Bishop Doss of New Jersey Deflects Calls for His Resignation
Episcopal News Service. November 13, 1997 [97-1997]
(ENS) Bishop Joe Morris Doss of New Jersey said in an October 31 pastoral letter to his diocese that, despite calls for his resignation from the Standing Committee and the Diocesan Council, he was "renewing my commitment to serve as your bishop."
The action comes in the wake of a wellness report, released October 6, outlining a plan of action for healing and reconciliation. In a letter to the diocese, Doss said that he was "personally committed to implementing the proposals for healing contained in the wellness report, especially addressing and remedying those criticisms of my own behavior." The letter did not stem the tide of criticism, leading to the action by the council and standing committee.
Pointing out that "the episcopacy is a very special office" and that the church "has no dissolution canon for bishops," Doss said the first step in building "a united and strong missionary diocese" is a determination "to continue the process of healing and reconciliation and bring it to fruition."
"I know many of you fear that a cloud has been created over my episcopacy which may make it impossible to go forward," Doss wrote, but "I believe God will use this crisis to bring us forward in ways we could not have imagined, that God in Christ will surprise us and bring new life where now we see nothing but chaos and pain."
"The actions of the Standing Committee and Diocesan Council do not represent the views of all people of the diocese," said the Rev. Juan Oliver in a press statement released October 31. He pointed out that "their prescribed role is to advise the bishop, and their actions can only be taken as advisory." He pointed to the exclusion of Bishop George Hunt from the Diocesan Council meeting, "thus directly blocking him from the work on reconciliation and healing that he was sent by the presiding bishop to do," as further evidence of a strategy "by a well-organized few." Their purpose, Oliver said, is "to make it impossible for the bishop to conduct his ministry of reconciliation and healing."
Those in the diocese "who form the base of support for Bishop Doss must now find ways to voice their support and oppose those who have organized to seek his resignation," Oliver concluded. Doss has called a meeting at Trinity Cathedral in Trenton on Saturday, November 15, "so that together we may move beyond accusation through the light of truth into the glorious ministry of reconciliation."
The Standing Committee and Diocesan Council "are the elected are the elected leadership of the diocese and have an obligation to speak up when problems are present in the diocese," said the Rev. Roger Hamilton, chair of the Standing Committee, in explaining the resolution the committee passed October 22. In an open letter to the diocese, the committee said that it reached the conclusion "that it is impossible to solve these issues" while Doss continued as bishop.
"It is difficult to unseat a bishop because the church, by its very nature, expects a bishop to be prophetic," Hamilton said in an interview. "But our request for the bishop's resignation is based upon character issues and a deep lack of trust in his ability to remain our bishop." He said that the committee reluctantly concluded that the healing process outlined in a recent report by a diocesan wellness committee (see ENS story #97-1975) could not work because "that healing must be based on trust and we believe that bedrock of any relationship does not exist with Doss."
Hamilton pointed to the resignation of the diocesan treasurer, Richard Ellwood, and the interim chief financial officer, Robert Garrett III, as further evidence of the growing polarization. In calling for the resignation of Doss, the two said that remaining in office would put them in "an enabling situation which abets Joe's remaining as our bishop."
Many of the problems the diocese is facing, Hamilton added, were present before the election of Doss in 1994, "I know of no preexisting problem that has not been exacerbated by his presence. And what is more, a host of new problems have been introduced by him. I am certain that Doss's presence among us will not facilitate healing but will, in fact, deepen and prolong the issues which we must face." Hamilton concluded, "The bishop has become a symbol of disunity rather than the unity the episcopacy is supposed to bring."
An open letter is circulating in the diocese in which supporters of Doss are protesting what they call an "organized effort" to force the bishop's resignation. "To think that everything will be fine if we get rid of the bishop is a ruinous assumption," the Rev. Christopher Sherrill of Trinity Church in Princeton told the Trenton Times. The letter, dated before the Standing Committee took action, contended that the conspiracy to force Doss from office intended to make the bishop's ministry "impossible."
Signers of the letter of support argued that the Standing Committee could not speak for the diocese, that it does not reflect the broad base of support. "I don't think what the committee did was in the spirit of reconciliation and healing -- and I'm baffled as to why they did it," said Haskell Rhett, a member of Trinity Church who served a term on the Standing Committee. He was part of a delegation that met recently with Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning in New York to express their support for Doss.
"We feel deeply that we, the people of the diocese, are perilously close to being broken and scattered," the letter said in calling the diocesan clergy to avoid political infighting. "We can only be recollected and made one in Christ, not by scapegoating others."
"No human being should be submitted to this sustained, ruthless opposition that he has faced almost from the first day of his tenure," said the Rev. Walt Zelley Jr. of Metuchen, senior warden of the Diocesan Council. "The last thing I want to see is a bishop removed," he said in an earlier interview. If the critics succeed, "the diocese would be in the hands of some pretty sick, malicious people. And the psychic wounds would be terrible."
Zelley and others point to hopeful signs that the diocese is ready to get on with its ministry. "Given a chance we could do wonderful things for the kingdom of God. Why don't people just forgive Doss so we can get going with our real tasks?"