Bishop Cox Demands Correction

Editor's note: This is from TitusOneNine from an article posted at The Living Church. The Living Church site is overwhelmed at this point, so this will have to suffice. Canon Kendall Harmon adds his commentary at the end.

An attorney representing Bishop William J. Cox has accused Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of defaming the bishop, and has demanded that she publish a correction of her announcement concerning his deposition.

In a letter dated March 27, Wicks Stephens, a lawyer representing Bishop Cox, said that since the deposition failed to achieve the canonically required majority of “the whole number of bishops entitled to vote,” the deposition is “without effect and void.” The Presiding Bishop has previously been made aware of the canonical deficiencies in the vote deposing Bishop Cox, the retired Bishop Suffragan of Maryland and assisting bishop in Oklahoma. Therefore, Mr. Stephens said she may be guilty of defamation if she continues to make public statements to the contrary about his client.

“In light of the foregoing, demand is hereby made that you right the wrong by which you have defamed Bishop Cox by immediately withdrawing your pronouncement of deposition and that you publish your withdrawal in the same manner and to the same extent you have published your wrongful actions,” Mr. Stephens wrote.

I want to be quite clear on this point. It is beyond a shadow of a doubt that the canons were not followed in the deposition of Bishop Cox. Efforts of some to try to wriggle out of it, or to pretend that there "might" be something there and that is all, or that this is somehow straining at gnats, or any other such embarrassing chicanery and casuistry simply will not do. The absence of shame and outrage from those who claim to care about justice and about polity and the importance of the canons in this matter reveals a glaring double standard for all the world to see. A number of prominent people in the Episcopal Church, by their sophistry or their silence, are robbing themselves of any credibility whatsoever to speak for "justice" in the future until and unless they speak out clearly and boldly and see that this uncanonical action be corrected. The fact that it is pastorally cruel, and that there were other possible avenues to pursue, only adds to the sad spectacle that this represents.