Answers to reporters’ questions

All questions asked by real live reporters. No, I won't tell you who they were.

Did anything new come out of the primates meeting?

The Primates called for a Pastoral Council of up to five members: two nominated by the Primates, two by the Presiding Bishop, and a Primate to serve as chair, nominated by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Council will work with the Episcopal Church, the Presiding Bishop and the bishops to create structures for alternative pastoral care for congregations that are so in conflict with the decisions of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church that they have sought oversight from other Provinces of the Anglican Communion, and to monitor the response of the Episcopal Church to what has been asked of it. When the structure is in place, the Primates who have crossed diocesan borders without permission from diocesan bishops will cease those interventions, and those congregations which have come under "alternative oversight" will be folded back into the Episcopal Church.

The Primates requested that by September 30 of this year the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church promise not to authorize any Rite of Blessing for same-sex unions and not to consent to any candidate for bishop living in a same-sex union, "unless some new consensus on these matters emerges across the Communion."

The Primates asked for the suspension of all lawsuits in property disputes, and that no dissident congregation will try to take its property out of the Episcopal Church and no diocese will lock a dissident congregation out of its building.

What is the Episcopal Church’s reaction to the communiqué issued by the bishops?

We don't know yet. We got it yesterday. We're all still looking at it.

Has Bishop Jefferts Schori given a response?

She will when she arrives in the US later today.

How significant is the September 30 deadline to the Episcopal Church?

The communiqué says:

"If the reassurances requested of the House of Bishops cannot in good conscience be given, the relationship between The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion as a whole remains damaged at best, and this has consequences for the full participation of the Church in the life of the Communion."

Will there be a schism if the Nigerian Anglican Church and the Episcopal Church USA dig in their heels and refuse to compromise by September 30?

We don't know. We hope not.

What will the decisions made by the primates mean to Episcopal gays and lesbians?

See http://www.integrityusa.org/press/2007-02-19.htm for their press release.

Will ECUSA be making any changes in response to the primates’ demands?

What they are demanding will certainly require changes. I don't know what will be decided.

What role will the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies play in responding to the Nigerian Church’s demands? Will there be a special meeting called?

In the Episcopal Church our House of Deputies--composed of clergy and lay people--has an equally significant role to play in the governance of the Episcopal Church. That seems not to have been understood by the primates (not simply the Nigerian church, please note), who directed their requests only to the House of Bishops.

A full meeting of the two governing bodies before the next scheduled General Convention in 2009 would require a special meeting, which has only happened twice in the history of the Church (in 1821 to ratify the Constitution, and 1969 for the General Convention Special Project to address issues of racial justice).

What is ahead for the Anglican Communion in the future?

As a famous Anglican once said, "I always avoid prophesying beforehand, because it is a much better policy to prophesy after the event has already taken place." (Winston Churchill)

How many dioceses are there in the U.S.?

111 total in the Episcopal Church: 100 domestic and 11 overseas dioceses.

In the New York Times today their article said there are 110 dioceses and 1/10 asked to not have oversight of Bishop Schori.  Is that true?  Was it granted?

The Dioceses of Fort Worth, San Joaquin, Pittsburgh, South Carolina, Central Florida, and Springfield requested Alternative Primatial Oversight. Together these dioceses represent 120,454 active baptized members out of a total of 2,369,477, or 5%. However, not every parishioner or congregation in those dioceses agreed with the requests.

The Diocese of Dallas appealed to the Archbishop of Canterbury for a direct primatial relationship with him, and subsequently withdrew that request.

Such "alternative primatial oversight" cannot be granted without the approval of General Convention, which actually holds primatial authority in the Episcopal Church.

How many churches are there in the Episcopal Church?

7155 domestic parishes and missions
480 overseas parishes and missions (in 15 other countries)
7635 total parishes and missions

How many dioceses have voted to leave the Episcopal Church? How many parishes have voted to leave?

