Executive Council committee chairs respond to retired bishops' open letters
Episcopal News Service. November 29, 2007 [112907-02]
Jan Nunley
The chairs of two Executive Council standing committees have responded to a pair of open letters written last summer by a group of retired bishops, demanding a "public report" of the cost of litigation over breakaway groups attempting to take the Episcopal Church's property.
Josephine Hicks, chair of Administration and Finance, and John Vanderstar, chair of National Concerns, released their reply to the letters November 29. A pdf of the letter is available here.
The retired bishops who signed the July 14 letter are C. Fitzsimons Allison (South Carolina), Maurice M. Benitez (Texas), Alex D. Dickson (West Tennessee) and William C. Wantland (Eau Claire). Milton L. Wood, suffragan of Atlanta, added his name to the second letter, released August 27.
Except for Wood, who served as Executive for Administration at the Episcopal Church Center from 1974-1984, all have been involved in controversial protests against what they consider unacceptable trends in the church, such as the ordination of women and inclusion of lesbians and gay men.
Allison and Dickson participated in the 2001 consecration of four American priests as "missionary bishops" to the U.S. for the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA) under the auspices of the provinces of Rwanda and South East Asia. In 2004, Benitez joined Allison, Dickson and other bishops in confirming 110 people in the Diocese of Ohio without the permission of the diocesan bishop.
In 1996, Wantland and others chartered "PECUSA, Inc.," an organization they intended to replace the existing constitutional structures of the Episcopal Church within the Anglican Communion. Wantland was forced to change the name by court order in 1998.
The letters protested what the group called "charges and threats of litigation" by Executive Council against the four dioceses whose leadership endorsed resolutions qualifying accession to the Episcopal Church's Constitution and Canons. The dioceses are Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, Quincy, and San Joaquin.
Resolution NAC 023 (Accession of Dioceses to the Constitution of The Episcopal Church), adopted in June, "does not 'level charges' or 'threaten litigation'," stated Hicks and Vanderstar. "Council was motivated by the actions of several Diocesan Conventions that purported to qualify their previously stated accessions to the Constitution and Canons of this Church. These are alarming actions."
The open letters also express "deep unhappiness" with litigation between Episcopal dioceses and breakaway groups.
"Please be assured that Executive Council shares your unhappiness," Hicks and Vanderstar responded. "We are quite frankly stunned to learn of the actions of priests and lay leaders who undertake to leave The Episcopal Church and yet to maintain control and ownership of church buildings and other assets that belong to the Church and have been held by them only in trust...If these persons would acknowledge the undisputed provisions of the Canons, and the court cases enforcing them, there would be no need for litigation, and there would be no need for The Episcopal Church or its Dioceses or its Parishes to expend on litigation funds that should be devoted to the mission of the Church."
"We would like to know, where the money is coming from in order to conduct this litigation, especially in view of the fact that the program budget is being reduced because insufficient funds are being received from dioceses," the retired bishops asked.
Hicks and Vanderstar replied that they "have no knowledge" of the amounts spent on litigation by dioceses and parishes. At the national level, they said, "we know the amounts expended (none from the Church Pension Fund), and we also know of the many hours of lawyer time that have been donated at no charge to the Church…[T]he Church is receiving extraordinary value for the funds it does expend."
"Unilateral actions by Diocesan leadership that are contrary to the Constitution and Canons should not be tolerated by any active or retired Bishop," the letter concluded. "We hope and pray that such unilateral actions, and the litigation that these actions trigger, can come to a peaceful end."