Oh dear ...

BB NOTE: We're working on a Video Podcast of the retreat and while it's downloading to the BabyBlueCafe main website, we decided to venture back out into the world and discovered this new development. Is this the moment when Rod Serling steps out of the shadows?

From The Living Church:

Bishop Howard Rejects Panel of Reference Plan in Florida
3/19/2007

The Rt. Rev. Samuel Johnson Howard, Bishop of Florida, has rejected a “good neighbor” episcopal ministry plan proposed by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Panel of Reference. The report, which required almost two years of “hard and painstaking work,” was in response to an appeal made by the rector and vestry of Church of the Redeemer in Jacksonville.

The report, which was released to the public on March 16, called for Church of the Redeemer to return to the oversight of Bishop Howard and to active participation in the fiscal and corporate life of the diocese. In return, Bishop Howard was asked to lift canonical sanctions against the clergy, end litigation, and permit alternate episcopal oversight for the parish from a neighboring Episcopal bishop acceptable to both the parish and the diocese.

As a sign of good faith in the panel recommendations, a scheduled court appearance before a judge could be cancelled, said the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury. He proposed the idea in a letter to both Bishop Howard and the Rev. Neil Lebhar, rector of Redeemer.

“If, after study of the panel report and after mutual consultation, you made the decision for both of your parties to suspend litigation, then you would bring hope for the future, not only locally, but for the Communion as a whole,” Archbishop Williams stated.

Bishop Howard rejected the panel recommendations and the proposal to cancel the court appearance.

“In order to accept the authority of the diocesan bishop, one must necessarily be in communion with the bishops and the other 30,000 members of the diocese,” Bishop Howard said in a letter to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams March 1. “Until Fr. Lebhar and his parishioners are willing to be in communion with the Diocese of Florida and The Episcopal Church, they remain by their own choice outside the Church and we see no point at this time in discussing further implementation of the panel’s recommendation.”

On Aug. 13, 2005, six Florida congregations -- Redeemer, Jacksonville; Grace Church, Orange Park; Calvary, Jacksonville; All Souls’, Jacksonville; St Luke’s Community of Life, Tallahassee; and St Michael’s, Gainesville -- petitioned Archbishop Williams for relief, saying they were in “serious theological dispute” with Bishop Howard, and found it “impossible in all conscience to accept his direct ministry.”

Grace Church withdrew from The Episcopal Church on Jan. 1, and was received by the Primate of Rwanda, Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini. Bishop Howard responded on Jan. 9 by filing a cross claim with Canterbury, charging Rwanda had violated Florida’s diocesan boundaries.

Bishop Howard subsequently inhibited the clergy from all six congregations for “abandonment of communion” after the six variously affiliated with the churches of Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda. In March 2006, the diocese initiated litigation against Redeemer after it declined to vacate its building.

Ten months after the petition was forwarded to the Archbishop of Canterbury, it was passed to the Panel of Reference for review. However, all but Redeemer had withdrawn their petitions by September 2006 when retired Archbishop Maurice Sinclair of the Southern Cone and attorney Robert Tong of Sydney visited Florida to meet with the two sides.

Archbishop Sinclair and Mr. Tong submitted their report to the panel’s chairman, retired Archbishop Peter Carnley of Australia, by year end, and copies of the final report were given to the diocese and Redeemer on Feb. 28.

The panel stated its goal was to seek a “pastoral accord” between the diocese and congregation without compromising the litigants’ “Christian conscience.”

The panel suggested a “good neighbor Episcopal ministry” program whereby Bishop Howard would delegate his authority to a nearby bishop of The Episcopal Church who was “acceptable to both the diocese and the parish.” This “neighbor” bishop’s oversight would “include effective and necessary sharing of decisions with regard to clergy appointments for the parish and ordination process.”

Licensing of Redeemer’s clergy and the “ordination process” for candidates proposed by Redeemer would “require the signature of the neighbor bishop together with that of the diocesan bishop.”

In return, Redeemer would “unambiguously come under the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Florida” and would commit to “full, generous and sustained support” of its ministries.

In a Feb. 28 e-mail to Chris Smith, the archbishop’s chief of staff, the Rev. Canon Kurt Dunkle, canon to the ordinary for the Diocese of Florida, inquired whether full communion between the bishop and parish was part of the panel recommendations.

“This matter of communion is central to the bishop’s analysis of the panel’s recommendation,” Canon Dunkle said.

“The issue of communion was at the heart of the reason we asked for another bishop in the first place, and is still a major question for the larger Communion,” Fr. Lebhar said in a response to Mr. Smith. Noting that the panel report did not directly address the issue of communion, Fr. Lebhar added, “I assume that its not being addressed meant that it would remain part of a reconciliation process, not a prerequisite for it.”