SAN JOAQUIN, CA: Bishop Lamb Confirms Lack of Quorum to Elect Him

Via VirtueOnline:

By A.S. Haley
http://accurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2009/05/bishop-lamb-confirms-lack-of-quorum-to.html

May 27, 2009

Bishop Lamb has finally provided proof that there was not a sufficient quorum of clergy canonically resident in the Diocese of San Joaquin who were present at the "Special Diocesan Convention" which was held in Lodi a year ago March 29.

Today he acknowledged that last Friday and this Tuesday, he signed certificates with the intent of deposing 61 clergy in the Diocese for having "abandoned the Communion of this Church" in leaving to follow the Rt. Rev. John-David Schofield and his Diocese out of ECUSA. (H/T: VirtueOnLine.)

Now anyone can do the math. According to the contemporary report of the "special convention" in Episcopal Life, there were just twenty-one clergy present at the meeting. Twenty-one present, plus sixty-one absent (and now "deposed"): that makes eighty-two total clergy canonically resident in the Diocese as of March 29, 2008, exactly as I reported here on April 28, 2008 in this post. Diocesan Canon III, section 3.01, which Bishop Lamb and the meeting claim to have followed, provides (with my emphasis added):

A quorum shall consist of one-third of all the Clergy entitled to seats and votes together with at least one (1) Lay Delegate from each of one-third of all the Parishes and Missions entitled to representation. If a quorum be not present at any Convention, no business shall be transacted except that of adjournment from time to time until a quorum shall be present.

Quick, anyone: 81 is 3 x 27, so what would be the minimum quorum for 82 clergy to meet at a legal Special Convention of the Diocese? That's right---twenty-eight were required to be present for lawful business to be transacted on March 29, 2008.

And now we come to one, giant, glorious chicken-and-egg problem into which Bishop Lamb, the group he is leading, and ECUSA have gotten themselves. Let me lay out the logic for you:

A. Without a quorum present, Bishop Lamb was not lawfully confirmed as Provisional Bishop of the "Diocese of San Joaquin," under its own canons. (Nor was the "Standing Committee" voted on at the same meeting lawfully elected, either.)

B. Since Bishop Lamb was not lawfully confirmed in that position, he has no canonical authority to depose the 61 clergy he claims to have deposed.

C. Therefore, as far as the "Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin" claims to be a lawful diocese of ECUSA, and one that follows its own Constitution and Canons, those same 61 clergy are still lawfully canonically resident in that Diocese, and no lawful Convention, Special or Annual, can be held without at least seven of them being present.

So until the "Diocese of San Joaquin" properly reconstitutes itself under ECUSA's own Constitution and Canons (which will need to be amended for the occasion), it has no Bishop and no Ecclesiastical Authority---and no way of lawfully electing one.

As I warned in an earlier post, nothing good could come from this strategy of charging ahead without any proper basis in the canons for doing so. You are witnessing a piling on of illegality upon illegality, or what I called in that earlier post "a murder of crows, a scold of jays, a sneak of weasels".

The point is not whether a court of law will accept what ECUSA tells everyone is the case in San Joaquin. The point is that anyone with a rudimentary ability to read a canon and do the numbers can see---now thanks to the brashness of Bishop Lamb and those advising him---that it is a lie. We have once again the highly un-Christian spectacle of a bishop who is sworn to uphold the "doctrine, discipline and worship" of ECUSA and who violates that same discipline in "deposing" others for violating the same oath.

And no one in ECUSA is doing anything about this ongoing, shameful lawlessness. It is business as usual for the Episcopal Church, the Church of Enablers and Lawbreakers.

END