The more things change …

I recently received a request from the membership chair of Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh (PEP) to review the proposed request for membership renewals. Annual membership runs from September 1 to August 31, so we usually send out a solicitation in mid-summer. As I was thinking about what might be appropriate to say as we approach an autumn in which it is likely that our bishop will to be deposed and our diocesan convention will vote to leave The Episcopal Church, I decided to check the PEP archives to see what we have said in the past.

The first letter I came across was my missive from August 2005. I was struck by the clear vision it offered of the future. We easily could reuse the letter this year, substituting Joan Gundersen’s signature for mine and replacing future tenses with past tenses. I am not trying to build my reputation as a prophet, of course. Although many refused to see it, the plans of the forces of reaction in contemporary Anglicanism were anything but hidden three years ago, though they are even more in evidence now. Anyway, PEP did not have a Chicken Little view of the state of our church and communion in 2005—the sky really was falling.

For your amusement (or horror), I present the text of that 2005 letter below. If you wish. you can read it, as sent, here.

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August 8, 2005

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

In the past year, Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh raised its profile at diocesan convention, increased its educational activities, helped expose the Anglican Global Initiative constitution, and continued to be a source of information for Episcopalians across the nation. I am writing to ask you to renew and deepen your commitment to PEP so we can continue this work, and to reflect on where we are, how we got here, and what the future may hold for us.

As you know, mainstream Episcopalians in southwestern Pennsylvania formed PEP in the wake of the failure to prevent adoption of Resolution One at the 2002 diocesan convention. Our goal was to encourage the diocese to make room for and give voice to people who identified with traditional Episcopalian and Anglican moderation. No one imagined that this task would be accomplished quickly or easily, and no one anticipated how important the existence of PEP would become.

Two and a half years later, our diocese and bishop have become leaders in a worldwide effort that threatens not only to divide the Episcopal Church but also to shatter the Anglican Communion. As the Rev. Susan Russell, president of Integrity, has noted, this is a “well-funded temper tantrum of global proportions,” and one that is very damaging to the church’s ministry and mission. Bishop Duncan boldly teaches that the Episcopal Church is really two churches with incompatible theologies—an “orthodox” theology insisting on the primacy of scripture and the “faith once received,” and a “revisionist” theology espoused by “counterfeit” Christians who have been seduced by modern culture. With support from primates of various Anglican provinces of the “Global South,” our bishop and his allies have sought to have the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes recognized as the “real” Episcopal Church in the U.S., and they have sought formal mechanisms to convert a fellowship of churches into a hierarchical structure with the power to enforce doctrine and discipline. Our bishop has, in other words, labored to impose Puritan doctrine and Roman Catholic polity on our church and communion. We believe that this is a program that, rather than offering a via media alternative to the extremes of radical Protestantism and Roman Catholic authoritarianism, combines the worst features of each.

PEP, along with its allied groups in Via Media USA, is doing what it can to address this problem and achieve its stated goal. This has proved more difficult than we imagined at the outset. We are opposing a substantial, well-financed, and determined insurgency. Even with modest resources, we have generated publicity and enthusiasm for efforts to preserve the Episcopal Church in places where our voices are silenced or ignored. We are making the road to power neither straight nor plain for the Network and its followers. PEP’s goals have expanded as we continue to determine how best to preserve our Anglican tradition, provincial autonomy, and Episcopal polity here in the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

The next twelve months will be turbulent. While Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold continues to speak of reconciliation, Bishop Duncan and his allies speak only of their coming righteous victories over the forces of error. In Pittsburgh, faithful parishes face the threat of being expelled from the diocese for trying to defend Episcopal Church canons. General Convention 2006 will likely neither apologize for the work of General Convention 2003 nor choose a conservative successor to Bishop Griswold. It will be subjected to withering criticism from the right.

Lambeth 2008 may see neither a united Episcopal Church nor a united Anglican Communion. The Network is threatening to separate from the rest of our church if its demands are not met, and it is already organizing as its own province, founding new parishes that are not affiliated with the Episcopal Church. It has created international structures that exclude the Episcopal Church, and it has argued for expulsion of the Episcopal Church from Anglican Communion bodies. We cannot sit by and let this happen.

When the dust settles, we may find ourselves in a smaller Episcopal Church, but a church better able to relieve human suffering, to offer a principled theological perspective to people going forward into the twenty-first century, and to follow the ongoing truth of Christ as revealed in all creation. We may find ourselves in a smaller and leaner Anglican Communion as well, but we will likely remain in communion with Canada, England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Mexico, Central America, Japan, and several others.

PEP will continue to be an influence in the Anglican world, but the needs closer to home will become increasingly urgent. A portion of our own diocese is edging ever closer toward leaving the Episcopal Church. Our voices, and through us, the voices of the Episcopal Church, must continue to be heard. If our diocese splits or if its leadership is handed a definitive and crushing defeat, we will need many hands to heal and strengthen those parishes and individuals remaining loyal to the Episcopal Church in the aftermath. PEP and other Via Media groups increasingly need to plan with an eye to the future of our church when the current struggles are behind us.

Now, more than ever, we need you to renew your membership in PEP. Your financial support is also critical. Please complete the enclosed form and return it with a check to the address indicated. Invite your friends to join. Copy the form; tell people how to download a membership application from the Web; or contact me for membership brochures.

We need volunteers now to monitor events in the church and beyond, to carry out particular projects, and to look for activities that advance the mission of the Episcopal Church and advance our understanding of the gospel of love, compassion, and liberation. If you can spare some time, please contact me at (412) 343-5337 or membership chair Wanda Guthrie at (724) 327-2767.

I ask you for your ongoing prayers for PEP, for the Episcopal Church, and for a Christianity that seeks to minister with faith, intelligence, and charity to our modern world. I thank you for your support and wish you God’s peace.

Faithfully,

[signed]

Lionel Deimel
President

Enclosure

A Collect for Lambeth

An essay by Douglas LeBlanc, “Lambeth unplugged,” was posted to Episcopal Life Online today, the day before the opening of the 2008 Lambeth Conference. In it, LeBlanc laments the fact that reporters have largely been excluded from all but plenary sessions at Lambeth in the past, and plenary sessions have been de-emphasized in the 2008 program. “I hope this year’s conference,” he writes, “will allow journalists to do what they do best: function as observers who capture the mood of an event by describing what they see and hear firsthand.” Trying to control the information available to reporters is unworthy of a church and distorts the perception of events, he notes.

The essay got me thinking about Lambeth in a new way, which is to say, other than with fear and trembling. Many have suggested that we pray for the bishops attending the event, but LeBlanc reminded me how frustrating and arrogant it is that Anglican bishops too often meet in secret and without the counsel of priests, deacons, and laypeople. This gave me an idea for a different sort of prayer, and so I offer the following

Collect for the 2008 Lambeth Conference

Eternal God, who is revealed to us in the written word, incline the hearts of our Anglican bishops to allow their conversation to be observed and recounted; and may those entrusted with telling the story of their efforts be faithful in their accounts, insightful in their observations, and blessed through their involvement; that your servants may become better able to contribute to the mission and maintenance of the Church of your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.

Calvary’s Cavalry Again Rides to the Rescue

As the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh heads toward a “realignment” vote on October 4, 2008, when Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan plans to declare the entire diocese removed from The Episcopal Church to become a diocese of the province of the Southern Cone, loyal Episcopalians in Pittsburgh are becoming increasingly anxious about the looming apocalypse. Yesterday, however, they were given some reason to cheer, as Calvary Church attorney Walter P. DeForest rode to court on his white horse to file papers with the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County. Calvary is petitioning the court to appoint a “monitor to inventory and oversee property held or administered by the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh to assure compliance with this court's order of October 14, 2005,” as well as to request “creation of an additional escrow account(s)” for parishes concerned about the use of their funds by the diocese for the benefit of a church other than The Episcopal Church.

Recall that Calvary sued Bishop Duncan and other leaders of the diocese in October 2003, as resolutions proposed by the bishop and passed by a special convention in September were clearly designed to facilitate the removal of property from the control of The Episcopal Church. The suit was described in a story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on October 25, 2003. The original filing and subsequent court documents may be found on the site of the county prothonotary.

