FORT WORTH: Diocese renews its oversight request, proposes new structures
Episcopal News Service. May 17, 2007 [051707-02]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
The leadership of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth voted May 14 to move ahead with its appeal for alternative oversight from a primate other that Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.
A statement issued May 16 and signed by the bishop and standing committee of the Diocese of Fort Worth proposes three different ways in which such a change might happen. They include:
- forming a new Anglican province of the Anglican Communion in North America in a cooperative effort with other dioceses "in consultation with Primates of the Anglican Communion;"
- transferring to another existing province of the Anglican Communion; or
- seeking the status of an extra-provincial diocese, under the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Fort Worth Bishop Jack Iker and the diocese's General Convention deputation announced at the 75th General Convention June 19 -- the morning after Jefferts Schori's election -- that the diocesan Standing Committee had asked the Archbishop of Canterbury for what it called "alternative primatial oversight" (APO). That call was subsequently endorsed by the diocese's Executive Council and its convention.
"The Bishop and diocese remain firmly convinced of the need for alternative oversight," the May 16 statement said.
Therefore, the statement said, the Standing Committee adopted a statement assessing "the current situation" and proposing to "actively pursue all viable options." The diocesan Executive Council subsequently adopted that stance.
"While we remain open to the possibility of negotiation and some form of acceptable settlement with [the Episcopal Church], it appears that our only option is to seek APO elsewhere," the statement said.
The requests for APO have changed several times in the months since June 2006. After Fort Worth made its initial request June 19 it entered into a formal request July 20 that the Archbishop of Canterbury appoint a "commissary" for the dioceses of Pittsburgh, Central Florida, Dallas, San Joaquin, South Carolina, and Springfield. In September 2006, Dallas Bishop Jim Stanton confirmed that his diocese had withdrawn from the July 20 request and in October the Diocese of Quincy joined the APO request.
(A commissary is a kind of overseer used by the Bishop of London for the colonies which later became the United States and then left the Church of England.)
Then in early November at its convention, the Diocese of Pittsburgh reverted to an APO request. Three different versions of that request have appeared on Pittsburgh's website since July 2006, including one in February that appealed to Anglican Primates in the Global South.
In late November 2006, Jefferts Schori and a group of bishops announced an alternative structure for the APO requests. The plan revolved around a "primatial vicar" who would be the Presiding Bishop's designated pastor to bishops and dioceses that have requested such oversight. The primatial vicar would have been accountable to the Presiding Bishop and would have reported to an advisory panel that would consist of the designee of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Presiding Bishop's designee, a bishop of The Episcopal Church selected by the petitioning dioceses, and the President of the House of Deputies (or designee).
The May 16 statement from Fort Worth noted that "the appellant bishops rejected the proposal as unacceptable."
The APO requests were discussed at the February meeting of the Anglican Primates, who proposed the appointment of a primatial vicar nominated by bishops who have declared themselves to be "Windsor bishops," that is those who say they are committed to the proposals for life in the Communion suggested in the Windsor Report. The vicar would have been accountable to a pastoral council established by the Primates.
The Episcopal Church's House of Bishops rejected that plan during its March meeting, saying it "would be injurious to The Episcopal Church" and urging that the Executive Council decline to participate in it.
The bishops said the so-called pastoral scheme violates Episcopal Church law because it calls for a delegation of primatial authority not permissible under the Canons and would compromise the church's autonomy, which the bishops said was not permissible under the church's constitution. They also said the scheme "fundamentally changes the character of the Windsor process and the covenant design process in which we thought all the Anglican Churches were participating together," violates the church's "founding principles," and changes the leadership structure of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.
The Fort Worth statement criticized Jefferts Schori's response to the Windsor Report, saying she "has failed to seek implementation of the essential requests" made by the Primates in February. The statement also criticized her theology.
"For all these reasons and others, we do not wish to be affiliated with her, nor with anyone she may appoint or designate to act on her behalf," the statement said.