House of Bishops to decide if Pittsburgh bishop abandoned communion
Episcopal News Service. September 15, 2008 [091508-01]
Pat McCaughan
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said she will ask the House of Bishops to decide on September 18 whether Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh has abandoned the communion of the Episcopal Church.
If the bishops, who are meeting September 16-19 in Salt Lake City, agree with the findings of a review panel that he has abandoned communion, their next move would be to depose Duncan.
"I shall present to the House the matter of certification to me by the Title IV Review Committee that Bishop Robert W. Duncan has abandoned the Communion of this Church within the meaning of Canon IV.9," Jefferts Schori wrote in a September 12 letter to the bishops.
The full text of the Presiding Bishop's letter may be found here.
Duncan posted a pastoral letter the following day on the Diocese of Pittsburgh website in which he characterized the proceedings as an effort to have him removed from office "before the realignment vote." He has said he will not attend the meeting. The bishops usually gather in fall and spring.
Although Duncan denied he has abandoned communion, the letter indicated his intention is to proceed with plans to realign the 20,000-member diocese with the Argentina-based Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. Delegates to the October 4 annual diocesan convention will be asked to approve the realignment.
"Whatever happens on (September 18) as to my status, the diocese will carry forward under rules long-ago established," Duncan wrote in the September 13 letter, dated on the eleventh anniversary of his seating as Bishop of Pittsburgh.
"If I am 'removed,' the Standing Committee will be the ecclesiastical authority. Together, with all the leadership presently in place, both appointed and elected, the Standing Committee will carry us through to our October 4th Annual Convention and beyond. We as a diocese will not be intimidated or turned from our overriding commitment, which is faithfulness to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ within the mainstream of Anglicanism," he wrote.
Presiding bishop clarifies issues
In her letter to bishops, Jefferts Schori offered both background and clarity about the process leading up to possible deposition.
A Title IV Review Committee on December 17 certified that Duncan, by advocating the move to the Southern Cone and "disaffiliating from the Episcopal Church, had abandoned the Communion of this Church by 'an open renunciation of the … Discipline … of this Church' within the meaning of Canon IV.9(l)(i)," she wrote.
Duncan's March 14 response to those findings was deemed "not a sufficient 'declaration … that the facts alleged in the certificate are false,' and that therefore Bishop Duncan remains liable to Deposition under Canon Iv.9(2)," according to Jefferts Schori.
Bishops will have an opportunity for informal discussions to investigate the matter before action is taken at the September 18 business meeting. "While Bishop Duncan has unfortunately announced that he will not attend this meeting of the House, his supporters may at this hearing offer factual and opinion material as to why he has not abandoned the Communion of this Church," Jefferts Schori said.
She also noted that the decision of two of three senior bishops against inhibiting Duncan relates only to his inhibition, not to a formal deposition.
Subsequent consultations with the present and former chancellors, as well as the House Parliamentarian, have determined "that it is my 'duty … to present the matter to the House of Bishops' regardless of whether the bishop in question has been inhibited," the Presiding Bishop said.
"General Convention in enacting this canon did not intend to give the three senior bishops a 'veto' over the House's right to determine whether or not a bishop who has been certified by the Review Committee as having abandoned the Communion of this Church should be deposed. Rather, that decision is intended to be made by the House," she said.
Jefferts Schori also said the decision will be made by "a majority of all the bishops who are at the meeting at which the vote must be taken and who are entitled to vote."
Ambiguities "in the canon should be resolved in favor of making this important provision work effectively," she said, adding that "the discipline of the Church should not be stymied because a majority or nearly a majority of voting bishops are no longer in active episcopal positions in the Church and their attendance at meetings is hampered by age, health, economics, or interest in other legitimate pursuits."
Duncan: proper forum is a church trial
Duncan also referenced an August 24 letter he sent to TEC bishops in which he objected to speaking and writing "in support of an action not yet taken. Moreover, the action, when taken, will be the Convention's action, not mine. Only after clergy and people act, will I act," he wrote.
He also asserted that his March 14 letter to the Presiding Bishop "remains an accurate and true statement of my continuing submission to the ordination vows I took within" TEC.
The proper forum "to determine whether I have violated constitution or canons would be a church trial, as I am a Bishop of this Church," he contended. He characterized the Title IV Review Committee's acceptance of charges brought against him by "local opponents" in his diocese as short-circuiting the process and as further evidence of "the moral abyss into which our beloved Church has descended."
On July 10, Calvary Church in Pittsburgh asked a court to appoint a monitor to inventory and oversee property held or administered by the diocese. The church petition contended that Duncan had created a new corporation called "the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh" and had diverted an estimated $750,000 from diocesan coffers to pay for legal expenses anticipated over the proposed realignment.
Delegates to the Pittsburgh convention will also be asked to consider a resolution that would give parishes two or more years to make their by-laws reflect a realignment with the Southern Cone. Still another proposed resolution stipulates that, although the convention would adopt the constitution and canons of TEC as advisory policies they would not suggest TEC has any authority over the diocese or its clergy or congregations.
Duncan had called for the convention to be held a month earlier than its traditional meeting time, because of concern that he might be deposed at the September House of Bishops meeting.
The Diocese of Pittsburgh represents about 20,000 Episcopalians and about 72 developing church plants and congregations, about half of which are located in Allegheny County.