San Joaquin bishop responds to warning from Presiding Bishop
Episcopal News Service. December 5, 2007 [120507-02]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
Responding to a letter from Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, Bishop John-David Schofield of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin said the House of Bishops has "ignored my views for nearly twenty years" and blamed the wider Episcopal Church for any decision by the diocese to sever its ties and attempt affiliation with another province of the Anglican Communion.
"The decision to be made by our Annual Convention [December 8] is the culmination of The Episcopal Church's failure to heed the repeated calls for repentance issued by the Primates of the Anglican Communion and for the cessation of false teaching and sacramental actions explicitly contrary to Scripture," Schofield wrote in a December 5 letter responding to a letter Jefferts Schori sent him earlier in the week.
In her December 3 letter, the Presiding Bishop urged Schofield to "reconsider and draw back from this trajectory."
Jefferts Schori wrote that if San Joaquin's diocesan convention gives its second approval to four proposed constitutional changes, it "would implicitly reject the Church's property and other canons." She also noted Schofield's support for a transfer of the diocese to the Province of the Southern Cone.
"If you continue along this path, I believe it will be necessary to ascertain whether you have in fact abandoned the communion of this Church, and violated your vows to uphold the doctrine, discipline, and worship of this Church," she wrote.
In his reply Schofield called the Episcopal Church "an apostate institution that has minted a new religion" and criticized Jefferts Schori for not supporting the pastoral scheme called for in the communiqué issued at the end of the Primates' Meeting in Dar es Salaam. He wrote that the offer from the Southern Cone "embodies the solution agreed upon by you and the rest of the Anglican leaders at Dar es Salaam to provide adequate, acceptable Alternative Primatial Oversight."
The Diocese of San Joaquin announced November 16 that the Province of the Southern Cone had "extended an invitation to offer the diocese membership on an emergency and pastoral basis" until the Episcopal Church "repents and adheres to the theological, moral and pastoral norms of the Anglican Communion, and when effective and acceptable alternative primatial oversight becomes available."
Schofield stated that if the convention accepts the Southern Cone offer, he would "welcome the opportunity implied in your letter to discuss how it impacts our relationship." If the delegates reject it, he said, he would follow Jefferts Schori's "recommendation to participate as a dissenter of the present unbiblical course of action being pursued by the House of Bishops."
Schofield told the Presiding Bishop that "there is a pastoral tone to this letter which is much appreciated."
Jefferts Schori had reminded Schofield in her letter that he had ceased to participate in House of Bishops meetings. "While there are a number who disagree with you, I believe many more would welcome your participation, particularly as a sign of your faithfulness to your vow to share in the councils of the Church," she wrote.
Jefferts Schori previously wrote to two other disaffected bishops on the eve of their diocesan conventions. The first was sent to Bishop Robert Duncan of the Diocese of Pittsburgh on October 31. A second letter was sent to Bishop Jack Leo Iker of Fort Worth on November 8.
When the Diocese of San Joaquin's convention was poised to approved the constitutional changes on their first reading in early December 2006, Jefferts Schori wrote to Schofield reminding him of his ordination vows, asking him to move cautiously and to consider "with the utmost gravity" the way his actions put "many, many people at hazard of profound spiritual violence."
When the diocese gave the changes the first of two required approvals, the Presiding Bishop said that she "deeply lament[ed] the pain, confusion, and suffering visited on loyal members of the Episcopal Church within the Diocese of San Joaquin, and want them to know of my prayers and the prayers of many, many others."