The legal battles seemingly reached a resolution two years later, when the parties filed a stipulation, enforceable by the court. This agreement asserted, among other things, that property held by the diocese (“the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America”) would remain with the diocese, even if some parishes left The Episcopal Church. The stipulation also laid out an elaborate procedure for dealing with parish assets of congregations wishing to leave the church. These provisions, from the standpoint of the plaintiffs, anyway, were intended to prevent a sympathetic diocese from making sweetheart deals with dissident congregations. I doubt that anyone thought that agreement to the stipulation would put an end to the litigation, but it closed one chapter in what has been an ongoing saga.

Recently, of course, Bishop Duncan has made his plans as clear as anyone might desire; he expects to leave The Episcopal Church and take the diocese with him, lock, stock, and barrel. (See “Frequently Asked Questions About Realignment” from the diocese. Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh has analyzed this document in its “Realignment Reconsidered.” A quite different argument against realignment has been made by the Rev. Dr. Jim Simons.) Although the bishop’s scheme has been known with certainty for more than a year, and although Pittsburgh Episcopalians are planning for a post-Duncan future (see my post “Whither Pittsburgh”), Calvary has made no substantive move in court until now. I suspect that Bishop Duncan’s registering a new Pennsylvania corporation called “Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh” (see “Which Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh?”) may have been the final straw that moved Calvary into action.

The new filing can be read here. (This version of the prothonotary’s PDF is searchable and loads faster.) In particular, Calvary seeks to have a monitor appointed with the following duties (this is taken from page 16):

• To conduct an accounting of the Property (real and personal) held or administered by the Diocese and its use since October 14,2005;
  
  
• To oversee the Property (real and personal) held or administered by the Diocese, and assure that there are no transfers of Property (real or personal), held or administered by the Diocese, outside of The Episcopal Church in the United States of America and that such Property is not used for purposes of separation from the Episcopal Church in the United States of America.

Calvary also seeks to allow any parish wishing to do so to pay its diocesan assessment into an escrow for the time being. The provisions requested are the following (this is taken from page 17):

1. Any and all amounts that have become or become due and payable to the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (the "Diocese"), except for payments due for insurance coverage and/or other direct pay benefits obtained by the parish through the Diocese, may be deposited with Plaintiffs' counsel in an interest bearing escrow.
   
   
2. Promptly after deposit of any such payment into escrow, counsel for Plaintiffs shall provide notice to counsel for Defendants of the date and amount of such deposit and the identity of the parish on behalf of which the deposit has been made.
   
   
3. Payment into escrow by each parish of funds that have become due and payable to the Diocese to date or that become due and payable in the future shall be treated as payment to the Diocese of such funds on the date of such payment into escrow for any and all purposes related to the good standing, rights, responsibilities, and/or privileges of the parish as a member of the Diocese and, upon making such payments, the parish shall not be considered delinquent or in arrears in its payments to the Diocese or, for that reason, deemed a Transitional Parish.
   
   
4. Any assessment or other funding that the parish has been paying, or pays, directly to the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States shall not affect, or be affected by, this Stipulation, and may continue without bearing on the instant action or the parish's good standing, rights, responsibilities, and/or privileges as a member of the Diocese.
   
   
5. Upon subsequent Order of Court, counsel for Plaintiffs shall promptly disburse all sums deposited in escrow in accordance with the Court's ruling and instructions.
   
   
6. This stipulation is without prejudice to Defendants' defenses and objections to the petition as set forth in, inter alia, Defendants' amended new matter and is without prejudice to the right of any party to move to terminate or amend this escrow agreement.

It should be interesting to see how Bishop Duncan and his legal team try to convince Judge James that the requests of Calvary Church are not justified by the facts.

Scary Women

While reading various stories written around the world in the aftermath of GAFCON, I happened into a story from a South African paper. Clicking around to learn more about the site—I never did figure out what city is home to The Times—I saw that, like so many newspaper sites, this one included a brief question soliciting readers’ opinions. The question in this particular survey was: “Are men more afraid of crime than women?” My immediate reaction was that I didn’t realize that South African men were particularly afraid of women. I selected an answer at random to see the results so far. Apparently, by about 2 to 1, people think men find women scarier.

Of course, maybe the real problem is with South African survey writers.

Whither Pittsburgh?

In October, like the Diocese of San Joaquin before it, and, presumably, the Diocese of Fort Worth after it, the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh is going to vote itself out of The Episcopal Church and into the province of the Southern Cone. That, at least, is the plan. The followers of Pittsburgh’s Bishop Robert Duncan seem untroubled that he has no right to lead his diocese down this particular path, which, as in San Joaquin, will result in the bishop’s being deposed by The Episcopal Church, the diocese’s being reorganized under new leadership, and The Episcopal Church’s suing to regain diocesan and parish property. The litigation will last for years. In the end, Duncan will become the martyr he has always spoken of being, though a martyr to the cause of hubris and recklessness, rather than to “biblical faithfulness,” as he would have it.

Meanwhile, life will go on in the counties of Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Cambria, Fayette, Greene, Indiana, Somerset, Washington, and Westmoreland, which make up the physical territory of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. Those Episcopalians who choose not to follow their bishop into his brave new world of Anglican purity, will find themselves running a smaller and—it is greatly to be hoped—happier diocese of The Episcopal Church. Those remaining Episcopalians will comprise those who love the church for its progressive innovations, those who love or respect it despite those innovations, and those—this is not meant to be disparaging—who merely go along for the ride.

What will that new Episcopal diocese be like after “realignment”? Will the liberal/conservative feuds that characterize the present diocese be recreated in the reorganized judicatory? There is genuine reason to think not. Episcopalians on the left and on the right are talking to one another and to reprentatives of the Presiding Bishop’s office as to how they should deal with the schismatic vote at the annual convention and how they will structure and run the diocese of which they will become the inheritors. There is widespread resolution that the sins of the diocesan fathers should not be visited upon their sons and daughters.

A little history is helpful here. Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh was formed early in 2003—before the episcopal election of Gene Robinson by the Diocese of New Hampshire, I hasten to add—in response to the perception that the Diocese of Pittsburgh was becoming increasingly hostile to moderate and liberal Episcopalians and to The Episcopal Church itself. Despite its leftist-sounding name—repeated attempts to change it, at my suggestion and at those of others have left “Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh” and its more tractable familiar moniker, PEP, in place—the organization has always had the goal of making the diocese a comfortable home for Episcopalians of all varieties of churchmanship. (That traditional Anglican term seems quaint and sexist today, of course, but, aside from that, it is the proper term to use here.)

PEP has, since its inception, carried the flag for tolerance and moderation in its diocese, and has become known (and vilified) for its position papers and educational materials that, invariably (and perhaps unfortunately) opposed the plans and pronouncements of Bishop Robert Duncan. For many, PEP exemplified everything they considered wrong in The Episcopal Church. Although PEP saw tolerant conservatives as natural allies, it was not particularly successful in attracting them as members.

Although, from the beginning, PEP nurtured communications with the wider church, including especially Episcopalians in similarly ideological dioceses such as San Joaquin, only in 2006, in response to the diocese’s “withdrawal” from its Episcopal Church province (see “An Appraisal of the Diocese of Pittsburgh’s ‘Withdrawal’ of Consent to Inclusion in Province III”), did PEP reach out, and with some sense of alarm, for direct help from the parent church. PEP invited representatives of Province III to Pittsburgh for meetings and programs. Eventually, a group consisting mostly of PEP members began meeting outside the diocese with representatives of The Episcopal Church. They met first with Province III president Bishop Robert Ihloff, and, later, with the Presiding Bishop’s chancellor, David Booth Beers. As it became increasing clear that Bishop Duncan was determined to leave The Episcopal Church, participants were being told, though they did not need to be told, that they needed to build a broader coalition of Pittsburgh Episcopalians.

From its inception, PEP was an organization of both lay and clergy members, with laypeople in the most prominent leadership roles. Although no analogous conservative organization developed in the diocese, conservatives who did not want to leave The Episcopal Church were systematically discussing the developing crisis in the diocese. In January of this year, 12 right-leaning clergy wrote “to the people and clergy of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh” that they intended to work within The Episcopal Church, rather than leave it. This communication had been a long time in coming, and it provided the opportunity for the group that had been meeting with church officials in Western Maryland to invite the 12 priests and representative laypeople of similar persuasion to join the discussions about the future of the diocese.

