SOUTH CAROLINA: Convention approves 'protective' resolutions
Episcopal News Service. October 15, 2010 [101510-03]
Matthew Davies and Mary Frances Schjonberg
Participants in the Diocese of South Carolina's re-convened convention on Oct. 15 approved six resolutions that the diocese said represent "an essential element of how we protect the diocese from any attempt at unconstitutional intrusions into our corporate life in South Carolina."
But not all the resolutions passed without dissension.
"It's clear that these resolutions are an implicit intent to separate from the Episcopal Church, although the diocesan leadership all state that they have no such intention," Rob Wendt, senior warden of Grace Church, Charleston, and a lay member of the diocesan convention, told ENS following the vote.
Asked what these resolutions will mean for loyal Episcopalians in the diocese, Wendt said: "It's a wait-and-see approach. We've seen this coming, we've watched it develop ... The split has occurred, but when will it become a de facto split? We're just waiting so that we can move on."
South Carolina Bishop Mark Lawrence reiterated to the convention that it was not his intention for the diocese to leave the Episcopal Church.
Lawrence said that he had been contacted by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori to "warn him about taking these actions," said Wendt, a North Charleston-based attorney. "That seemed to make a lot of members of the clergy more determined to vote defiantly on these resolutions."
Jefferts Schori, in a statement e-mailed to ENS, said: "I grieve these actions, but I especially grieve Bishop Lawrence's perception of my heartfelt concern for him and for the people of South Carolina as aggression. I don't seek to change his faithfully held positions on human sexuality, nor do I seek to control the inner workings of the diocese. I do seek to repair damaged relationships and ensure that this church is broad enough to include many different sorts and conditions of people. South Carolina and its bishop continue in my prayers."
The Rev. Canon Kendall Harmon, canon theologian for the South Carolina diocese, told ENS that the convention's action is "significant … in that it enables us to pursue the bishop's vision of making biblical Anglicans for a global age while resisting the national leadership's attempts to change our polity in violation of own constitution and the basic principles of justice and due process."
The convention, which met at St. Paul's Church in Summerville, occurred against the backdrop of a pending Episcopal Forum of South Carolina request for an investigation into the diocesan leadership's activities. The group sent a letter Sept. 22 to Executive Council and the House of Bishops listing "recent actions and inactions on the part of the diocesan leadership and leaders in parishes and missions within the diocese."
Reacting to the request and refuting the EFSC's charges, Lawrence compared his dispute with the Episcopal Church to a military battle and said the diocese was "engaged in a worldwide struggle for the soul of Anglicanism in the 21st century."
The resolutions are the latest in a series of moves the diocese has taken to distance itself from the Episcopal Church, ultimately stemming from disagreements over human sexuality issues and theological interpretation.
The Oct. 15 meeting came nearly a year after the diocese authorized Lawrence and the Standing Committee to begin withdrawing from churchwide bodies that assent to "actions deemed contrary to Holy Scripture, the doctrine, discipline and worship of Christ as this church has received them, the resolutions of the Lambeth Conference which have expressed the mind of the communion, the Book of Common Prayer and our Constitution and Canons, until such bodies show a willingness to repent of such actions."
The six resolutions came in response to General Convention's 2009 passage of revised Title IV canons on clergy discipline, according to an explanation posted on the diocese's homepage before the Oct. 15 convention. Supporters of the revised Title IV characterized the altered canons as an effort to move from a court-oriented system toward one based on safety, truth telling, healing and reconciliation.
The Title IV changes are due to go into effect July 1.
The diocese said the revisions to Title IV "contradict the constitution of the Episcopal Church and make unacceptable changes in our polity, elevating the role of bishops, particularly the presiding bishop, and removing the duly elected Standing Committee of a diocese from its current role in most of the disciplinary process." The diocesan leadership believes the revisions remove "much of the due process and legal safeguards for accused clergy" provided under the current version, the statement said.
The diocese's objections are detailed in a paper written by Alan Runyan and Mark McCall and posted on the Anglican Communion Institute's website. Runyan is a South Carolina trial attorney who is referred to on both sites as the diocese's legal counsel.
The sometimes multi-faceted resolutions appear to make four types of changes. One group consists of amendments to the diocesan constitution removing the "unqualified accession" to the Episcopal Church's Constitution and Canons to which Episcopal dioceses are required to agree (Article V, Section 1).
Resolution R-6 removes language acceding to the church's Constitution and Canons and adds language saying that the diocese will accede to the church's constitution, only if it is not "inconsistent with or contradictory to" the diocesan constitution and canons. It also changes the requirements for new missions and parishes, requiring them to accede only to the Episcopal Church's constitution and not its canons. And it amends an article of the constitution that would result in a rejection of the revised Title IV.
Under the diocesan constitution, such changes require approval by two successive meetings of the convention; the next meeting is scheduled for February 2011.
Resolution R-7 proposes for the future to strike the words referring to an annual convention from the portion of the diocesan constitution outlining the process for amending the constitution.
Resolution R-11 removes the accession language from the purpose statement of the diocese's corporate charter.
Resolution R-9 similarly amends the canon outlining the process for amending the diocese's canons by removing the reference to an "annual" convention.
Another group of canonical changes rejects all the Title IV changes adopted by the General Convention in 2009. A third group of changes specifies that all diocesan canonical references to the Episcopal Church's canons refer only to the 2006 version. Those proposals appear in more than one resolution.
Finally, Resolution R-10 deletes the diocesan canon stating that all property is held in trust for the diocese and the Episcopal Church. The resolution's explanation bases the proposal on a September 2009 South Carolina Supreme Court ruling that allowed the majority of the members of All Saints Church, Pawley's Island, who left the Episcopal Church and the diocese in 2003, to retain the parish property. The court said that the "Dennis Canon," passed by General Convention in 1979 to state that a parish holds its property in trust for the diocese and the Episcopal Church, had no "legal effect" on the title to All Saints' property.
The legality of the Oct. 15 convention was called into question by a group called South Carolina Episcopalians who wrote to Lawrence on Oct. 8 noting that "there is no provision in the governing instruments of the diocese that allow a convention to recess for more than a day, and then reconstitute itself with authority."
The Oct. 15 convention had been called for by Lawrence and the Standing Committee as a re-convening of the March 2010 annual diocesan convention.
"The call of the Standing Committee to re-gather delegates to the 2010 Convention is also invalid in that several of its incumbent members have been serving and voting illegally since January. For that reason, the six resolutions the Standing Committee has proposed cannot be considered, even if the re-convention is legal," wrote Steve Skardon, on behalf of the South Carolina Episcopalians.
Wendt told ENS that his parish of Grace Church is one of the largest in the diocese. "We have a broad range of theological beliefs but the general consensus is that this is not worth fighting over, we can tolerate diversity," he said. "There are several other smaller parishes that have a general consensus along the same lines."