The Consents Question, Again

The question of consents for the consecration of the Very Rev. Mark Lawrence as Bishop of South Carolina is again in the news. Episcopal News Service (ENS) yesterday released a story based on a letter from the president of the Standing Committee of the Diocese of South Carolina. The letter, signed by the Rev. J. Haden McCormick, was recently posted on the diocese’s Web site. Presumably, it has been sent to standing committees that have already voted to deny consent for Lawrence’s consecration, as it requests that the decision to withhold consent be reconsidered. According to the Web site, “a similar but not identical letter has been sent to those Standing Committees who [sic] have not yet responded to the request for consent.” No one has come forward with a copy of that letter, though there is no reason to think it is much different from what has been made public already.

Lawrence is Bishop-elect of South Carolina, but he cannot be consecrated, under Episcopal Church canons, unless a majority of standing committees and bishops with jurisdiction each consent to his consecration. The voting on consents normally is carried out in obscurity, but the circumstances surrounding the episcopal election of September 16, 2006, have drawn the attention not only of Episcopalians throughout the church, but of many observers in the wider Anglican Communion as well. Consents from 56 standing committees are needed by March 9 if Lawrence is to become the next Bishop of South Carolina. It is rumored that, with somewhat more than half the church’s standing committees’ having responded, somewhat more than half of those have withheld consent.


Background

In October 2006, I wrote an essay arguing that Lawrence’s consecration would not be in the best interests of The Episcopal Church. Copies of “No Consents: A Crucial Test for The Episcopal Church” were sent by Via Media USA (VMUSA), along with cover letters, to bishops and standing committees. Two weeks later, Episcopal Forum of South Carolina (EFSC), a Via Media USA alliance member, sent its own letter urging caution in considering whether to consent to Lawrence’s consecration. (ENS reported on both the VMUSA and EFSC initiatives.) Wake Up, a New York-based alliance favoring an inclusive church, subsequently issued its “Wake Up Call No.3, “There is an Impediment,” arguing against allowing Lawrence to become a bishop and urging Episcopalians to lobby their bishops and standing committees to prevent his consecration.

Even supporters of Lawrence quickly acknowledged that the San Joaquin priest could be a hard sell as South Carolina bishop. (“Lawrence’s consent may prove difficult,” South Carolina Canon Theologian Kendall Harmon observed a few days after the election.) Bloggers Father Jake, Tobias Haller, Mark Harris, and Christopher Johnson, among others, weighed in on the question of consents. Public controversy was reignited in early December, when Simon Sarmiento posted a letter from Lawrence on “Thinking Anglicans” intended, one assumes, to reassure his critics. (See ENS story of December 10.) It did nothing of the sort. Tobias Haller responded with a post titled, simply, “No.” Mark Harris gave his analysis of the Lawrence letter, and I posted an analysis, including a footnoted version of the Lawrence letter, that I called “The Annotated Mark Lawrence.”

It would be difficult to evaluate the current tally of consents from public sources alone, but the votes of a few standing committees have been made public. At least two standing committees, those of Bethlehem and Kansas, have not only announced their decisions to withhold consent, but have taken the extraordinary step of publishing their reasons for doing so. Andrew Gerns republished the Bethlehem statement on his blog, “Andrew Plus,” and commended the transparency achieved by Bethlehem to standing committees generally. Would that more of them would take this advice to heart.


The South Carolina Letters

As I suggested earlier, the consents required to consecrate Mark Lawrence have been slow in coming. ENS reported last month that the South Carolina Standing Committee had postponed Lawrence’s scheduled February 24 consecration. The deferment was attributed to “unanticipated delays in the mailing of the Consent Requests.” At best, this is wishful thinking. The Diocese of Newark, for example, elected Mark Beckwith a week after South Carolina chose Lawrence, and it endured the same bureaucratic trials in sending out its own consent requests. Nevertheless, Beckwith was consecrated Bishop of Newark on January 27, having received, without difficulty, the required consents both from standing committees and bishops with jurisdiction. The same day that the ENS story appeared, Lawrence wrote a rather petulant letter to his Bakersfield congregation explaining that plans to move to South Carolina were on hold.

Postponement of the Lawrence consecration, followed by the sending of letters, not only to standing committees that have not voted, but also to those that have already rejected Lawrence as a bishop, suggests some sense of panic in South Carolina. I am hardly one to suggest that the Standing Committee should not lobby for its point of view, however.

Has the Standing Committee contributed to a constructive dialogue, and, more to the point, will its letters likely achieve their desired effect on the standing committee vote? Certainly, the letters from South Carolina have inspired another round of blog posts, including this one. (Read, for example, “No more Bob Duncans” by the Admiral of Morality.) Before addressing these questions, it will be helpful to see what was actually written. The published letter is below. (I have not edited the text, which I copied from the Diocese of South Carolina Web site. Any errors are in the original.) The unpublished letter to standing committees that have not yet responded to the request for consents likely encourages the making of a timely decision; non-responses are counted as denials of consent.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I write this letter as the head of the Standing Committee of the Diocese of South Carolina to address concerns expressed by various standing committees regarding consents for the consecration of The Very Rev. Mark Lawrence as our next Diocesan Bishop. This is an official request to those who have withheld consent to reconsider their initial action. We intend this letter to correct some of the misinformation surrounding our Bishop Elect.

a) Questions have been raised regarding Mark’s willingness and that of the diocese of South Carolina, should it be under his leadership, to continue to serve our Lord as faithful members of the Episcopal Church.

Response: The Diocese of South Carolina has operated faithfully within the canons of the The Episcopal Church (TEC) since 1795 and continues to do so. The Rev. Mark Lawrence signed the oath of conformity at his ordination as priest and has faithfully lived within the canons of the church for 26 years. When asked directly during our election process if he would be able to sign the oath of conformity as a bishop, he responded, “Yes”. Present behavior is the best indicator we have of the future. Statistics released at the last General Convention revealed that the Diocese of South Carolina was first in all categories of percentages of growth – average Sunday attendance, financial growth and baptized membership. Recent official church statistics show we are the only diocese that has grown faster than its surrounding population. The tree is known by its fruit.

b) Questions have been raised about the participation of the Presiding Bishop in the consecration of the new Bishop of South Carolina.

Response: When the election of the XIVth Bishop of South Carolina was scheduled to be held, (before the Church decided to withhold consent to all consecrations until June 2006) the Bishop of South Carolina XIII had negotiated with the Presiding Bishop’s office to find a chief consecrator acceptable to the Diocese of SC. A tentative agreement was reached with the Presiding Bishop’s office that this was indeed possible. Our Bishop-elect had nothing to do with this arrangement as this decision was worked out by the ecclesiastical authority of the Diocese of South Carolina before we held our election.

c) Questions have been raised about Alternative Primatial Relationships (APR), implying negative intentions about our relationship to The Episcopal Church (TEC)

Response: The Standing Committee of the Diocese of South Carolina, after the General Convention 2006, requested APR), in order to restore peace to the diocese and to prevent happening in the diocese what was being experienced in other diocese within the Church. This was an action of the Standing Committee acting as the ecclesiastical authority of the Diocese prior to our Bishop’s election. This question is being answered by the Standing Committee for that reason. Alternative Primatial Relationship has never been defined, as it has never been requested by a diocese in the history of the Anglican Communion. In the context of the Windsor report and the scheduled primates meeting in Tanzania, the Standing Committee’s sole intention was to provide space for the conflict raging in TEC and to protect the common life and mission of a diocese that has grown faithfully for eighteen years. Our Diocesan Bishop XIII participated in a conversation regarding APR in New York in September of 2006 at the invitation of the Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold and the Presiding Bishop-elect Katharine Jefferts -Schiori and other bishops on all sides of the issues. We have consistently sought to deal with these matters within the framework of the Church as a sign of our long-term commitment to the mission of the whole Church. In the past, TEC has created a climate for discussions of these matters for congregations in an imaginative way and this is simply an expansion of that spirit.

In conclusion, neither the Standing Committee of the Diocese of South Carolina nor the Bishop-elect have any interest in a consecration that does not follow the canons of this diocese. We hope that you will find this information helpful as you re-consider the position you have taken concerning our Bishop-elect.

In Christ alone,
The Rev. J. Haden McCormick
For the Standing Committee

I find this letter quite curious, in that it seems more about the Diocese of South Carolina than about that diocese’s Bishop-elect. Perhaps it does clarify a few matters that, hitherto, were not crystal clear, but it fails to address the more important ambiguities in the statements made by Lawrence himself.