The group that had been meeting with church representatives in Maryland, joined by conservative clergy and an increasing number of conservative laypeople, began conversation tentatively and with some mutual suspicion. Initially, the group deliberately remained nameless—thereby avoiding a potentially divisive discussion—though it has come informally to be called the “Across the Aisle” group. Although there is some reluctance to use the terms, the part of the group that developed from the original PEP-initiated discussions is known as the “Gospel side,” and the group of more-recently-added conservatives is known as the “Epistle side.” Happily, these terms are being used less and less, as the “sides” are increasingly concerning themselves with the mechanics of reorganizing the diocese so as to discourage the divisiveness that has characterized Pittsburgh in the recent past.

PEP has perhaps become known for its rhetoric because its marginalization within the diocese provided little opportunity for it to accomplish very much, at least through diocesan institutions that have been firmly in the hands of the bishop and his supporters. The Across the Aisle group, on the other hand, sees a realistic opportunity to gain power only a few months from now, and it has neither the time nor the established mechanisms to articulate for the wider diocese and church what it intends to do with that power. The increasing harmony and dedication of the group to the task at hand, however, is quite encouraging.

Not long ago, discussion among PEP board members led to a consensus that PEP needed to counter what we considered the misrepresentations of the diocesan leadership concerning realignment. Eventually, PEP published “Realignment Reconsidered,” which addresses the reassurances of the propriety and safety of the bishop’s plan point-by-point. PEP board members also thought that a one-page statement of a more irenic Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, probably from the Across the Aisle group itself, would be useful in clarifying the group’s objectives and in attracting Pittsburgh Episcopalians who are tired of the constant battles and angry rhetoric that have become characteristic of our life together.

I was skeptical that a reasonable vision of the reorganized diocese could be captured on a single page, in part because I thought it would have to deal with the many theological issues that vex our common life. I challenged myself to draft such a statement, which I managed eventually to produce. I offered it to the PEP board for comments and, based on the responses I received, I produced a second draft that I hoped would be appropriate for the Across the Aisle group itself to consider as a possible basis for the proposed statement.

Helpful though a statement about our future might be, both for achieving internal consensus and for offering hope for a better future to others in the diocese, it is clear that getting its development on the agenda of the wider group is simply impractical—there is too much other pressing work to do. I have faith that the reorganized diocese will be one that facilitates our Christian mission rather than one that perpetually fights about it, and that is good enough for now. Besides, the leaders of the new diocese eventually will have to articulate their own vision of what they are about.

I do believe, however, that my document captures the spirit with which the Across the Aisle group is approaching its task, and, with that particular leap of faith in mind, I offer my latest draft below without further editing or, in fact, explicit feedback from the Epistle side. Though “unofficial,” it can perhaps suggest a brighter day for the Diocese of Pittsburgh to those frustrated with our present diocesan leadership. In many respects, we are all looking for a diocese that, for want of a better term, is simply “normal.” A PDF version is available here.

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A Vision for the Episcopal Church’s
Diocese of Pittsburgh after Realignment

Members of our diocese have to make a decision about realignment. They deserve to know what vision we who will remain members of The Episcopal Church have for our diocese after the realigners leave.

We are followers of Jesus Christ, whom we accept as our Lord and Savior. We will continue our worship according to the Book of Common Prayer. We will recite the creeds with enthusiasm and without irony. We will be thankful for the people next to us and will not need to know whether their theological understanding exactly matches our own. We will join them at the Lord's Table. We will continue to love God and our neighbor, and to share our faith with all those who will listen, though listening is not a prerequisite for neighborliness.

We will build a diocese that sees its primary job as supporting local congregations, which it does

• Directly, by helping congregations find clergy appropriate for them, offering loans and grants, and providing additional services;
  
  
• Indirectly, by connecting congregations with each other for mutual support; by offering training, education, and other resources to individuals and congregations; by providing common fellowship and worship opportunities; by sponsoring mission projects too big for individual congregations to undertake; and by being a good steward of common assets.
  

We will build a diocese devoted to figuring out how we all can work together, not how we can "win" battles with our diocesan brothers and sisters. We will welcome back into our church any who wish to rejoin us on our mission journey.

We will build a diocese that shows concern for the poor and the downtrodden, that has a passion for a just society, and that respects the dignity of every human being.

We will build a diocese that participates fully in The Episcopal Church and seeks to make it better through its democratic mechanisms.

We will elect a bishop who shares our values, as outlined here. When that bishop retires, we expect him or her to be celebrated for having had an exceptionally successful episcopate.


Draft by Lionel Deimel, 5/28/2008 (ver. 2.3)

Which Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh?

I just posted the latest news summary on Pittsburgh Update, a Web site intended to keep people in the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh aware of news events that will or might affect them as our diocese heads toward schism.

One item is particularly interesting in this week’s post. (A post is made every Monday.) It concerns something that has been known by a number of Episcopal Church supporters in the diocese for a couple of weeks, and something Bishop Robert Duncan has known we know. There was uncertainty, however, about whether we should publicize the facts we had learned, particularly as they may have some effect on the ongoing litigation between diocesan leaders and Calvary Church.

Any concerns anyone might have had about not talking about what we knew are now moot, as Calvary’s rector, Harold Lewis, has spilled the beans himself in the parish newsletter.

As the Rev. Dr. Lewis explains in Agape—Lewis’s essay “What’s in a name?” is well worth reading, by the way—Bishop Duncan has registered a new nonprofit corporation with the Pennsylvania Department of State. Its name (“mirabile dictu!,” as Lewis puts it) is “Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.” (The registration is listed here.) The corporation was officially registered 4/28/2008, but the articles of incorporation, in the bishop’s handwriting, is dated 12/29/2006. (The application is reproduced in Agape.) Since the Secretary of State’s office processes new corporations with relative dispatch, it is unclear why the above dates should differ by nearly a year and a half. The paperwork was received by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on 1/2/2007.

In any case, the move by the bishop was, until very recently, not known to any members of the Board of Trustees or Diocesan Council, as far as I can tell. The bishop is said to have been advised by his chancellor to file the incorporation to protect diocesan property. (The stated purpose of the new corporation is “[u]pholding and propagating the historic Faith and Order as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer.”)

For historical reasons that I do not pretend to understand, the Diocese of Pittsburgh has existed for all of his history as an unincorporated entity and has, from all I can tell, been none the worse for wear as a result. (The Board of Trustees of the diocese, on the other hand, is explicitly incorporated.) So why is “Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh” now being incorporated? Presumably, it is to give the bishop, who is likely to be deposed by The Episcopal Church before he can “realign” the diocese, a better claim to be the legitimate leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.

It has long been clear that Duncan subscribes to the legal theory that The Episcopal Church is a voluntary federation of dioceses. According to this theory, a diocese can, at any time, choose to leave the federation. Here is not the place to explain why this notion is demented, but I invite the reader to think of the relationship of South Carolina to the United States before the Civil War. In any case, it is clear that the good bishop thinks that he can remove the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh from its parent church and have it still be the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. (See “Frequently Asked Questions About Realignment.”) Presumably, he will claim that the preëxisting diocese is the one being incorporated, and that he is in control of it. Although I am not a lawyer, I suspect that this is a stretch.

More importantly, the incorporation may largely be irrelevant. In Calvary’s lawsuit, an agreement was reached concerning ownership of diocesan property and the procedures by which property might be alienated from the diocese. In that agreement, “Diocese” is defined as “the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America.” It is unclear how “Diocese” in that agreement could possibly refer to any entity, by whatever name, that is not in The Episcopal Church. “Realignment,” however, by definition, requires the removal of the diocese from The Episcopal Church. (For more information about the stipulation in the Calvary lawsuit, see question 4 in Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh’s “Realignment Reconsidered.”)

So how can the new incorporation do Bishop Duncan any good in his attempt to remove assets from The Episcopal Church? I have no idea. His chancellor had better have a better theory than is presently apparent.

Resigned to Realignment

On Sunday, June 1, 2008, St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, in the Highland Park neighborhood of Pittsburgh, held a forum and panel discussion on Bishop Robert Duncan’s plan for “realignment.” Duncan, who has been determined to have already abandoned the communion of The Episcopal Church and is awaiting a vote by the church’s House of Bishops on his deposition, is attempting to change the constitution of the diocese and to transfer the entire diocese from The Episcopal Church to another Anglican Communion province, most likely South America’s province of the Southern Cone. The only bishop ever to have tried this ploy, John-David Schofield, late of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, was deposed shortly after doing so. It is unclear whether Episcopal bishops will, this time around, shut the barn door before the horse gets out.

