PITTSBURGH: Group of laity voices support for bishop
Episcopal News Service. February 11, 2008 [021108-07]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
At least 100 lay members of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh have issued a letter declaring its "strong support for the godly direction of our Bishop, Robert Duncan, and for the strategy approved by delegates to our annual diocesan convention last November."
The signers of the letter say that they are trying to counter a letter written in January by 12 diocesan clergy who declared their intention to remain in the Episcopal Church despite Duncan's efforts to lead the diocese out of the church.
"We pray that in the coming year, even more laypersons will recognize the danger and folly of remaining in the punctured hull of the Episcopal Titanic," the letter says.
The signers include, among others, the chancellor of the diocese, members of the Standing Committee member, diocesan commission on ministry, and Diocesan Council, and the chair of the diocese's board of examining chaplains, as well as faculty and staff members of the Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry and the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.
Pittsburgh's diocesan convention November 2 gave the first of two approvals needed to enact a constitutional change to remove language in the diocesan constitution stating that the diocese accedes to the Episcopal Church's Constitution and Canons as the church's constitution requires.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori sent Duncan a letter prior to the convention, asking him to retreat from his advocacy of the changes.
A vote on the second reading of the changes to the diocesan constitution is expected at the next convention the first weekend in November.
Jefferts Schori informed Duncan on January 15 that the Episcopal Church's Title IV Review Committee had certified that he had abandoned the communion of the church by an open renunciation of the church's doctrine, discipline or worship.
Her letter told Duncan that she sought the canonically required permission from the House's three senior bishops with jurisdiction to inhibit him, based on the certification, from the performance of any episcopal, ministerial or canonical acts.
"On 11 January 2008 they informed me that such consents would not be given at this time by all three bishops," Jefferts Schori wrote.
Some 40 pages of material submitted by Pittsburgh counsel, which allegedly "trace the course of Bishop Duncan's actions from the meeting of the General Convention in 2003 through the most recent Annual Convention of the Diocese" in early November, is included in the committee's certification and is available here.
The laity's letter said the convention's decision was not "hasty," but rather one "that came after nearly five years in which we waited for our national church to repent and to respond to the pleas of the rest of the worldwide Anglican Communion."
"Our diocese is not separating from the Church, but can no longer travel with a national Episcopal body that is departing from its foundations," the letter said. "As a result, we are participating in a necessary realignment with biblical, catholic, traditional and evangelical Anglicans across the globe."
The letter criticizes what it calls a "major reason" for the priests' dissent being the prospect of protracted legal battles over ownership of property. The priests' letter makes no mention of property lawsuits.
"It is unconscionable that the faithful be constrained, because of the fear and inconvenience of litigation, to continue in communion with those who preach and walk after a different gospel," the letter says.
An introduction to the letter invites people who want to sign on to send their names and titles to an email address that begins "realignment2008."