Pittsburgh Votes to Withdraw from Province III

[angli_fan]

[from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazzette]
by Steve Levin

The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh voted yesterday at its annual diocesan convention to withdraw from a national church province and seek alternative oversight.

The clergy voted 97 to 14 in favor, with three abstentions, while the lay vote was 117 to 40, with 17 abstentions.

...The resolution underscores the Pittsburgh diocese's distancing from the national church's new presiding bishop, the Right Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori.

Pittsburgh Bishop Robert W. Duncan Jr. stressed yesterday that the resolution's passage cements the diocese's commitment to being part of the Episcopal Church and a constituent member within the 70-million-member worldwide Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church, with 2.3 million members, is the American arm of the communion.

The resolution, he said, marks the diocese's "continuing commitment to function under the constitution of the Episcopal Church ..."

He said he would work with Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori "to come to some mediated disengagement that will allow all of us to get on with the mission [of the church] as we understand it."

The diocese hopes to pull out of Province III, one of nine geographical groupings that serve little theological function. Bishop Duncan has said he hopes to create a 10th province filled with theologically conservative dioceses.

Any new province must be approved at the church's 2009 General Convention.

www.post-gazette.com/pg/06308/735660-85.stm

[Sojourner]

I think the idea of a 10th province makes a lot of sense. Provinces are not scripturally defined. But they do have dividing lines. Those lines, historically, have been determined by geography. I see no difference between drawing lines around a geography than from drawing lines around theology.

Relating the metaphor of family to the Church, there are some familyies that are so dysfunctional that they only get together for Thanksgiving. That's probably better than not getting together at all.

[angli_fan]

[from In A Godward Direction]

The Diocese of Pittsburgh has, by a recent action of its Diocesan Convention, withdrawn its consent to being part of Province III of the Episcopal Church. Citing Article VII of the Constitution, which states that no Diocese shall be included in a Province without its consent, it would seem the case is clear, and that Canon I.9.1 assigning Pittsburgh its provincial status is nullified.

I believe this view rests on faulty reasoning. The Chancellor of Pittsburgh raises the issue of the Constitution’s ambiguity, but I believe in doing so he defeats his own claims. For Article VII is only ambiguous to the extent it is capable of being misunderstood, by removing it from its legal and historical context, as has the Chancellor. He claims that the consent of the Diocese to inclusion in a Province is not simply an initial consent at the time of inclusion, but a continued consent for as long as inclusion continues. Had the Constitution been intended to refer only to the initial consent given at the creation of the Provinces, or the initial inclusion of Dioceses within them, he claims that the framers could have stipulated consent “at the time of admission” as part of the Article.

However, what the Chancellor ignores is that such clarifying language was not necessary to convey such a meaning, since at the time of the adoption of Article VII in 1901 initial inclusion was the only meaning possible, since the Provinces did not yet exist.

jintoku.blogspot.com/2006/11/diocesan-divorce-court.html