Episcopal Church Puts Out Talking Points to Bishops about ACNA Synod Resolution

from VirtueOnline

NEW YORK: Episcopal Church Puts Out Talking Points to Bishops about ACNA Resolution at Upcoming CofE Synod

Submitted by David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
February 4, 2010

There are reports that Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has arrived in England, presumably to monitor and influence to the extent she can the debate in the Synod which begins Monday. VOL has received the following e-mail from Neva Rae Fox, Public Affairs Officer for The Episcopal Church sent through the bishops' listserv run by the Episcopal Church for bishops only. Virtueonline will be present for this debate and will file reports on the CofE Synod from London.

THE General Synod is being asked by a lay representative from Chichester diocese to "express the desire that the Church of England be in communion with the Anglican Church in North America" (ACNA).

The private member's motion is being proposed by Canadian-born Lorna Ashworth, who wants to "give Synod an opportunity to hear about the unfair treatment of people who have continued to maintain the Anglican faith in doctrine, practice, and worship". She refers to Bishop Bob Duncan of Pittsburgh, Bishop Henry Scriven, and the Revd Dr James Packer among the 491 clergy inhibited or deposed in litigation estimated to cost $30 million.

The motion is "not about interfering in the polity of other Anglican provinces", Ms Ashworth says in her background paper. She questions whether the use of the canons for solving property disputes or deposing bishops and clergy in both the Episcopal Church in the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada has "in every regard been proper or in accordance with natural justice". (Church Times)

Editor's Note: the talking points are posted below.