bernadette, 150 years ago. Because the world finds itself stuck in the swamp of a secularism that wishes to create a world without God; of a relativism that stifles the permanent and unchangeable values of the Gospel; and of a religious indifference that remains undisturbed regarding the higher good of the matters of God and the Church. This battle makes innumerable victims within our families and among our young people. Some months before becoming Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Karol Woytjila said (November 9, 1976): “We are today before the greatest combat that mankind has ever seen. I do not believe that the Christian community has completely understood it. We are today before the final struggle between the Church and the Anti-Church, between the Gospel and the Anti-Gospel.” One thing remains certain: the final victory belongs to God and that will happen thanks to Mary, the Woman of Genesis and of the Apocalypse, who will fight at the head of the army of her sons and daughters against the enemy forces of Satan and will crush the head of the serpent.”
I think of this for many reasons, including the accelerating break-up of TEC and the theological/moral developments (you should pardon the expression) in TEC, but also note the quotation from then-Cardinal Wojtila, which certainly seems a far cry from the mandatory optimism so often enforced in the (Roman) Church after Vatican II, deriving from “Gaudium et spes”.
You will have observed, I’m sure, that Rorate also called the Holy Father’s new encyclical, “Spe salvi” the “Anti-Gaudium et spes”, surely an ironic play on words as GS itself was called the “anti-Syllabus [of Errors, of Bl. Pius IX]” by...Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
These are certainly interesting times.
Interesting observations.
“a constituent member of the Anglican Communion and in full communion with the See of Canterbury.”
Does the ABC agree to this?
Somehow I find it impossible to believe that the good bishopess spends a lot of time in prayer.
“Somehow I find it impossible to believe that the good bishopess spends a lot of time in prayer.”
As a non-Christian univeralist, it is not even clear who she would pray to. She at one point referred to praying to Mother Jesus. But Episcopagans also apparently worship The Spirit Who Does A New Thing and another deity they call the Millenium Development Goals.
The ABC would have to. Any action otherwise would require Rowan the Fuzzy to make a decision- something he is clearly not capable of doing. He may not be able to avoid that situation anyway.
TEC will likely organize those who want to remain Episcopailians into a diocese with a “company man” as bishop. If that bishop does not already have a Lambeth invitation and is not a Gene Robinson type, Rowan would be obliged to invite him since he would be a TEC bishop with jurisdiction. What then would be done with Scofield? If Scofield remains on the invite list, then why aren’t the CANA and AMiA bishops not invited? If Scofield is disinvited, then Williams would be signalling that American Anglicans must adhere to and live with TEC innovations, or leave the Anglican Communion altogether. That would be the end.
Rowan William’s only plausible way forward is to disinvite Scofield and not invite or disinvite whatever lackey ECUSA installs in Fresno.
Amen. She should look in the mirror, because she and the other liberals in the Episcopal Church are the ones who are violating those vows.
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