Three Episcopal Dioceses Seek Release (LA Times)
June 29th, 2006 by Peter Frank
Three conservative Episcopal dioceses, including one in Central California, asked Wednesday to be released from the authority of the U.S. church’s presiding bishop.
Citing differences over the ordination of gay bishops, the dioceses of San Joaquin, Calif., South Carolina and Pittsburgh voted to ask Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, to place them under someone else’s jurisdiction.
The move came one day after Williams suggested the creation of a two-tier system that would move the U.S. church to the fringes of Anglican life if it continued to pursue a progressive course on matters of human sexuality and interpretations of Scripture.
Just a week ago, at their national convention in Columbus, Ohio, Episcopal leaders including the Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori — the newly elected first woman to preside as bishop of the U.S. church — endorsed a proposal that doesn’t ban gay bishops but discourages the church from electing them.
But conservative congregants said the proposal only showed how the denomination had divided into, as Pittsburgh Bishop Robert W. Duncan said in a statement, “two bodies within our church.”
Diocese Asking for Alternative Primatial Oversight
June 29th, 2006 by Peter Frank
Members of the Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh voted this morning that Pittsburgh join with other dioceses in appealing to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the primates of the Anglican Communion and the Panel of Reference for “immediate alternative Primatial oversight and pastoral care.” The Standing committee also published its intent (pending ratification by the diocesan convention this November 3-4) to “withdraw its consent, pursuant to Article VII of the Constitution of the Episcopal Church, to be included in the Third Province of the Episcopal Church” envisioning the drawing together of a new Windsor-compliant Tenth Province in the Episcopal Church. Finally, the standing committee committed itself to “work with and care for all the congregations of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.”
“These decisions are simply in character with those made by our own convention year after year,” said Bishop Duncan. “We are and will remain the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. We are living within the constitution and canons of the Episcopal Church. But as the presiding bishop-elect, Katharine Jefferts Schori, herself so helpfully stated during the recently completed General Convention, there are really two bodies within our church, each with its own heart and mind. The decisions made today don’t change who we are in the least, but they do make clear here in Pittsburgh and to the rest of the communion with which body in the Episcopal Church we stand,” he added.
Archbishop Williams’ Statement Helpful, Says Bishop Duncan
June 29th, 2006 by Peter Frank
Bishop Robert Duncan, moderator of the Anglican Communion Network and bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, welcomed Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’ recent statement on the future of the Anglican Communion.
“Archbishop Williams has clearly recognized the immediate need to stabilize the Communion according to agreed theological understandings and mutual submission. Further, for the first time, the Archbishop himself is acknowledging that some parts of the communion will not be able to continue in full membership if they insist on maintaining teaching and action outside of the received faith and order. Finally, the Archbishop clearly understands that the fault lines in the communion run not only between provinces, but through them and that there may well be a need within provinces for an ‘ordered and mutually respectful separation,’ between those who desire to submit to the Communion’s teaching and those who do not,” said Bishop Duncan.
Lots of news happening right now
June 29th, 2006 by Peter Frank
I don’t have a ton of time to keep posting, but seeing as folks continue stopping by, I think I’ll use this as a clearing house for Pittsburgh information over the coming months. They are already promising to be interesting ones. Keep praying for all of us.
Report from the Pittsburgh Deputation to General Convention
June 27th, 2006 by Peter Frank
Prayers for clarity were answered at the Episcopal Church’s 75th General Convention, members of the Pittsburgh Deputation told the more than 120 people who attended the presentation of their report to the diocese on June 24.
Before convention, it was not clear how the Episcopal Church would respond to requests made of it by the rest of the Anglican Communion, through the Windsor Report, to place moratoria on same-sex blessings and the election of Bishops in same-sex relationships. Nor was it clear how far the majority of the church would be willing to go in expressing regret for taking those steps in 2003.
After eight roller-coaster days, those questions have been definitively answered. “As far as compliance with Windsor goes, in most of the Communion, it [the resolutions passed during General Convention] will probably be viewed as non-compliance,” said the Rev. David Wilson, a deputy to convention from St. Paul’s in Kittanning..
