Posted on 11/07/2003 8:14:15 PM PST by ahadams2
Supplemental Episcopal Pastoral Care - Is it good enough?
7 November 2003
1. These notes are intended to indicate the principal differences between SEPC as it is proposed in the United States and the Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod, 1993 as it has operated in the Church of England for the last nine years; and further to comment on the American proposals.
The ‘theological’ background.
2. The English Act of Synod begins with a clear statement of the purpose of the Act: it is ‘to make provision for the continued diversity of opinion in the Church of England’ with regard to the ordination of women to the priesthood.
3. The place of this clear statement, in the American proposals, is taken by a preamble which can only be described as pseudo-theological. Such a cavalier attitude to the theological seriousness of the concepts involved is nothing short of offensive.
4. The heart of the matter, however, for these slipshod draftsmen, is the final sentence: ‘At all times, however, we must recognize the constitutional and canonical autonomy of bishops and the geographical integrity of diocesan boundaries’.
5. The concept of the constitutional and canonical autonomy of bishops is one unknown to the Church catholic. The Catechism of the Catholic Church [886] expresses clearly and concisely the consistent witness of the tradition: ‘The individual bishops are the visible sources and foundation of unity in their own particular Churches…but as a member of the Episcopal college, each bishop shares in the concern for all the churches. The bishops exercise this care first by ruling well their own Churches as portions of the universal Church, and so contributing to the welfare of the whole Mystical Body, which, from another point of view, is a corporate body of Churches.’
6. To adopt the novel concept of the constitutional and canonical autonomy of bishops, of course, is to undermine the whole tenor of the proposals. If bishops are ‘autonomous’, then neither ECUSA nor its Primate nor its House of Bishops can require any diocesan bishop to go along with this schemes in general, and no one can require a diocesan to grant SEPC in a particular case. The scheme, in consequence, has no teeth and is unenforceable – it could not be otherwise.
What’s in a name?
7. The provisions of the Act of Synod in the Church of England are referred to as Extended Episcopal Care rather than Supplemental Episcopal Pastoral Care.
8. Both names exist to safeguard the rights of the diocesan bishop, who remains the Ordinary. The word supplemental, however, links the care offered more closely to the diocesan bishop, who, in the American proposals, is to continue a pastoral relationship with the parish in question. ‘The ultimate goal…is the full restoration of the relationship between the congregation and their bishop’.
9. Thus the American provision includes within it the seeds of its own destruction. It is ‘to be understood as a temporary arrangement’. This is contrary to the rationale behind the Act of Synod which exists to provide episcopal care during an indefinite period of open reception.
10. Whether a mere stay of execution will prove attractive, either to clergy or to parishes in the United States, remains to be seen. But it is unlikely.
Legal Provision.
11. The arrangement in the Church of England has a legal status as an Act of the English General Synod. It cannot be removed or rescinded without a vote in all three houses. An Act is less than a Measure (which needs Parliamentary approval); but it nevertheless has some permanence. [see 25 below]
12. SEPC is said to be based upon existing provisions in ECUSA Canon Law [A Covenant on Episcopal Pastoral Care, 2002]. It is clear, however, from the fact that the possibilities of that existing legislation have been sparingly employed (and nowhere to the satisfaction of the complainants) that SEPC is at the arbitrary discretion of the diocesan, and that for it to be effective and acceptable to complainants there would need to be further legal provision. There is little or no point in restating the contents of a document which has failed so comprehensively without examining why.
PEVs
13. The Act of Synod provides for three kinds of Extended Episcopal Care:
[i] diocesan (where a bishop makes an arrangement with one of his own suffragans or with a retired bishop resident in his diocese);
[ii] regional (where a group of bishops of adjacent dioceses arrange such provision collegially for all their dioceses);
[iii] provincial (where the bishop avails himself of the Provincial Episcopal Visitors).
14. The PEVs are suffragans of the metropolitan who have a responsibility to exercise extended episcopal care at the invitation of the diocesan, but whose role also includes that of ‘spokesman and adviser’ for all those seeking extended care.
15. In fact very few local or regional arrangements have been established and the vastly greater part of Extended Care is undertaken in the Church of England by the PEVs who have geographical regions assigned to them. This arrangement has given solidarity and cohesion to petitioning parishes. It may be doubted whether their numbers would have been sustained (and indeed increased) without it.
