House of Deputies may convene unusual sessions on Resolution B033
Episcopal News Service. June 30, 2009 [063009-01]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
The House of Deputies will be asked to consider meeting in two unusual sessions early in the 76th meeting of the General Convention to discuss Resolution B033 passed by the last convention.
"The purpose of this discussion will be to exchange information and viewpoints among the deputies, and to inform Legislative Committee #8 World Mission, to which committee all the resolutions relative to B033 have been assigned," House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson wrote in a June 29 letter to deputies and first alternate deputies.
Anderson wrote that she believes the House of Deputies "will benefit by having an opportunity to discuss B033 apart from the context of legislative procedure" and noted that "many deputies have indicated their longing to discuss B033 together as a house."
In 2006, deputies had 30 minutes on the convention's last legislative day to debate B033, which called upon standing committees and bishops with jurisdiction to "exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion," which was generally assumed to pertain mainly to homosexual priests living openly in committed relationships.
If the house accepts the proposal, the committee of the whole sessions will take place July 9 and 10, prior to when the world mission committee will hold its open hearing on proposed resolutions to rescind or supersede B033.
It apparently will be the first time since 1973 that the House of Deputies has convened as a committee of the whole, according to researchers at the Archives of the Episcopal Church. Then the house met to discuss women's ordination after which it narrowly rejected a proposal to allow women to be ordained to the priesthood and the episcopate.
At the 2006 convention in Columbus, Ohio, the House of Deputies had to suspend its normal rules to allow consideration of B033. Because the subject matter had been defeated the day before in another resolution (A161), and its reconsideration had been rejected in additional parliamentary measures afterwards, the topic normally could not be brought before the deputies again during that meeting of convention.
B033 passed after then-Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold told a joint meeting of the houses of bishops and deputies its passage would signal to the rest of the Anglican Communion the "willingness of the majority of us to relinquish something in order to serve a larger purpose."
The House of Deputies will be asked July 8 by the Committee on Dispatch to adopt what is known as a special order proposing the committee of the whole plan. If the special order is adopted, the deputies will meet July 9 for one hour during the 4:30-6:00 p.m. legislative session and again for an hour during the 9:30-11:15 a.m. legislative session July 10.
A number of dioceses have submitted resolutions to the convention that generally take one of two routes or a combination of those approaches. One route involves having the convention repeal B033. The second involves having the convention pass a resolution affirming that it will not place restrictions on the choice of episcopal candidates that would be in conflict with the church's constitution and canons (church laws).
The official and searchable convention legislation tracking website is available here.
Earlier this year, Anderson told Episcopal News Service that she was committed to discussing B033 in Anaheim, saying that the dynamics around its passage "were such that a full and thorough discussion of B033 was difficult to have."
Anderson said that what she called the "foundational question" facing the convention in Anaheim is "does the General Convention still support the use of 'restraint when consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose lifestyle poses a challenge to the wider church?'"
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has said she doesn't think it's helpful to revisit B033.
"It is far more helpful for us to say something significant about where we are in 2009. Conventions have passed resolutions in the past and they have rarely been revisited. New resolutions have been passed that state where the church is at that point," Jefferts Schori told Episcopal News Service earlier this year.
It is "far more productive, I think, to have the hard conversations involved in claiming our current position and identity," she said.