So at what point does the national church actually step in and start taking disciplinary action against bishops — and priests — who decide that they are pulling up stakes and leaving the Episcopal Church. Especially when they are doing so in a pre-announced and deliberate fashion? Via Ginny, we have:
The Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth announced October 1 that it will ask its upcoming diocesan convention to “take the first step needed to dissociate itself from the General Convention of The Episcopal Church and to begin the process of affiliating with another Province of the worldwide Anglican Communion.”
According to a statement posted on the diocese’s website, the Standing Committee will propose five diocesan constitutional amendments, which must be approved by two successive meetings of the convention.
The convention meets November 16 and 17 at All Saints’ Episcopal School, Fort Worth.
“We believe it is time to separate our diocese from General Convention religion and to join an orthodox Province of the Anglican Communion,” the Very Rev. Ryan S. Reed, president of the Standing Committee, said in the statement.
I mean, it’s one thing for Rev. Joe-Bob Smith to decide he’s going to leave TEC and join some other organization today. To announce a plan over the next couple of years to do so … seems … sort of like mentioning to your boss that you’re looking for another job, as soon as you have your resume put together and you’ve earned your stock options at the end of the year. It’s tacky at best, and rude at least.
The other resolutions would remove from the diocesan constitution’s preamble any mention of the Episcopal Church, change the constitution’s first article from one acceding to the authority of General Convention to one titled “Anglican Identity”; give the diocesan convention authority to elect deputies to “extra-diocesan conventions or synods” with all mention of General Convention deputies deleted; remove the required agreement of the diocese to enact canons which are consistent with those of the Episcopal Church; and allow the diocese to move its cathedral to a parish other than one in Fort Worth.
Interestingly enough, the proposals would allow dissenting (from the dissenters, i.e., loyal to TEC) parishes in the diocese to leave (or get booted out). Which, of course, is bass-ackward.
Bottom line, if the conservatives want to leave, the door is right over there. If they want to check into a building across the street and call themselves “The Free and Non-Gay-Loving Nor Woman-Ordaining Real True Anglicans of Fort Worth,” they can do that today. Acting to depart as a diocese is kind of like (to extend the metaphor) planning on how to leave your job but keep office and parking space. Or, ecclesiastically, like a group of us parishioners back in pews 5-7 Left deciding we’re going to hold our own church services on Sunday, right in that spot, with our own choir and preacher.
The diocese does not have an ecclesiastical existence outside of the national church that created it. The individuals certainly do — and are free to (dis)associate as they will. But they are not then the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, and pretending they are is like a sad ghost story. It’s tacky, rude, and wrong.
And on that note, closer to home, Rev. Don Armstrong may not have that title before his name for long — at least not as an Episcopal priest. The Standing Committee for the Diocese has passed its final judgment on Armstrong regarding his financial shenanigans,
The five member panel – made up of clergy and lay people elected at Diocesan Convention – also sentenced Armstrong with deposition from his ministry as an Episcopal priest.
That’s “defrocked” in lay terms.
Armstrong has two weeks to respond, and in 30 day Bp. Rob O’Neill will pronounced final sentence — which can be less, but not more, than the Standing Committee’s judgment. I have no idea what Bp.Rob will do, but I am sure to a moral certainty that Rev. Armstrong will bluster, or guffaw, depending on what audience he’s addressing at the time.