Declaring Victory and Moving On

The Anglican Church in North America certainly failed to earn the Church of England’s imprimatur in the General Synod Wednesday as lay member Lorna Ashworth’s resolution was adopted only after being amended beyond recognition. (See “A Shot Across the Bow.”) ACNA did not get nothing—The Episcopal Church would have preferred that the Ashworth proposal simply be voted down—but it got little more than a modicum of sympathy and the implied advice that it should seek Communion recognition in the standard fashion. The Ashworth ploy was a high-risk gamble that did not pay off. Matthew Davies’ excellent story for Episcopal News Service suggests that ACNA had invested heavily in the General Synod maneuver.

So, what was the reaction of ACNA to its failure in the General Synod? The story on the ACNA Web site carries the headline “General Synod Affirms Anglican Church in North America.” The subhead on that story immediately belies the headline: “General Synod, the national assembly of the Church of England, affirmed the Anglican Church in North America’s desire ‘to remain within the Anglican family.’” Well, this isn’t saying much, is it? ACNA wanted recognition; it got recognition that it wanted recognition.

The original, eviscerated Ashworth motion is never quoted in the ACNA story, lest readers recognize the chasm between what was asked and what was offered. Yet minor variations of “affirms our desire to remain within the Anglican family” are repeated in each of the first three paragraphs of the ACNA story. If said often enough, we are supposed to believe that such affirmation is of some real significance. In fact, ACNA is already a part, albeit a rather embarrassing part, of the “Anglican family.” It is, of course, not a part of the Anglican Communion, and, God willing, never will be.

In the second paragraph of the ACNA story, Archbishop Bob Duncan is quoted as saying, “It is very encouraging that the synod recognizes and affirms our desire to remain within the Anglican family.” He told The Washington Times reporter Julia Duin essentially the same thing. He then departed from his message (and the truth) by explaining to Duin, “They have basically said they favor overlapping provinces here.” (You can read The Washington Times story here.)

Anyone who thinks that what was passed by the Church of England’s General Synod represents a validation of the Anglican Church in North America and advances its aspiration to replace The Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada as members of the Anglican Communion should read the Rev. Brian Lewis’s description of how the General Synod got from the originally proposed motion to the one that was finally adopted. You can find it on Mark Harris’s blog, Preludium. For readers up for a more sarcastic (and more amusing) view of what happened Wednesday in the General Synod, I recommend this post on GAFCON (God and Father Christian: Obscuring Nothing).

Predictably, Bob Duncan has done what he always does when he is delivered a defeat: he declares victory and moves on. It is anyone’s guess how long his followers will continue to fall for this. The wisdom of that great sage Phineas Taylor Barnum suggests that Duncan may have a long run.

The Winter Olympics Begin

I’m watching the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics as I write this. Doing so reminded me that one of my first posts on this blog—actually my ninth post, written ten days after my first—was about the 2002 Winter Olympics. It concerned the spectacular figure skating performance of American Sarah Hughes. You might want to read “Sarah Hughes” to remind yourself how exciting the Olympics can be. If you actually saw Ms. Hughes’ performance, my little essay may bring back a very happy memory.

Alas, there are worse things than the agony of defeat at the Olympic games. Requiescat in pace, Nodar Kumaritashvili.

Update: YouTube did not exist in 2002, but it does now, and I only just thought to look for Sarah Hughes’ long program performance. You can view it here.

A Shot Across the Bow

This afternoon, the General Synod of the Church of England passed the following resolution:

That this Synod, aware of the distress cause by recent divisions within the Anglican churches of the United States of America and Canada,

1. recognise and affirm the desire of those who have formed the Anglican Church in North America to remain within the Anglican family;
2. acknowledge that this aspiration, in respect both of relations with the Church of England and membership of the Anglican Communion, raises issues which the relevant authorities of each need to explore further; and
3. invite the Archbishops to report further to the Synod in 2011

The resolution, of course, was amended from a more objectionable one that would have put the General Synod on record as desiring the Church of England to be in communion with ACNA. The amended resolution borders on the innocuous, though it doesn’t quite get there. Here are some thoughts on the resolution as passed:

1. The distress referred to in the opening paragraph is attributed to no one in particular. Whereas some might assume the distress refers to that of members of ACNA, members of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada could just as easily be distressed. Clearly, the distress extends to members of the Church of England, otherwise why would the CoE need such a resolution? Actually, I think the paragraph is disingenuousness; we are almost assuredly supposed to attribute the distress to ACNA members.
2. What does it mean that ACNA members want to remain within the “Anglican family”? Arguably, they are already in the Anglican family if, by that, we mean being in a church tracing its lineage back to the Church of England. Of course, members of ACNA desire to be in the Anglican Communion. Because they are not in it now, it is untrue to say they want to remain in the Anglican Communion. (Some members of ACNA, such as Archbishop Bob Duncan, claim dual membership—itself a stretch—in both ACNA and the Southern Cone, a province of the Anglican Communion.) Many members of ACNA have never been in the Anglican Communion (members of the Reformed Episcopal Church, for example). I suspect that we are intended to read “Anglican Communion” for “Anglican family,” but that isn’t what the resolution says.
3. Even I recognize that members of ACNA want to remain in the Anglican whatever. I am troubled by the General Synod’s use of “affirm,” however, which suggests approval of ACNA’s aspirations.
4. Item (b), in its use of “Anglican Communion” seems to confirm the legerdemain represented by the use of “Anglican family.” The ACNA aspiration most certainly does raise issues needing to be explored. One might have hoped that the relationship of ACNA to The Episcopal Church and to the Anglican Church of Canada would have been mentioned here, since admission of ACNA into the Anglican Communion would create parallel jurisdictions hitherto anathema to the Communion.
5. Who are the relevant authorities referred to in item (b). Leaders of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada are certainly relevant, but I doubt they will be consulted. How is the needed exploration to take place?
6. I assume that “the Archbishops” of item (c) are the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York, but the resolution does not make this clear. Tobias Haller reports that CoE polity assigns to the two English archbishops the matter of communion with other churches. If I have understood (c) correctly, the General Synod is simply referring the matter (with not much guidance, actually, to those in charge of the matter of churches in communion with the CoE. Other groups for whom issues are raised (e.g., the Anglican Consultative Council) are not mentioned. In any case, whether “proper” or not, we have here another instance within the Anglican Communion where important decisions are being left to bishops. (Significantly, the revised wording of the resolution came from a CoE bishop.)
7. I was surprised that the archbishops are being give a year to report, rather than being asked to report at the next meeting of the General Synod. Perhaps CoE bishops are not in too much of a hurry to climb out on what could be a very slim limb.