Consider first the most trivial issue addressed by McCormick, the matter of the chief consecrator of the new bishop. It may be interesting that Bishops Salmon and Griswold agreed that the Presiding Bishop need not be chief consecrator, but I cannot imagine that any bishop or standing committee would, for an instant, consider withholding consent merely because a diocese was unwilling to have the Presiding Bishop serve in that capacity. In any case, the canons do not require the Presiding Bishop to be the chief consecrator. (This matter is dealt with in Canon III.11.6. The reference to Canon III.16.5 in the ENS story is erroneous, referring to the 2003, rather than the 2006 canons.) Nonetheless, someone must have raised this issue, since Lawrence addressed it in his letter of November 6. As does McCormick, Lawrence there attributes aversion to participation of the Presiding Bishop in his consecration to the diocese. Whereas when McCormick’s places responsibility for raising the chief consecrator issue at the feet of the diocese, he seems to be assuming responsibility, when Lawrence does so, it seems like a dodge.

There have been rumors that, should the consecration of Mark Lawrence not be consented to by The Episcopal Church, the Diocese of South Carolina might consecrate him anyway, perhaps by importing Anglican bishops for the purpose from other provinces. It is not clear whether McCormick intends to dispel such rumors, but he surely seems to want to seem to do so. In his final paragraph, he advises that “neither the Standing Committee of the Diocese of South Carolina nor the Bishop-elect have [sic] any interest in a consecration that does not follow the canons of this diocese.” Personally, I would have been more reassured had McCormick expressed a desire not to violate the canons of the General Convention. Whether this statement is a prevarication or is simply not phrased wisely, I cannot tell. In any case, it fails to be reassuring.

Item (a) in the letter is a muddle. The argument made is something like the following: The diocese and its Bishop-elect have been well-behaved in the past. Therefore, they are likely to behave properly in the future. Moreover, the diocese is growing, so it must be doing good and godly things.

The first argument is simply ludicrous. It is generally true, one might suppose, that things generally go along as they always have, all things being equal. (This “principle” is analogous to Newton’s First Law of Motion.) One must not fail to add the all things being equal caveat, however. In the current circumstances, all things are decidedly not equal. The diocese has asked for an extra-canonical relationship without consulting the General Convention and with the clear intent of circumventing its canons. Mark Lawrence has expressed approval of this request and the similar request from his own Diocese of San Joaquin. Moreover, Lawrence made an even more radical recommendation in his essay “A Prognosis for this Body Episcopal” in the June 11, 2006, issue of The Living Church, namely that The Episcopal Church should simply surrender its autonomy to the Anglican primates. Taking this bit of advice would amount simply to tossing church canons overboard. If one looks at the recent actions of the Diocese of South Carolina and of its Bishop-elect, therefore, one might indeed be able to predict their immediate future trajectory. That trajectory is not reassuring to Episcopalians who believe that our canons should be observed and changed as needed, and not simply be violated whenever it seems personally convenient to do so.

As for the argument that the “prosperousness” of South Carolina is some indicator of its godliness, one can only suspect that the diocese is infected with a severe case of creeping Calvinism if it actually finds this argument compelling. Moreover, not all Episcopalians in the Diocese of South Carolina would agree that the fruit of the diocese has been all that sweet. In no case does the “success” of the Diocese of South Carolina, however measured, give it the right to ignore the canons of The Episcopal Church.

Item (a) is oddly phrased, speaking as it does, of the diocese and its Bishop-elect as “faithful members of the Episcopal Church.” The diocese, of course, is not a member of The Episcopal Church, but an integral component of it. Mark Lawrence is certainly a member, but he aspires to become one of its leaders, a position that carries special obligations regarding church governance. Given other infelicitous constructions in McCormick’s letter, however, I should not, I suspect, make too much of this.

Finally, item (c) is more curious still. It is most notable for its absolving Lawrence of any responsibility for the request of the diocese for what the letter calls “Alternative Primatial Relationships” (APR). Standing committees do not vote on the faithfulness of electing dioceses, however, but only on whether a Bishop-elect should become a bishop. Any argument that APR would be helpful for the diocese or for The Episcopal Church is irrelevant if APR is to be obtained unlawfully. The fact remains that the diocese’s request seeks to subvert the polity of The Episcopal Church and circumvent the canons of the General Convention. That Lawrence has expressed approval of this request is indicative, at the very least, of an insensitivity to the polity of the church that alone should disqualify him from becoming an Episcopal bishop.

I am frankly confused about what McCormick is asserting is needed and would be provided by APR. How is isolation from the Presiding Bishop going “to restore peace to the diocese”? Is the diocese at war? What is he referring to when he writes that he wants “to prevent happening in the diocese what was being experienced in other dioceses within the Church”? Are other dioceses at war? He is on target, however, in observing that “Alternative Primatial Relationship has never been defined.” Most readers would take this as an indication that the Standing Committee’s request for APR was simply irresponsible. McCormick several times refers to “these matters,” but nowhere does he define just what matters “these matters” are. Is he afraid to say? Again, I have no idea. He concludes his discussion of APR with this sentence: “In the past, TEC has created a climate for discussions of these matters for congregations in an imaginative way and this is simply an expansion of that spirit.” Does anyone know what he is talking about?

Has the Standing Committee of the Diocese South Carolina made a helpful contribution to the dialogue on consents for Mark Lawrence? No. The McCormick letter is a jumble of non sequiturs and irrelevancies. Will the letters have their desired effect? Probably not.

Latest Improvements

I don’t like writing posts about how Lionel Deimel’s Web Log has changed, but doing so seems necessary every now and then. So, let me explain the latest changes, some of which are obvious and some not. I’ll also use this post as a place to discuss how I view this particular enterprise.

Perhaps most importantly, I have increased the width of posts themselves. The goals in doing so were to make posts easier to read and to put more text on a page when posts are printed, so that we can save a few trees. In the process of making this change, I discovered some inconsistencies in the way pages of the blog were rendered by different browsers. I cannot claim that I have eliminated all inconsistencies, but I think that I have substantially decreased their numbers.

Visitors have probably noticed that my blog does not include a list of recent posts, although a handful of the latest posts are usually displayed. What has not been obvious from the blog itself is that the site map for Lionel Deimel’s Farrago includes a complete chronological list of posts and summaries, color-coded by topic. So this fact will be less of a mystery in the future, I have added a notice about this listing and a link to it in the top left box on all blog pages.

In this same box is a link to Technorati, as well as a Technorati search box. The Technorati search seems to be better than Blogger’s, and it yields only results from my blog. (The search page for Lionel Deimel’s Farrago gives results both for Farrago and Web Log.)

I’m not sure how many Mac users have ever found my blog, as I discovered an error in the code of the navigation buttons that direct people to it from Lionel Deimel’s Farrago. As far as I can determine, only Safari browsers were affected. In any case, I fixed the problem and hope to have more Mac readers in the future.

Finally, I should say a few words about how I use these pages. Lionel Deimel’s Web Log is informed by the same spirit as Lionel Deimel’s Farrago—both are eclectic in their content, both farragoes of stuff. Because of this, I don’t have many regular readers, since I can’t be relied upon to deliver a daily dose of anything in particular. As things have turned out, I seem to write more poetry and commentary on The Episcopal Church than anything else, but even my contributions in these areas are, at best, occasional.

This blog is a place for me to write random thoughts that seem too inconsequential to be essays at Lionel Deimel’s Farrago or, in some cases, seem to be too ephemeral for it. (The latter rationale explains the occasional long, polished essay on a topic of immediate interest that appears here.) I am sometimes interested in addressing a topic, but lack the time or patience to do it justice. I often simply drop these ideas or postpone dealing with them indefinitely. In the future, however, I may write more posts here, with the understanding that calling this a blog will allow me to toss out half-baked ideas now and them without fear of being criticized too vigorously for doing so.

Happy reading!

Nonbinding Resolutions

The Republicans have been critical of Democratic efforts to pass nonbinding resolutions opposing the latest tactical move in Iraq by the President. The argument that, if the Democrats really had the courage of their convictions, they would limit funding for the war or force a drawdown in troop levels certainly has merit. The Democrats likely don’t have the votes for such a move, however, and they surely could not pass the necessary legislation over a presidential veto. Unsatisfactory though it may be, a nonbinding resolution is about the only way the Democrats in Congress can express their displeasure in an official way with President Bush’s latest plan.

I don’t think that a nonbinding resolution of disapproval is, as the Republicans assert, a meaningless gesture. It is surely a gesture, of course, and not a powerful one. As I said, the Democrats are doing what they can. They have majorities in both the Senate and the House, but to say that they control Congress overstates their position. I suspect that their major accomplishments for the rest of the 110th Congress will be seen in what the Republicans are unable to do, rather than in what the Democrats actually do.

What a nonbinding resolution of disapproval accomplishes is to put the President, his administration, and, to a degree, his party on notice that many citizens—perhaps even a majority of them—believe his latest Iraq policy to be wrongheaded. President Bush has made it quite clear that he has no interest in the opinions of legislators, but, when this policy fails, as it likely will, he will be unable to say, as he did about the measure authorizing military action in Iraq in the first place, “You voted for it.” Instead, the Democrats will be able to say, “We told you so.” The gesture may not avoid national tragedy, but it will make it clear which political party should be entrusted with the authority to help the nation recover from it.

