Many Issues Face Episcopal Convention
Episcopal News Service. August 10, 1976 [76263]
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. -- A resolution calling on the Episcopal Church to forbid ordination to anyone who engages in "fornication, gross indecency, sexual irresponsibility, idolatry, sorcery, feuds, wrangling, jealousy, bad tempers, quarrels, disagreements, factions, envy, drunkenness, orgies or similar things" is one of hundreds that have been filed for the impending General Convention. Few of them are as allencompassing as this, but all reflect the wide range of interests and concerns that the Episcopal Church grapples with.
The largest number of resolutions deal with the issue of the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate, but liturgical revision, clergy pensions, postulancy, canonical change, and General Convention functions also weigh heavily on the bishops and deputies who will attend the 65th General Convention in Minneapolis/St. Paul, September 11-23, and on the dioceses and parishes that will send them.
While much of the convention work must necessarily be taken up with these matters, the issues of ministry and witness still loom largest. In addition to the resolutions that will create and fund programs -- many of which are incorporated in the Executive Council's proposal -- the Convention will also be asked to respond to questions of evangelism, community outreach, hunger, injustice and poverty, world peace, selfdetermination, housing, education, lay ministries, and ecumenism that have been raised around the Church. The work in these areas is continued in the Executive Council program and budget proposals which will be recommended to the Convention. Most of the resolutions that have come in are attempts to readjust funds and priorities in the varied ministries.
The Executive Council's General Church Program proposal to the Convention for for the 1977-79 triennium calls for a budget of $14,030,000 for 1977, which will be a guideline for the following two years.
Memorials and resolutions come to the General Convention from four sources. The first is the "Blue Book" which contains the reports and recommendations of the committees and commissions which work between meetings of the Convention. This volume contains 118 resolutions, with a few supplemental reports due before Convention opens.
Secondly, diocesan conventions and provincial synods forward the memorials and resolutions that reflect their concerns. This second group is the largest, accounting for 185 memorials and resolutions which have been referred to appropriate committees of the two houses.
In the last two categories, individual and groups of bishops and deputies also are permitted to file resolutions to be considered.
A number of the resolutions in the Blue Book are concerned with canonical changes; this concern is found also in 18 of the bills received from the dioceses. Many of these can be considered "housekeeping" bills of the sort that continue and finance existing committees and commissions or attempt to bring the language of various canons into conformity with one another. But a number call for more substantive change.
Among these are calls to permit deacons -- the first of three orders of ordained ministry -- to be elected as deputies to General Convention and to be eligible for seat on standing committees.
Another -- from the Diocese of Minnesota -- calls for a thorough study of the Constitution and Canons to eliminate "outmoded sex bias" in the language used. Among the changes requested here are the substitution of the word "person" for "man" and the elimination of the term "deaconess" throughout.
Several resolutions in this category concern the nomination and election of the Church's Presiding Bishop. The Standing Commission on the Structure of the Church devoted much of its report to this issue and concluded that the Presiding Bishop should be nominated by a joint committee of both bishops and clerical and lay deputies, but that the bishops should continue to elect their own presiding officer with the House of Deputies confirming the election.
At least two resolutions call for the Presiding Bishop to take office within 90 days of the election, eliminating the one-year gap that is now imposed by the Canons.
Other resolutions dealing with the Presiding Bishop attempt to clarify the duties of the office and its relationship to the Executive Council. Over the years, the post has grown from the part-time one of presiding over the meetings of the bishops to that of a full time executive with responsibility for oversight of a number of program areas of the the Church's world work.
Canonical resolutions also take up the term of office of the Executive Council members and the size of the Council, religious communities, pastoral relationships, and clergy in secular work. One resolution -- from a lay deputy from the Diocese of Texas -- calls for updating the volume called Constitution and Canons, Annotated, by White and Dykeman, which, while long considered a definitive work, has not been revised in many years.
The voting procedures of the House of Deputies is the subject of a variety of reforming measures. During the 1973 General Convention, the House created a Committee on Voting Procedures to examine the procedure and make recommendations. Under the Constitution and the House rules, two related issues emerge. Provisions for a vote by orders -- in which the four lay and the four clerical deputies from each of the Church's 114 jurisdictions vote separately -- calls for a concurrent majority of both orders and of the dioceses present and voting for a resolution to be adopted. Under House rules, a divided or tie vote of two to two in either order is counted in the negative. The Procedures Committee asserts that this violates the polity of the Church and it calls for changes by which divided votes will be counted as abstentions. This reflects a procedure that is recognized by most rules of order and the committee has added percentage requirements to their recommendations to insure that -- with the inclusions of abstentions -- a measure is not adopted by a minority.
In the House of Bishops, the question of voting will also be at issue. The Convention's secretary has received resolutions calling for voting rights to be restricted to those bishops who actually have jurisdiction -- that is, diocesan, coadjutor, and suffragan bishops of dioceses and missionary dioceses. The effect of this would be to eliminate from the voting roll most of those bishops who have retired or resigned, a step that the Church of England has already taken.
Reflecting the increasing size of the General Convention -- the House of Deputies now has 912 members -- a few resolutions call for the reduction of delegation sizes in the House of Deputies from four to three members of each order (clerical and lay), while others seek to separate the dioceses of the Ninth Province (Caribbean and Central and South American area) from the Episcopal Church. There is also a call for the conversion of the Convention to a unicameral system and meetings more frequent than once every three years.
The restoration of postulancy is sought in 16 of the 17 memorials filed on that question. The 1973 General Convention eliminated this category which is a preliminary step toward ordination. A person could be accepted as a postulant by a bishop acting alone and was then required to report regularly to the bishop who would exercise -- to widely varying degrees -- some control over the postulant's career in seminary. One resolution opposes the restoration of this step in the national Canons, asserting that the way is open for dioceses to establish this category on their own.
Retirement income for clergy, their families, and professional church workers is a major concern to the people of the Church if the fact that 16 bills deal with this topic means anything. Some call for broadening the income base or increasing the percentages that are considered in determining pension amounts. Others seek increases in benefits to families of deceased clergy or cost-of-living clauses, while still others would bring non-ordained professional church workers under the plan's umbrella.
The Convention will also be asked to create an area mission carved out of three dioceses (Arizona, Rio Grande, and Utah) and representing the Navajo Nation as a separate territorial jurisdiction.