So what is the immediate effect of the resolution on The Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church of Canada, or, for that matter, ACNA? Really, not much. The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada should, however, see the resolution, even in its diminished final form, as a warning shot across the bow. It is significant, I think, that the desirability of continued communion with them is not mentioned in the resolution. It may not be correct to say that the CoE (or its General Synod) is overtly hostile to The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada, but it is clear that there is much hostility there. This is very disappointing.

Snowstorm

A few days ago, I began writing about the snowstorm of February 5–6, 2010. The media pretty much ignored the problems it caused in Pittsburgh, which received only 20 or so inches of snow. (Residents had been told to expect 6–8 inches.) Virginia, Philadelphia, and the District of Columbia got all the media attention, since they received a good deal more snow.

Pittsburgh hasn’t yet recovered—transit service is spotty, most schools are closed, and many streets are barely passable—and I am sitting in front of my computer awaiting another snowstorm scheduled to arrive in a couple of hours. I really don’t have time to finish writing about my harrowing trip home after attending the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra concert downtown, the 20 hours without electricity, the interminable shoveling of snow to clear my driveway, or the sparsely attended service at my church on Sunday.

I do, however, want to share a couple of photographs. I thought the view through my kitchen window was interesting:

In the foreground is snow piled atop a picnic table on my second-story deck. Beyond that is snow piled atop the deck railing, which is not visible. The bird feeder is attached to the railing. The falling snow left a couple of openings where birds could actually get to the seeds in the feeder. The picture below shows a male cardinal who found the little hole in the snow where seeds were to be had:

Timing was critical in taking these photos. When I returned to the window a few minutes later, all the snow on the railing had tumbled to the ground.

Now What? Part 2

Episcopalians cannot but be pleased with Friday’s court order requiring that control of substantial assets be transferred from the control of Archbishop Robert Duncan and his minions to the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. The sudden acquisition of these assets, however, probably valued at $25 million or more, comes with their own set of challenges and obligations. I don’t know if the diocese has been preparing to deal with the day that is fast approaching, but, whether it has been or not, some independent reflection of what needs to happen next may be helpful.

Real Estate

No doubt, people on both sides of the Pittsburgh divide were surprised at how much real property is owned by the Board of Trustees. Some items on the special master’s list that is Schedule C are of minor significance. The governing board of Sheldon Calvary Camp, an institution that traces its beginning to Calvary Episcopal Church, has always been loyal to The Episcopal Church, and it will pursue its mission as it always has. Of course, there are some oddities on the list. I had no idea that the diocese would be re-acquiring two cemeteries, and I must admit that I know nothing about them and nothing about what it means to own them. They may be significant assets; they may be significant liabilities.

Church properties—there are more than 30 of them—are another matter. Some of these properties already have Episcopal congregations (St. Brendan’s, Franklin Park, for example), and the court order is of little consequence for them. At least one (Emmanuel, North Side) has participated to a degree in both dioceses. That title to its building is now vested in the Episcopal diocese may make it easier for the congregation to decide where its allegiance should be.

Many churches now owned by the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh are housing non-Episcopal congregations. What is to be done with them?

The diocese has several fiduciary responsibilities. First, it needs assurance that the buildings are adequately insured and that any mortgages are being paid. Loans payable to the diocese (detailed on Schedule B of the special master’s report) also need to be paid. Because the properties have not been subject to diocesan oversight for some 15 months, physical inspection is probably in order. Diocesan canons require diocesan approval for projects that modify buildings substantially, so the diocese should be aware of construction projects accomplished, in progress, or anticipated.

What of compensation by non-Episcopal congregations for future (and perhaps even past) occupancy? The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh does not exist to provide churches for non-Episcopal denominations. Renting or leasing is an obvious possibility here. Requiring no compensation would constitute fiduciary malfeasance.

Renting church buildings occupied by non-Episcopal congregations is bound to be controversial. Some will see requiring rent as uncharitable; others will see allowing “Anglicans” to use the buildings at all as unacceptable. Two issues must be kept in mind, however:

1. Judge James has declared that building occupants cannot be evicted without permission of the court nor property sold without such permission.
2. The diocese is not prepared immediately to assume the maintenance of 25 or more empty churches.

As for the restriction on eviction of breakaway congregations, no one knows what it would take for the judge to give his permission to remove a congregation (or to sell a building). I am told that Judge James has expressed concern for people who might be deprived of their worship space, but this is the situation in which many Episcopalians have found themselves. Moreover, the reluctance of Judge James to evict interlopers seems to be a personal concern, rather than one rooted in law. In any case, if only for the sake of the buildings in wintertime, it is best not to empty “our” churches all at once—certainly if no Episcopal congregation is prepared to occupy them immediately. Requiring rent has the dual advantage of replacing lost assessment income to the diocese and, if the rent cannot or will not be paid, giving the judge a reason to allow eviction.

The diocese will have to decide how to set a fair rent. In most cases, I suspect that it will be difficult to identify comparable properties that could suggest a fair monthly rental. The diocese could, of course, base rent on the assessment that would be required of an Episcopal parish, but this would be substantially blow the market rate for rental property, which is what these churches would become, at least in the short term.

In some cases, of course, there may be a substantial number of former parishioners willing to return to a building they have abandoned to the “Anglicans.” If so, the diocese may be able to convince Judge James that eviction of the “Anglicans” is neither unfair nor unreasonable.

Ultimately, the Episcopal diocese will have to deal with all parish property occupied by departing congregations, whether in buildings owned by the diocese or buildings merely dedicated to Episcopal Church mission by the Dennis Canon and other instruments. The diocese will, I suspect, make as few distinctions between these two groups as possible. Recall that the stipulation agreed to in the Calvary litigation distinguished diocesan property from parish property. Although there still may be quibbles about what is and is not diocesan properties, the court orders of October 2009 and January 2010 have settled the diocesan property issue—the property belongs to the Episcopal Church diocese.

Paragraph 2 of the stipulation requires that:

In the event a parish in the Diocese (hereinafter “Parish Church”) shall elect to disaffiliate with the Diocese, the Parish Church shall give written notice of that election to the Diocese by delivering a copy of the notice, signed by the Rector and the Vestry, to the Diocesan Bishop (hereinafter “Bishop”), to the Board of Trustees of the Diocese (hereinafter “Board of Trustees”), to each member of that Parish Church and to the Rector and Vestry of each other Parish Church of the Diocese.

