A Church in Conflict – Update – An allegation of manipulating the vote

From El Bohemio:

SAN FRANCISCO (EBN). The Episcopal Church U.S.A. (ECUSA) on Friday, December 14, 2007 released a posting through Episcopal Life Online that may indicate the direction Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts-Schori will take in dealing with the breakaway Diocese of San Joaquin and its leader, Bishop John-David Schofield. . .

The posting goes on to say that a “lawsuit would be filed against the departed leadership and a representative sample of departing congregations if they ...attempted to retain Episcopal Church property”.

The actions, while harsh, are consistent with ECUSA’s view that individuals may leave the church but neither congregations nor dioceses have that same right. The desired effect is that churches and diocesan property, much of it acquired with locally raised funds, end up in the hands of ECUSA.

Bishop Schofield’s view, in part, is that the Diocese, with all of its buildings and churches, predates its affiliation with ECUSA and hence it is free to leave with what it brought to a voluntary affiliation. . .

While the secular press has made much of the issues involving homosexuality, in effect reducing the battle to a dispute over “gay marriage”, the rumblings coming from San Joaquin and other orthodox dioceses in ECUSA reflect grave concerns as to how the foundational doctrines of the church may be being changed. Some clergy wonder openly, if the present trend continues, whether belief in Christ will even be viewed as the path to salvation in a future and evolving ECUSA.

In response to these changes in the church, Bishop Schofield has led his diocese toward secession through two successive annual elections. In both, the delegates overwhelmingly voted to leave ECUSA.

The last vote, which took place on December 8, 2007, finalized the secession and provided for the affiliation of the Diocese of San Joaquin with the Province of the Southern Cone which Bishop Schofield finds is more in keeping with the orthodoxy of his Diocese and with the traditional values of the Anglican Communion. The Province of the Southern Cone is headed by Archbishop Gregory Venables and encompasses the southern end of South America.

Both sides anticipated what was largely viewed as an inevitability and both had readied themselves for what each knew would be an ugly fight. In what may ultimately be called the Battle of the San Joaquin, the Diocese fired the first shot during the vote for secession on Saturday. By Monday, December 10, 2007, ECUSA responded with a volley of its own via its in-house press organization, the Episcopal News Service (ENS).

In an ENS bulletin entitled “Archbishop did not endorse Southern Cone’s invitation to San Joaquin, Anglican Communion spokesman says”, Reverend Mary Schjonberg wrote: “During the days leading up to the convention’s vote, San Joaquin Bishop John-David Schofield implied that Williams (the Archbishop of Canterbury) approved of the Southern Cone plan” and further, quoted Bishop Schofield as having said “‘According to well-informed sources, the Archbishop of Canterbury has been fully informed of the invitation of the Province of the Southern Cone and described it as a ‘sensible way forward.’”

The Schjonberg article goes on to state that Canterbury never endorsed such a plan leaving the reader with the impression that Bishop Schofield might have released false information in order to influence the delegates’ votes in favor of secession. A closer inspection of the facts, however, does not support such a damning implication and clearly vindicates Bishop Schofield.

The statement attributed to Bishop Schofield (“According to well-informed sources, the Archbishop of Canterbury has been fully informed of the invitation of the Province of the Southern Cone and described it as a ‘sensible way forward’”) is not something the Bishop invented. Rather it echoes a London Times article of November 9, 2007 by Ruth Gledhill, the Times Religion Correspondent.

When I asked Canon Jim Rosenthal of the Anglican Communion Press Office about the Times article and about Dr. Williams’ position as laid out in the ENS article, he responded in a tersely worded statement that “There is no endorsement from Dr Williams on the matter. Bishop Venables is keenly aware of this as well.” Canon Rosenthal did not, however, respond to the substance of the Times article or address the issue of possible informal discussions having taken place between the Archbishop of Canterbury and Archbishop Venables of the Southern Cone regarding the problems of the Episcopal Church and its dissident orthodox dioceses.

Archbishop Venables, responding to a question from El Bohemio News as to whether he had discussed the issue of alternative oversight with Dr. Williams, released the following statement through the press office at the Diocese of San Joaquin: “We neither sought nor claimed the endorsement of the Archbishop of Canterbury. We [Abp Venables] did however share our plans with him and would not have wished to proceed without doing so.” It would be hard to believe that this “sharing” of plans did not include some attempt on the part of both Dr. Williams and Archbishop Venables to resolve the crisis in the best way possible.

Moreover, the Schjonberg article states further that “in a November 27, 2007 letter to a Diocese of Fort Worth delegate who had asked for verification of similar assertions (about alternative oversight via affiliation with other provinces), the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, Anglican Communion secretary general, (said) ‘I would be surprised to hear that the Archbishop (of Canterbury) would formally support such a development which is contrary to the Windsor Report.’” (emphasis added)

In spite of the denial, the mere addition of the word “formally” as a qualifier seems to leave the door open that some sort of informal discussion and possible accommodation had been reached at the highest levels in the Anglican Communion. Indeed, such was intimated to me by a party that wishes to remain anonymous given the sensitivity of the issue.

The existence of the London Times article and the statement of Archbishop Venables clearly vindicate Bishop Schofield’s position. Whatever else may be taking place in Canterbury as the Anglican Communion struggles with this crisis will probably remain a matter of speculation. One thing though is certain: the Battle of the San Joaquin will continue until one side or the other prevails or until someone intercedes.

As to the tone of the ENS article authored by Reverend Schjonberg, El Bohemio News asked the ECUSA press relations office if Episcopal Life Online and other such “news” sources were in fact “official publications of the church and ... representative of the church’s position.” The ECUSA press office responded in the affirmative in effect admitting that there is less “news” in the journalistic sense in such articles than there is advocacy for the church’s position.

Read it all.