PITTSBURGH: Diocese may consider reuniting with neighbor
Episcopal News Service. September 25, 2009 [092509-01]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
If its diocesan convention agrees in October, the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh will begin studying the possibility of reuniting with its neighbor the Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania.
Resolution 4, due to be considered during Pittsburgh's Oct. 16-17 diocesan convention, would call for a committee to study "the potential long-term impact of such reunion on the financial and administrative resources of the two dioceses." The resolution adds that Northwestern Pennsylvania Bishop Sean Rowe and the diocesan standing committee would be invited to participate in such a study.
Vanessa Butler, a spokesperson for Northwestern Pennsylvania, told ENS September 25 that no similar resolution will come before that diocese's November 6-7 convention. She said that the Erie-based diocese has not discussed how it would participate in an eventual study by Pittsburgh, adding that "we wouldn't impede their progress."
Butler said that, as a small diocese, Northwestern Pennsylvania might at some point look at joining another diocese but "we're not looking to do that anytime soon."
What is now the Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania was carved out of the Pittsburgh diocese in the early 20th century and called the Diocese of Erie. "In the intervening century much has changed in both regions in terms of economics and demographics," the Pittsburgh resolution's explanation notes. "In what was the Diocese of Erie (now the Episcopal Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania) there has been a significant decline of population. In the Diocese of Pittsburgh the Episcopal Church itself has experienced unprecedented change following the 'realignment' and departure from the Episcopal Church of many clergy and congregations."
Title I.10.6 of the church's constitution and canons allows for reunion of two dioceses that were previously one entity, and sets up a process for obtaining the consent of the rest of the church. The canon also calls for the bishop of the "parent diocese" to become the bishop of the reunited diocese if both dioceses have bishops. If only one diocese is without a bishop, the canon says the bishop of the other diocese would become bishop.
The Diocese of Pittsburgh is currently without a bishop. A majority of diocesan members and its leadership voted in October 2008 to leave the Episcopal Church and align with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. At next month's convention, the remaining members of the Pittsburgh diocese are slated to decide whether to elect Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio Bishop Suffragan Kenneth L. Price Jr. to lead Pittsburgh as provisional bishop for the next several years until a permanent bishop can be elected. Price would assume full ecclesiastical authority and responsibility as chief pastor and overseer of diocesan administration and finances, according to a diocesan news release
The Diocese of Pittsburgh is not the first to recently consider reunion or merger with another diocese. In June, the dioceses of Eau Claire and Fond du Lac announced that it was too soon to ask the General Convention for permission to merge, but that discussions between the two dioceses are continuing. Eau Claire has been without a bishop since Keith B. Whitmore left in April 2008 to become assisting bishop in the Diocese of Atlanta. In Fond du Lac, Bishop Russell Jacobus, who turns 65 this year, has said he would be willing to see a merger process through before considering retirement. Episcopal Church bishops are required to retire at age 72.
Pittsburgh's possible study also would come against the backdrop of a study called for in Resolution A127, passed by the General Convention when it met July 8-17 in Anaheim, California. In the resolution, the convention called on the church's Standing Commission on the Structure of the Church to examine the roles of a number of different offices, roles and organizations, including a study of the current diocesan configuration and "suggest [to the next meeting of General Convention in 2012] whether adjustments thereto would be appropriate."