Written by: The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc.
Monday, April 23rd, 2012
Today several bishops of The Episcopal Church joined The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc. (“ACI”), in submitting an amicus curiae brief to the Texas Supreme Court in the lawsuit arising out of the withdrawal of the Diocese of Fort Worth from The Episcopal Church. All of these bishops and all of the officers and directors of ACI remain in The Episcopal Church and have submitted this brief solely because they disagree with the characterization of the governance of The Episcopal Church as submitted in support of the motion for summary judgment that the trial court granted in this case. As is well known, these bishops and ACI oppose the decision by the Diocese of Fort Worth to leave The Episcopal Church. They have no intention of withdrawing from the Church, but it is precisely because they intend to remain in the Church that they are concerned that the trial court ruling has misunderstood, and thereby damaged, the constitutional structure of The Episcopal Church.
In their brief, the bishops and ACI argue that the summary judgment ruling by the trial court in the Fort Worth litigation violated the First Amendment to the United States Constitution because it immersed the court in an impermissible “searching” and “extensive inquiry into religious polity.” Under the Supreme Court’s First Amendment jurisprudence, courts may constitutionally defer to a church authority rather than apply neutral principles of law only if they can identify the appropriate ecclesiastical authority without conducting such an extensive inquiry into church governance. In the case of The Episcopal Church, its governing constitution specifies that the diocesan bishop is “the Ecclesiastical Authority” in the diocese. Acceptance of TEC’s claim that there are other bodies or offices with hierarchical supremacy over the diocesan bishop would require the Court to become embroiled in a searching historical analysis of difficult questions of church polity without any explicit language in the church’s governing instrument on which to base its conclusion. The First Amendment does not permit such a result.
The amicus curiae brief can be read here
April 23 2012 | Articles
Written by: Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner
Thursday, April 5th, 2012
The announced resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Church of England’s rejection of the Covenant promises a new free-for-all period among Anglican churches. Meetings are promised in London, Toronto, and elsewhere. Who knows where all this will lead.
The moment, however, does provide a good opportunity to rethink and restate what conservative Anglicans like myself, who have remained in The Episcopal Church, are really after. It’s worth reminding ourselves of our goals. I speak only for myself here, of course; although I imagine my views are shared by many. And what it comes down to is this: what we want is to be left alone, canonically and legally, to witness to the Gospel in worship, teaching, and deed in hope of God’s truth in Christ triumphing over our divisions and disobedience.
This is not a complicated desire really. But it seems to be deeply misunderstood. Some traditional Anglicans who have left TEC seem to think that our staying is a form of treason with regards to the truth (and their own needs). I have little to say on this front, other than that I consider the witness of our Lord with respect to his own people and his own troubled apostles sufficient justification for our choice to stay. God gave himself to the godless – and we must include ourselves and our churches in this latter category as much as anybody.
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April 05 2012 | Articles
Written by: The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc.
Monday, March 26th, 2012
Rowan Williams’ formal announcement of his resignation at the end of the year as Archbishop of Canterbury comes as no surprise. Well-sourced public rumors had been circulating for some months. It will take time to provide an accurate assessment of his tenure. He came to the position as the most highly touted Anglican theologian in generations. And although it would be wrong to place him above the level of any previous archbishops on this score – one thinks of Anselm, Baldwin, Thomas Bradwardine, John Peckham, Cranmer, Wake, Temple, Ramsey – his wide-ranging mind, prolific output, and previous academic influences meant that his new bully-pulpit would engage a broad intellectual front for the church in novel ways. Indeed, Williams’ many lectures and papers, interviews and statements, even a few books, over the past decade have generated public debate of an unexpectedly broad and passionate engagement. Throughout the well-documented Anglican struggles of these years, furthermore, Williams has provided subtle and provocative theological reflection on relevant matters that have, at least in theory, shown these events to be about more than church politics. At certain key times, e.g. with respect to the Sudan and Zimbabwe, he has courageously engaged unjust civil powers on behalf of defenseless peoples and churches. His own deep faith and disciplined spiritual life and commitments have shown through his public witness repeatedly.
Williams’ resignation, however, seems an admission of failure on his part. In this case, the failure is twofold. First, there is his loss of authority in the Church of England, where his attempts at brokering a compromise on women bishops and his advocacy on behalf of the Church of England’s adoption of the Anglican Covenant are both poised for rejection. Williams’ unpersuasive leadership on this front has weighed heavily on his office. But second, and more deep-rooted and perhaps consequential, is Williams’ perceived failure with respect to the Anglican Communion’s integrity of common life.
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March 26 2012 | Articles
Written by: Rev. Dr. Andrew Goddard
Monday, March 26th, 2012
It is now clear that less than half the dioceses of the Church of England will agree, in both their house of clergy and house of laity, to “approve the draft Act of Synod adopting the Anglican Communion Covenant”. This article attempts to map out some of the ramifications of this development.
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March 26 2012 | Articles
Written by: Rev. Dr. Andrew Goddard
Friday, January 13th, 2012
Life is always more interesting when things don’t go as planned. That alone should make the Anglican Communion Covenant interesting in 2012. General Synod rarely refers matters to dioceses. When it does, it often seems – as with women bishops – a procedural necessity with a foregone positive conclusion. As 2011 closes, the covenant has departed from that script. It has the support of four dioceses but been rejected by four dioceses. At least 23 of the 44 dioceses must support it for it to return to General Synod for final approval. The 2012 diocesan synod debates are therefore crucial. To resource these, Fulcrum has recently collated various articles and produced a short “Churchgoer’s Guide to the Anglican Communion Covenant”. This concludes with the following ten reasons to support the covenant.