High Anxiety in Pittsburgh

Anxiety is high in the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, and the emotion probably cuts across any divisions in the diocese one might identify. The cause is the upcoming meeting of the Anglican Communion primates in Tanzania and its possible aftermath. What is in store for the Diocese of Pittsburgh and, particularly, for the loyal Episcopalians who are living within its boundaries?


Words from the Bishop

Recent concern about right-leaning dioceses leaving The Episcopal Church has focused mainly on San Joaquin and South Carolina, but Episcopalians in Pittsburgh are beginning to worry about their own post-meeting future. The diocese has just released a hitherto secret third request for alternative primatial oversight (APO) that seeks arrangements that would effectively remove it from The Episcopal Church. Pittsburgh’s bishop, Robert Duncan, has been invited to Tanzania by the Archbishop of Canterbury, where he will surely lobby for the radical measures requested of the Global South primates in that APO request.

What also deserves attention is a pastoral letter from Bishop Duncan released the same day as the APO document and intended to be read in all churches. This letter, while seemingly less newsworthy, is, nevertheless, telling. Its purpose is clearly to reassure Duncan’s supporters, which he does by associating his actions with the admonition from I Corinthians to be “steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (I Cor. 15:58, RSV). Translation: we’re doing the right thing here, and everything will work out just fine. A quite different message is to be found by those who are unsympathetic to Duncan’s program, but who are nevertheless parishioners in his diocese.

The bishop uses his pastoral letter to excoriate Calvary Episcopal Church yet again for pursuing its lawsuit against the bishop and other diocesan leaders. “Scripture,” the bishop observes, “teaches that Christians are not to take one another to court.” Calvary initiated legal action in 2003 to protect Episcopal Church property from alienation at the hands of the diocese by one means or another. A settlement was reached after two years, but not before Duncan had threatened to use an obscure local canon to expel Calvary from the diocese. The current action by Calvary alleges that the diocese has not abided by the settlement agreement. In his letter, Duncan pledges a “vigorous defense” against the latest legal moves, insisting that matters at issue are “theological and ecclesiastical,” having “nothing to do with the property of the diocese.”

It is difficult not to see Duncan’s protestations as disingenuous. He may well be motivated by matters theological and ecclesiastical, rather than by greed and lust for power, but the movement that he leads has repeatedly manifested its interest in removing both congregations and real estate from The Episcopal Church. (Skeptics should reread the infamous Chapman Letter and study the actions of the breakaway congregations in the Diocese of Virginia.)

It is in his discussion of property—which, supposedly is not the issue, remember—that Duncan’s pastoral letter becomes chilling, at least for the thousands of people in the diocese who continue to identify themselves as unabashed Episcopalians:

The property of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh will continue to be held and administered for the beneficial use of the parishes and institutions of the diocese. It is our continuing commitment to protect the interest the diocese has in its property—indeed to protect all that it is steward over—against any who would attempt to usurp that role, either from below (minority parishes) or above (national church).

As Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh explained in a recent statement analyzing the APO petition to the Global South primates, the Diocese of Pittsburgh is seeking from the upcoming Tanzania meeting some temporary structure for the “orthodox” faction within The Episcopal Church until such time as a completely new Anglican province can usurp The Episcopal Church’s Communion membership. In the meantime, the diocese—and, presumably, the Anglican Communion Network and its allies—are seeking “cover,” which is to say, some protection against The Episcopal Church’s use of its disciplinary and property canons that it might reasonably be expected to bring to bear against the “orthodox” dissidents.


Le diocèse c’est moi

Those who have not studied Bishop Duncan’s statements and actions over the years may be puzzled by what is going on here; his words do not always mean what they seem to say. The bishop begins the section of his letter titled “Steadfast, Immovable” as follows:

Our position simply stated is this: We are the Episcopal Church in this place and we have no intention of standing anywhere except where we have always stood (“the Faith once delivered to the saints”) or being who we have always been (mainstream Anglican Christians).

This statement seems relatively benign, especially when compared to declarations of the Bishop of San Joaquin, who is clear about wanting to sever all ties between the Diocese of San Joaquin and The Episcopal Church. One needs to understand, however, that Bishop Duncan has embraced several “legal theories” that guide his behavior and inform his rhetoric. These theories allow him to talk like an Episcopalian and to behave like a revolutionary.

They have left us. As is clear from the above quotation, Duncan maintains that he is not threatening to leave The Episcopal Church; rather, The Episcopal Church his left him and his diocese. Pittsburghers have heard this blame-the-victim argument since 2003. The decision of the 74th General Convention to consecrate a gay bishop was, even by admission of the Windsor Report, administratively proper. However, Duncan has argued that the preamble of the church’s constitution, which describes the church as “a constituent member of the Anglican Communion,” was violated by the 2003 vote to consecrate Gene Robinson. The nature of the violation has never been made—and probably cannot be made—crystal clear, but he has had great success selling it to his supporters. (Duncan asserted, in the September 2003 document “A Report, a Call and a Teaching for the Leadership”: “These actions also contradict the constitutional commitments of the Episcopal Church to constituent membership in the Anglican Communion and the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, as well as to ‘upholding and propagating the historic Faith and Order.’” The argument presumably involves the “teaching” on homosexuality of the 1998 Lambeth Conference, even though the Communion has never really had any official teachings, and the Lambeth Conference is authorized by no one to articulate them.) Whatever the logic, Duncan has used it as an excuse that releases him from his vows as a bishop and from his allegiance to the General Convention.

The Episcopal Church as a federation of dioceses. Just as the Southern states argued that the Union was a federation from which they could withdraw at will, a difference in understanding with the rest of the Union that required civil war to resolve, Duncan has argued that the church is composed of independent dioceses that banded together to form The Episcopal Church. A fragmentary knowledge of church history might suggest the credibility of this idea, but church historian Joan Gundersen, drawing on a variety of sources, has argued convincingly that the church has a unitary structure, with dioceses that are the instruments of the General Convention and bound to its governance in perpetuity by virtue of provisions of the constitution. Duncan, of course, using his “diocesan-rights” theory, has removed the accession clause from the diocesan constitution. Some would argue that this, by itself, is a violation of his ordination vows and a presentable offense. Duncan’s theory is being used both to dismiss the canon law of the church and to rationalize an independent existence for the Diocese of Pittsburgh apart from The Episcopal Church.

The diocese is where the bishop is. Duncan’s most bizarre theory is that, no matter what he does, he leads the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. This notion is evident in the quotation above, which, significantly, uses the royal “we.” The utility of this idea is obvious; if Bishop Duncan leads the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, then, tautologically, he cannot abscond with property kept in trust by that diocese. The theory hinges on a very Anglican idea, the Anglican predilection against creating parallel jurisdictions. Anglicans generally acknowledge a single bishop as having jurisdiction over a particular territory. Duncan is relying on the Anglican aversion to parallel jurisdictions, calculating that, if he can detach the diocese from The Episcopal Church and be recognized as a legitimate diocese of the Communion, then he is, in a sense, home free; his can be the only diocese in Pittsburgh and environs. Not only would such a development be contrary to the longstanding—and, we once thought, inviolable—prohibition of interfering in other Anglican provinces, however, but it would violate the constitution and canons of The Episcopal Church. Nevertheless, one has to admire the boldness of Duncan’s intention of removing the diocese from The Episcopal Church while maintaining that he continues to lead the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, at once claiming all property for himself and denying that any rival diocese can exist to dispute his claim. The notion of an Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh that is outside The Episcopal Church requires serious doublethink.


Whither Pittsburgh?

It is cold comfort that neither the traditions of the Anglican Communion nor the constitution of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) nor the constitution and canons of The Episcopal Church will allow the creation of the sort of independent ecclesiastical entity sought by Bishop Duncan in the latest plea for APO. (Composition of the ACC, which, arguably, either reflects or defines the membership of the Anglican Communion itself, can only be changed by a vote of two-thirds of the primates. No one believes that the votes are available to make such a change at next week’s meeting.) The Anglican Communion has ceased to act as a fellowship, however, and increasingly acts through intimidation, if not outright coercion. It is therefore foolhardy for The Episcopal Church to rely on what the Communion “cannot” do to guarantee its integrity and independence. (This is not the place for speculation about what The Episcopal Church should be doing in Tanzania. For thoughts on that topic, see my essays of January 9 and 11 on my blog.) There is widespread talk among Anglicans about what the Tanzania meeting will, should, or must do. (See, for example, the analysis from the Bishop of Winchester.) In the current climate, almost any outcome seems possible. What will happen to the Diocese of Pittsburgh if Bishop Duncan and his allies are granted some independent status by the primates?