That a majority of diocesan clergy will vote for the transparently improper constitutional change that proponents claim will allow realignment has never really been in doubt. Indeed, the Diocese of Pittsburgh has become a magnet and training ground for militant Evangelical clergy frustrated by their apparently permanent minority status within The Episcopal Church. The majority of laypeople in the diocese are not necessarily committed to the bishop’s program, however, and divided loyalties in congregations are causing some clergy to have to make painful choices.

A round of district meetings was held last year, ostensibly to discuss realignment, but actually to sell the realignment plan to the laity. This year, formal meetings largely have been confined to individual congregations, to which Bishop Duncan repeatedly has taken his medicine show. The St. Andrew’s affair was an exception. Although held primarily for the benefit of the parish vestry, the entire diocese was invited, and the audience of 100 or so clergy and laypeople mostly came from other churches.

Sunday’s program was put together by St. Andrew’s’ rector, Bruce Robison, and, although a balanced presentation was certainly an aspiration of his, circumstances conspired against achieving it. Robison could not get the mix of panelists he originally sought, and the group assembled on June 1 represented a compromise of what must have been Plan C. Observers unfamiliar with St. Andrew’s or its rector might have concluded, erroneously, that the parish was at least nominally committed to realignment. It isn’t.

The Program

The program began with 10–15-minute opening remarks from four presenters. This was followed by a question-and-answer period during which the audience was invited to ask questions. Pittsburgh Assistant Bishop Henry Scriven and the Rev. John Bailey, secretary of Diocesan Council, spoke in favor of realignment. The Rev. Daniel Hall, while generally agreeing with the arguments advanced to justify realignment, urged that the diocese wait for a definitive ruling from the Anglican Communion that The Episcopal Church has chosen to “walk apart” before leaving the then-officially-discredited Episcopal Church. Only the Rev. Cynthia Bronson Sweigert disputed the need for realignment or its desirability. The Rev. Canon Mary Maggard Hays, who seemed to have come in a package deal with Bishop Scriven, joined the four speakers in answering audience questions. Robison acted as moderator and offered occasional remarks.

As I understand it, the speakers were given little direction concerning the issues they were to address; they were told simply to give their personal reasons for supporting or opposing realignment. It was not surprising that the panel, drawn exclusively from the ordained orders, spoke mostly of theological issues.

Graciously, Scriven conceded that not everyone who will be left behind in The Episcopal Church by realignment is a heretic. But he asserted that the church is moving in a direction he is unwilling to go, and he raised the usual charge that the church is “unclear” about the nature of Jesus (among other things), citing the Presiding Bishop’s “10 Questions For Katharine Jefferts Schori” interview in the July 10, 2006, Time and an August 2007 statement, “Already One in God,” a response to the primates’ Dar es Salaam letter from the leadership of the Diocese of Northern Michigan. Scriven’s strategy was a clever one to use in front of a potentially hostile audience, since it is much harder to refute someone’s distorted opinion of what might happen than it is to refute his distorted opinion of what has happened.

The bishop’s opening statement was followed by one from the Rev. Daniel Hall. Hall is a surgeon and an Episcopal priest serving in a Lutheran church. He was a signer of the January 2008 letter to the bishop declaring that “the best way forward for renewal and reformation of the Episcopal Church” is to stay in the church and advocate for the Windsor Report’s recommendations to be implemented. Hall emphasized his Evangelical heritage and expressed general agreement with the critique of The Episcopal Church offered by those wishing to realign. Surprisingly, he also expressed love of The Episcopal Church and of its 1979 prayer book, although he clearly would like to see both a different Episcopal Church and a different Anglican Communion. He enumerated the sorts of mechanisms available for holding Evangelical Christianity together—apparently, he does not much care what happens to other Christian traditions—confessional (the usual Protestant solution), magisterial (Roman Catholic), and conciliar (as advocated by the Anglican Communion Institute but, arguably, at odds with actual past practice of the Anglican Communion). In theory, Hall is looking for “mutual submission under Christ” among Anglican provinces. In practice, he seemed to think it wisest to wait until The Episcopal Church is thrown out of the Anglican Communion, so that realignment can be effected with greater moral authority. Those of us who believe that realignment is the moral equivalent of theft by deception were not cheered by Hall’s opposition to the bishop’s present scheme.

The Rev. John Bailey’s opening remarks, articulated at great length, were familiar: The Episcopal Church is going where traditional Christianity has never gone, and the need to defend the authentic Gospel—he told his audience that we are actually two churches with two gospels—justifies the militancy of realignment. The litany continued: the church is shrinking, but South Carolina and Pittsburgh (corrected through some appropriate statistical legerdemain) are growing; The Episcopal Church adopts ideas from contemporary society; loving your neighbor does not mean consenting to sinful behavior; the Presiding Bishop has denied the uniqueness of Jesus. The “truth of the Gospel,” Bailey said, is at stake. “Peacemaking”—he began by talking about peacemaking and asking, rhetorically, why we are fighting—“is not about everyone just getting along.” Realignment would mean that Evangelicals will no longer need to apologize for their church.

Last to speak was the Rev. Cynthia Bronson Sweigert. She suggested that generalizations were being made about The Episcopal Church that simply are not true, a point she illustrated, somewhat obliquely, by quoting from Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh’s “Realignment Reconsidered,” which juxtaposes answers from PEP to questions and answers about realignment offered by the diocese. She suggested that dialogue in Pittsburgh is much like that from the pen of Lewis Carroll, in that words and ideas are bandied about with meanings different from their conventional ones. (“We are not leaving The Episcopal Church; The Episcopal Church has left us.”) While conceding that some division of the diocese seems unavoidable, she admitted to seeing no valid purpose for it. Groups breaking away from The Episcopal Church, she observed, do not have much of a success rate. Sweigert expressed excitement, however, about a future diocese free of the current strife, and she said that a group of clergy and laypeople, informally called the Across the Aisle group, is talking about how the Diocese of Pittsburgh can be reorganized in a way that avoids “the polarization of the past.” Sweigert said that she is in The Episcopal Church because of its comprehensiveness, and she noted, with sadness, that, in Pittsburgh, one never hears Queen Elizabeth’s remark about having no desire to make windows into men’s souls. She ended by observing that we need Christ and one another.

Details of the question-and-answer period that followed are not particularly important. Most of the questions were from opponents of realignment, but they were respectfully asked and respectfully answered. Particularly toward the end of the event—it actually lasted close to 2½ hours—the panelists seemed just as happy to let someone else answer a question, although Robison had suggested that each presenter should have an opportunity to respond to each question.

Analysis

What was striking was the contrast, particularly in the question-and-answer period, to the dialogue that took place at a similar meeting in the same space. One of the aforementioned district meetings (that for District VII) was held at St. Andrew’s. It, too, was well attended and was similar in format, though the presentations were even more weighted in favor of realignment. The audience was almost uniformly opposed to this point of view—only one of the questions could be considered at all sympathetic or neutral—and the session became progressively more acrimonious as it wore on, with questioners angrily hurling charges and posing questions designed to embarrass the presenters.

The mood on June 1, however, was one of resignation to some sort of division of the diocese. The first question, in fact, was about whether there is a way to part gracefully. The consensus was that there likely is not, an answer disputed by no one. Some perfunctory words were said about being gracious to one another and possibly sharing projects and resources, but the words seemed to lack conviction.

Perhaps most surprising was the absence, both in the initial presentations and in the subsequent questions, of discussion related to the canonical or legal propriety of realignment. There was little concern expressed for the effect realignment might have on the Anglican Communion, and no talk at all of the likely effect on The Episcopal Church. These concerns had seemingly become irrelevant, as if everyone was part of a Greek tragedy, and no one had control over his or her fate.

The program was, I suspect, the last great theological debate in Pittsburgh on the realignment question. (It was, perhaps, not a great debate, but theological issues were raised in the apparent expectation that someone would actually listen to them.) From this point on, however, I suspect that we will not bother to argue theology. Realigners and non-realigners will continue to plan for their individual futures. Everyone will play out his or her role, and what will happen will happen. A broad coalition of Episcopalians will inherit the current dysfunctional diocese and will try to make it work, while the lawyers will labor to return diocesan assets to their rightful owners.

May God have mercy on us all.

Realignment Reconsidered

The various groups allied as Via Media USA are notable for quite different reasons. The Episcopal Forum of South Carolina, for example, has emphasized informational events. Remain Episcopal, whatever its past accomplishments, will forever be known as the organization most responsible for facilitating the rising from the ashes of the Diocese of San Joaquin. Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh (PEP), on the other hand, is best known for its publications.