16. The arrangements proposed for the United States are essentially ad hoc arrangements by individual bishops. No one person is given the task of monitoring them and representing the interests of those who have petitioned for such care and are dissatisfied with what has been provided. When it is considered that, in the case of the Good Shepherd, Rosemont, even the admonitions of the Presiding Bishop were unable to move the diocesan to offer what is said to be freely available under present legislation, this must be seen as a serious omission.
Who can apply for SEPC?
17. The English legislation relates to one particular matter: the ordination of women to the priesthood. It seeks to give expression to the understanding that this innovation has not yet been fully ‘received’ by the Church of England, the Anglican Communion or the Church Universal, and that differing opinions on the matter are to be respected.
18. In England, Extended Episcopal Care is available to parishes which vote (by a two thirds majority in the Parochial Church Council) that they can no longer receive the sacramental ministry of the diocesan or other bishop because of his decision to ordain women to the priesthood. No other reason suffices. The criteria for applying are thus objective: they relate, not to what the bishop thinks but to what he has done; not to his theological opinions, but to his ecclesial actions.
19. This is not the case with the American proposals. In them a parish ‘finds a need…for a serious cause’. What constitutes ‘a serious cause’, however, is not for the parish to decide. It will be decided by the Council of Advice of the Presiding Bishop after consideration of reports from the meetings of bishops of each province. The shoemaker is charged with the task of deciding whether the shoes hurt!
20. It is difficult not to conclude that this is an attempt to divide and rule, which is made all the easier by the existing divisions within traditionalist groupings in the Episcopal Church.
21. There are those who would seek SEPC over the ordination of women. That is straight-forward enough. But there are also those who, whilst accepting the ordination of women, reject other parts of the sexual agenda (for example, the ordination of a practising homosexual).
22. What, in that instance, is the ‘serious cause’? Should SEPC be available to all in dioceses whose bishops approved the election of the man in question, or merely to those whose bishops have actually participated in such a consecration?
23. And what of claims that approval or acquiescence in the blessing of same sex unions is a ‘serious cause’ requiring SEPC? Is the ‘serious cause’ episcopal approval of such rites, participation in such rights, provision of such rights? Who can tell?
24. The phrase ‘serious cause’ and the heated debate as to its meaning which will no doubt ensue seems set to create a degree of dissention and acrimony which will bring the whole provision of SEPC into disrepute. Such might well be the covert aim of those who drafted this document.
The appeals process.
25. The Act of Synod 1993 is clear, both in its legal status and in the binding nature of its provisions: if a diocesan bishop receives a duly agreed petition from a parish, ‘he shall make appropriate arrangements for Episcopal duties to be carried out in the parish in accordance with this Act of Synod’. The failure of the diocesan to do so is reviewable in the ordinary legal process of the secular courts.
26. What is new in the present American document and did not appear in A Covenant on Episcopal Pastoral Care, March 2002, is a rather doubtful process of referral (the word ‘appeal’ is not used in the document) beyond the refusal of the diocesan bishop to grant SEPC. The process is (i) the provincial bishop reviews (ii) the provincial bishop and two other bishops review and make recommendations. (iii) Intermittent progress reports on this process are made to the Presiding Bishop, the President of the House of Deputies, the Presiding Bishop’s Council of Advice, and the House of Bishops at its regular meetings.
27. The undergirding principle of these proposals, however, (the constitutional and canonical autonomy of bishops, [see 6 above]) renders most if not all of this otiose. The three bishops have no power to decide anything or to compel anyone to do anything. All they can do is ‘make recommendations to all parties.’ But what if those ‘recommendations’ are ignored? These proposals are wholly lacking in substance.
Conclusions
28. In conclusion it is hard to imagine proposals less equitable in conception and less practicable in application. Even the quasi-legal provision in the Church of England has created tensions with bishops who refuse to operate it sensibly. At least one case of judicial review is pending. The complexity of these proposed American provisions (in a country with a lively tradition of vexatious litigation) seem like a recipe for disaster.
28. My guess, for what it is worth, is that those who have drafted these proposals do not expect them to be used with any frequency. This document exists not to give SEPC to distressed parishes, but provide something with which to clothe the Presiding Bishop’s nakedness when next he appears in the company of the other Primates.
29. In particular these proposals have been brought forward so that it can be claimed that something (however inadequate) was in place before the publication of the Eames Report: an American solution to an American problem! There is more than an element of self-defensive chauvinism here. For that reason I suspect that these proposals are intended to be as unlike the Act of Synod as possible.
The full text of the Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod, 1993 is available at:
http://www.forwardinfaith.com/about/uk_act-of-synod.html
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.