For the past several years, votes taken at Pittsburgh’s annual convention have become increasingly lopsided in favor of whatever its bishop wants to do. The polarization has likely gone about as far as it can go, with a dozen or more parishes opposed to the bishop’s program and perhaps four times as many parishes playing the role of loyal followers. Whether precipitated by the Tanzania meeting or by some future development, the expectation is that most of the diocese will happily follow Robert Duncan wherever he leads. There may be some surprises, but no one is expecting many of them. Parishes committed to being part of The Episcopal Church face an uncertain and surely less happy future.

Duncan apparently plans to rid himself of these troublesome parishes. At a Diocesan Council meeting on February 6, he explained that, should his diocese be granted some status independent of The Episcopal Church, “those choosing to remain in Province III will no longer be in the Diocese of Pittsburgh.” (This quotation is taken from the notes of a member of the Council. Recall that the Pittsburgh convention voted to leave Province III of The Episcopal Church last November, although I have argued elsewhere that this action was improper.) Loyal Episcopal parishes in the diocese have repudiated Network membership and sent funds to The Episcopal Church, something the diocese no longer does. In light of the recent diocesan action distancing itself from Province III, some of these parishes have reaffirmed their membership in Province III, as well as in The Episcopal Church. Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh even sponsored a meeting in Pittsburgh for parish leaders and leaders of Province III. Seemingly, Province III affinity will mark a parish as in or out of the diocese, however. (It was mistakenly reported two days ago that the bishop planned to expel such parishes. Essentially, he has said that they will have removed themselves from his diocese.) My own parish, St. Paul’s, Mt. Lebanon, recently wrote the bishop reiterating our membership in The Episcopal Church and in Province III. If we are declared not to be a part of the diocese, where are we? The diocese might argue that the property of parishes such as mine, property that, after all, is held in trust by the diocese, should revert to the diocese. This is surely the worst fear of Calvary Church and its attorneys.

If Bishop Duncan is offered status as head of some entity independent of The Episcopal Church, it is not clear that the loyal Episcopal parishes of the Diocese of Pittsburgh can save themselves. The Episcopal Church must come to the rescue. It should, in such an eventuality, be obvious that Bishop Robert Duncan will have indeed abandoned the communion of the church in which he took his vows. This will be a major test for the church; its disciplinary mechanism is of no avail if its leaders are unwilling to use it even in response to egregious rebellion.

The church will also have to focus on the diocese itself. An objective reading of the church’s constitution makes it clear that a diocese is not a member of the church, as Duncan’s schemes require that it be, but an integral part of it. If Duncan is the head of some entity that claims not to be that integral part of The Episcopal Church in that region designated by church canons as the Diocese of Pittsburgh, then the see is vacant. All property, real and otherwise, will remain a part of the diocese and The Episcopal Church, not part of whatever it is that is headed by the former Bishop of Pittsburgh. The real Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh will comprise only those congregations and parishioners who wish to be members of The Episcopal Church. It will be up to The Episcopal Church to enforce its rights, however, and it is a fair guess that the civil courts, and perhaps even the criminal courts, will have to be enlisted in the effort.

A post yesterday on the diocesan Web site announced that “Bishop Robert Duncan requested today that all in the diocese who are able undertake to pray for the Anglican Communion, its leaders and its future between February 11 and 19.” Episcopalians in Pittsburgh will surely be doing that. We will also be praying for the Presiding Bishop, for The Episcopal Church, and for sanity, charity, humility, respect, and lawfulness to be returned to the Anglican Communion. We will be praying that the Presiding Bishop has both a plan for next week and a bevy of talented lawyers ready to deal with whatever chaos the primates might create.

Going to Hospital

I have always been struck by the fact that the British say “go to hospital,” and Americans say “go to the hospital.” Likely, neither British nor American usage is completely logical in their use of “the” in these and similar phrases, but I try to make sense at least of American usage in a new essay of mine called “Going to Hospital” in the Language Notes section of my Web site. Comments are welcome, of course, particularly if you have any insight into such phrases that has eluded me.

Just to Be Clear ...

My last post on the upcoming primates’ meeting was long in coming. I had intended to write about possible outcomes of the meeting, but I was diverted, first to consider the value of the Anglican Communion, then to ponder how our Presiding Bishop should conduct herself in Dar es Salaam. The danger in writing a moderately long essay without first outlining it is that the project can take unexpected turns. That is also the joy of just jumping in when you feel you have something to say, even if you don’t quite know how your ideas fit together. It gives God an opportunity to work a little magic.

The essay that became “Advice to the PB for the Primates’ Meeting” never did go where I expected, but I’m not sure my imagination is good enough to predict what might be the outcome of the meeting, anyway. It is probably more productive to try to encourage a favorable outcome than it is to fantasize about the worst possible one. In any case, in the middle of writing the piece, by chance—I was driving to church for an evening meeting—I heard a radio commentary on the Democrats’ plan to require the government to negotiate with pharmaceutical firms on behalf of seniors for lower prescription drug prices. Sadly, the commentator suggested that passing the proposed legislation would have little actual effect because the government was unwilling to not buy a particular drug if its manufacturer failed to offer a significant discount. He contrasted this approach with that of the VA, which has been able to negotiate meaningful discounts by being willing to alter its formulary based on what drugs it could and could not get economically.

And what does a government prescription drug program have to do with The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion? The commentary gave me an idea which became the central ideal in “Advice.” That idea is so important—and perhaps not as prominent as it might have been had it been in my mind when I began writing—that I thought I should reiterate it here.

The Episcopal Church has been treated like dirt by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Anglican Communion because it has behaved with such extraordinary affection and restraint toward its Communion partners. The Puritanical primates of the Communion have concluded that The Episcopal Church will meekly accept whatever abuse they heap upon it, and they are taking advantage of this insight to create a tyrannical fundamentalist curia intended to dominate the Anglican Communion in the future. The Episcopal Church has become the co-dependent enabler of this behavior. Alas, this dynamic would have been impossible without the feckless coöperation of Archbishop Williams, who, all along, had the power to, if not break the cycle of abuse, then at least to expose it clearly for what it was.

Let me be perfectly clear: We have no hope of finding ourselves in a satisfactory Anglican Communion as long as we are unwilling to walk away from the Anglican Communion as it presently is.

The notion that we should intimate that we are willing to walk away from the Anglican Communion would be broadly upsetting. The loss of the American church as the designated Anglican scapegoat would, to some degree at least, cause those who have been united in their vilification of The Episcopal Church to turn their passions against one another, since their views on Christianity are not as uniform as they would have us believe. Our showing our courage and determination to live out our beliefs would embolden liberal elements of the various Anglican provinces, particularly the Church of England, but it would be disruptive throughout The Episcopal Church as well. Cultivated by the clever propaganda campaigns of the likes of the American Anglican Council and the Anglican Communion Network, many Episcopalians who, as recently as a few years ago, had hardly heard of the Anglican Communion, now view it as a mystical bond that tethers us tenuously to the Church Universal. Some quick re-education will be necessary in our own back yard.

The Episcopal Church has made many mistakes since August 2003, and we cannot undo the various battles we have lost. We can, however, realize that we are followers of Jesus Christ and not of Rowan Williams or Peter Akinola. Let us lay aside our white battle flag, pick up The Episcopal Church standard, and ride proudly forward in the name of Christ, our Savior, promoting a Gospel that speaks to our time, and not one belonging to some mythical world that never was. Please, ++Katharine, make us proud and grateful to be members of The Episcopal Church.

Advice to the PB for the Primates’ Meeting

The next major crisis facing The Episcopal Church in its conflict with reactionary forces within the Anglican Communion is the primates’ meeting to be held in Dar es Salaam in mid-February. In the last three years, our Presiding Bishop has seemingly approached such meetings with nothing more than a hope and a prayer that they will not end as disastrously as they inevitably have. This is a trend that needs to be stopped.

The prospects for the Dar es Salaam meeting are inauspicious. The meeting will be the the first gathering of the primates since the 2006 General Convention engaged in unseemly and obsequious groveling in what was clearly a doomed effort to get the Anglican Communion to leave us alone. It is the first meeting since the General Convention elected a woman to be Presiding Bishop and certain primates suggested that some of her new colleagues “cannot sit together” with her at the meeting. It is the first meeting of the primates since the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Panel of Reference issued its misguided and ignorant pronouncement on the Diocese of Fort Worth’s policy of not ordaining women. And it is the first meeting since the Archbishop of Canterbury announced what appears to be a heavily reactionary Covenant Design Group that will first meet later this month. It is a meeting to which the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church is entitled to attend, yet the Archbishop of Canterbury seems to have invited her grudgingly. He is also inviting other “contributors” from The Episcopal Church to attend a session before the formal meeting “in which the situation [in The Episcopal Church] may be reviewed.” (See Archbishop Williams’ December letter.)