Lately, PEP’s efforts have been focused on working, largely behind the scenes, to forge as wide a coalition as possible to help in the rebuilding of a post-Duncan Diocese of Pittsburgh. (See “A Pittsburgh Conversation,” which reports on a small piece of this work.) Even this project, however, requires PEP to shift into document-production mode on occasion, and, today, PEP is releasing what we consider to be a very significant handout, “Realignment Reconsidered.”

Some background of today’s announcement: On April 22, the Diocese of Pittsburgh posted “Frequently Asked Questions About Realignment” on its Parish Toolbox Web site. That 8-page document distills the message Bishop Duncan has been delivering to individual parishes in his recent campaign to shore up support for his plan to remove the diocese from The Episcopal Church.

Reading “FAQ” is a visit to a looking-glass world in which facts and logic are, shall I say, malleable. For example, question 4 asks: “If the Diocese chooses to realign, what would the immediate consequences be for individual … clergy?” The answer offered by the diocese is the following: “Clergy would need to enter a new retirement plan and would be clergy of the province that the Diocese joins instead of clergy of The Episcopal Church.” Even John-David Schofield, bold as he was in engineering the “realignment” of the Diocese of San Joaquin, was not so presumptuous as to suggest that his diocesan convention could undo the ordination vows of individual priests or deacons.

There was no question that “FAQ” required a direct response. Within a few days, I had written alternative answers to several of the diocese’s questions, and I made a pitch to turn that preliminary work into a PEP publication. The idea was not a hard sell. The plan was to copy the diocesan document and add our own answers alongside the original ones.

It has taken nearly a month to finish “Realignment Reconsidered.” Like so many PEP projects, although it has a single, primary author—me, in this instance—it had many reviewers, and some people made significant contributions to particular answers. Because we tend to go through so many review cycles, it is easy to loose track of just who wrote what.

In any case, the scrutiny to which PEP subjects its publications is very good at smoothing the rough edges, and I believe the new document to be a very good one. Most typos get caught eventually, if not always quickly. Errors of fact are likely to be identified by someone, and it is often the case that a reviewer will be able to summon up useful information, unknown or forgotten by the author, that can be used to strengthen the text. Much attention is given to tone, and that was certainly the case for “Realignment Reconsidered.” We try to avoid name-calling, sarcasm, and unsupported accusations; it is all too easy to be carried away by one’s emotions, but a little self-indulgence can alienate a reader, particularly one unsympathetic to your viewpoint to begin with..

It is difficult to identify a question and answer from the new document as being typical, but an example will at least provide a sense of what the Diocese of Pittsburgh has been saying and how we have tried to correct the record. Question 5 from “FAQ” reads as follows:

Can a congregation “opt out” of diocesan realignment? What would happen to the a) parishes who do not wish to realign, and b) clergy who do not wish to realign?

a) Parishes would be given time to consider whether to leave the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh by changing the “accession” in their by-laws. The Diocese would work with parishes to make such a decision as conflict-free and charitable as possible.

b) Clergy would apply to the Bishop for letters dimissory (transfer letters) from the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh to whatever entity the leadership of the Episcopal Church sets up.

Our answer is the following (PEP answers are all set in italics):

It is clear from the experience of the Diocese of San Joaquin that any parish that wants to remain in The Episcopal Church need only declare that intention. Likewise, clergy who want to stay in The Episcopal Church will not need to execute any sort of transfer or require anyone’s permission to do so, especially not that of a bishop who no longer holds authority in the church. Failure of a parish to declare its intention to remain an Episcopal parish could be construed as indicative of an intention to leave the church and could expose it to litigation by The Episcopal Church to recover parish property.

It is the position of The Episcopal Church, supported overwhelmingly by diocesan chancellors and legal scholars, that a diocese cannot properly remove its accession clause from its constitution, nor can it remove itself from The Episcopal Church. There will continue to be an Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh that is part of The Episcopal Church, but it will have new leadership. There will be no need for any parish remaining in The Episcopal Church to amend its bylaws, since there would be no conflict in acceding to the constitution and canons of the diocese that remains in The Episcopal Church.

Legal precedent for the inability of Episcopal Church parishes to remove parish property from The Episcopal Church is strong. Such matters are largely governed by state law, and a recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision in the St. James the Less case—a case about which the diocese has largely been silent—gives little reason for realigning parishes to think that they can long remain in control of parish property. Changing parish bylaws will be unavailing.

PEP’s biggest challenge will be getting “Realignment Reconsidered” into the hands of those willing at least to consider arguments at odds with statements made by their bishop. Proponents of realignment have demonized Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh at least as much as they have demonized The Episcopal Church, which makes it difficult for any PEP document to get a fair hearing in much of the Pittsburgh diocese.

Interested readers can find “Realignment Reconsidered” here. The press release announcing its availability can be found here.

A Pittsburgh Conversation

With a vote construed as a mechanism to remove the Diocese of Pittsburgh from The Episcopal Church less than half a year away and a real possibility that Bishop Robert Duncan could be deposed before then, what I have called the enthusiastic and the reluctant supporters of The Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh are beginning seriously to talk to one another.

The contacts between these groups have had something of an ad hoc quality about them because of organizational asymmetry. Enthusiastic Episcopalians have, in Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh (PEP), a nearly 5-year-old tax-exempt corporation of clergy and laypeople, whereas the anti-realignment conservatives are represented mainly by a small, informal group of clergy used to meeting quietly and in private. Despite this asymmetry, the forging of an effective coalition to move the Diocese of Pittsburgh into a post-schism era is moving forward.

As part of this coalition building, the Rev. Dr. Jay Geisler, a member of the group of conservative clergy that declared to the diocese and its bishop that they intend to remain in The Episcopal Church, was invited to be guest speaker at a PEP meeting last week, and his visit occasioned a useful exchange of ideas. Geisler, who is rector of a church once led by Mark Lawrence, now Bishop of South Carolina, brought a few of his vestry members along with him, thereby providing a rare opportunity for moderate and conservative laypeople of Pittsburgh to talk to one another as well.

PEP members were, I think, delighted (and probably surprised) to hear of Geisler’s passion for social justice. (He once landed in jail for his part in a demonstration.) I hope that he left with the impression that PEP people are generally orthodox in their theology, if very protective of their church and wary of their bishop.

During the presentation and subsequent Q&A, I listened especially for an answer to a longstanding question of mine: What do conservatives—for want of a better term—really want? Geisler never quite answered this question, though, in truth, I never quite asked it. He did say a few things that touched on the matter, however.

Acknowledging that conservatives have sought a place of “safety” within The Episcopal Church, Geisler offered his own solution, at least for the short term. As a mechanism to avoid schism and lessen conflict, he explained that he would like to see the establishment of a non-geographic diocese of conservative parishes within the church, led by a conservative bishop. He admitted that this plan is problematic. He did not say what effect he thought such an innovation would have on Pittsburgh, an interesting question, in retrospect, that no one pursued. He related that Bishop Duncan had discouraged him from advocating his plan because it would, in Duncan’s words, “weaken our position.”

This was an interesting revelation. I do not favor the non-geographic diocese “solution,” but not for the same reason that Duncan opposes it. (I will have more to say about this another time.) Duncan’s opposition, I think, is to any reconciliation or mechanism that gives even the appearance of unity, since such a scheme would ease tensions in the church and blunt his efforts to engineer a schism that ultimately could place him in the position of leader of his own Anglican province in North America.

Interestingly, Geisler did not articulate the complaint I have heard from other conservatives that they are discriminated against by liberal bishops when seeking rectorships. I have always been skeptical of this charge, but I never felt qualified to evaluate it. Geisler suggested a more credible “problem,” namely that bishops—it was not at all clear that he meant to limit his remark to liberal bishops—are wary of graduates of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, the alma mater of so many favoring “realignment,” because they are concerned that Trinity graduates will not long remain clergy in The Episcopal Church. In other words, discrimination against evangelical clergy may be less a matter of disqualifying candidates for their theology as for their schismatic designs against The Episcopal Church.

