Diocese in Texas Leaves Episcopal Church

From the NY Times via TitusOneNine:

By GRETEL C. KOVACH
Published: November 15, 2008

DALLAS — The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth on Saturday became the latest to break with the national church over a dispute that involves the ordination of an openly gay bishop, with clergy members and lay leaders voting overwhelmingly to align itself with a South American province.

The Fort Worth diocese amended its constitution to shift allegiance from the Episcopal Church to the Anglican Communion, its parent body. The measure passed by a vote of 72 to 19 among the clergy and 102 to 25 among the laity, at the diocese’s 26th annual convention at St. Vincent’s Cathedral in Bedford, Tex.

The diocese was welcomed Saturday into the Province of the Southern Cone, based in Argentina, but the realignment is expected to be temporary while the diocese works to establish a conservative province of the Anglican Communion in the United States, diocese leaders said.

Bishop Jack L. Iker laid blame for the split on what he described as “a church that is increasingly unfaithful and disobedient to the word of God, a church that has caused division and dissension both at home and abroad, a church that has torn the fabric of the communion at its deepest level, a church that acts more and more like a rebellious protestant sect and less and less like an integral part of the one holy catholic and apostolic church. It is time to say enough is enough.”

The vote confirmed results of an initial poll last year, when about 80 percent of Fort Worth clergy members and laity supported the proposition. Dioceses in Pittsburgh; Quincy, Ill.; and Fresno, Calif., have also voted to leave the national church.

The breakaway votes have come after a long-running debate over church reforms that culminated with the consecration of an openly gay bishop in 2003.

The Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, issued a statement: “The Episcopal Church grieves the departures of a number of persons from the Diocese of Fort Worth. We remind those former Episcopalians that the door is open if they wish to return. We will work with Episcopalians in the Diocese of Fort Worth to elect new leadership and continue the work of the Gospel in that part of Texas.”

Judy Mayo, director of children’s education at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Fort Worth, spoke in favor of the break, saying she was deeply troubled by an “anything goes” philosophy in which some Episcopal churches perform same-sex unions.

“If something is morally wrong in Texas, my friends, it is wrong in Montana or California or Connecticut or Kentucky,” Ms. Mayo said. “It’s either right or wrong according to God’s word.”

She added: “The train of the Episcopal Church and the apostolic faith are simply on a collision course now. It is time to make a clear and clean break.”

At least five of the Fort Worth diocese’s 55 parishes are expected to remain aligned with the Episcopal Church as they fight to override the separation.

Dr. John Burk spoke Saturday on behalf of the opposition, saying the attempt to break from the national church was illegal and extracanonical, and would “put our diocese in schism.”

“The proposition would violate the interest of generations of Episcopalians who long before this diocese existed sacrificed the time, talent and treasure to build up the body of Christ though the ministry of the Episcopal Church, not some other church in this area,” he said.

The Fort Worth diocese, formed in 1982 as a spinoff of the Dallas diocese, is one of three that refuse to ordain women as priests, a practice the national church voted to accept in 1976.