There follows description of a procedure involving negotiation and, if necessary, mediation and litigation. In this paragraph, “Diocese” now refers to the Episcopal diocese. It is difficult to see how, given the Dennis Canon and the disciplinary canons of The Episcopal Church, the diocese can relinquish its claim to the property for anything less than fair market value. The Presiding Bishop, in fact, has made it clear that she does not want to see churches sold to breakaway “Anglican” parishes at all. This may not be a practical stance where so many church properties are involved. Sales or short-term leases may have to be granted. (The latter would make it easier for a congregation to return to the Episcopal fold later.) Unfortunately, the Paragraph 2 process may, in many cases, not lead to a quick agreement, and the court may again have to step in. One could argue, of course, that none of the breakaway congregations gave the necessary notice required by Paragraph 2 and that those parishes are therefore ineligible to participate in the negotiation process outlined in the stipulation.

Some Episcopalians have argued that we should be generous in giving away parish property because it is either old and expensive to maintain or new with an expensive mortgage and, in any case, of no use to anyone other than its current congregation. This, of course, is nonsense. It is impossible to generalize here, but some churches simply should have been closed and sold off years ago. Others could flourish with less intolerant leadership. In some cases, the real estate could bring in a large windfall if the land were subdivided for suburban housing or used for condominiums. The Episcopal diocese can put the money derived from such sales to better mission use elsewhere. The Pittsburgh diocese has, in the past, closed parishes in undesirable locations and used the money for new, better sited parishes. My own church benefited from such an action.

Cash and Investments

The most immediate effect of the court order will be to put various investments back under the control of the Episcopal diocese. This will improve the balance sheet of the diocese and will restore access to their investment funds by individual parishes. My own church normally receives more than $7,000 each year in earnings from a trust fund held by the diocese. It did not receive any money in 2009 because funds had been frozen by the court. At our annual meeting last Sunday, parishioners were told to expect two year’s worth of earnings from the fund in 2010.

In its press release about the recent court order, the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh said that it “plans to quickly make arrangements so that all parishes may again have access to their investment funds that were frozen by financial institutions during the legal proceedings.” According to a story in today’s Post-Gazette, diocesan spokesman Rich Creehan, in response to a question from reporter Ann Rodgers, said that “any parish that had been participating in that fund from whatever time, we are making arrangements so they can access those funds.” If this is the intended policy of the diocese, I hope that it will be reconsidered. If someone has given you something of value to hold and has, at the same time, stolen some of your property, prudence (and, in this case, fiduciary obligation) might suggest that you should hold on to their property at least until your own belongings have been restored. How can the diocese argue that real estate must be returned because, as an Episcopal parish, assets were dedicated to the use of The Episcopal Church, whereas cash and investments were not? The intention to allow breakaway congregations access to their funds is a bad idea.

Of course, there is another reason not to allow breakaway congregations to withdraw funds. The position of The Episcopal Church is that parishes (i.e., institutions) cannot be removed from the church, but people, even whole congregations, can depart. The “Anglican” leadership of a departed congregation may legitimately lead that congregation, but it cannot be the legitimate leadership of the Episcopal parish, for which the funds were originally accepted.

Personnel

The Episcopal Diocese has been operating out of a small office with a very small staff. Plans have been in the works to expand both the staff and office space somewhat, but one has to ask if a staff of perhaps two full-time equivalent workers is adequate to deal with the ongoing needs of the diocese and, at the same time, responsibly incorporate newly restored assets and negotiate for others. Simply taking stock of the properties of Schedule C would keep a full-time person busy for a couple of months! Keeping tabs on tens of millions of dollars of assets probably requires more than a few minutes of thought every few days, which is probably all that it can be given now. The diocese needs quickly to assess its needs realistically and to hire appropriate people in temporary or permanent positions to do the work that needs to be done. It is very difficult to do mission successfully on the cheap. If the diocese has inadequate resources to determine and fight for what legitimately belongs to it, it may resort to giving away the store out of sheer inability to do anything else.

Be assured that Archbishop Duncan and his followers will fight for every farthing they can wrest from The Episcopal Church. As Canon Mary Hays was quoted as saying in the Post-Gazette story, “We have always wanted to find a way where both sides could have the resources appropriate to their share.” In other words, “If we can’t steal it outright, we’ll try to con you into dividing it equally.” It is not pastoral sensitivity to fall for this ploy. Doing so will only encourage theft in other diocese. Keep your eyes on Albany and South Carolina.

The Coming Transition

I received an e-mail message from Blogger today that, in less than two months, I will not be able to publish my blog in the same way I am now. If Lionel Deimel’s Web Log is to continue to use Blogger, it will have to reside on a Blogger (i.e., Google) server, rather than on the same server used by Lionel Deimel’s Farrago . If I have understood everything correctly—not at all a surefire assumption—I will be able to make the needed transition without too much trouble, and perhaps without having my blog disappear for 24 hours or so.

It is important for me to make the necessary changes quickly, as I am responsible for at least one other blog whose transition is likely to be more complex, and I need to gain some experience and perhaps warn others that URL’s will need to change for that blog.

If all goes well, Lionel Deimel’s Web Log will continue to be accessible at the address http://blog.deimel.org. Although I am not certain exactly when I will attempt the transition, when I do, I will keep readers informed of my progress on my home page, http://deimel.org. Be sure to check there for an update if my blog seems to have disappeared.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

NPR carried a story this morning about the U.S. military’s finally moving toward eliminating its morally bankrupt “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. It suddenly struck me that Americans did not invent this policy. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” has long been the policy of the Anglican Communion with regard to its bishops. With the consecration of Gene Robinson, The Episcopal Church began the dismantling of the policy in our corner of the Communion. By consenting to the consecration of Mary Glasspool, we have the opportunity to eliminate this particular hypocrisy once and for all in our own church and to become a beacon of light, albeit an unwelcome one, to the rest of the Communion.

Now What? Part 1

Now that Judge Joseph M. James has ordered property returned to the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh from the breakaway diocese led by Archbishop Robert Duncan, it is time to note some reactions to this development and to begin taking stock of what happens next. (See my earlier posts beginning here.)

Episcopal News service ran a story today about Friday’s court order. You can read it here. Note, however, that the link to information about the litigation given in the story does not actually take you to the proper page. To access the public documents available in Calvary v. Duncan, go here, enter the case number, GD-03-020941, at the top of the page, and click on OK at the bottom of the page.

Curiously, nothing about the court order has been posted on the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh site. (As noted in my earlier post, the Episcopal Diocese has made a statement here.) AnglicansUnited.com, however, has both a press release from the Anglican diocese and a note from “Archbishop Bob.” The press release, from January 29, 2010, the day of the court order, reads as follows:

The Allegheny Court of Common Pleas today issued an order to “transition to” the TEC Diocese “the possession custody and control of the real and personal property identified in the Special Master’s Report” which was presented to the court on January 27, 2010. The Anglican Diocese will appeal this order.