There are, therefore, two meetings about which we should be concerned. It is not clear who will be invited to the “session” preceding the primates’ meeting. Will the Presiding Bishop be included? What is the exact purpose of the meeting? Will it have any effect on the agenda or participants of the succeeding meeting? Among other topics, the main meeting, apparently, will deal with the “adequacy” of the General Convention’s response to the Windsor Report, the proposed Anglican covenant, the shape of the 2008 Lambeth Conference and invitations thereto, and the “anxieties” of those in The Episcopal Church concerned about “how they should secure their relationships with the rest of the Communion.” In other words, the agenda is largely about listening to dissidents in The Episcopal Church and disciplining The Episcopal Church for trying to be responsive to the needs of God’s children in a developed, Western society.

Striking the Right Attitude

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, we may safely predict, will not have a fun time in Tanzania. It is to be hoped that she has a strong sense of self-worth and very thick skin; they will come in handy. Her charm, poise, and sharp mind will endear her to some of her fellow primates, but they will be useless with others.

If The Episcopal Church is not to be—as they say in the ’hood—disrespected in Dar es Salaam, ++Katharine must not play the role of disobedient child or indulgent, enabling, codependent spouse. Instead, she must be the strong, confident, yet modest leader of a proud and powerful institution.

Many Episcopalians are perplexed by Rowan Williams’ consistent favoring of the so-called “orthodox” elements of the Anglican Communion over the more traditionally Anglican ones, including the majority faction of The Episcopal Church. Why has a scholar and theologian seemingly forgotten the History of Anglicanism and betrayed what we all thought were his own liberal views? The answer, assuredly, is that ++Rowan wants to “preserve” the Anglican Communion at all costs, and those threatening to destroy it (see, for example, this statement from the Church of Nigeria Synod) are being consistently placated to avoid the schism that many increasingly see as inevitable. By this theory, The Episcopal Church has gotten short shrift—the origin of this phrase is interesting in this context—because it has been a well-behaved child that has not questioned the punishments that its “orthodox” enemies are determined to heap upon it. Until ++Rowan realizes that The Episcopal Church is willing to leave the Anglican Communion rather than betray its principles and be humiliated—see my essay on whether the Anglican Communion is a necessity of our ecclesiastical life—he will continue to treat The Episcopal Church with disdain. It is ++Katharine’s mission in Dar es Salaam to make it clear to the primates—and particularly to the Archbishop of Canterbury—that our commitment to the Anglican Communion is not absolute, and our patience is not inexhaustible. She must demand respect for herself and for her office because failure to command that respect would result in a further indignity against The Episcopal Church and, as we understand it, the Gospel itself.

A Presiding Bishop’s Checklist

No doubt, ++Katharine will be required to make many decisions in Tanzania that will call for quick but careful thinking. She can plan in advance to make certain moves, however, and to steer clear of some obvious pitfalls. Here is a short checklist to aid her meeting planning:

1. The Presiding Bishop should privately and politely ask the Archbishop of Canterbury for an apology for suggesting that she is present only by his sufferance. He had no right to exclude her, and to have suggested otherwise was an affront to her and to the church that she represents.


2. I have assumed that ++Katharine will be included in the “session” that ++Rowan has announced will take place before the primates’ meeting, but this is not totally clear, nor is the exact purpose of the gathering or whether other primates will be present clear. The Presiding Bishop should certainly protest if she is excluded. She probably should not walk out and return home, however, as we do no want to lose the symbolic value of having the primates sit down at the same table with her (or not!).


3. Assuming that the “session” is some sort of fact-finding affair, ++Katharine should protest, even to the point of declining to participate, if the American invitees do not fairly represent The Episcopal Church. The Presiding Bishop, of course, represents the entire Episcopal Church, so that a meeting of, say, Katharine Jefferts Schori and Robert Duncan, would be wildly unrepresentative. (Significantly, at this meeting, the Archbishop of York will represent the Church of England, since, in a very real sense, the Archbishop of Canterbury represents the whole Communion.) Assuming that all the American participants are bishops—another assumption ++Rowan has given us no data to evaluate—there should be nine +Chanes, +Brunos, and +Jenkinses to every +Duncan, +Iker, or +Salmon. Moreover, it will be hard to justify excluding Bishop Robinson, whom the primates constantly talk about but never talk to.


4. Looking now at what is presumably the main event, ++Katharine should insist on being treated as an equal by the primates generally and by ++Rowan in particular. Other primates should not receive special dispensations such as being seated at another table because their “theology” does not allow them to sit at the same table with ++Katharine. Jesus, remember, had no such sensibilities. One hopes that the Presiding Bishop will not have to walk out of the meeting to preserve her dignity and the honor of The Episcopal Church. Support for her being treated decently should be discussed with other sympathetic primates in advance of the meeting. Episcopal News Service should be prepared to document any indignities the primates try to visit upon its leader.


5. I’m sure that ++Katharine does not need to be reminded that the primates have no right to discipline The Episcopal Church or to exile it from the Communion. Our church has suffered enough at the hand of the self-important autocrats at this meeting, and ++Katharine should refuse to be a part of any discussion even that requests concessions from our church. I would suggest that ++Katharine announce to the group that The Episcopal Church rescinds its decision not to participate for a time in the Anglican Consultative Council and will never again consider a similar request to be in order.


6. Now a word on some of the particular matters to be discussed at the primates’s meeting. I would hope that ++Katharine will make it clear that all bishops of the Communion must be invited to Lambeth. In particular, if Bishop Robinson is not welcome, it is likely that no loyal Episcopal bishops will attend. She should also make it clear that The Episcopal Church will not likely approve any Anglican covenant that places any ecclesiastical authority above that of the General Convention. She should reiterate the fact, repeatedly articulated by the Archbishop of Canterbury, that he has no authority over The Episcopal Church. She should emphasize that the primates and the Archbishop’s Panel of Reference, likewise, have no such authority.


7. I think it likely that Bishop Griswold was able to sign communiqués of the primates' meetings only because he was able personally to interpret them in a manner that was not inimical to the interests of our church. This was not, in the end, helpful. Our new Presiding Bishop should sign no document which she believes could in any way be construed as contrary to the interests of The Episcopal Church. In practice, she will likely be unable to sign anything having to do with current controversies within the Communion. So be it.

Good Luck!

Bishop Jefferts Schori has a difficult task ahead of her. If all goes well, she may be able to reverse, if not of the dissolution of the Anglican Communion, then at least the abandonment of the principles that made Anglicanism a significant force for good in the world. Saving Anglicanism, even from itself, will not be easy, but doing so would represent a great victory for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The prayers of loyal Episcopalians are with you, ++Katharine. Good luck!

Do We Need the Anglican Communion?

In preparation for a post I was planning to make regarding the upcoming primates’ meeting, I had listed all the advantages of being in the Anglican Communion that I could think of off the top of my head. Before I got a chance to write my essay, however, I read a post called “Revisiting ‘The Question’” on the blog daily episcopalian. The lead paragraph of Jim Naughton’s post was the following:

It’s time to ponder once again whether membership in the Anglican Communion is actually worth it. Today I’m wondering whether it is an asset in evangelism.

It was difficult not to see this as a challenge to address the general question of whether The Episcopal Church actually benefited from its membership in the Communion. I therefore left a rather long comment on the blog addressing that question. The issue seemed important enough, however, that I thought it would be useful to reproduce my commentary here, with as few changes as necessary.

Let me preface my remarks by saying that, until a few years ago, The Episcopal Church’s being in the Anglican Communion was largely a blessing. Membership of late, however, has become—to put it as delicately as possible—a thorn in our side. Alas, the situation threatens to get worse and never get better, as reactionary forces turn what had been a fellowship into a tyranny. My remarks, then, are not meant to address what the Anglican Communion has been in the past, but only what it is now and what it—inevitably, it would seem—is becoming. It may be possible to avoid the dark, totalitarian Anglican Communion I see in the future, but, to do so, The Episcopal Church and its allies—we do have allies—will need to challenge the primates and their allies who intend to deliver that future. I am not hopeful, but, if we cannot save the Communion from this madness, perhaps we will at least be able to save part of it.

________________

Here is my list of the major benefits of belonging to the Anglican Communion:

1. Clergy are easily exchanged between members.


2. We have the opportunity to discuss matters of mutual interest.


3. Travelers can identify churches in foreign lands in which they may comfortably worship.


4. Certain kinds of mission are facilitated (e.g., relief efforts following a natural disaster can be co-ordinated through the local Anglican community).


5. Ecumenical efforts (e.g., discussions with the Roman Catholics) can be pursued by the Communion, rather than by individual churches.


6. Association with a “75-million-member Communion” gives The Episcopal Church a certain perceived significance in the public mind that it would not have when seen only as a “2.2-million member” church.


7. There are miscellaneous advantages to clergy, and, to a lesser degree, laypeople (e.g., once-a-decade junkets for bishops to England, opportunities for primates to pad their résumés).

