Two More Bishops ‘Released’ From Ordained Ministry

From The Living Church:

Posted on: January 23, 2009

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has announced that she had “released” two more bishops from the ordained ministry.

The Rt. Rev. William Wantland, former Bishop of Eau Claire, was serving as an assisting bishop in the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth when its annual convention voted in November to disaffiliate from The Episcopal Church and realign with the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone. The Rt. Rev. Henry Scriven resigned as Assistant Bishop of Pittsburgh effective Dec. 31, 2008, in order to return to the Church of England.

The use of Title III, Canon 12, Section 7 “Renunciation of the Ordained Ministry by a Bishop” has been a contentious issue in recent years. Upon learning of his release, Bishop Wantland wrote Bishop Jefferts Schori reminding her that he had not resigned his ordained orders and accusing her of bad faith. He and a number of other traditionalist bishops say the canon is being used punitively.

But the Episcopal Church contends that the canon is intended as a necessary housekeeping measure which paves the way for a cleric to make a declaration of conformity to another church. The canon does not remove a cleric from the ordained ministry, they say, merely the ordained ministry of The Episcopal Church. The canon notes that the “bishop is released from the obligations of all ministerial offices, and is deprived of the right to exercise the gifts and spiritual authority as a minister of God’s word and sacraments conferred in ordinations.”