The property identified in the Special Master’s Report includes all of the diocese’s bank and investment accounts as of October 4, 2008. This includes the diocese’s investment accounts with Morgan Stanley which have otherwise been frozen since January 2009. The property identified in the Special Master’s Report also includes all real property deeded to the Board of Trustees for the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.

With regard to the real property covered by today’s order, the court’s order specifically provides that “no real property shall be sold or current occupants removed without further Order of this Court.”

With regard to parish funds held in the Morgan Stanley investment accounts, the Special Master’s Report provides that “parishes for whom such property is administered have the right to withdraw the cash or investment asset value … at any time….”

The message from Robert Duncan, dated January 30, 2010, reads:

Dear Friends,

Yesterday evening, you received an email describing Friday’s court action, written by our lawyers. We wanted you to have this information as soon as possible. This morning, I wanted to write to assure you that we will continue to work diligently for the protection of all our parishes and for the good of our mission and ministry. We also intend to keep you updated – as fully and quickly as we are able to. Please continue to keep these matters in your prayers, remembering that we serve a faithful and mighty God.

Faithfully,
Archbishop Bob

The reassurances of January 30th are, you might think, somewhat vague and do not reiterate the assertion that an appeal is forthcoming.

My understanding—but remember that I am a computer scientist, not a lawyer—is that Judge James’s order of October 6, 2009, determined that the Episcopal diocese is entitled to diocesan property held by the diocese before its division in 2008. The court order of January 29 only clarified what that property is and how fast it must be transferred from those who currently and improperly are enjoying the use thereof. Although the defendants can quibble about the schedule and the details of the asset list, an appeal to the decision that the property is to be controlled by the Episcopal Church diocese had to have been made within 30 days of October 6. It was not. It therefore appears that no appeal by the defendants will prevent the loss of a majority of the assets of the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh.

The asset list prepared by the special master and attached to Judge James’s order did not mention a whole class of assets, namely, office furniture and equipment, computers, photographic equipment, and the like. I would expect that these, too, should be turned over to the Episcopalians. I do not know whether Archbishop Duncan’s vestments are personal or diocesan property, but I suspect that there are some episcopal vestments stored in Trinity Cathedral that also belong to the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.

More thoughts on the fallout from the court order will be the subject of my next post.

More on the Court Order

Two earlier posts dealt with the court order issued by Judge Joseph M. James today in the Calvary litigation. They are available here and here.

Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas judge Joseph M. James issued an order today in the litigation first brought by Calvary Episcopal Church against then-bishop Robert Duncan and other diocesan leaders in October 2003. (You can read that order here. This PDF version is searchable and has all pages in an upright orientation.) A year later, the parties filed a stipulation agreeing that diocesan-owned property would stay with The Episcopal Church, come what may. The stipulation also described a process to be followed if a diocesan congregation wanted to leave The Episcopal Church. Since a majority of deputies to the diocesan convention voted in 2008 to remove the diocese from The Episcopal Church, litigation has focused exclusively on the diocesan-property issue.

Although Duncan, through his attorneys, argued that the stipulation does not mean what it seems to mean, Judge James disagreed and, in October 2009, issued an order that the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh should “hold and administer the real and personal property that is subject to Paragraph One [which deals with diocesan property].” That property was inventoried by a special master appointed by the court, attorney Stanley E. Levine.

Today’s order states that:

1. The court accepts Levine’s inventory as a list of property subject to paragraph 1 of the stipulation. It leaves open the possibility that the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh could seek additional property.
2. There is to be both a public and a confidential version of the court order. Since the report of the special master is attached to the order, the public version includes a redacted version of the report that eliminates confidential information such as account numbers. The confidential order is under seal.
3. Financial institutions and repositories holding diocesan funds are to take instructions only from the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. A similar requirement is placed on trustees and fiduciaries.
4. Real property listed by the special master is rightfully held and administered by the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. None of the property can be sold or current occupants removed without the permission of the court.
5. Recipients of “altar artifacts” (presumably liturgical furnishings owned by the diocese but on loan to parishes) should take instructions regarding their disposition from the Diocese of Pittsburgh and may not sell, transfer, or move the artifacts to another location without the permission of the court.
6. Persons or entities having taken out loans from the diocese are to take instructions for repayment from the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.
7. Defendants are to provide to the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh within 20 days financial and other records needed by the diocese to hold and administer the property covered by the order. They are to provide “ongoing cooperation” to implement the provisions of the order.
8. The order takes effect immediately, and the court “retains jurisdiction over the parties and the subject matter to enforce the Stipulation and Order of October 14, 2005, the Opinion and Order of Court of October 6, 2009, and [the current] order.”
   

The order is followed by the report of the special master, which accounts for most of the 32 pages of the document issued today. Highlights of assets enumerated by Levine include:

1. $22 million in cash, cash equivalents, receivables, and investments. This includes some $2.5 million in parish funds held in a common investment pool.
2. Various trusts, not all of which have specific values attached to them.
3. Approximately $1 million in outstanding loans due the diocese (included in the $22 million, above).
   
4. A substantial amount of real property, including the “Donegal Property,” 151 acres of rural property on which Duncan once proposed building a conference center, and Sheldon Calvary Camp, a summer camp facility in Ohio on Lake Erie. Also included is Old St. Luke’s, an historic church without a congregation, and two cemeteries.
   

Perhaps the most interesting fact to come to light in the special master’s report is that the Board of Trustees—which is to say the Board of Trustees of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh—owns quite a few church buildings, many of which are occupied by departed congregations. Among this group is Trinity Cathedral in downtown Pittsburgh—Trinity claims to be in both dioceses—and St. Philip’s, Moon Township, one of the largest churches in the Anglican diocese.

Update (1/31/2009): My statement above about Trinity Cathedral is incorrect. See comments for more information.

Defendants Have 20 Days

As is now clear, there are public and confidential (redacted) versions of today’s order in the Calvary lawsuit. The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh has on its Web site a story on the court order which includes a link to the public version of the order.

This post will update my earlier post “Judge Orders Asset Transfer?”; I will post more analysis later today.

The bottom line is that Judge Joseph M. James is ordering that diocesan property, as defined in the October 2005 stipulation and inventoried by attorney Stanley E. Levine, is to be turned over to the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. That property is currently controlled by deposed bishop Robert Duncan, now bishop of the so-called Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh and archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America.