We can disregard (7) as largely trivial.

Item (1) is primarily a benefit to clergy (and, perhaps, congregations). The number of people directly affected, in practice, is small, and one could imagine other arrangements being adequate in the absence of a Communion.

Items (2) and (3) are quite real, but, as certain elements of the Communion exchange their Anglican heritage for Puritanism, discussion becomes more irritating than helpful, and finding a place to worship in a foreign land becomes as troublesome as it might be without a Communion. Of course, Anglicans from other provinces are also drawn to Episcopal churches because of our Anglican connection, and our formal disconnection from the Anglican Communion could be confusing to them and harmful to some of our parishes.

Item (4) is real, but Anglican churches are not everywhere, and organizations like Episcopal Relief and Development are very good at what they do, irrespective of whether there are Anglican resources on the ground or not.

There is value in (5), I suppose, both for us and our partners in discussion. On the other hand, individual churches are likely to engage in the discussions that matter most (think of our relationship with the ELCA and our discussion with the Methodists). I realize that many will disagree with me, but I consider the Communion’s discussions with the Roman Catholic Church to be, at best, a complete waste of time, at least in my lifetime. At worst, they allow for unelected negotiators to sell out our beliefs in the name of an elusive Christian unity.

Item (6) is real, but, as Jim Naughton pointed out in his daily episcopalian post, this cuts both ways. If we are seen as associating with bigots and Fundamentalists, how is our public image as a church enhanced?

On the negative side of the ledger, we are now regularly told how defective both our theology and our polity are, and our enemies within our church are regularly given aid and comfort by our Anglican brothers. (We don’t hear much from our Anglican sisters.) And we are ever being told what we can and cannot do.

All in all, Anglican Communion membership doesn’t seem like such a great deal, does it?

What about Christian unity—that we all may be one, and all that? Well, I do not believe that Christian unity requires Christian uniformity. If God had a particular theology he expected all of us to follow, he screwed up big time in letting us know what that is. I grew up Presbyterian and considered myself a good Christian. I am now an Episcopalian and consider myself a good Christian. If, tomorrow, I join the United Church of Christ, my feelings about my Christianity will not have changed. I consider my Anglican brothers and sisters fellow Christians, but my view of Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Methodists, and Baptists is the same. We are all part of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church, even if we do not agree on everything.

But what about Apostolic succession, you ask. It is a lovely, romantic concept, but I do not believe it is magic. All Christians are sons and daughters of the Apostles, even though our take on Christianity may be different. Christ does not call us to be and do exactly what first-century converts were called to. Hello! The world has changed. We know more than we did then. The needs of the world are different than they were then (though, surely, many of the old needs remain).

The Anglican Communion is not an end in itself or a good in itself. If it facilitates the mission of The Episcopal Church, we should embrace it enthusiastically. It is increasingly difficult to hold that it does, however. It is time for us—and for our Presiding Bishop—to work for the health and mission of The Episcopal Church, rather than for the peace and quiet of the Anglican Communion. If we truly believe in what we see as our mission, we are failing our God if we do not advance and defend it.

Can You Hear the L?

The letter L is usually not the first letter one thinks of when silent letters are discussed. Three years ago, however, I began compiling a list of words in which an L is silent, and many of these words are quite common (think “walk” or “should”). I have just added another word to my list of such words on my Web site (“Silent Ls”). The new word is “malkin,” an old British word with a variety of meanings: a slattern, a scarecrow, a particular kind of mop, a cat, or a hare. “Malkin” is one of those words that can be pronounced with or without an L sound. (More information on the word is available at Dictionary.com.)

My interest in silent Ls has become something of a crusade to get people to eliminate L sounds from common words that shouldn’t have them. How many words in this list do you mistakenly pronounce with an L: almond, alms, balk, calm, embalm, folk, palm, salmon, yolk? My current list of silent-L words is more than 50 items long. Potential additions to the list are welcomed.

Unity Collect

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is fast approaching. With minor exceptions, this is celebrated between January 18 and 25. Episcopalians, particularly, may want to pray especially hard this year.

In 2004, I wrote a collect with a Christian unity theme. It was a part of a series of liturgical resources on reconciliation written by me and others in anticipation of the annual convention of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. As I do with many things I write, however, I also put the collect on my Web site. I was surprised when, in 2006, it showed up on the official Anglican Cycle of Prayer for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. It is on that prayer list again this year.

I am humbled at the thought of my prayer’s being commended to the entire Anglican Communion and, perhaps, used throughout the world. I am still mystified by how one’s collect finds its way onto the Anglican Cycle of Prayer, since no one ever contacted me about inclusion of the collect.

You can find the collect, with appropriate links, on my Web site. I hope that Episcopal churches, especially, will see fit to use the collect this year.

Syndication Joys and Woes

I have made it easier (I think) to subscribe to Lionel Deimel’s Web Log. I am still new to the notion of syndication, however, and my perception of what is adequate may or may not be on the mark. You can subscribe using Atom, but not RSS. If anyone thinks this is a problem, let me know.

Blogger generates the files for syndication feeds automatically. This is the good news. The bad news is that editing an older post makes it show up in the feed as if it were new. There is a certain logic to this, though it gets in the way right now, as I make minor changes to the format of my blog pages or correct typographical errors. Let me apologize in advance to anyone who may be duped into thinking that an old post is actually a new one.

For a long time, I thought that syndication was not especially appropriate for my blog. Because I neither post frequently nor post on a single topic, I don’t have loyal readers checking my blog every day. If there are people out there who tend to like what I write whenever I get around it it, however, subscribing to Lionel Deimel’s Web Log may be a great idea, since, if they check the status of many blogs at once, with little effort, they can check my blog at the same time.

My main Web site, Lionel Deimel’s Farrago is not maintained using software that automatically generates syndication files. When I add something interesting to my Web site, however, I can now publicize it to syndication subscribers by posting to my blog. I won’t promise always to do this, but it is an idea I plan to try. We’ll see how it works.

If you have any thoughts on syndication, please write to me.

Thanks for reading.

Blog Improvements

I have been a blogger for nearly five years now, although even a casual look at my blog archive will reveal that I have not always been a very diligent one. Anyway, over those five years, Blogger, the service that “powers” my blog, has undergone a number of changes. Under its new owner, Google, the pace of change at Blogger seems to be accelerating. While not changing the basic design of my blog—today, the design seems rather unusual and, I hope, not merely quaint—I have tried to take advantage of blogging innovations. I have increased the font size on my blog, added more distinctive titles, added a search bar, added a syndication feed, and made it easier to access individual posts. Most of this will not seem remarkable, of course, as new bloggers enjoy, with no effort, enhancements I have had to introduce manually. Such is the fate of the early adopter, however. (Actually, I didn’t think of myself as an early adapter in February of 2002.)

In order to implement real titles, I have just republished all my posts. In the process, I have updated links and made other minor corrections to individual essays. If you find any residual editorial errors, broken links, or other problems, I would appreciate hearing about them. Click on my name at the bottom of the column at the left to send me e-mail.

Readers may wonder why I have not implemented other common blog features. My posts do not have subject tags. Nor does my blog support comments. Well, my posts tend to fall into one of only a few broad categories, and none of those categories seems in need of finer classification. My site map has a table of contents of all my blog posts, with brief descriptions, characterized by topic. That seems an adequate guide to trolling for something to read. In fact, most readers land on my blog directly from a search engine, where they entered terms for some of the crazy things I write about. Because the topics of my little essays are, like those of my main Web site, all over the map, I have not really attracted a loyal following here, a circumstance that suggests that offering a comment function might be a waste of time. On the other hand, I do sometimes write essays that are widely read, and I am somewhat afraid of committing to the effort that might be needed to read (and perhaps police) the reactions they might elicit if people could provide immediate feedback. Since my “popular” posts are inevitably about The Episcopal Church, I have pursued the strategy of having other bloggers (such as Father Jake) write about them and moderate the resulting comments. I appreciate such favors.

For those of you who may not be familiar with Lionel Deimel’s Farrago, I should point out that the topics I deal with here are pretty much the same ones I write about on my main Web site. Essays tend to show up here, rather than there, because they are, by comparison, short, frivolous, less polished, or of rather ephemeral interest. Or maybe not.

Enjoy!

Public Reading

For a number of years, my church has used the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols as its principal service on the Sunday after Christmas. Since the service is primarily the responsibility of the Organist-Choirmaster, most of the lessons (i.e., Scripture readings) are read by choir members. Whereas some of the readers may be regular lectors, most read in church only occasionally. This year, I found myself, a non-lector, reading the story of the Fall. Volunteering for this duty caused more anxiety than it might otherwise have because, as a member of the Worship Commission, I have been a vocal critic of youth readers. Youth readers tend to mumble, read too fast, speak too softly, and never look up from the page they are reading. I knew that clarity, speed, and volume would not be problems, but maintaining eye contact with the congregation without losing my place has never been easy for me, particularly since I began using bifocals.

