FORT WORTH: Presiding Bishop will convene special diocesan convention
Episcopal News Service. January 8, 2009 [010809-03]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said January 7 that she will convene a special meeting of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth convention on February 7.
Jefferts Schori will ask the convention to elect a provisional bishop for the diocese. The agenda will include the election of lay and clergy representatives for various diocesan leadership positions and adoption of a budget. It will also include approval of governance and organizational resolutions, including ones that would declare null and void certain amendments to the diocesan constitution and canons that were advocated by former diocesan leadership as a means to take the diocese out of the Episcopal Church.
Jefferts Schori said that she would call the meeting because there is "no bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, or any qualified members of the Standing Committee." She said in the announcement that she had consulted with "faithful Episcopalians" who form the Steering Committee of North Texas Episcopalians, the group that has led the effort to keep the diocese aligned with the Episcopal Church.
At the November 15 meeting of the Fort Worth convention, delegates voted to leave the Episcopal Church and to align with the Argentina-based Anglican Province of the Southern Cone by way of four constitutional amendments that rescinded accession to the Constitution and Canons of General Convention. Fifteen canonical changes were also approved by a voice vote.
Following those actions, Jefferts Schori inhibited then-Fort Worth Bishop Jack Iker and later declared that he had renounced his orders in the Episcopal Church. Iker objected to both the inhibition and the Presiding Bishop's declaration, claiming in the case of the inhibition that Jefferts Schori no longer had authority over him and calling the renunciation declaration an "abuse of the canons."
More information about the February 7 meeting of the convention and the business it will conduct is due to be posted to the diocesan website by January 18. Jefferts Schori's announcement said that "all qualified clerical and lay delegates to the convention are urged to attend," adding that criteria for qualification would be announced soon. The Steering Committee's diocesan website lists 13 congregations as remaining members of the diocese.
The Presiding Bishop convened a similar meeting in the Diocese of San Joaquin in March 2008 after the former leadership of that diocese left the Episcopal Church to align with the Southern Cone province. Prior to the beginning of that meeting, Jefferts Schori recommended retired Diocese of Northern California Bishop Jerry Lamb to become provisional bishop for the diocese. She recommended him in accordance with Canon III.13.1. That canon states in part that "a diocese without a bishop may, by an act of its convention, and in consultation with the Presiding Bishop, be placed under the provisional charge and authority of a bishop of another diocese or of a resigned bishop."
An announcement on the continuing Fort Worth diocese's website said that Jefferts Schori will preach and preside at Holy Eucharist on February 7 at All Saints' Episcopal Church in Fort Worth. The service is currently scheduled for 10 a.m. The convention, which will be held at Trinity Episcopal Church in Fort Worth, will begin at 1:30 p.m. Jefferts Schori will officiate a 5 p.m. Evensong service at Trinity.