According to the court order:

Defendants shall, within twenty (20) days of the entry of this Order, provide to the Episcopal Diocese the financial records and other documents and electronically stored information reasonably needed by the Episcopal Diocese to hold and administer the real and personal property that is the subject of this Order of Court. The Defendants shall also provide such ongoing cooperation to the Episcopal Diocese as is reasonably necessary to implement the provisions of this Order.

More to follow, including commentary and a more easily read PDF of the order.

Judge Orders Asset Transfer?

(Updated 1/29/2010 at 1:51 pm)

Nearly four months after Judge Joseph M. James declared that diocesan property should be held and administered by the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh and set in motion a process for the orderly transition of assets being held by those who split from The Episcopal Church in 2008, he has issued an order presumably aimed at effecting that transfer. It is expected that Archbishop Robert Duncan and other defendants in the Calvary lawsuit will immediately appeal.

Unfortunately, Judge James’s order is apparently under seal and is not available on the usual Web site, so one can only speculate as to its contents and why it is not being made public. I suspect that the reason the order is not being released is that it contains confidential information (e.g., numbers of accounts to be transferred). It is unfortunate that we do not now know the basics of what is being required by the court.

I hope that more information will be forthcoming shortly, perhaps from the Episcopal diocese.

Not Lovin’ It

I am not a person inclined to rail against materialism, but rampant materialism was at least partly responsible for my being upset when I visited my local McDonald’s for breakfast this morning. In front on the cash register—actually, I’m not sure which side of the cash register is considered the front—was a small sign that said “gift an Arch Card” over a picture of a prepaid McDonald’s cash card.

My first reaction to the sign was to object to the use of “gift” as a verb. Why turn a noun into a verb when a perfectly serviceable verb, namely “give,” is readily available? Moreover, there was no reason that I could see, neither grammatical nor graphical, why the first word on the sign should not be capitalized.

I then began to think more deeply about the use of “gift.” Perhaps there is a semantic difference between “to give” something and “to gift” something. Whereas “giving” stress an act, usually one of generosity—one can give a cold or give heartburn to someone, however—“gifting” emphasizes the (usually material) thing that is given. McDonald’s, apparently, is not so much interested in encouraging generosity as it is in marketing the Arch Card. In this, McDonald’s isn’t much different from most other merchants, though it is perhaps more crass about it.

A visit to the McDonald’s Web site gave me more insight into the marketing of the Arch Card. On the Arch Card page, I found the following text, along with explanations under each heading:

• load it.
• gift it.
• love it.
• track it.

Under “gift it.” was the following: “Givin’ is good. Perfect for business, fun holidays, birthdays, or just because.” The word “business” was linked to a corporate order form. Although I was happy to learn that McDonald’s thinks that “givin’” is good, perhaps McDonald’s believes that the real money to be made is in corporate sales of the card. Corporations are less interested in the goodness of “givin’” and more concerned about the benefits they might reap from giving away trinkets such as Arch Cards. No sentimentality here!

The aforementioned page also led me to realize that the lack of initial capitals is a graphical style recently adopted by McDonald’s. Before now, I had not noticed that the new McDonald’s tagline begins with a lowercase letter. In fact, “i’m lovin’ it” manages to violate two grammatical rules in just the first character.

I’m not “lovin’” McDonald’s corporate folksiness, either, but I’ll spare you that diatribe.

---

Note: “Arch Card” and “i’m lovin’ it” are registered tradmarks of McDonald’s Corporation.

Question for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany

   

If Jesus died for our sins, what did he live for?

Eve in a Basket

I’ve been doing laundry and cleaning up in my bedroom. Before I left home this afternoon to run some errands, I had thrown a blanket on top of a laundry basket. When I returned, I found my cat Eve curled up at the bottom of the laundry basket on top of the blanket.

Eve is a Bombay, and Bombays, which are all black, are very hard to photograph. The pose was cute, however, so I decided to grab my camera and have a go at taking a few pictures. The best of the lot—I took four—is below. It shows off Eve’s eyes nicely. (Click on the picture to see a larger version.)

Glasspool, Bruce, and Consents

The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles reported January 12, 2010, that the 120-day consent process has begun for suffragan-bishops-elect Mary Glasspool and Diane Jardine Bruce. Requests for consent for Canon Glasspool’s consecration went out on January 5, and those for Canon Bruce’s went out January 8. The press release from the diocese indicated that the dates by which consents must be received are May 5 and May 8, respectively. For the consecration of a bishop to go forward, of course, a majority of Standing Committees in the church and a majority of bishops with jurisdiction must consent to the consecration within 120 days after requests for consent have been sent. I am grateful that we have the transparency of knowing these dates, even if we are likely to have little visibility into the balloting as it proceeds.

I was surprised that the consent deadline in each case was given as what we would normally think of as four months (not 120 days) after the beginning of the consent period. Since there has been some questionable counting of days in the past, I was relieved to discover that, for example, May 5 is indeed 120 days after January 5. Under what circumstances, I wondered, can this be the case. It is not always true; if the requests for consent are made on, say, October 5, 120 days later would take us only to February 2.

In a year that is not a leap year, it turns out that the beginning and end of a 120-day period are both on the same day of the month only when the period begins in January, February, November, or December. In a leap year, it never happens.

While pondering that little piece of trivia, mark your calendars.

Section 4 Decoded

When the final draft of the proposed Anglican covenant was released, I was eager to understand the revised Section 4, what some have called the enforcement provisions of the covenant. What, I wanted to know, would really happen when serious disagreements arise among churches of the Anglican Communion? After a good deal of reading, thinking, and drawing, I have to admit that I know and I don’t know the answer to this question. Section 4, it turns out, maps out responsibilities and relationships, and it outlines some basic procedures. It leaves a lot to the discretion of Anglican leaders (mostly bishops), however, so it is difficult to know how matters will play out in practice.

To help me understand just what the draft says, I drew a couple of diagrams, and I offer them here for your edification or amusement. (My apologies to Dave Walker for treading on his turf. I’m not really a threat to Dave, of course, since he can actually draw.) My first diagram attempts to set out the players and their responsibilities. I think it should be reasonably self-explanatory. The numbers in brackets refer, of course, to the notes, which explain, inter alia, the location in the covenant draft providing justification for the corresponding element in the figure. Recall that the Standing Committee comprises representatives of the Primates’ Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council. It is therefore heavily weighted toward bishops generally and primates in particular. Since it meets so seldom, the Lambeth Conference is unlikely to have much to do with dealing with conflicts unless a Conference is scheduled at a time of ongoing disputes. The figure below is hard to make out, so you can click on it to see a larger version.

I’m not sure what it means that the Standing Committee monitors the functioning of the covenant on behalf of the Instruments of Communion but is only described as responsible to the Primates’ Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council.

