Episcopalians United Protest Statement by 67 Bishops
Episcopal News Service. July 9, 1976 [76235]
BURBANK, Calif. -- Two officials of Episcopalians United (EU) have called the proposal of 67 bishops of the Episcopal Church to co-sponsor legislation at the September meeting of the General Convention to permit the ordination of women to the priesthood, "unconstitutional" and "a regrettable affront to the entire Anglican Communion."
The Rev. Canon Albert J. duBois, Lexington, Ky., national coordinator of EU, and recently resigned president of the American Church Union, an Anglo-Catholic organization, and the Rev. W.T. St. John Brown, Burbank, Calif., national co-chairman of EU, criticized the plan of the 67 bishops which was announced in June by Bishop John H. Burt of Ohio.
The two EU leaders said that the proposed legislative action would be unconstitutional since it would radically change the Church's ministry.
Canon duBois and Fr. Brown said that the 1968 Lambeth Conference of bishops in the world-wide Anglican Communion, of which the 3 million member U.S. Episcopal Church is a part, had asked for a decade of" study of the theological and scriptural implications of attempting to ordain women to the priesthood."
The statement of the 67 bishops had pointed out that both the House of clerical and lay Deputies and the House of Bishops had to concur in the action to change the canons to permit women in the priesthood and episcopacy. The two EU spokesmen said this "condescending pat on the back to the House of Deputies" was "sheer hypocrisy."
Canon duBois and Fr. Brown, who say their organization has "the pledged support of over 400,000 Episcopalians," said the adoption of the proposed canonical change "would almost certainly result in further serious fragmentation in the Episcopal Church." They said this decline in membership has been "something like one-third" in the past few years, caused by such controversies as "former Presiding Bishop John Hines' mammoth give-away program for activist social programs of questionable value" and the "unconstitutional attempts to discard the church's Book of Common Prayer."
The two priests also voiced the belief that passage of the proposed legislation would be "an outright repudiation of future ecumenical relations with the Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Old Catholic Churches."
Canon duBois and Fr. Brown, referring to the 67 bishops who are co-sponsoring the legislation to change the canons, said that they "may have elected to follow the same course" as other bishops in the past days of the Church who have denied their Lord and sinned against the Holy Ghost.
"If so," they said, "may God have mercy on their souls, for it would seem that by political maneuvers they are moving to destroy the church they vowed to serve. May God strengthen those bishops who are remaining faithful. May God guide the members of the House of Deputies, who, on more than one occasion in the life of the Episcopal Church, have saved the church from the disaster into which some of the bishops would have plunged it."