PITTSBURGH: Diocesan leadership admits to division on future direction
Episcopal News Service. May 22, 2007 [052207-05]
The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh's Standing Committee, Board of Trustees and Diocesan Council recently met to discuss the diocese's future "in light of our failure to obtain Alternative Primatial Oversight," according to a media release on the diocese's website.
The release about the May 20-21 meeting at Antiochian Village attributed to diocesan Bishop Robert Duncan the perception that the diocese had failed in its attempt to be given Alternative Primatial Oversight (APO).
The diocese will be holding meetings for both clergy and laity over the summer months to discuss the issues facing the diocese, the release said. The goal will be to shape a direction to be presented to diocesan convention November 2-3.
"We have reached a point where, one way or another, there will be a parting of ways. I pray that all of us, regardless of where we stand, will treat each other with grace and charity as we plan for our futures," Duncan said in the release.
Diocesan organizational consultant Cynthia Waisner helped the leadership identify a number of different choices in the light of what the release called the rejection of its 2006 appeals and, more recently, the House of Bishops' rejection of the pastoral plan put forward by the Primates of the Anglican Communion.
A number of options are described in the release, including:
- "simply keep doing what it has been doing, remaining on the periphery of The Episcopal Church, but not attempting to reach a concluding moment in the conflict;"
- "submit to the will of the Episcopal Church in its majority, reversing the diocesan convention's actions over the last four years;"
- "separate as a diocese from The Episcopal Church, an option a number of Anglican Communion Network dioceses are considering;" or
- "attempt to create space for conserving parishes to negotiate an exit from the diocese."
The release said the diocesan leadership is "clear about several things," primarily the pain that would be caused to various segments of the diocese depending upon its decision.
"We are facing something that we never thought we would face," Duncan said in the release. "We thought we would prevail. We thought that what we believed and what the majority of the Communion believed would be provided for."
Diocesan leaders did not reach a consensus on what course to suggest to diocesan convention, the release said, adding "there was a strong sense that the diocese should maintain the direction" that it set at the last four diocesan conventions. That direction moved the diocese farther away from acceptance of Episcopal Church decisions.
The release said that a number of diocesan leaders believed that a decision would soon be required. Others, according to the release, are still thinking through the diocese's options. Several said a direction needed to be set and a decision made "so that they could focus on local ministry."