More interesting is the next figure, which illustrates the specifics of how the Communion proposes to deal with conflicts. Again, you can click on the figure to see a more readable version.


Notice that, according to paragraph 4.2.8 of the draft covenant, “Participation in the decision making of the Standing Committee or of the Instruments of Communion in respect to section 4.2 shall be limited to those members of the Instruments of Communion who are representatives of those churches who have adopted the Covenant, or who are still in the process of adoption.” This could mean, for example, that, if Parliament decides that the Church of England cannot subscribe to the covenant, the Archbishop of Canterbury could not play a role in settling disputes. But what does “in the process of adoption” mean? Since The Episcopal Church cannot act on the covenant before the 2012 General Convention, are we now “in the process of adoption”? Can we draw out the discernment process indefinitely, remaining part of the decision-making process by looking at, say, only one paragraph of the covenant at each General Convention? Who knows? This is only one of many imponderables embedded in the draft.

The Standing Committee only gets to grapple with an issue when “a shared mind has not been reached.” What does that mean, and who makes the determination? We are not told how this provision is made operational. Also, when is it “appropriate” for the Standing Committee to refer a question to the Primates’ Meeting and Anglican Consultative Council? The covenant has those bodies delegating authority to the Standing Committee. Can the Standing Committee give the authority back?

The big question, of course, is what sanctions can be imposed on churches that do not “behave,” i.e., ours (at least primarily)? The covenant is silent on the question, merely saying that “relational consequences” can be recommended to the Instruments of Communion and the churches, which, in fact, do not have to accept the recommendations. The “Covenant Working Party Commentary on Revisions to Section 4” is helpful here:

A further question has concerned the “relational consequences” which may follow a declaration of “incompatibility with the covenant”. A reality which has to be acknowledged is that if there is autonomy of governance in the Churches of the Anglican Communion, then a necessary corollary of this is that the autonomy of a Church’s relationships of Communion also cannot be constrained. What the covenant seeks to do is to find an ecclesial framework by which a common response to tensions can be discerned and articulated. This contrasts with the present situation where no agreed mechanisms for action exist, and this lack has seriously threatened the integrity of the Communion. What the relational consequences might be were explored by the Covenant Design Group in their meeting in Singapore in September 2008, and were set out in the Lambeth Commentary at page 25. There they were deliberately listed in a range from the lightest “no action”, to the most serious “breaking of ecclesial communion and walking apart”.

I don’t know that I fully understand this paragraph of Anglican-speak, but the “Lambeth Commentary” referred to can be found here. No obvious authority exists for the imposition of some of the suggested sanctions.

I hope this is helpful. I have made every effort to faithfully represent the content of Section 4 of the covenant draft. Do let me know if you think I have made any mistakes.

Communion Transparency, Take 4

Let me begin by saying that, when I wrote “Communion Transparency, Take 3” this morning, I did not expect to write a post with the title of this one. What changed my mind was a story by George Conger over at Religious Intelligence. Although “Anglican body backs blocking of lesbian bishop” is not really about the organizational structure (such as it is) of the Anglican Communion, Conger, commenting belatedly on the December 8, 2009, communiqué from the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith, and Order, made the following helpful, if gratuitous remarks:

The formal communiqué also makes reference to the “Anglican Communion Office” and the “Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion” two legally non-existent bodies. Under Archbishop George Carey, attempts by the staff of the Anglican Consultative Council to operate under the name of the “Anglican Communion Office” were discouraged.

Under Archbishop Rowan Williams the ACC staff have taken on the working name of “Anglican Communion Office”, but as the review of the finances of Lambeth 2008 noted, this was not its legal identity, but a nickname.

The communiqué’s statement that the new commission will report to a hitherto unknown body called the “Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion” refers to the Joint Standing Committee of the Primates and the Anglican Consultative Council, a staffer said.

Clearly, Conger has not been talking to Canon Kenneth Kearon. I suspect he is technically correct, however, about the “Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion,” though that name (perhaps without the “of the Anglican Communion” tag) may soon become official. (See “Communion Transparency, Take 3.”)

I was completely taken aback by Conger’s remark about “Anglican Communion Office,” however, yet I have little reason to doubt what he said about the (fictional?) entity. Nevertheless, at the bottom of the home page of the Anglican Communion Web site, we find (today, anyway):

Editors Note:

Following the Lambeth Conference of 2008 there have been a number of changes in the administration of the Anglican Communion Office, including the work of communications department. Initial enquires from the press should now be directed for the present to David Craig.
Office +44 207 313 3928.
Mobile +44 07535 946 362.

Whereas this note suggests the reality of the Anglican Communion Office, the last line on the page implies that it is not a legal entity that can hold a copyright:

Published by the Anglican Communion Office © 2010 Anglican Consultative Council

Oddly, however, on the page titled “Help Pages - Copyrights & Disclaimers,” permission seekers are referred to

Copyright Manager,
Anglican Communion Office ,
St Andrew’s House,
16 Tavistock Crescent,
London W11 1AP
Tel: +44 (0)20 7313 3900;
Fax: +44 (0)20 7313 3999;

Making matters even more confusing, Ruth Gledhill, in a Religious Intelligence story posted 14 minutes after Conger’s story, uses “Anglican Communion Office” without irony, apology, or explanation.

So, is there an official entity called the “Anglican Communion Office”? Damned if I know, but I suspect not. Most likely, the use of “Anglican Communion Office” is yet another strategy of those trying to convince the naïve that the Anglican Communion is (or should be) more than it actually is.

Communion Transparency, Take 3

I have more to report on the governance of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC).

On Christmas Eve, I wrote a post titled “Communion Transparency,” which raised a question about the document(s) governing the operation of the ACC. In particular, Canon Kenneth Kearon, in his letter to provinces concerning the revision of the Anglican covenant draft, mentioned something called the ACC’s Articles of Association, about which there seemed to be no information on the Web. The day before, I wrote to the Anglican Communion Office for clarification, but my e-mail would have arrived after close of business in December 23, so I was not anticipating an immediate reply.

Three days later, I published “Communion Transparency, Take 2.” Dr. Joan Gundersen had suggested that the Articles of Association referred to by Canon Kearon were required by a change in the legal status of the ACC. In my post, I cited several ACC resolutions that supported this theory.

The folks over at The Lead were also trying to figure out what was going on with the ACC and also made inquiries. Dean Nick Knisely published an explanation from Canon Kearon on January 4, 2010. (You can read the explanation here. A version of the statement exhibiting the original formatting can be read here.) As Dr. Gundersen suggested, a change in the legal status of the ACC was indeed the source of the “mystery” of ACC governance. Canon Kearon’s statement including the following:

The outcome of this process was a recommendation based on legal advice to the Joint Standing Committee to ACC 13 to change the status of the ACC from that of Charitable Trust to a Charitable Company limited by guarantee.