Congregations are created by a local diocese and continue within that structure unless otherwise decided by the local bishop in consultation with other elected diocesan leaders. Congregations remain part of the Episcopal Church even when local leaders and/or a number of parishioners opt to leave the denomination as a matter of personal choice.

Dioceses are created by the General Convention and cannot be dissolved without action of the General Convention in accordance with the provisions of the Episcopal Church's Constitution and Canons.

Since 2003, some 45 congregations are known to have experienced the vote of a majority of members to consider themselves part of an overseas Anglican Province.

In many of these, an ongoing congregation continues within the Episcopal Church and the local diocese, with a newly elected vestry.

Do you know what this means in directive 10 of the statement?  What are they talking about when they say “urgent pastoral needs” and “innovation”?

10. The Windsor Report identified two threats to our common life: first, certain developments in the life and ministry of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada which challenged the standard of teaching on human sexuality articulated in the 1998 Lambeth Resolution 1.10;

That would be (a) the election and consecration of V. Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire and (b) the decision by the Diocese of New Westminster in the Anglican Church of Canada to allow the blessing of covenanted same-gender unions (http://www.samesexblessing.info/).

and second, interventions in the life of those Provinces which arose as reactions to the urgent pastoral needs that certain primates perceived.

Certain Primates—including Archbishops Kolini of Rwanda, Moses Tay (now retired) of South East Asia, Nzimbi of Kenya, Venables of the Southern Cone of the Americas, Orombi of Uganda, and Akinola of Nigeria--and bishops of other provinces (including Lyons of Bolivia) which did not necessarily support their actions, chose to respond to requests for various kinds of "alternative oversight" from dissident congregations in the Episcopal Church by "cross-boundary interventions," exercising their authority as bishops without the invitation or permission of the diocesan bishop in the Episcopal Church--as is traditional in churches which recognize the historic episcopate.

The congregations claimed that they did not recognize the ministry of their own bishops because of those bishops' support for--and in some cases, what they judged to be "insufficient opposition" to--the support of the Episcopal Church for the full inclusion of lesbians and gays in our common life.

The Windsor Report did not see a “moral equivalence” between these events, since the cross-boundary interventions arose from a deep concern for the welfare of Anglicans in the face of innovation.

"Innovation" refers in this context to the consecration of +Gene Robinson and the blessing of same-gender relationships.

Got another question?

Comments

[Fr. Walker]

<> I thought that the communique and schedule were unanimous....not the work of one Archbishop or province. Didn't Ms. Schori sign this document as well?

[Priscilla Ballou]

Well done! You lifted off the spin nicely, leaving just the facts, ma'am.

[epiScope]

Remember, Fr. Walker, that was a *reporter's* question. Sometimes they don't really understand what they're asking. By the way, the Presiding Bishop prefers Jefferts Schori. And when we customarily refer to priests as Father, don't we usually also refer to bishops as Bishop, not Mr. or Ms.?

[Lisa Fox]

Good job here, Jan. Thanks.

As a matter of fact, I do have another question.

You explained, Such "alternative primatial oversight" cannot be granted without the approval of General Convention, which actually holds primatial authority in the Episcopal Church.

This raises an issue I've been wondering about, but haven't seen addressed. Does our Presiding Bishop have the authority to allow creation of the Pastoral Council that the primates proposed? Or would Executive Council or GC have to approve it?

Lisa

[Leonardo Ricardo]

"This raises an issue I've been wondering about, but haven't seen addressed. Does our Presiding Bishop have the authority to allow creation of the Pastoral Council that the primates proposed? Or would Executive Council or GC have to approve it? " Lisa

...and/or the House of Deputies?

[Tom Wetzel]

In terms of the Sept. 30th deadline, I don't see anything requested that requires more than the consent of the House of Bishops.

If the bishops agree to refuse assent to the authorization of any Rite of Blessing for same-sex unions and not to consent to any candidate for bishop living in a same-sex union, the views of the House of Deputies (or the rest of the Church, for that matter) are moot. In any case, only bishops ratify a bishop candidate elected outside the period immediately preceding a General Convention.

