from Anglican Curmudgeon by A. S. Haley:
In a previous post I posed the question: What in the world is happening in the Diocese of South Carolina? Now, after a press conference today with the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies, following the conclusion of the meeting of the Executive Council in Omaha, and as reported by Cherie Wetzel of Anglicans United, I think am starting to see the outline of an answer: what is going on is that we see history about to repeat itself.
Not only that, but it will apparently repeat itself with no lessons having been learned. This is all so unnecessary -- and the facts demonstrate, more than anything I could say or write, how severe is the crisis that engulfs the leadership of the Episcopal Church.
Let me first stick to just the facts, since as you will see, the essence of 815's rationale for taking the actions they have taken -- and apparently are further planning to take -- is that "facts are being distorted, and Episcopalians in South Carolina are not getting the truth." Here is a verbatim quote from the press conference:
Doug LeBlanc, The Living Church: In the ENS (Episcopal News Service) report on Friday, you indicated that the PB spoke about the situation in South Carolina, asking people pray for the people in SC. What change do you hope to see as a result of those prayers?
PB [the Presiding Bishop]: I want a clear understanding of realities of TEC and don’t want the people of South Carolina to rely on erroneous information, provided by other sources.
And just in case you did not receive the message loud and clear, here is another exchange:
George Conger, reporter at large [and Church of England Newspaper] to the PB and President: You both expressed receiving erroneous information in SC. What is this erroneous information? Where did it come from?
PB: Episcopalians, like many others who use the internet, seek information that is not subject to peer review. They rely on opinion, not fact. The South Carolina representation of our theology and polity as a whole is not accurate. There are stated processes of this Church that are not accurate. I would encourage South Carolinians to ask bodies of TEC that are responsible for these decisions and get their facts straight.
Bonnie Anderson [President of the House of Deputies]: There is a large influx of information coming from multiple sources. It is really important for people who are going to be voting on something to get accurate information on the issues before them. For example, and this is just hypothetical, can a diocese leave TEC? What is the process for that concern? What have we agreed to in the General Convention over the years with regard to that?
Now, just what is this misinformation and ill-informed opinion that is being broadcast to Episcopalians in South Carolina? Here is a third exchange from the conference, which provides a clue:
Mary Ann Moehler for VirtueOnline: TEC has gone after traditionalists with a vengeance. Now you are going after South Carolina. What do you hope to gain doing this?
PB: Episcopalians in SC have expressed concern to my office about those who have left [the] diocese or are contemplating doing so and continued to exercise control over Episcopal assets. That is my primary concern.
"Those who have left [the] diocese"?? The fact is that the only parish to have left the Diocese of South Carolina to date is All Saints Waccamaw, on Pawley's Island -- and it did so in 2003 -- some seven years ago. Its right to do so was recently affirmed by South Carolina's highest court (although certain vestry and parish members who disagree with that decision have asked the United States Supreme Court to review it). This is hardly -- how shall this Westerner put it? -- a stampede.
But what about those who "are contemplating [leaving]", according to the Presiding Bishop? Apparently she has information that not only are there such people, but they are planning "to continue to exercise control over Episcopal assets." My goodness and sakes alive, as my sainted grandmother was fond of saying. To think that there would be current Episcopalians in South Carolina who might actually choose to accept and follow the ruling by the highest Court of that State -- which held, just so that we stick to the facts, now -- that the Dennis Canon was legally insufficient to create on its own any beneficial interest in a parish's property and in favor of the Diocese or the national Church.
Do I have this right?? The Presiding Bishop of the House of Bishops and the President of the House of Deputies are concerned that Episcopalians in South Carolina are not being told "the truth" about the South Carolina Supreme Court's decision? That despite what the Supreme Court ruled, Episcopalians in South Carolina are entitled to retain control over the assets of those who elect to leave the Diocese? And that the President of the House of Deputies believes "that is [w]hat we have agreed to in the General Convention over the years"??
Were I not absolutely convinced of the faithfulness with which Cherie Wetzel transcribed these words, I would find myself doubting my own sanity. For -- let it now be said -- this is unsound; this makes no sense whatsoever. If the current leadership of the Episcopal Church believes so strongly that they are right and the Supreme Court of South Carolina is wrong, then why did not ECUSA itself ask the Supreme Court to review the case? Why did it expect a few dissident Waccamaw parishioners to carry that burden?
What we see happening right now in South Carolina is the kind of craziness that began in the Diocese of Pittsburgh in 2003 -- long before the terms of either of the current presiding officers of the Church began. As I have recounted in a series of posts dealing with the litigation in that Diocese, everything began with a suspicion on the part of certain clergy and parishioners associated with Calvary Church that Bishop Duncan was preparing to allow other parishes who disagreed with the impending consecration of V. Gene Robinson to leave the Diocese and to keep their parish property. So they filed suit against Bishop Duncan to prevent him from doing just that.
And the result, five years later, was not that any individual parishes left the Church, but that the entire Diocese voted to leave the Church -- after the (current) leadership at 815 had broken the canons multiple times to "depose" the Right Rev. Robert Duncan, its bishop.
But Bishop Duncan did not have any binding precedent of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on his side -- in fact, what precedent there was had held in favor of the Dennis Canon. Here we have the exact opposite.
"[Mis]information", my eye. This is not about misinformation at all, but about power -- absolute and unchecked power (because the House of Bishops is too cowardly to insist as a group that the canons of the Church be strictly followed when it comes to deposition of their colleagues), which corrupts absolutely, as Lord Acton famously reminded us.
If the leadership at 815 embarks on a Calvary-inspired harassment of the Rt. Rev. Mark Lawrence and the Standing Committee, then I repeat what I said in my earlier post:
"This is a watershed moment for both those at 815 Second Avenue and their supporters, as well as for all those who are trying to hold on to a presence in the Episcopal Church despite its current tyrannical ways. Fortunately, their very arguments based on a "trust" in favor of the national Church may be turned against them -- if each parish owes perpetual allegiance to the national Church, then the leadership of that Church owes fiduciary duties to each and every diocese and parish. Those fiduciary duties are very clear, and do not admit of any waffling or tergiversation. Depending on how this all plays out, there will either be a very clear case for breach of fiduciary duties, or not.
"If ECUSA did not learn from the current debacle in Pittsburgh -- where the law ostensibly was in its favor -- then it is doomed to repeat in South Carolina the mistakes it made there. And if no other dioceses will stand behind South Carolina in its travails, then I miss my guess, and the Episcopal Church is truly not worth the paper its constitution was written on. All that will then remain will be a metropolitical Church under an arbitrary figurehead. After some 220 years, judgment will then fall on the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America."
Ah, well -- someday, it will all make a great book. Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit.
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