Our speaker had a few other things to say that most listeners probably found encouraging, whether or not they were in full agreement. Although Geisler passed up an opportunity to call his bishop disingenuous, he nevertheless took exception to Duncan’s contention that the current disagreements are, at root, about the “authority of Scripture.” Instead, he said that he thought the fundamental issue was autonomy, suggesting, in so saying, that The Episcopal Church has failed to be sufficiently respectful of the beliefs of other Anglican provinces. Geisler also made it clear that, in his mind, “realignment” is, in fact, schism. Duncan has avoided this conclusion by accusing The Episcopal Church of “walking apart” from the rest of the Anglican Communion or even of becoming non-Christian. Geisler’s view seemed more genuine and defensible.

The conversation failed to cover some of the essential issues that must be faced in Pittsburgh in the coming months. The Q&A period was not long enough, and the experiences of the audience in working in the diocese over the years, predictably influenced comments and questions, both in helpful and unhelpful ways. Nonetheless, the discussion seemed a useful part of an ongoing conversation that offers hope of reconciliation and a renewed sense of mission in the not-so-distant future of the (likely much smaller) Diocese of Pittsburgh.

The Ignorant Vote

Hillary Clinton is trying desperately to make the case that she is more electable than Barack Obama. I doubt this is true; Clinton had what pollsters call high negatives long before she announced her candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. What that means is that there is a large fraction of the voting population that Clinton will almost certainly never win over. Many in that group are not ready to vote for Obama either, but they at least are not unalterably opposed to the idea. To be sure, there is a racist vote that will not support a black man, but Clinton supporters cannot dismiss misogynist sentiment, either.

Anyway, in supporting the case for her electability the other day, Clinton was bragging that she has more support than her opponent from whites who have not finished college. No doubt, this is a significant voting bloc, but one has to question Clinton’s boast that she is preferred by the ignorant. I wonder how she does with white supremacists and whether she is ready to tout her advantage with that group to superdelegates.

Has Anyone Looked at the Numbers?

All news outlets are reporting that Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama in Pennsylvania’s Democratic presidential primary by 10%. This is significant news because pundits insisted that Clinton needed to win by “double digits” for a “real” victory over her opponent, since Pennsylvania has long been considered a Clinton state.

The only problem with the news reports is that they are apparently wrong. I discovered this when I began searching news sites like CNN and NPR for the actual vote tallies. None of the sites seemed to give vote totals, only percentages.

I tracked down the election returns on the Pennsylvania Department of State Web site and was surprised to learn that Clinton did not win by 10%. As of 9:00 AM this morning, her lead is something like 8.5%, a significant difference, given the expectation game. Yet, in its 9:00 AM newscast, NPR was still reporting a 10% Clinton victory. (I have informed the network of the error.) What are reporters reporting, anyway?

Here are the current numbers from the Pennsylvania Department of State:

Because the numbers will change, I captured the Department of State tally, which can be viewed as a PDF here. The current Web page can be viewed here.

NOTE: As I am posting this, the numbers have changed slightly. With 99.34% of the districts reporting, Hillary Clinton has gained 0.01% over Barack Obama. Her lead is still 8.5%.

UPDATE 4/28/2008: The Department of State Web site now reports 100% of the ballots counted. Clinton’s victory is not 1,259,466 to 1,046,120. Her final lead—still not in double digits—is 9.26%.

UPDATE 5/9/2008: Pennsylvania still lists primary numbers on the Web as “unofficial returns,” but, presumably, the numbers are increasingly close to what will be the final, official tally. As of today, Clinton has 1,260,937 votes to Obama’s 1,046,822. Her lead has now inched up to 9.28%. Clinton would do well to point out that she received 20.45% more votes than her opponent, however.

Even I Am Not That Paranoid

In his introduction to the February-March issue of Trinity, the house organ of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, Bishop Robert Duncan’s introductory message (on page 2) was all about a prophesy he had received from the Rev. Mark Stibbe, an English Evangelical who contributed to a recent clergy conference in Pittsburgh. Stibbe’s pronouncement “2008 Is the Year of the Gate” appeared below the bishop’s message. Although the bishop and his staff were reputedly cheered by Stibbe’s prophesy, like most prophesy, ancient and modern, this particular example of the genre is ambiguous. The bishop may see in the message a coming liberation from the despised Episcopal Church. I can as easily read a coming liberation from an oppressive diocese and a joyous reunification with a reinvigorated Episcopal Church. I will let my bishop take comfort where he can, however.

Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh took virtually no notice of the Stibbe prophesy. It has become harder and harder for the bishop to surprise or shock us, and we were too busy discussing when the bishop might finally be deposed. At some point, however, liberal Episcopalians discovered the prophesy and discussed it a good deal. (See, for example, the conversation at Father Jake Stops the World.) Well, material in an official diocesan publication is surely fair game, and most Episcopalians put little stock in fortune telling.

A few days ago, a friend was complaining that she had not yet received her copy of the latest (April-May) Trinity in the mail. Not only that, she said, but it had not yet been posted on the Web, as it usually is. Soon thereafter, those who had been discussing the Stibbe piece began discussing the fact that the magazine “containing Bishop Duncan’s comments and the prophecy have been pulled from the Diocesan web site.” (See post on The Lead.) The implication was that the bishop or his staff were trying to manipulate the bishop’s public image to spare him embarrassment.

In fact, although the bishop’s views on myriad matters is quite at variance from my own, even on what one would think are issues of fact, Bishop Duncan is not shy in proclaiming his beliefs, nor is he much inclined to apologize for them or to deny acknowledging what he has said. (Calvary Church’s attorney, who has more evidence of Bishop Duncan’s declarations at his disposal, might have a different view.) Anyway, I checked the diocesan Web site this morning and discovered that, indeed, I could not bring up the February-March Trinity. It was listed on the proper page, however, just below a link to the latest issue, which now is on-line.

I have maintained a few Web pages for my church’s worship commission, where I have posted such documents as minutes, one after another, as links to the actual documents. A number of times, while using Wordpress to add a new document, I inadvertently caused the identification of two documents to be incorporated into a single link to one of the documents. Given that the link to the latest Trinity was new, I suspected that a simple HTML error, not a nefarious plot, was responsible for the earlier issue’s having been “pulled.” I wrote a note to Peter Frank, who runs communications for the diocese, and Peter thanked me for pointing out the problem and assured me that the disappearance of the February-March issue was really a clerical mistake of the Internet age. The links have now been fixed, and you can find the listings of Trinity issues here.

Are we all getting a little paranoid here? Why was I the first person to go the the diocese to ask what was really going on? There are enough strange things happening in our church that we don’t need to go about inventing others. Everyone should chill out.

A New Service

A new service aimed at Pittsburgh Episcopalians is being launched today. It should also be of interest to Episcopalians elsewhere. Specifically, Pittsburgh Update is intended to “provide accurate and timely information” about “developments in the wider church that have the potential to affect [Pittsburgh Episcopalians].”

The first weekly post appears today, and it reports on the reorganization of the Diocese of San Joaquin, on the recent court decision regarding the property of St. James’, Elmhurst, N.Y., on the controversy over the recent episcopal depositions, and on a vigil to be held in support of Bishop Robert Duncan and the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes. The stories posted are brief, but they contain links to conventional news stores and other sources.

Pittsburgh Update builds on the background material provided by A Pittsburgh Episcopal Voice, which is maintained by an increasingly diverse group of Pittsburgh clergy and laypeople. I am, for now, one of the editors.

Some Background

For those of us who have been trying to get ordinary Episcopalians to pay attention to church developments beyond the boundaries of their parish, it has been hard to know where to tell people to go for concise and relevant news updates.

Four years ago, I suggested that Via Media USA post a history of the current church conflicts and keep that history up-to-date. That never happened, partly because the history would be a long read and would be difficult to write and maintain.

My own parish recently faced the news source problem. I am on a committee that was concerned about how we can help keep parishioners informed of current events in the church. We could recommend no single Web site, or even a handful of sites, that could be relied upon effectively to deliver relevant news to Episcopalians.

This led me to scale down my original idea to something more manageable. Why not offer concise, objective news summaries with appropriate links? (One can hope that readers will eventually pick up the necessary background information.) This is the idea that has been developed into Pittsburgh Update.

Is Obama Applying for the Wrong Job?

Pennsylvania is receiving a lot of attention from the candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination. The battle for votes in the upcoming Pennsylvania primary is beginning to produce lots of stories in local media.

I awoke today to a segment on my local NPR affiliate describing an Obama speech in Pittsburgh in which the candidate said something like, “My first job will be to keep you safe.” I was still a bit sleepy, so that may not be a precise quotation, but it captures the essence of what Obama said.