A conversation with a choir member who is a lector led me to try something new, and I pass along my experience in the hope of helping others who read only occasionally in a formal, public venue.

As I always do, I printed my text in a large font with generous spacing between lines. The trick I learned, however, was to break up the text into logical chunks and to put a single chunk on a line. (If a chunk was too long, I indented the continuation line.) A chunk is basically text that, when read, is surrounded by pauses but has no internal pauses. Not everyone will want to read a passage the same way, so I will not offer rules for parsing a text, but I will give a sample of what I did. Consider this sentence: The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.” I printed this sentence as follows:

The man said,

“The woman whom you gave to be with me,

she gave me fruit from the tree

and I ate.”

I used a finger to keep my place as I read, and I looked up after mentally taking in a line—most lines, anyway. I tried to look in the general direction of everyone in the congregation over the course of the reading. (This takes some effort in a church like St. Paul’s, Mt. Lebanon, where people are seated in a long nave and two transepts.) It was particularly easy to read slowly, as my preparation had made me very confident. (Reading fast is usually a sign of nervousness.)

Apparently, my technique worked fine, as I received several compliments on my reading, and I have reason to think them sincere.

Three Parents?

Holy Baptism was celebrated at my church yesterday. Before the service, I checked the bulletin to find out who was being baptized. Here is what I read:

Elizabeth Bahia Steiffert, daughter of Julie & Patrick Seiffert and Steven L. Fong.

I puzzled over this for some time, trying to figure out how Elizabeth Bahia Steiffert could be the daughter of three people, two of them male. Eventually, I realized that a comma had been omitted before the final “and,” which I might have suspected earlier had I read the preceding line:

St. Paul’s welcomes its newest members to the Church:

This would have suggested that at least two people were being baptized. Also, the use of both the ampersand—a surprise in this relatively formal context—and the conjunction “and” suggested that Julie and Partrick were related more closely to one another than either was to Steven. How did I know that Steven was not the sperm donor for Elizabeth, however? (We live in a complex age.)

I thought the error was rather idiosyncratic, but some have suggested that such errors are quite common. The error, of course, is the failure to include the second comma setting off a non-restrictive element. In this case, the non-restrictive element is the appositive “daughter of Julie & Patrick Seiffert.” By not indicating where the appositive ends, the sentence invites misreading. (See How to Use Commas for more examples.)

In general, commas highlight sentence structure and prevent misreading. Unfortunately, writers are becoming increasingly parsimonious in their use of commas, and even The New Yorker allows the omission of a comma after an introductory phrase. When commas become optional, the reader can no longer rely on them to be reliable beacons of sentence structure. Instead, the lack of a comma where one might be expected could mean that there is no reason for a comma, but it could also mean that the writer simply chose not to use one.

Uncertain expectations regarding commas have even confused me when proofreading my own writing. My last post includes the following sentence:

For whatever reason the church failed to react to these constitutional changes, the failure was, I believe, a serious mistake, both tactically and canonically.

The sentence is punctuated correctly, but, in reviewing it—I was concentrating on mechanics and perhaps not paying sufficient attention to meaning—when I came to “reason,” I asked myself if I had left out a comma. Acting as copyeditor, of course, I was being a particularly suspicious reader, but, encountering the same sentence from a different writer, my general lack of confidence in others’ use of commas also would have disturbed the flow of my reading.

Proper comma use is not invariably needed to avoid ambiguity or to provent a sentence from leading the reader down the garden path, but it sometimes is, and writers do not invariably recognize the misreadings it is within their power to prevent. Using commas properly all the time, without consideration of when the rule “doesn’t matter” would be a great blessing for readers. Because inconsistent comma use requires exceptionally vigilant readers, we are all doing extra work becasue writers are lazy.

Unqualified Accession

A recent story from The Living Church began with the following news:

On the eve of Nevada Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s investiture as the 26th Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, her chancellor, David Booth Beers, has written identical letters to the chancellors of two traditionalist dioceses demanding that they change language “that can be read as cutting against an ‘unqualified accession’ to the Constitution and Canons of the General Convention of The Episcopal Church.”

The two dioceses referred to are Fort Worth and Quincy. Two other dioceses in similar situations, Pittsburgh and San Joaquin, apparently did not receive letters. What these “problem dioceses” have in common is that they have removed provisions from their constitutions acceding to the constitution and canons of The Episcopal Church, a requirement the constitution has always imposed on new dioceses. The current wording of this requirement is as follows (taken from Article V, Section 1 of the church’s constitution):

After consent of the General Convention, when a certified copy of the duly adopted Constitution of the new Diocese, including an unqualified accession [emphasis added] to the Constitution and Canons of this Church, shall have been filed with the Secretary of the General Convention and approved by the Executive Council of this Church, such new Diocese shall thereupon be in union with the General Convention.

In contrast, and by way of example, the recently amended constitution of the Diocese of Pittsburgh reads as follows (Article I, Section 1):

The Church in the Diocese of Pittsburgh, being a constituent part of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, accedes to, recognizes, and adopts the Constitution and Canons of that Church, and acknowledges its authority accordingly. In cases where the provisions of the Constitution and Canons of the Church in the Diocese of Pittsburgh speak to the contrary, or where resolutions of the Convention of said Diocese have determined the Constitution and Canons of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, or resolutions of its General Convention, to be contrary to the historic Faith and Order of the one holy catholic and apostolic church, the local determination shall prevail.

Ironically, the Pittsburgh wording captures both the spirit of what the church’s constitution requires and illustrates that this particular diocese now accepts the constitution and canons with its fingers crossed behind its back.

The story from The Living Church invites two obvious questions: On what basis did the four dioceses think they could get away with what they did? and Why did The Episcopal Church take so long to object to the constitutional changes? The second question is the more perplexing, but I believe that I can offer some helpful thoughts on both.

How might a diocese rationalize a right to abrogate its accession to the constitution and canons of The Episcopal Church? There is little wiggle room here. The constitutional requirement of accession, unchanged in substance since 1785, is clearly intended to make the General Convention the supreme authority of the church. (One cannot prevent individuals from exercising a right of dissent based on their personal theological beliefs, of course, but individual opinion cannot be given a veto over institutional decisions. Dissenting individuals must take the consequences of exercising their conscience against duly constituted covenants, whether they be being overruled or being subject to disciplinary action. No one, on the other hand, can be held in The Episcopal Church against his or her will, so leaving is always an option.) It would make no sense to require unqualified accession of a diocese if, once admitted to the church, the diocese could renounce its accession, as, indeed, the four errant dioceses have now done. This being the case, advocates of the right to qualify accession must do so on narrowly legalistic grounds. Virtually the only argument available to them is that neither the constitution nor the canons of The Episcopal Church contain an explicit prohibition of such a move.

One suspects—and the Living Church story certainly implies—that the church’s apparent change in attitude on this matter is related to differences in disposition between Frank Griswold and Katharine Jefferts Schori, the previous and current Presiding Bishop, respectively. In the past, however, action against dioceses that have altered their constitutions may also have been inhibited by the view that abrogating accession, whether lawful or not, was harmless, in itself, until such time as a diocese used its abrogation as justification for some overt act contrary to the church’s constitution or canons. For whatever reason the church failed to react to these constitutional changes, the failure was, I believe, a serious mistake, both tactically and canonically. That the Diocese of Fort Worth was not challenged when it first changed its constitution in 1997 has only encouraged other traditionalist dioceses to make similar changes. I believe that the changes are themselves canonically prohibited and that the advocacy of them is an intrinsically schismatic and presentable offense.

Consider the nature of accession. To accede to is to agree to or consent to. The term has a strong connotation of subordinating one’s will to that of another, and it sometimes suggests that this is not done willingly (consider the common phrases “accede to the terms” or “accede to the demands”). This is clearly what is being communicated in the church’s constitution, namely, that, in all matters, it is the constitution and canons of The Episcopal Church that govern in cases where there might be conflict with the desires of an individual diocese. This is made especially clear in the current formulation of “unqualified accession,” although it can be argued that anything short of unqualified accession is not accession at all. Certainly, the weaselly wording in Pittsburgh’s present constitution would (and should) be unacceptable to the General Convention if presented in a proposed constitution for a new diocese.

Let us now suppose that a diocese has a constitution that accedes to the constitution and canons of The Episcopal Church, presumably the understanding of both the diocese and the General Convention when the diocese first became part of the church. Can the diocese remove or weaken its accession, on the basis that there is no explicit canonical prohibition against doing so? Surely not, and a detailed analysis of the constitution of the diocese is not needed to establish the fact. For such a change to be lawful, it would need to be permitted—or at least not prohibited—by the diocesan constitution. For this to be the case, the constitution would have had to have reserved for the diocese the right to make such a change, meaning that it did not make an unqualified accession to the church’s constitution and canons. But everyone agreed that it did, so our supposition that the change is allowed—a supposition that leads to a false conclusion—must itself be false.