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January 13 2012 | Articles
Written by: The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc.
Thursday, December 1st, 2011
We are greatly encouraged by the decision of the Disciplinary Board for Bishops to dismiss charges of abandonment against Bishop Mark Lawrence. We appreciate the timely decision by the Board and the articulation by its President, Bishop Dorsey Henderson, of the legal basis for the decision to dismiss. We find reason for encouragement not only in the decision itself, which has been greeted with relief by those on all sides of the Church’s disputes, but also in the legal reasoning of the Board in those parts in which Bishop Henderson is speaking for the Board as a whole and not just for himself. We and others have previously expressed concerns over procedural questions raised by the Board’s investigation in this matter. This decision not only makes those procedural issues moot, it gives us new grounds for hope on five counts.
First, the Board’s decision is explicitly based on the recognition of a distinction between official actions of the Diocese of South Carolina and statements and acts by Bishop Lawrence as an individual. Bishop Henderson’s statement, here speaking for the Board as a whole, suggests that the Board probably regarded certain “actions by conventions of the Diocese of South Carolina” as “abandonment of the Church and its discipline by the diocese” (emphasis in the original). The Board, of course, did not state this conclusion so definitively, and we will address its qualifications below. But it is important to note that the Board acknowledged that the actions in question were official acts of “the diocese” even when they might constitute abandonment of TEC.
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December 01 2011 | Articles
Written by: The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc.
Thursday, November 17th, 2011
We are pleased that the Presiding Bishop and Bishop Dan Edwards of Nevada have issued further statements on Bede Parry. In light of these statements, however, two further clarifications are needed.
First, the Presiding Bishop addresses a psychological report prepared for the Roman Catholic Church in 2000 that found he had “a proclivity to re-offend with minors.” The Presiding Bishop states:
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November 17 2011 | Articles
Written by: The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc.
Tuesday, November 15th, 2011
In 2004 the Bishop of Nevada, Katharine Jefferts Schori, received a former Roman Catholic priest, Bede Parry, as a priest in TEC. What made this instance of a relatively common phenomenon remarkable is that Parry had sexually abused minors under his care as a Catholic priest, he had been barred from exercising his ministry in the Catholic Church, and this was known to the Bishop of Nevada when she received him into TEC.
The question of how a former Roman Catholic priest who has admitted to repeated abuse of minors under his care and who agreed to be laicized could have been received into TEC as a priest has been much discussed. It is startling that the Diocese of Nevada acknowledges that it was aware of his past misconduct, including a police report, prior to his reception, but proffers the reassurance that the Bishop and Commission on Ministry
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November 15 2011 | Articles
Written by: The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc.
Thursday, October 20th, 2011
We have considered carefully the available information related to the allegations against Bishop Mark Lawrence that are currently under review by the Disciplinary Board for Bishops. That information discloses an extended and troubling sequence of events that raises serious questions about transparency in the church.
We note the following:
In January 2010, Thomas Tisdale sent nine letters to the Diocese of South Carolina requesting voluminous documents from the diocese and its parishes. He advised the diocese that he had been retained to act “as South Carolina counsel for The Episcopal Church” by the chancellor to the Presiding Bishop. This caused the diocese to conclude that “perhaps the Presiding Bishop’s Chancellor, if not the Presiding Bishop herself, is seeking to build a case against the Ecclesiastical Authorities of the Diocese (Bishop and Standing Committee) and some of our parishes.” The Presiding Bishop subsequently told the Executive Council that “I think it’s important that people who want to stay Episcopalians there have some representation on behalf of the larger church.”
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October 20 2011 | Articles
Written by: Mr. Mark McCall
Monday, October 17th, 2011
One of the allegations now being made against Bishop Lawrence is that the decision by the Diocese of South Carolina to continue to adhere to the prior Title IV canons rather than adopt the controversial new revisions constitutes abandonment by being an open renunciation of the discipline of TEC. Last March Alan Runyan and I published an article that undertook a careful examination of the history of TEC’s Constitution as it relates to clergy discipline. We started at the beginning in 1789, but gave particular attention to those constitutional revisions in 1901 that the drafters of the new Title IV claim “profoundly changed” the constitutional allocation of authority in the church. That article provides conclusive proof that the Constitution as now in effect allocates authority for discipline of priests and deacons exclusively to the dioceses except for appeals.
This issue has been much debated in the history of TEC, and our article contains a detailed examination of that history. But throughout those years of debates, the result was always the same: disciplinary authority remained with the dioceses. Our article provides compelling proof that the revisions to Title IV are unconstitutional. It cannot be a renunciation of the discipline of the church to uphold that discipline as specified in the Constitution by resisting unconstitutional encroachment on the diocese’s exclusive authority. One might disagree with the opinion of the Diocese of South Carolina, but one cannot regard upholding at great personal cost the constitutional polity of the church as always understood in the past as an “open renunciation.”
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October 17 2011 | Articles
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