Although this change was mostly about limiting liability, Canon Kearon noted:

Some other changes were incorporated into the process, the most significant of which is to make the Primates’ Standing Committee ex-officio members of the ACC and of its Standing Committee (hence the name change of the Standing Committee).

Yesterday, Canon Kearon responded to my e-mail, which he had only just seen. His statement published by The Lead was attached to his message, which read as follows (reproduced here by permission):

Dear Dr Deimel,

I refer to your email of 23rd December last, and first may I apologise for the delay in responding - it was not forwarded to me until the office re-opened on Monday last.

The Constitution of the ACC has been through a long process of change, first proposed in 1999, as outlined in the enclosed background statement. Part of this included a change of status from a Charitable Trust to that of a Charitable Company. As a charitable company it requires 'Articles of Association'. These articles closely reflect the Constitution of ACC but also conform to the requirements of the Charity Commissioners in the UK. These were available at the ACC meeting in Jamaica in 2009 and were discussed at the recent Standing Committee meeting. These were sent to the Charity Commissioners for final approval immediately after ACC in 2009, but we have not yet received a response, and until that happens we are procluded for [sic] publishing them on the website.

Your email has of course pointed to a difficulty in my letter, and I have now altered my letter on the web to include a footnote referring to the Constitution of the ACC, as well as the direct quotation from the Articles.

Thank you for pointing this anomaly out to me. I hope it has now been corrected.

Sincerely,

Kenneth.

Kenneth Kearon,

Secretary General of the Anglican Communion,

St Andrew's House,

16 Tavistock Crescent,

London, W11 1AP

Tel: +44 (020) 7313 3903

The letter, I think, clarifies a few points not covered by Canon Kearon’s statement. In particular, it offers a reason for the Articles’ not being available on the Web.

Nonetheless, I think it has to be admitted that fundamental changes in the operation of the ACC are in the process of being effected, if not in secret, then at least in some obscurity. Final approval of new operating rules for the ACC is now in the hands of the Charity Commissioners, but it is not clear to me who is precluding disclosure of the Articles of Association before that approval is given. Is there a legal prohibition, or does the Anglican Communion Office simply not want to publish the Articles of Association before they become effective? If the latter, it is odd that Canon Kearon speaks as though the Articles, rather than the Constitution, govern the ACC now. I suspect that he anticipates that, by the time any Anglican body makes a decision governed by ACC rules, the Charity Commissioners will have approved the Articles of Association.

Bad Fruit from Bad Seed

As regular readers know, I don’t often post material from others on my blog. The essay below is an exception to my usual practice. The Rev. Jim Stockton, rector of Austin’s Episcopal Church of the Resurrection, posted a version of this essay about the proposed Anglican covenant on the Houses of Bishops and Deputies e-mail list on December 30, 2009. I was impressed with Jim’s insights and asked for his permission to reproduce an updated version of his essay here.

Bad Fruit from Bad Seed
The Rev. Jim Stockton

It is a given, I think, that most Episcopalians view the proposed “Anglican Covenant” as the fruit of a bad tree. It derives from the envy of a small number of emerging-world primates and the homophobia of some influential North Americans. The effective disturbance they raised together as far back as 1998 at the Lambeth Conference planted the seeds of conflict and caught the primates by surprise, especially the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, and our own Presiding Bishop, Frank Griswold. The surprise that these primates’ highly un-Anglican behavior achieved enabled their effort to gain momentum. While the Churches of the Communion continued to work and pray in accordance with Anglican norms, the ‘family’ of a few primates and their North American sponsors continued to work in a manner that owes more to guerrilla politics than to Christ-like or apostolic fellowship.

The combination of political ambition and social xenophobia that the groups shared continued to fester until it erupted around the possibility that the Episcopal Church in the U.S.A. might ratify the diocesan election of a bishop who is unapologetically gay. At this juncture, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, had before him an important choice. He could have served the Communion through his leading by example, i.e., he could have responded to the claimed angst of the vociferous minority by reminding all those claiming to be Anglican that the Churches of Anglicanism are interdependent in mission and independent in polity. However, he chose instead to invest his personal attention and the prestige of his office in validating the unsubstantiated claims of the envious and the homophobic. The bad seed of mischief had grown to a flourishing shrub.

The Archbishop himself assured that shrub’s growth to the full stature of a gnarly tree when he established the Lambeth Commission on Communion and gave it the task of producing what has come to be known as the Windsor Report. The Report was reactionary rather than investigatory. The Commission might have inquired of the primates claiming to take offense at Bishop Gene Robinson’s life-style whether their claims of real harm to their own churches as a result of Robinson’s election were, in fact, true. Instead, the Commission chose to accept the word of the most ill-behaved and loudest-crying children in the room, and thereby reacted against the Churches of the Communion that were most fully engaged and financially supportive of the Church’s mission. The Report was the first bit of bad fruit to fall from the bad tree. The proposed “Covenant” was the second, and the more obviously poisonous.

Anyone who has read the first proposed “Covenant” understood immediately that it was punitive in nature. The only question was whether or not one was in favor of punishing the American and Canadian Churches for their daring recognition of gay Christians as a genuine expression of God’s love for all. That the proposed “Covenant” was an instrument of punishment was never in doubt. This instrument has now been revised to yield the current and “final” version. The punitive nature of it has been muted but not at all eliminated. In fact, if the punitive aspects of the thing were eliminated, there would be hardly any interest remaining in driving its adoption forward. Hence, the intense focus on Section Four. Were Section Four not the intent of the thing, then it would have been dropped when people first raised their objections to it in the first draft. The proposed “Covenant” remains a device for the xenophobic and envious to punish those ecclesiastical bodies that are otherwise beyond their control because of democratic polity and the movement of the Holy Spirit. That it remains about punishment, coercion, and control demonstrates that the proposed “Covenant” is the worst of the bad fruit from the bad tree of emerging-world envy blended with privileged North American bigotry. To suppose that this bad fruit from this horrific tree can now somehow be nourishing for Christian fellowship is simply mad.