According to Wilson, the General Convention was only willing to express regret for “straining the bonds of affection.” Further, instead of apologizing for the actions of our church, it only apologized for not according “sufficient importance to the impact of our actions.”
Archbishop Williams Proposes Covenant (ACNS)
June 27th, 2006 by Peter Frank
Dr Williams says that the divisions run through as well as between the different Provinces of the Anglican Communion and this would make a solution difficult. He favours the exploration of a formal Covenant agreement between the Provinces of the Anglican Communion as providing a possible way forward. Under such a scheme, member provinces that chose to would make a formal but voluntary commitment to each other.
“Those churches that were prepared to take this on as an expression of their responsibility to each other would limit their local freedoms for the sake of a wider witness: some might not be willing to do this. We could arrive at a situation where there were ‘constituent’ Churches in the Anglican Communion and other ‘churches in association’, which were bound by historic and perhaps personal links, fed from many of the same sources but not bound in a single and unrestricted sacramental communion and not sharing the same constitutional structures”.
Different views within a province might mean that local churches had to consider what kind of relationship they wanted with each other. This, though, might lead to a more positive understanding of unity:
“It could mean the need for local Churches to work at ordered and mutually respectful separation between constituent and associated elements; but it could also mean a positive challenge for churches to work out what they believed to be involved in belonging in a global sacramental fellowship, a chance to rediscover a positive common obedience to the mystery of God’s gift that was not a matter of coercion from above but that of ‘waiting for each other’ that St Paul commends to the Corinthians.”
Bishop Duncan Writes to the Diocese of Pittsburgh and to the Network
June 23rd, 2006 by Peter Frank
23rd June, A.D.2006
TO THE CLERGY AND PEOPLE OF PITTSBURGH:
Beloved in the Lord,
With this communication comes a letter I have just written to all within the Anglican Communion Network.
I realize that not everyone in our diocese is a part of the Network, twelve vestries having disassociated. What these vestries have done follows the very same pattern that Network and Windsor bishops followed toward the conclusion of General Convention in our disassociating.
Whether part of the Network or not, everyone in the diocese needs to know what your bishop’s assessment is. Whatever is ahead - and we will be resolute in maintaining our rightful claim to be the Episcopal Diocese of the Episcopal Church in this place - I will continue to work to serve you all and to faithfully exercise my office and ministry as your bishop, for all the people and all the parishes.
Tomorrow morning we will have our General Convention report-back at Donegal Lake, and next week the Standing Committee will gather to begin to assess how to respond to the developments of recent days.
Everyone of you, whether conserving, progressive or caught-in-between, is in my prayers. Please hold me and one another in yours.
Faithfully in Christ,
+Bob
Enclosure (see below)
23rd June, A.D. 2006
A Pastoral Letter from the Moderator
TO ALL THE BELOVED OF THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION NETWORK:
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
A new day is dawning. It is a new day for all of us who understand ourselves to be faithful and orthodox Anglicans, whether within the Episcopal Church or gone out from it.
It is with sadness, but also with anticipation, that I write to you now that the General Convention of the Episcopal Church has provided the clarity for which we have long prayed. By almost every assessment the General Convention has embraced the course of “walking apart.”
I have often said to you that the decisive moment in contemporary Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion history occurred at General Convention 2003. At that time, in the words of the Primates, the Episcopal Church took action that would “tear the fabric of our Communion at its deepest level.”
Since that time, the tear has widened. While we had hoped that this Church would repent and return to received Faith and Order, General Convention 2006 clearly failed to submit to the call, the spirit or the requirements of the Windsor Report. The middle has collapsed. For that part of the Network working constitutionally within ECUSA as over against the dioceses represented by the thirty progressive bishops who issued their Statement of Conscience, we are two churches under one roof.
Even before the close of Convention, Network and Windsor bishops began disassociating themselves from the inadequate Windsor resolution, and thus far one Network diocese has formally requested alternative primatial oversight.