I was struck by the emphasis. As Commander in Chief, the President surely bears significant responsibility for national defense. In the oath of office, however, the incoming President says, “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” [Article II, Section 1]

We are not electing the Commander in Chief or the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. We are electing a President of the United States whose job is broader. His first job, I would suggest, is to “defend the Constitution of the United States,” including the Bill of Rights.

We currently have a President who is confused about his job. President Bush thinks that defending the country against foreign threats requires him to use any means necessary in doing so, including ignoring the Constitution and the civil rights of citizens and non-citizens alike.

What we need, however, is a President who has the priorities of the job straight, a President who will use any means necessary to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Obama could be that President. Or maybe not.

A Punctuation Oddity

Having written several rather serious posts of late, perhaps it’s time for some comic relief, or something completely different, anyway.

In the February 2008 issue of Trains Magazine, I encountered this sentence:

With the ClassOne Dispatch system, from Basking Ridge, N.J.-based Avaya Inc. and Frisco, Texas-based ObjectTel Inc., BNSF radio calls now travel over what is believed to be the largest combination voice, data, and radio network in the world, expanding usefulness of the network, improving response times, and helping the company reduce costs.

There is reason to be thankful that I did not have to copyedit this sentence, which contains a number of pitfalls for the unwary editor. First, one has to be very sure about corporate and product names these days, which often violate conventional spelling (ClassOne and ObjectTel) and punctuation (Avaya Inc.) rules. The copyeditor (or fact checker) slipped up with “ObjectTel Inc.” The corporate name, apparently, is the slightly more conventional “ObjectTel, Inc.,” which you can verify from the company’s Web site.)

What particularly disturbed me about this sentence—yes, it is one sentence—is the way that Trains indicated the locations of the two companies responsible for the ClassOne Dispatch system.

Commas are used to set off instances of successive geographical or political divisions occurring in a sentence, as in this one: “The company has offices in Springfield, Missouri, and San Francisco.” We would normally expect commas around “N.J.” and “Texas” in the Trains sentence, except for the transformation of place names into compound adjectives. Whereas “Frisco-based ObjectTel” seems perfectly correct, “Frisco, Texas-based ObjectTel” does not. The punctuation seems to emphasize “Texas-based,” with “Frisco” left rather unconnected to the rest of the sentence. We expect a comma somewhere after “Texas,” which would make a clearer connection between city and state, but we don’t get one. Where would it go?

The Trains punctuation is surely defensible, though it is disconcerting. Because it juxtaposes two punctuation marks, most people would be reluctant to write “Frisco, Texas,-based ObjectTel,” but its meaning is clearer without its looking impossibly odd. More disconcerting is “Basking Ridge, N.J.-based Avaya,” where “Basking Ridge” becomes part of a semi-open, semi-hyphenated compound.

Sometimes there just seems not to be a fully satisfactory way of punctuating a sentence. In such case, we are better off recasting the sentence to avoid problems. I would have written:

With the ClassOne Dispatch system, from Avaya Inc., of Basking Ridge, N.J., and ObjectTel, Inc., of Frisco, Texas, BNSF radio calls now travel over what is believed to be the largest combination voice, data, and radio network in the world, expanding usefulness of the network, improving response times, and helping the company reduce costs.

Isn’t that clearer?

Legal Matters

In an earlier post, I analyzed Bishop Robert Duncan’s letter to the Presiding Bishop intended to prevent him from being deposed by the House of Bishops. That letter, I am afraid, will not accomplish what it was intended to do.

Duncan’s Philadelphia law firm is doing better work on his behalf. As I noted in my first post on the material that the Diocese of Pittsburgh released today, the letter from Montgomery, McCracken, Walker & Rhoads, LLP, to David Booth Beers, the Presiding Bishop’s chancellor can be read here.

In this essay, I want to consider the letter to Beers and some of the canonical issues raised there and elsewhere.

The letter from attorney John Lewis first asserts that Duncan’s affirmation in his letter (“I state that I consider myself ‘fully subject to the doctrine, discipline and worship of this Church.’”) has fulfilled the requirement of the Presiding Bishop’s letter of January 15 (“I would, however, welcome a statement by you within the next two months providing evidence that you once more consider yourself fully subject to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of this Church.”) and therefore puts the matter of Duncan’s abandonment of the communion of The Episcopal Church to rest.

This is a strong opening move by Mr. Lewis, but the Duncan letter surely does not provide the sort of evidence Bishop Jefferts Schori was seeking. It may seem that the Presiding Bishop actually asked the wrong question, but I want to revisit that matter below.

Mr. Lewis’s next point is perhaps his strongest. He maintains, as others have done, that Canon IV.9 assumes that a bishop found to have abandoned the communion of the church must be inhibited before he or she can be deposed. Duncan has not been inhibited. The recent deposition of Bishop William Cox suggests otherwise, but a case can be made for Mr. Lewis’s point of view.

According to Canon IV.9, once the Review Committee has certified to the Presiding Bishop that a bishop has abandoned the communion of the church:

The Presiding Bishop, with the consent of the three senior Bishops having jurisdiction in this Church, shall then inhibit the said Bishop until such time as the House of Bishops shall investigate the matter and act thereon. During the period of Inhibition, the Bishop shall not perform any episcopal, ministerial or canonical acts, except as relate to the administration of the temporal affairs of the Diocese of which the Bishop holds jurisdiction or in which the Bishop is then serving.

The canon seems to assume that the three senior bishops will, in fact, consent to inhibition. It is possible that, in writing this canon, it occurred to no one that inhibition might not happen. Why would the bishops overrule the Review Committee? Lewis would have us believe that the matter is ended if the three senior bishops do not agree to inhibition. It is certainly possible to interpret the canon in the case where they do not consent to inhibition, however, and I plan to do that. I note, however, that the notion that the three senior bishops can interrupt the disciplinary process by not agreeing to inhibition is at least a little crazy. In practice, this means that a single, elderly bishop—if consent from three bishops is required, the lack of consent from one can prevent inhibition—can override the work of the Review Committee and possibly the entire House of Bishops, which, by this reasoning, has no say in the matter.

How do we interpret the part of the canon cited above if the bishop charged is not inhibited? Logically, everything after “During the period of Inhibition” is irrelevant. No restrictions apply to the actions of the non-inhibited bishop.

The canon continues:

The Presiding Bishop, or the presiding officer, shall forthwith give notice to the Bishop of the certification and Inhibition. Unless the inhibited Bishop, within two months, makes declaration by a Verified written statement to the Presiding Bishop, that the facts alleged in the certificate are false or utilizes the provisions of Canon IV.8 or Canon III.12.7, as applicable, the Bishop will be liable to Deposition. If the Presiding Bishop is reasonably satisfied that the statement constitutes (i) a good faith retraction of the declarations or acts relied upon in the certification to the Presiding Bishop or (ii) a good faith denial that the Bishop made the declarations or committed the acts relied upon in the certificate, the Presiding Bishop, with the advice and consent of a majority of the three senior Bishops consenting to Inhibition, terminate the Inhibition. Otherwise, it shall be the duty of the Presiding Bishop to present the matter to the House of Bishops at the next regular or special meeting of the House. If the House, by a majority of the whole number of Bishops entitled to vote, shall give its consent, the Presiding Bishop shall depose the Bishop from the Ministry, and pronounce and record in the presence of two or more Bishops that the Bishop has been so deposed.

If there is no inhibition, presumably, “certification and Inhibition” in the first sentence is equivalent to “certification,” as if the sentence ended with “certification, if any.” The next sentence refers to “the inhibited Bishop,” and so is irrelevant. Because this sentence is null and void where the bishop has not been inhibited, we can see that we may ignore everything in the canon up to the sentence beginning “Otherwise.” Without inhibition, it appears that the process by which the bishop offers a defense is short-circuited. This might explain why the Presiding Bishop did not actually ask for a “Verified written statement” as described in the canon. She asked for something a bit different, seemingly as something of a courtesy.

Is this reading reasonable? Why not? If the senior bishops think the case is not strong, perhaps it should just go to the House of Bishops, where it may be quickly dealt with or the bishops may initiate their own investigation in any way they see fit. This seems to be what the Presiding Bishop intends to do.

