Posted on 09/20/2005 5:59:19 PM PDT by sionnsar
There's this lovely little Episcopal parish in the Diocese of Rochester. Bishop Jack McKelvey thinks it would a shame if anything happened to it:
A congregation of about 50 people in the Diocese of Rochester may be "declared extinct" if it cannot reach a compromise with Bishop Jack McKelvey.
The Rev. David Harnish and leaders of All Saints Episcopal Church in Rochester are scheduled to meet with the bishop on the afternoon of September 20 to discuss their conflicts. At the heart of those conflicts is the parish’s sense that it cannot in good conscience pay its diocesan assessment.
"It would be a grievous breach of good conscience and Christian faith for the Vestry to ’support the work of the Diocese and the General Church’ and would offer a sense of complicity or agreement which it cannot do under the present circumstances," the All Saints vestry said in a resolution on June 14. In that resolution, the vestry asked that the Anglican Communion’s Panel of Reference offer its guidance for resolving the conflict.
McKelvey is bent that All Saints did what the rest of the Anglican world says they had a right to do.
Bishop McKelvey has expressed sadness that the vestry appealed to the Panel of Reference without first proceeding through each step of the Episcopal Church’s procedures for Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight.
"In addressing the conflict of conscience expressed in our many communications, the canons of the Episcopal Church of the U.S.A., of which All Saints Episcopal Church, Rochester has been a part since it was founded in the early 1900s, provide guidance out of the impasse that we have seemed to reach. As a parish of the Episcopal Church, you and your parish are bound, as is the Diocese, to respect and abide by its requirements," McKelvey wrote to Harnish on July 25.
"This means that we should exhaust the remedies of the Episcopal Church of the U.S.A. before considering any recourse to authorities outside of the church, like the Panel of Reference."
Am I missing something? Did All Saints appeal for alternate oversight? Because I have to admit that bringing Delightfully Easy to Pound the Orthodox(DEPO) into the discussion is a brilliant strategy on McKelvey's part. If All Saints really does want another bishop, McKelvey will be delighted to sell them one for the cost their diocesan assessment. And All Saints may just get to keep their new pointy-hat as long as Rochester keeps getting All Saints checks.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams.
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