More initiatives are underway. Pastoral and apostolic care has been promised without regard to geography. All I can tell you is that the shape of this care will depend on a very near-range international meeting. Other actions will follow upon continuing conversations with those at the highest levels of the Anglican Communion. Over the course of the month of July, many of the things we have longed for will, I believe, come to pass or be clearly in view for all.
The Anglican Communion Network has never been more united. We are gaining strength, both domestically and internationally. This is the time for biblically orthodox Anglicans to hang together, supporting one another in solidarity, in prayer and with expectancy.
My prayers are with you all, especially those whose plight is most difficult and whose patience is most worn. Pray for me and for all the leadership in Network, Episcopal Church, and Anglican Communion, and most especially for the Archbishop of Canterbury in this crucial moment in modern Anglican history. Again I say to you that a new day is dawning.
Faithfully in Christ Jesus,
+Bob Pittsburgh
Moderator of the Anglican Communion Network
Global South Anglican Leaders Issue Statement
June 22nd, 2006 by Peter Frank
This just came in. The Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa is a grouping of (I think) 12 provinces in Africa.
An Open Letter to the Episcopal Church USA
We, the Primates of the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa (CAPA), meeting in Kampala on 21st – 22nd June, have followed with great interest your meeting of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church USA in Columbus. We have been especially concerned by the development of your response to The Windsor Report, which has been reported to us quite extensively. This is something for which we have earnestly prayed. We are, however, saddened that the reports to date of your elections and actions suggest that you are unable to embrace the essential recommendations of the Windsor Report and the 2005 Primates Communiqué necessary for the healing of our divisions. At the same time, we welcome the various expressions of affection for the life and work of the Anglican Communion.
We have been moved by your generosity as you have rededicated yourselves to meet the needs of the poor throughout the world, especially through your commitment to the Millennium Development Goals.
We have observed the commitment shown by your church to the full participation of people in same gender sexual relationships in civic life, church life and leadership. We have noted the many affirmations of this throughout the Convention. As you know, our Churches cannot reconcile this with the teaching on marriage set out in the Holy Scriptures and repeatedly affirmed throughout the Anglican Communion. All four Instruments of Unity in the Anglican Communion advised you against taking and continuing these commitments and actions prior to your General Convention in 2003.
At our meeting in Kampala we have committed ourselves to study very carefully all of your various actions and statements. When we meet with other Primates from the Global South in September, we shall present our concerted pastoral and structural response.
We assure all those Scripturally faithful dioceses and congregations alienated and marginalised within your Provincial structure that we have heard their cries.
In Christ,
The Most Rev. Peter Akinola, on behalf of CAPA
Diocesan Report on General Convention this Saturday
June 22nd, 2006 by Peter Frank
Just a reminder, there will be a report from the Pittsburgh Deputaiton to General Convention during the diocesan picnic at the Common Life Property on June 24. (That’s this Saturday). Bishop Robert Duncan, as well as a number of clergy and lay deputies, will be giving their sense of what has transpired over the last two weeks.
Details on the picnic and the deputation’s report, including directions to the Common Life Property (which is about an hour from Pittsburgh), are on the diocesan website.
Over and Out from Columbus
June 22nd, 2006 by Peter Frank
As I get ready to start the drive back towards Pittsburgh, I wanted to say thanks to everyone who visited over the last two weeks. My statistics are incomplete, but it appears that during that time period, we averaged 500-700 unique visitors a day and served more than 12,000 pages.
I’m very thankful to Mike Daley who helped me initially launch this site, and Chad Whitacre of Zeta Design and Development who helped us keep the site up when the server we located it on got overloaded. I’m also thankful to Bishop Duncan for allowing me to try this rather unorthodox communications strategy. I’d love to know (especially from those of you in the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh) if this website was helpful to you during General Convention. Please feel free to send me an email if you have a comment.
I won’t be taking this site down anytime soon, but posting will be drastically scaled back (especially over the next few days as I recover).