The current revision of Section Four employs high-sounding rhetoric about intentions for the proposed “Covenant,” but the text shows signs of being the garbled product of a committee. Section 4.1.1. reads in part: “Each Church adopting this Covenant affirms that it enters into the Covenant as a commitment to relationship in submission to God. Each Church freely offers this commitment to other Churches in order to live more fully into the ecclesial communion and interdependence which is foundational to the Churches of the Anglican Communion.” A cursory reading might suggest that the commitment to relationship is being said to be “foundational to the Churches of the Anglican Communion.” Analyzing the grammar more closely, it appears that “ecclesial communion and interdependence” (or perhaps simply “interdependence”) is offered as “foundational to the Churches of the Anglican Communion.” The problem with either interpretation is that the section presupposes that any of these are in fact “foundational” to any of the Anglican Communion Churches. The plain fact is that they are not. The Anglican Communion did not exist when the Church of England declared its governance to be independent of Rome. The Scottish Episcopal Church, and later the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, did not regard as foundational their interdependence upon one another, certainly not upon the Church of England. There was no such thing as an Anglican Communion upon which any of the Churches descendant from the Church of England built themselves. The first Lambeth Conference was not held until 1867. The current form of the Anglican Communion did not exist before 1969 with the establishment and first meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council. Until that time, and even since that time, the Churches that grew from the Britain’s colonial efforts were and have been independently governed, with each Church’s primates and bishops meeting voluntarily, but always proceeding absolutely independently of one another regarding their respective Church polities. To the contradiction of the proposed “Covenant,” history demonstrates that neither the “ecclesial communion and interdependence” nor a commitment to same are foundational to any of the Churches of the Anglican Communion. Thus, the draft “Covenant” is an attempt to put into place something new, but using language that implies that it has always existed.

Section 4.4.1 reads in part: “The Introduction to the Covenant Text, which shall always be annexed to the Covenant text, is not part of the Covenant, but shall be accorded authority in understanding the purpose of the Covenant.” Since this section refers us to the Introduction, it is helpful to turn there. Paragraph 7 includes this: “Our life together reflects the blessing of God (even as it exposes our failures in faith, hope and love) in growing our Communion into a truly global family. The mission we pursue is aimed at serving the great promises of God in Christ that embrace the peoples and the world God so loves.” I must confess, I did not know that it was a goal of the Churches of the Anglican Communion to “grow” “our Communion into a truly global family.” Instead, I rather thought we were already precisely that. Certainly, as is true of any real family, there are disputes among us, but I fail to see how a “Covenant” document, a new bureaucracy, a new organizational power given to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and a procedure for punitive repercussions for daring to disagree with him will heal damaged relationships. Paragraph 7 continues: “This mission is carried out in shared responsibility and stewardship of resources, and in interdependence among ourselves and with the wider Church.” It seems, then, that the “Covenant” embodies a vision that involves not only a centralization of authority over Communion Churches, but also a centralization of their respective resources as well. The “Covenant” is a device to circumvent that pesky movement of the Holy Spirit in a particular context amongst a particular people. It trusts instead a Lambeth bureaucracy to decide the polity of that people’s Church, and the allocation of that people’s funds and the use of their resources—all of this in conjunction with the supreme irony of the high likelihood that the British Parliament will be unwilling to cede authority over the Church of England to anyone outside the Church of England. We can set aside concerns around the anomaly of a two-tiered Communion. If this “Covenant” moves forward to adoption, it will be the Church of England that moves to a new, and decidedly un-Anglican, third and upper tier. One hopes that enough of the primates will remember and appreciate that they are Protestants, and so head this thing off.

People will continue to claim that such concerns about centralization and shift in organizational power back to Britain are alarmist. To these I say that, if the “Covenant” is about relationship rather than power, then do away with Section Four entirely. But they are then left to defend the proposal of a “Covenant” itself. And so they should be. The Churches of the Communion are already in effectual relationship. Those who choose not to be so will not change upon the adoption of a “Covenant.” It is obvious, then, that if this “Covenant” is adopted, it will alter forever the meaning of what it is to be Anglican, at least until a sufficient number of Churches act to abolish the thing and to end the existence of the enhanced “Standing Committee.”

Anglicanism’s unique witness to world about what it is to be Christian has been that the Creeds of the Church are and have always been sufficient to define Christian fellowship. The polity of the Episcopal Church has never put being Episcopalian, much less being Anglican, ahead of being simply Christian. Being “a covenanting Church,” in the language of the proposed “Covenant,” redefines every Episcopal Church congregation, every entity of the Church, every thing and every person having to do with the Episcopal Church. It would do likewise for every other Church of the Communion. Britain might prefer it this way. It is painfully evident that Archbishop Williams would. However, the proposed “Covenant” is a stark contradiction of every Protestant impulse, every inclination among the people that led to the expulsion of the influence in England of Rome, and that of England from the Church in the U.S. Familial relationship is one thing; governance is quite another. Confusing the terms does not change the distinction. This “Covenant” is poisonous fruit from a bad and dying tree.

Decades

One thing is certain: today is the first day of two thousand ten (or is it twenty ten?). Be that as it may, the media universally have been celebrating the end of a decade, variously described as the noughts or the first decade of the twenty-first century. Most of us are indeed eager to put the past 10 years behind us, a period of our history tainted by terrorism, endless (and often pointless) war, and bitter partisanship unconcerned with either democracy or the common good. A lesson about decades is in order, however.

We are used to speaking of the 80s or 90s, by which we mean the periods 1980–1989 or 1990–1999, respectively. They represent 10-year intervals and can properly be called decades. The years 2000–2009 presented a problem, however. By analogy, these years should have been the 00s. How does one pronounce that? Of course, we also spoke of the 1980s or 1990s, and the analogy here, 2000s, works a little better, though context is needed to distinguish between a reference to a decade and one to a century. (Most people would now construe 1900s as a reference to a century.)

The period 1900–1909 was, apparently, referred to as the noughts, referring to the zero or nought in the third digit of each of the included years. Thus, many have referred to the 2000–2009 decade as the noughts. Since naught or aught can also mean zero, we can also properly speak of the naughts or aughts. Rather rarely is ought used to mean zero—the usage is not unheard of—so I view use of the oughts (here, for example) as something of an illiteracy. (This latter usage is too easily confused with obligations.)

Logically, the years 2010–2019 present us with another linguistic problem. Inevitably, I suppose, this decade will be called the teens, and we are unlikely to see them referred to as the 10s or the the 2010s. Strictly speaking, however, only the numbers 13–19 are teens. (A twelve-year-old is not considered a teenager.) The teens is a bit of a misnomer, but one we are likely to live with.

Of course, those people saying goodbye to the first decade of the twenty-first century are simply celebrating a year too early. The first decade of the twenty-first century comprises the years 2001–2010. There was no year 0, so the first decade of the first century comprised the years 1–10. This means that the twentieth century ended in 2000, not in 1999. Nobody seems to remember that.