Traditionalists Raise the Stakes by Challenging Authority of Diocesan Bishops
Episcopal News Service. May 26, 1999 [99-076]
(ENS) Attempts by parishes in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania to leave the Episcopal Church -- and an invitation by a bishop in Bethlehem for traditionalists in a neighboring diocese to cross diocesan boundaries for confirmation rites -- have sharpened the debate over the role of traditionalists in the life of the church in a post-Lambeth Conference climate.
A long-standing dispute at St. Paul's Parish in Brockton was resolved by the courts in favor of the Diocese of Massachusetts in March and Bishop M. Thomas Shaw assumed direct responsibility for the parish. The congregation voted to withdraw from the church in 1996 and its rector was later defrocked for sexual misconduct.
Dissident members of the parish have been holding services on the sidewalk in front of the church, before moving to a nearby auditorium. Bishop FitzSimons Allison, the retired bishop of South Carolina, risked disciplinary action by entering the diocese, without Shaw's permission, to preside at a Eucharist on May 16. "I definitely broke canon laws," the bishop admitted. "Right now, I think it would be a badge of honor to be censured by the House of Bishops."
Allison said in a newspaper interview that he was not worried about punishment. "The congregation is in accord with the teachings of the Anglican community. The diocese is not. What happens here will set a precedent," he said.
Allison and other conservatives are part of a move to force the Episcopal Church to comply with resolutions from last summer's Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops, especially those condemning homosexual activity as "contrary to Scripture," and advising against ordinations or the blessing same-sex unions. They also cite a resolution advising against attempts to force bishops to accept the ordination of women.
In the Diocese of Pennsylvania, a prominent parish affiliated with the Episcopal Synod of America (ESA), an umbrella organization of those opposed to women in the priesthood and the ordination of homosexuals, voted in April to leave the Episcopal Church.
Bishop Charles Bennison called the action by St. James the Less "a very grievous thing and a very serious thing," expressing his hope that a meeting with the parish could establish a reconciliation. It is one of several ESA parishes in the diocese that have not paid their diocesan assessments and have refused to allow visitations by Bennison or the suffragan, Bishop Frank Turner, raising canonical issues. The church's canon law requires bishops to "visit the congregations within the diocese at least once in three years" and, during the visitation, to "preside at the Holy Eucharist and at the initiatory rites, as required, preach the word, examine the records of the congregation... and examine the life and ministry of the clergy and congregation."
The General Convention's decision to enforce the canon on women in the priesthood, making it mandatory in all dioceses, was cited by one vestry member, Becky Wilhoite, as a signal that "led us to believe that there really is no longer a place for us in the Episcopal Church." She said that the parish is "not leaving the diocese or leaving ECUSA to go somewhere else. We want to remain part of the Anglican Communion. We don't yet know exactly how that will occur" but she did hold out the possibility of oversight by an African bishop.
The rector, David Ousley, also said that Bennison's decision not to renew the license of an assistant at the parish "obviously put a crimp in the ministry." Bennison said that he would renew the licenses of priests in parishes committed to leaving the Episcopal Church only if they moved to other parishes. And he said that his goal was "to hold onto the property," arguing that "we have a responsibility to the past -- all those people who, since its beginning in 1846, gave of their lives and labors to build up the congregation." Three bishops are buried in the graveyard at St. James.
Bishop Paul Marshall of the neighboring Diocese of Bethlehem, distressed by what he called "increasing polarization," stepped into the controversy when he invited an ESA bishop to preside at a confirmation service for traditionalist parishes in the Diocese of Pennsylvania in his own diocese.
Explaining his actions in a letter to the diocesan clergy, Marshall said, "I understand myself to be creating something like 'a city of refuge' for those who, for whatever reason, find it desirable to worship with like-minded bishops -- just as Bethlehem is already a safe place for people with other points of view." He granted blanket permission to Bishop Donald Parsons, retired bishop of Quincy (Illinois) and Bishop Keith Ackerman, current bishop of Quincy, to preach and celebrate in the diocese.
Marshall also said that he would seek support for a resolution at next summer's General Convention apologizing to those "who have been alienated or whose faith has been injured by any insensitivity in imposing the prayer book of 1979."
Parsons visited Bethlehem's only ESA parish, St. Stephen's in Whitehall, on May 18 and confirmed an estimated 40, the majority of them from the Diocese of Pennsylvania. After a meeting in New York with Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold, Marshall did not participate but was in the congregation.
Marshall reported on the service in a message to the diocese on its Web site. "The mood of the group was not defiant or victim-like but eucharistic," he wrote. "Reactions from the crowd after the service were generally quite grateful," although he reported one woman accosted him charging that he "chose to be a politician instead of a shepherd tonight." Another said that Marshall's action might have kept four churches from leaving the denomination.
In an interview with the Pennsylvania Episcopalian, Marshall said that his chief concern was for the youth who would not understand why they couldn't be confirmed. "So I do not understand this as a political act, I understand this as a pastoral one."
He said that his hand had been forced when a reporter "somehow got wind of this and made it a news story... I had never meant for this to be this public an issue -- and I certainly don't mean it to be an embarrassment to Bishop Bennison. But on the other hand, I believe in what I am doing. I make no apology."
Marshall said that "you could argue that what I'm doing takes some of the pressure off because there aren't any hostages." And he is convinced that "how one treats minorities is an important issue for me, whether they happen to be conservative minorities or liberal minorities."
As he said in his letter to the clergy, he was motivated "to share the hospitality and openness that we enjoy with those who consider themselves marginalized by changes that have taken place in the church."
Marshall's actions are also raising canonical issues since he is, in effect, allowing ESA clergy in the Diocese of Pennsylvania to circumvent the authority of their own bishops by seeking confirmation in an adjoining diocese.