Lewis next suggests that the certification should not go to the House of Bishops because the charges are similar to charges brought against Bishop John-David Schofield before San Joaquin claimed it had left The Episcopal Church. No certification was forthcoming from the Review Committee in that case. Presumably, the current Review Committee either sees a difference in the two cases, or its members believe that the former Review Committee erred. I suspect that both are true. That the church made one honest mistake is no reason to repeat it.

The rest of Lewis’s letter simply argues for as many rights for his client as he can get. There is no need to discuss that here.

Two questions have been raised about the recent depositions of Bishops Schofield and Cox, and, since those objections might be brought in Duncan’s case, I would like to mention them here. First, there is the question of whether the spring meeting of the House of Bishops had a quorum. The parliamentarian and the Presiding Bishop’s chancellor say that it did, and this is a commonplace enough issue for the House for me to assume that these people know what they are talking about.

More complicated is the matter of what sort of majority is needed to agree to deposition when the House of Bishops votes on the matter. Consent to deposition must be given by “a majority of the whole number of Bishops entitled to vote” (see above). What exactly does that mean? Those who have suggested that the depositions of Schofield and Cox, all of whom seem to be on the staff of The Living Church, was improper contend that a majority of all bishops that can vote in the House of Bishops is meant. On the face of it, however, the canon could as easily refer simply to a majority of those present at the meeting entitled to vote. A follow-up story in The Living Church offers various reasons for accepting this interpretation.

I will offer additional reasons to think that no sort of supermajority is intended by the canon. First, since the Review Committee has already offered a judgment—in most cases, a judgment in which the three senior bishops concur—the House of Bishops is really just validating what is, presumably, a strong case. The history of the canon, however, suggests a reason for the presence of the confusing words “whole number of Bishops.” This canon, the first version of which was enacted in 1853, has been changed a number of times, usually in response to particular problems encountered in its application. An earlier version included the wording “a majority of the whole number of Bishops entitled at the time to seats in the House of Bishops.” This wording clearly is intended to refer to all bishops who could attend a meeting, rather than those who actually do so. On the other hand, “a majority of the whole number of Bishops entitled to vote” could conceivably refer to all bishops who can vote or to all bishops at a meeting who can vote. Admittedly, the “whole number” locution suggests something special, but there is reason to believe that this odd phrase was merely carried over from the earlier canon. The interpretation of the Presiding Bishop’s chancellor seems as good as anyone’s here. If the General Convention believes that the effect of the canon should be otherwise, it can change it in 2009.

Duncan’s Defense

Below is the letter from Bishop Robert Duncan referred to in my post of earlier today, “Duncan Responds.” It is instructive to analyze the text, which is largely devoid of exculpatory material. To do so, I will insert comments within the text of the letter. My comments will be in larger type and longer lines.

14^th March, A.D. 2008

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop
815 Second Avenue
New York NY 10017

Dear Katharine,

In response to the request set forth in your letter of January 15^th (which enclosed the certification of the Title IV Review Committee), I state that I consider myself “fully subject to the doctrine, discipline and worship of this Church.”

In particular:

1. I have striven to follow the Lord Jesus with all my heart and mind and soul and strength, all the while relying on God’s grace to accomplish what my sinfulness and brokenness otherwise prevent.

This, of course, is mere boilerplate. Duncan asserts that he is a sincere and committed Christian. The statement is somewhat self-deprecating, which is, no doubt, intended to be endearing.

2. I have kept my ordination vows – all of them – to the best of my ability, including the vow I made on 28 October 1972 to “banish and drive away all strange and erroneous doctrines contrary to God’s Word.”

This does not address any particular charge. The remark about “strange and erroneous doctrines” is a not-so-subtle jab at The Episcopal Church. Duncan is not being charged with heresy, so his relation to church doctrine, whatever that might be, is irrelevant.

3. I have preached and taught nothing but what faithful Anglicans and mainstream Christians have always preached and taught, with the exception only that I have supported and encouraged the ministry of women in Holy Orders.

Again, the charges against Duncan involve the discipline of The Episcopal Church—whether or not he has obeyed the rules of the church—not its doctrine. The assertion about what he has preached and taught is, again, irrelevant. His gratuitous comments are, however, interesting in themselves. On one hand, it could be said that Duncan is here making a grudging admission that the Church can change over time and has actually done so. (If the Church can change its views on the ordination of women, then why cannot it change its views on homosexuality?) This is hardly the message Duncan is sending here, however. The insurgency in The Episcopal Church is largely an Evangelical enterprise. Evangelicals believe that our church does not read the Bible literally enough. Women’s ordination is not a big issue for most Evangelicals. Just as Duncan has looked to “continuing” churches to enhance his coalition (see item 6), he needs the support of the most radical Anglo-Catholics, who view The Episcopal Church’s attitudes toward both gay and women priests (not to mention gay unions) as insufficiently respectful of the tradition of the Church. Duncan has always seemed genuinely in favor of ordaining women, but he needs the support of those opposed to it. (Until Bishop Schofield abandoned The Episcopal Church, the three diocesan bishops opposed to ordaining women have been supporters of Duncan’s schismatic movement.) Duncan walks a fine line trying to keep his unlikely coalition together. In this assertion, he is trying to keep the Anglo-Catholics happy.

4. I have been present to all but two meetings of the House of Bishops (out of twenty-four) during the last 12 years. In those meetings I have clearly and openly opposed the theological and moral drift of the Episcopal Church, often in the face of great hostility and sadly, at times, derision.

Not attending meetings of the House of Bishops might be evidence of having abandoning the communion of The Episcopal Church, but such a charge was not actually lodged against Duncan in the materials before the Review Committee. In fact, however, when Bishop Duncan attends a meeting of the House of Bishops, he usually does not stay in the same accommodations as the other bishops and he often absents himself from deliberations unrelated to the movement that he represents. The defense offered here is irrelevant, but it does raise additional issues that might have been considered. Duncan does take another opportunity to take a jab at the church and to play victim at the same time.

5. I have made no submission to any other authority or jurisdiction.

Again, doing so might bolster the abandonment case, but no one has suggested that Duncan did what he here asserts here he did not do. What he has been doing, however, is working to create a new jurisdiction. His actions suggest that he intends to lead such a jurisdiction, one that is either parallel to The Episcopal Church or a replacement, in the Anglican Communion, for The Episcopal Church.

6. I have gathered Anglican fragments together from one hundred and thirty-five years of Episcopal Church division, vastly increasing understanding and cooperation, though preserving the jurisdictional independence of all.

Finally, in this item, Duncan comes close to addressing the actual charges against him. Ironically, he construes his infractions as virtues. It is not his job, of course, to unite the various “continuing” Episcopal churches, but doing so is not clearly a bad thing. The actual allegation, however, is that Duncan is uniting the various splinter churches to form a jurisdictional rival of The Episcopal Church. Item 6 is actually a partial admission of guilt. Duncan fails to note that the unity he is working to create does not include unity with The Episcopal Church.

7. I have, with the clergy, people and para-church organizations of my diocese, built missionary relationships all over the world, fielding both missionaries and resources on five continents.

Duncan has not been criticized for this. The statement is irrelevant.

8. I have faithfully served and shepherded the clergy and people of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh through what has, by God’s grace, been one of its greatest periods of extension and blessing. My intention is to continue in this call for what remains of my active ministry.

I’m not sure I even know what this means. It is surely irrelevant. Many of us in Pittsburgh do not feel blessed by the service of Robert Duncan!

Faithfully in Christ,
[signed] +Bob Pittsburgh

So this is Bob Duncan’s defense. Not very impressive, I am afraid. This letter is unlikely to save the good bishop from deposition. His lawyer has done a much better job, but I do not want to deal with serious canonical issues here.

I do want to mention one legal issue, however, which was pointed out to me by a real lawyer. (I neither am one nor pretend to be one on the Web.) Canon IV.9 speaks of a bishop charged with abandonment making “declaration by a Verified written statement to the Presiding Bishop” in his or her defense. Apparently, “Verified written statement” has a specific legal meaning in civil law, and this same meaning is applicable here (as defined by Canon IV.15). According to that canon, “Verification shall mean a signature before a notary public or similar person authorized to take acknowledgments of signatures on a document that states that the signer has personal knowledge or has investigated the matters set forth in the document and that they are true to the best of the signer’s knowledge and belief.” Also, “Verified shall mean that an instrument contains a Verification.” Duncan’s letter, which is not notarized, is clearly not a “Verified written statement to the Presiding Bishop.”

UPDATE: I have now posted a—dare I say it?—legal analysis here.