Actually, he does have license, it's from Duncan, not Bennison. Anglican curates are under the direct authority of the bishop. Bennison had taken away the curate's license. Duncan now has a two priests under his authority serving a parish in Bennison's diocese. It will get interesting indeed.
Please keep me apprised of how this works out. I am not familiar with how the Episcopal church handles such arrangements; but it truly saddened me to hear that a priest who respects God's morality, should be defrocked for failing to follow a bishop's liberal call. My prayers go out to him and his family.
We catholics have just the opposite problem. Too many liberal thinking clergy who want to see these same issues embraced by the Catholic Church. It will be a very cold day in hades, when that happens.
Thanks for the update!
Statement of the Bishop of Pittsburgh relating to the acceptance of Fr. David Moyer as a priest of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh:
By the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan Bishop of Pittsburgh
I have today taken action to receive the Rev. David L. Moyer, SSC, as a priest in good standing of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. Fr. Moyer was received from the Diocese of the Upper Shire in the Province of Central Africa.
Fr. Moyer has been the Rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd, Rosemont, Pennsylvania. Fr. Moyer has been under a sentence of suspension (inhibition) for the last six months and was today "deposed" by the Bishop of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia), the Rt. Rev. Charles E. Bennison. Many bishops throughout the world, including the Most Rev. George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury, have refused to acknowledge the validity of either the inhibition or the deposition. In August the House of Bishops of the Province of Central Africa approved David L. Moyer as a priest in good standing there, in order that he might be transferred to Pittsburgh were I to request it. The request was made yesterday.
Many American bishops and many bishops world-wide have attempted to mediate the dispute between the Bishop of Pennsylvania and the Rector of Rosemont. All of this has been to no avail. I have repeatedly implored my brother bishop not to proceed to depose this priest. I have made it abundantly clear on several occasions, most recently in person in June, that, were Charles to proceed as he has now done, there would be no alternative to the kind of action I and others are now taking.
The Rev. Garrin Dickinson, curate of Good Shepherd, Rosemont, is also a priest of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. I have been informed by him that his license to officiate in the Diocese of Pennsylvania has been withdrawn effective yesterday. I have instructed him to remain at his post, without a license. If the Bishop of Pennsylvania desires that this young priest be tried for "invasion" due to my pastoral directive, then it will be in the ecclesiastical court at Pittsburgh where he will have to be tried, as the canons direct.
Why have I intervened? Because I have long known Fr. Moyer as a good and godly priest, and he has appealed to me for protection. Because the canon under which the Bishop of Pennsylvania has acted is precedent- setting, opportunistic, and due-process denying. Because the soul of the Episcopal Church is at stake as innovation supplants received Faith and Order. Because traditionalist witness in the Episcopal Church will always have my active support and creative encouragement. Because the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church has failed to avert the deposition, nevertheless calling the course undertaken by the Bishop of Pennsylvania "utterly unacceptable." Because I believe there to be an inherent imbalance of power between a bishop and a priest, leading in such a dispute to an abuse of power. The dispute will now necessarily become a dispute between bishops, who are by definition power equals. Because recent actions both by Bp. Charles Bennison and by other bishops, each acting contrary to the expressed will of the House of Bishops or the Lambeth Conference, have been based on an assertion that the bishop is absolute in his own diocese, an assertion I desire hereby to put to the test.
It is in light of all these factors that I have received, from the Diocese of the Upper Shire, the Rev. David L. Moyer, SSC as a priest in good standing of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. It is also in light of all these factors that I assess the inhibition and deposition of the Rev. David L. Moyer by the Bishop of Pennsylvania to be utterly null and void, both legally and morally, and to have no bearing on the decision I have made.
It is anticipated that both Fr. Moyer and Fr. Dickinson will remain resident at Rosemont for the foreseeable future. This circumstance notwithstanding, Fr. Moyer has today been named Priest Associate of Grace Church, Mount Washington, an Anglo-Catholic parish in the City of Pittsburgh. Fr. Moyer's regular function in our diocese will be based there.
As a sign of our new relationship, Fr. Moyer will celebrate the 12:05 mass in Trinity Cathedral tomorrow. This site was chosen to recall to everyone the heritage of religious toleration of the founder of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, William Penn, on whose lands Trinity Cathedral (Pittsburgh) is built.
The Rt. Rev. Robert Wm. Duncan
Bishop of Pittsburgh
5th September, A.D. 2002