Charges dismissed in Lawrence case: The Church of England Newspaper, December 2, 2011 p 7. December 7, 2011

Posted by geoconger

First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.

The Episcopal Church’s Disciplinary Board for Bishops has dismissed charges of abandoning the communion of the Episcopal Church levelled against Bishop Mark Lawrence of South Carolina.

The 22 November 2011 decision avoids a constitutional crisis in the Episcopal Church, canon lawyers tell The Church of England Newspaper, as it removes an immediate threat for conservative bishops of being dismissed from the Church if they do not kowtow to the will of the majority.

On 28 November 2011, Bishop Dorsey Henderson, the president of the board, released a statement saying the disciplinary board was “unable to make the conclusions essential to a certification that Bishop Lawrence had abandoned the communion of the Church” at their meeting last week.

On 5 October Bishop Lawrence and the president of the South Carolina standing committee released a statement saying they had received a communication from Bishop Henderson stating that “serious charges” had been lodged against the bishop in the form of a 12-count, 63-page indictment brought by unnamed accusers from his diocese.

Independent canon lawyers questioned the propriety of bringing charges of abandoning the Episcopal Church against Bishop Lawrence. The Anglican Communion Institute criticised the fast-track investigation, noting the canons did not allow the board to dispense with the rules of procedure in the interests of a speedy resolution.

In an interview with Anglican TV, canon lawyer Allan Haley stated the prosecution of the case presented problems for the national Church. The Episcopal Church “has no constitutional court to decide this issue” of a conflict of laws and should it take action against Bishop Lawrence and South Carolina, it could not enforce its decisions through the civil courts, he said.

In his statement explaining the reasons for dismissing the charges, Bishop Henderson stated the abandonment canon under which the Bishop had been charged, could be used only in three situations. “By an open renunciation of the Doctrine, Discipline or Worship of the Church”; “by formal admission into any religious body not in communion with” the Church; and, “by exercising Episcopal acts in and for a religious body other than the Church …”

“Applied strictly,” Bishop Henderson said, “none of these three provisions was deemed applicable by a majority of the Board” in the case of Bishop Lawrence.

The board also addressed the question of whether actions of a diocesan convention, that could be construed as an abandonment of the Episcopal Church and its discipline, was grounds for taking legal action against a bishop. “A majority of the members of the Board was unable to conclude that they do,” he said.

Bishop Lawrence had “repeatedly stated” that he was not leaving the Episcopal Church, nor did he want South Carolina to quit the Church. He sought only a “safe place within the Church to live the Christian faith as that diocese perceives it.”

In his view, Bishop Henderson stated that: “I presently take [Bishop Lawrence] at his word,” and added that he hoped the bishop would grant dissenters in his diocese the degree of latitude Bishop Lawrence hoped to receive from the national Church.