What would Bishop RIdley say? Bishop Schofield confirms: Four liberal California bishops charge him with "abandoning the Communion"

Episcopal bishop confirms he is under investigation

By Frank Lockwood

The Bishop of San Joaquin, the Rt. Rev. John-David Schofield, confirmed Friday evening that he is under investigation for allegedly "abandoning the Communion" of the Church.

In an interview with Bible Belt Blogger, the central California bishop said the allegations are "absolutely" false. "We're not leaving the communion," Schofield said, adding that he remains a committed Anglican. He vowed to fight the charges, which have been brought by four other California bishops.

Speaking by phone from Fresno, Schofield said his critics are using an unusual strategy to remove him. Instead of bringing a standard ecclesiastical indictment (called a presentment), they are using Title IV, Canon 9 of Episcopal Church law. "If it were a presentment, there would be a trial and I could defend myself," he said. Instead, his fate may be decided in the House of Bishops. If a majority of the bishops decide he has abandoned "the communion of this Church", then he would be removed as a successor to the apostles.

Typically, Title IV, Canon 9 is used to remove someone who has openly renounced "the Doctrine, Discipline or Worship" of the church or who has joined another religious body.

Schofield, a bishop since 1988, leads one of the most conservative diocese in the nation. Since the 2003 ordination of openly-gay bishop Gene Robinson, Schofield has taken steps to distance his diocese from the national Episcopal Church. According to a Fresno-based group named Remain Episcopal, the San Joaquin diocese eliminated all funding for the national church beginning in 2004. Remain Episcopal says the diocesan convention has also amended its constitution to eliminate "unqualified accession to the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church and the authority of the General Convention." Translation -- if the governing documents of the national church and the San Joaquin diocese conflict, San Joaquin's rules would trump.

In a June 22 letter obtained by Bible Belt Blogger, then-Bishop of California William E. Swing said that the changes in the San Joaquin diocese's constitution could make it harder for dioceses to win lawsuits against renegade parishes in the future. Such litigation is already taking place in California and elsewhere.

The constitutional amendments, Swing warned, "will create chaos for all of us for all time."

Schofield told Bible Belt Blogger that he isn't trying to cause legal difficulties for neighboring California dioceses. "I can simply say that the actions taken by our diocesan convention over the last two years were done with an eye toward protecting the people of San Joaquin, without a single thought of any consequences beyond the diocese."

San Joaquin was one of seven dioceses who appealed to the Archbishop of Canterbury earlier this summer for alternative oversight, rejecting the leadership of Presiding Bishop-elect Katharine Jefferts Schori. With the Episcopal Church facing possible ouster from the worldwide 77-million-member Anglican communion, the San Joaquin diocese has also asked the Archbishop to recognize it as legitimately Anglican -- no matter what happens to the Episcopal Church as a whole.

The Anglican communion is made up of 38 churches who trace their roots to the Church of England. Of those, 22 have restricted or completely severed ties to the Episcopal Church since Robinson's ordination. Critics warn that the Episcopal Church's actions may cause lasting damage to the international body.

Few bishops have been more critical of the church's national leadership. In a pastoral letter earlier this month, Schofield criticized what he called "the arrogance and rebellious spirit manifested by the Episcopal Church" and warned that "chaos and turmoil have overtaken" the 2.2 million-member denomination. Theological liberals, Schofield suggested, "have chosen not only to walk apart from Anglicanism and, perhaps, Christianity itself."

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Frank Lockwood, 39, is the Herald-Leader’s faith and values reporter. He has been the paper’s Washington DC correspondent and was its Northeastern Kentucky bureau reporter. Frank is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Idaho College of Law. In 2004, he received a Knight Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan.