ALBANY: Convention pledges loyalty to church, but disputes role of General Convention
Episcopal News Service. June 17, 2009 [061709-02]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
The Episcopal Diocese of Albany recently reaffirmed its membership in the Episcopal Church while at the same time saying that the General Convention cannot tell it or any other diocese what to do.
While reaffirming the diocese's "loyal membership in the Episcopal Church," a resolution passed during the diocese's annual convention, held June 5-7 in Speculator, New York, also agreed with a recent statement released by 15 active and retired Episcopal Church bishops who are Communion Partners, a group of Episcopalians who have said they will remain in the church despite disagreeing with some of its policies and theological stances. The statement claimed that the Episcopal Church's constitution "lacks any language making General Convention the 'supreme' or 'highest' authority, making its decisions 'final' or making dioceses 'subordinate' to any other office or body."
The statement said that "no one … may act in or speak on behalf of the dioceses or of the Episcopal Church within the dioceses."
Albany Bishop William Love, one of the signers of the April 22 statement, said during his address to the convention that the Communion Partners statement "accurately reflects the true polity of the Episcopal Church as described . . . in the Constitution and Canons of the Church."
"There is much confusion right now throughout the church as well as the courts concerning the true polity of the Episcopal Church and a diocese's constitutional and canonical relationship with the other dioceses within the province as well as with the Presiding Bishop," Love added. "The bishops' statement is offered in an attempt to provide clarity in regard to these issues."
The Albany diocese endorsed Love's decision to sign the statement.
In light of their conclusions about the church's governance, the statement's signers said that individual dioceses are constitutionally entitled to sign onto an Anglican covenant, a set of principles intended to bind the Anglican Communion provinces in light of recent disagreements over human sexuality issues and theological interpretation.
In May, the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) postponed releasing the Ridley Cambridge Draft for the communion's provinces to adopt. The council asked that the draft's Section 4, which contains a dispute-resolution process, be given more scrutiny and possibly revised. That work will not be complete until at least the end of this year.