And I suspect a "primatial vicar" will be formulated in such a way that it avoids the issue of "alternative primatial oversight" entirely. A vicar (by definition) serves on direct behalf of a bishop (and not in contrast to him or her, as is envision by "alternative oversight"). Indeed, the note that "the Presiding Bishop in consultation with the Pastoral Council will delegate specific powers and duties to the Primatial Vicar" strongly suggests this may be something the Presiding Bishop can do on her own.

[Robert Ian Williams]

It is interesting that there is no request for Bishop Robinson to step down.

It sort of leaves Bishop Robinson in a type of limbo....that is if General Convention approve these measures.

However the most interesting fact of the Meeting,went unnoticed. Never was the issue of Bishop Katharine's gender raised. Women's ordination has come of age in the Anglican Communion. In the very Cathedral, where once the famous Anglo-Catholic,Bishop Frank Weston presided. In 1920s, Bishop Weston threatened schism if the Lambeth Conference agreed to allowing women deaconeses into Holy orders.

Women's ordination is not even an issue for the proposed Covenant. Yet this was condemned by Lambeth in 1948.

The pioneering spirit of the Episcopal Church has been truly vindicated.

[Billy]

Good breakdown on all the news coming out of Tanzania. Good job!

[Marshall Scott]

Tom:

You're sort of right. In fact lay and clergy consents are required on all bishops, and between General Conventions (and thus in most elections) that comes from consents of Standing Committees of a majority of dioceses. However, functionally, if the bishops commit to one another (not to the the Primates) that they will not as individuals consent to elections meeting specific criteria, they can prevent confirmations on their own. That was the nature of their commitment not to consent to any consecrations leading up to the 2006 General Convention: a commitment to one another in the House, and not to any outside authority. As you'll recall, the choice they made didn't please any outside authorities anyway.

What is unclear from the Communique is to whom the Primatial Vicar is responsible. If, as she originally proposed, the Primatial Vicar is her vicar, that person (well, let's just say "he," because no woman would be acceptable) would be responsible to her and for following her program. If he is the Vicar of the Primates Meeting, that will be consequently different.

And, by the way, a great deal would be affected by who was chosen by Canterbury to chair any Advisory Council. The difference between say, Malango of Central Africa, or Brown of Aotearoa New Zealand, would be significant.

[Tom Wetzel]

Marshall--

Whoops! Thanks for clarifying my mistaken post for me. I forgot about the Standing Committees' participation in the consent process.

On the other hand, the House of Bishops does still retain the right (and at times, obligation) to follow a path different from the House of Deputies. Like it or not, this is one of those points in TEC's structure that is not fully democratic. The House of Bishops was never meant to serve as a rubber stamp to (in the case under discussion) either the individual diocese's choice for bishop, nor of the consent of the Standing Committee. The whole point of the "two house" system is to check and balance one another and to keep a degree of unified teaching throughout the Church. Historically, the bishop's office has been seen as a particular focus of the Holy Spirit's work in teaching, shepherding, and disciplining the Church, much more so than either the laity or the rest of the clergy.

While bishops are obligated to discern where and when the Holy Spirit is speaking, bishops are not obligated to follow the will of the rest of the church. If the latter were the intention of our polity, we could do away with the consent system entirely. The consent system presumes that there will be disagreement at times, and furthermore, that the office of bishop possesses a unique strength and responsibility to guard the teaching of the Church. The latter is more than a polity issues; it touches on the very issue of whether the office of bishop is something different than that of district manager or diocesan president (i.e., is the bishopric a sacramental office or a solely bureaucratic one?).

And of course, as the rites in the BCP attest for the ordination of both bishop and priest, the bishop is ordained to lead a particular diocese, but both bishop and priest are called in their ordination to serve and to work with the "whole Church." To my understanding, this does not mean the whole diocese or even the TEC: bishops are ordained to lead, supervise, and unite (BCP, 510) all Christians throughout the world. This is yet another reason why a bishop must necessarily at times have a different view on issues than would the elected and appointed representatives of a local Standing Committee or of the House of Deputies.