If qualifying accession in a diocesan constitution is intrinsically unlawful, then the action of a diocese that claims to have done so is, in principle, null and void. Like any law, however, the logical constitutional restriction is meaningless unless there is some mechanism by which it can be enforced. If the diocesan convention has made an illegal change to the constitution, the diocesan bishop merely has to declare it invalid. In most cases, that will end the matter. The situation is troublesome in the more likely case that the bishop has supported, encouraged, or initiated the amendment process, however. In this case, the bishop could be presented and, eventually, deposed for (1) violating the diocesan constitution, an offense under Canon IV.1(f), and (2) for violating his or her ordination vows “to conform to the doctrine, discipline [emphasis added], and worship of the Episcopal Church” (BCP, p. 513), an offense under Canon IV.1(h). Evidence addressing intent would likely strengthen the latter cause of action, since the constitutional change was probably undertaken to facilitate some more radical assault on church polity, rather than for an abstract concern for diocesan independence.

Were a diocese actually to use the change it claims to have made to its constitution to circumvent the canon law of The Episcopal Church, the additional charge of violating directly the constitution or canons of the General Convention could be asserted under Canon IV.1(e).

Alas, removing a bishop of a diocese that has amended its constitution to weaken accession would not immediately remove the schismatic threat to the church posed by that diocese, since not only the bishop, but also a substantial portion of the diocesan leadership must have been complicit in the actions that resulted in the trial and conviction of the bishop and in the wider plan to subvert church polity. (The disciplining of priests who voted to change the diocesan constitution is a diocesan responsibility, unlike the disciplining of bishops, so that they are not so easily requited for their actions by their own diocese.) Deposing the bishop would be a necessary start toward restoring order to the diocese, however, and, although it might take years to accomplish the task, the revolt of such a diocese could almost certainly be put down, leaving the diocese in the hands of Episcopalians actually committed to the church’s doctrine, discipline, and worship.

In summary, I believe that amendments to diocesan constitutions to qualify their accession clauses are intrinsically unconstitutional and, even ignoring the transparent plans of the bishops of the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes to subvert the polity of The Episcopal Church, the bishops of the dioceses of Fort Worth, Quincy, Pittsburgh, and San Joaquin could be presented, found guilty, and deposed at any time for the constitutional changes they have effected alone. Given the conspiracy against Episcopal Church polity of which these bishops are major instigators, I believe that they should be.

POSTSCRIPT: The foregoing takes what I think is a strict-constructionist view of the church’s canon law. Other paths of argumentation are possible that are not necessarily incompatible with my own. The long-term problem of dealing with a rogue diocese is, I think, problematic, as it is unclear—to me, at least—what the church can do absent action by the General Convention. Also, a bishop could be removed using Canon IV.9, although this is controversial. Anyway, the interested reader should read the thoughts of Mark Harris (here and here) and of Father Jake. Particularly obsessive readers may also want to read two briefing papers prepared by Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh in 2003, when the diocese first considered changing its constitution. The papers may be read here and here.

According to an ENS story, on June 14, 2007, the Executive Council of The Episcopal Church “passed Resolution NAC023, reminding dioceses that they are required to ‘accede’ to the Constitution and Canons, and declaring that any diocesan action that removes that accession from its constitution is ‘null and void.’” The dioceses of Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, San Joaquin, and Quincy were cited explicitly in the resolution as having made such changes. ENS later reported on reactions to the resolution.

What Does the Diocese of Pittsburgh Really Want?

The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh holds its annual convention this Friday and Saturday, November 3 and 4. The main business of the convention this year will be dealing with a resolution approved by the standing committee and Bishop Duncan on June 28, 2006. Among other things, that resolution appealed “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 diocesan convention is being asked to declare that it “accepts ... the resolution adopted by the Bishop and Standing Committee on June 28, 2006, as its own resolution.”

Of course, the original resolution is schismatic, and asks for an unconstitutional dispensation that none of the persons to whom it is addressed is empowered to grant. This being the Diocese of Pittsburgh, led by the moderator of the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes, such trivialities will not stand in the way of a little (or, I suppose, a good deal of) episcopal grandstanding. There are other problems here, however.

The first problem, though perhaps not the more important one, is semantic. What does it mean to make your own a document that says, for example, “the Bishop and Standing Committee believe it is necessary for the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh to disassociate itself from those actions of the 75th General Convention”? Should the convention interrogate the bishop and standing committee members, so that the body can conscientiously attest to what they sincerely believe. Actually, it might be interesting to do so in order to learn if they indeed “recognize that the 75th General Convention of the Episcopal Church has elected to walk apart from the Anglican Communion” or whether they are just looking for an excuse to, once again, trash their current church home. Why does the resolution before the Pittsburgh convention not ask the convention to make its own declaration of what it believes?

The bigger problem is that the resolution that the diocesan convention will rubber stamp this Friday asks for alternative primatial oversight. (The actual resolution to be voted on incorporates the earlier resolution. Whoever put this together has read Robert's Rules rather too often.) Alternative primatial oversight is what the leadership of the Pittsburgh and several other dicoeses requested as an immediate reaction to the 75th General Convention. The Archbishop of Canterbury was apparently not pleased with receiving multiple requests from Network bishops—one must suspect that he was not pleased with receiving any requests at all—so he asked that the requests be consolidated. Because not all dioceses had asked for the same thing, the replacement combined request did not correspond exactly to what was asked for previously. In particular, although Pittsburgh had asked for “alternative Primatial oversight,” the combined request asked for the appointment of a “Communion Commissary.” (The Bishop of London sent representatives called commissaries to the Colonies in pre-revolutionary times. The colonists actually wanted bishops, however.) That request was dated July 20, well in advance of this week’s convention.

So, what does Pittsburgh actually want? Why is the convention being asked to endorse a request that essentially has been withdrawn, rather that supporting a request that is actually on the table? Is the Bishop of Pittsburgh just trying to confuse matters? Did no one have the energy to draw up a new resolution? Are we asking for two things, in hopes that we will get one or the other? Who knows?

One thing is clear: the militant traditionalists who are disrupting The Episcopal Church have consistently made outrageous requests, so that they can claim to be persecuted when those requests are not granted. Aren’t two outrageous requests better than one?

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As has been its custom, Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh (PEP) has prepared briefing papers on issues related to the diocesan convention. Papers on the resolution discussed above and on the proposed budget, along with diocesan documents such as the pre-convention journal, can be found on the PEP Web site. The briefing papers “Being Episcopalian and Anglican” and “Alternative Primatial Oversight is Unnecessary and Unconstitutional” are of particular relevance to the matters discussed above.

What, Me Worry?

The message the Bush administration wanted to send yesterday was that the Republican Party is not going to lose control of either the House or the Senate in next month’s elections. The President expressed this view with his confident, Alfred E. Neuman smile, and a similar message was being put out by his underlings and handlers. This, in spite of negative polls and a constant string of news items unfavorable to the administration and the Republican Party. Of course, the President may be right. American voters have embarrassed many a pollster over the years, but the Democrats seemingly have their best opportunity in years to regain national influence.

Putting on a happy face when the news is bad, of course, is a well-established political tradition. More distressing was another message coming from the Bush administration, namely that the White House is so confident that Republicans will retain control of Congress that no plans are being made to deal with a divided government. This is not a surprise, of course. The administration likewise had no plans to deal with Iraq when our soldiers were not greeted as liberators. Apparently, contingency planning just isn’t a Republican thing.

Trying Too Hard II

In a recent post, I commented on pronunciations that appear to be the product of well-meaning ignorance. I though I had found another example of this phenomenon in “columnist.” I pronounce this word kol-e-mist, but I frequently hear it pronounced kol-em-nist. I was surprised when I looked up the word in the dictionary. The preferred pronunciation (first-listed, anyway) is kol-em-nist. My surprise caused me to consult several dictionaries, always with the same result. This is very curious. No dictionary suggests that that the “n” in “column” is ever pronounced, so why should it suddenly be voiced when a suffix meaning “one who makes or produces a particular thing” is tacked on to it? (The word “column” comes from the Latin columna, by the way. The “n” lost its vowel along the way, and is therefore not voiced.)

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “columnist” is a relatively new word, appearing first in the U.S. in the 1920s. The first example of its use given in the OED actually uses the spelling “colyumist.” (“Colyum” is listed as a “jocular spelling” of “column.”) A second example uses the conventional spelling. Just as suffixing a contraction of “not” to the word “did” should not be expected to change the initial sound of the resulting word, it is a surprise that this expectation is often not realized when “ist” is suffixed to “column.” My suspicion is that the spelling “columnist” is simply too suggestive, making the pronunciation kol-em-nist more common than kol-e-mist, even if it is less logical.