Posted on 06/20/2006 12:54:49 PM PDT by sionnsar
The dioceses of Quincy and San Joaquin will each consider a plan similar to the Diocese of Forth Worth, which has requested immediate alternative oversight from the Archbishop of Canterbury in light of the election of the Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori as the 26th Presiding Bishop. However, the Rt. Rev. Keith L. Ackerman, SSC, Bishop of Quincy, has called for Anglo-Catholics to hold fast and not quit The Episcopal Church over the election of a female Presiding Bishop.
At the start of the House of Bishops seventh legislative session on June 19, the Rt. Rev. Jack L. Iker, Bishop of Fort Worth, announced the diocese’s standing committee had faxed a request for DEPO “earlier this morning to the Archbishop of Canterbury.”
“The Bishop and the Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth appeal in good faith to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primates of the Anglican Communion and the Panel of Reference for immediate alternative Primatial oversight and Pastoral Care following the election of Katharine Jefferts Schori as Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church,” Bishop Iker said.
Bishop Iker’s statement was given to the bishops as Forth Worth deputy Judy Mayo read the statement to the House of Deputies. After she read the announcement, the Rev. Canon D. Lorne Coyle, rector of Trinity Church, Vero Beach, and chairman of the Diocese of Central Florida deputation rose and stated that while Central Florida endorsed the ministry of women clergy, the diocese “understood” the predicament facing Forth Worth and supported its request.
The full Standing Committees of San Joaquin and Quincy are not present at General Convention, their bishops told The Living Church, and could not join Fort Worth in the request. They noted that they would take up the issue upon their return home.
The election of a female primate will stress the already fragile state of affairs within the Anglican Communion, observers fear, as a majority of the Communion rejects the ministry of women bishops.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams touched on this difficulty in a letter of greetings to the new Presiding Bishop. “I send my greetings to Bishop Katharine and she has my prayers and good wishes as she takes up a deeply demanding position at a critical time,” Archbishop Williams wrote.
“She will bring many intellectual and pastoral gifts to her new work, and I am pleased to see the strength of her commitment to mission and to the Millennium Development Goals,” he said.
However, he noted “her election will undoubtedly have an impact on the collegial life of the Anglican Primates; and it also brings into focus some continuing issues in several of our ecumenical dialogues.”
“This is the wrong time for us to be pushing the envelope again,” Bishop Iker told TLC.
The Bishop of Pittsburgh, the Rt. Rev. Robert W. Duncan, stated his greatest concern was her teaching. “She is a bishop who teaches and acts precisely contrary to Windsor,” he said. “That is going to make collegiality within the Primates’ Meeting very difficult”
Bishop Duncan noted that General Convention’s having “put forward a woman as our Primate will cause problems in a Communion that is in the process of talking about receiving the ministry of women.”
Speaking at a press conference after her election, Bishop Jefferts Schori said she “hoped to be able to deal” with requests “pastorally” from traditionalists not to act as chief consecrator of new bishops opposed to the ordination of women.
She would also to seek to respond theologically by addressing the “heresy of Donatism. The actor in a sacramental act, the validity of the sacramental act is not dependent on the holiness or qualities of the actor,” she explained.
Bishop Iker disagreed, saying, “the vast majority of Anglicans have not accepted the concept of the ordination of women as bishops and the vast majority of Catholic Christians around the world don’t accept women’s holy orders at all. To think that she is going to educate people on what the Catholic Church has believed for over 2000 years is feminist hysterics.”
“It’s gnosticism to think that you have new hidden information no one else has,” Bishop Iker said.
The election of Bishop Jefferts Schori as Presiding Bishop and chief consecrator of the bishops of The Episcopal Church presents a challenge to the “sacramental certainty” of the Church, Bishop Ackerman said.
“The Bible, the ecumenical councils, the Vincentian canons” are founts of “our knowledge of sacramental certainty” and should not be interpreted through “sociological constructs” based on American “exceptionalism,” he argued.
“I think that the outcry internationally will be rather significant” from the election, he noted, but added that it would be “very unwise to do anything precipitous. If I truly believed I was a member of a Protestant denomination, I would say to people that we would have to act immediately.
“But my ecclesiology is that we are part of a world wide Anglican communion. I don’t await permission from the rest of the Communion,” Bishop Ackerman said, “rather I recognize that consensus is an extraordinary component in the way we do Anglican theology. It’s just that the Episcopal Church doesn’t seem to be aware of that.”
To find more news, feature articles, and commentary about the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion not available online, we invite you to subscribe to The Living Church magazine. To learn more, click here.
Click here to read The Living Church’s profile of Bishop Jefferts Schori, part of a series of interviews with each of the Presiding Bishop nominees.
Click here to read Bishop Jefferts Schori’s detailed written responses to questions The Living Church posed prior to her election as Presiding Bishop.
Read More News from General Convention:
• New Presiding Bishop Elicits Hope, Caution
• Bishops Adopt Title III Changes
• Deputies: Communion “Strained,” Not Broken
• Minority Report Issued on Bishop-elect Beisner
• Fort Worth Seeks Alternative Primatial Oversight
• Much Prayer, Little Politicking in Presiding Bishops’ Election
• Bishop Jefferts Schori Elected Presiding Bishop
• Bishops Endorse Apology for Slavery Complicity
• Pastoral Oversight Resolution Debated
• Deputies to Consider Two Windsor Resolutions
• Deputies Elect Fr. Brian Prior Vice President
• New Zealand Academic Condemns “Home-breakers”
• Primate of Mexico Offers Apology
• Deputies Adopt Revised Common Lectionary
• Bishops Oppose Gay Marriage Ban
• Deputies Approve First Windsor-Related Resolution
• Capacity Crowd for Windsor Hearings
• Resolution Approved on Eucharistic Sharing with Methodists
• Bishops Back Anglican Covenant Process
• Bishops Act on Development Goals, Lectionary, ACC Funding
• House of Deputies Elects Bonnie Anderson as President
• LGBT Coalition Urges Convention to “Stay the Course”
• Deputies Begin Work
• Pensive Mood in House of Bishops
• Archbishop Williams to Convention: “Listen in Patience and Love”
• Special Committee Hears Testimony on Windsor Report Resolutions
• U2charist Spreads the “Gospel of Bono”
• ECW Triennial Invites Delegates to “Live in the Light”
• Title IV Draws Mostly Negative Testimony
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. What will Pittsburgh do?
I would recommend crossing a muddy little river in Central Italy and becoming one with the Church they left 500 years ago. But that's just me.
I concur. Gerald Augustinus said it best:
"Dear conservative Anglicans - become Catholic & bring your music."
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