Monday, March 31, 2008

TEC Presiding Bishop severs Bishop Duncan and Bishop Scriven from the official communication list of the House of Bishops

ANOTHER UPDATE: We have gotten out the Ogden's Old Firewhiskey and are toasting GoDaddy.com. Salute to the Diocese of Pittsburgh and it's ability to run the ball down the field for a touchdown. In the meantime, here are the new links for the Diocese of Pittsburgh. To read the original post go here. To read the letter to David Booth Beers, go here. To find out what Ogden's Old Firewhiskey is, go here. In the meantime, the Firewhiskey is on the House. Hail the City of the Steelers.

UPDATE: At about 1:00 p.m. today Bishop Duncan was restored to the official communications list of the House of Bishops. From Bishop Duncan's office:

Update: Bishop Robert Duncan, Bishop Henry Scriven and Melanie Contz began again receiving emails from the House of Bishops at approximately 1 pm on Monday, March 31. Bishop Duncan's March 14 response to the Presiding Bishop has also been added to the College for Bishops website.

Today the Bishop of Pittsburgh's counsel charged that Bishop Duncan has been whacked off the official e-mail list of the House of Bishops by the Presiding Bishop. She's been sending out materials about him to all the House of Bishops, but not to him.

Not only that, but she's deleted Bishop Scriven from the communications list as well. What in the world is going on? It appears she does not have the authority to remove bishops who are members of the House from the official communication list. What is wrong here?

There's also been no response from the Presiding Bishop or her lawyer to Bishop Duncan's March 14th statement.

A protest is also lodged that the canons of the Episcopal Church were not followed in the deposition of the Bishop of San Joaquin and Bishop Cox. So now we have South Carolina, Central Florida, and Pittsburgh charging that the canons of the Episcopal Church were not followed by the Presiding Bishop and her lawyer, David Booth Beers, when they attempted to remove both men from ministry just before Easter.

From here:

In a letter sent March 28, John H. Lewis, Jr., attorney for Bishop Robert Duncan, protests the behavior of The Episcopal Church’s national office. He notes that not only has there been no response to Bishop Duncan’s March 14 statement that he considers himself “fully subject to the doctrine, discipline and worship of this church,” but that The Episcopal Church’s national office has neglected to distribute Bishop Duncan’s letter and other information to House of Bishops. Lewis goes on to note what appears to be “the deliberate failure of The Presiding Bishop to follow the Canons” in the purported depositions of Bishops William J. Cox and John-David Schofield.

Read the entire letter (and attachments) here.

6 comments:

Kevin said...

Oh, very nice. Petty moves are called out as well as calling out the mishandling of the +Cox situation.

Beers, Esq. is in a interesting spot. Because all the situations are different, as he moves to be in the best situation for one, he might just open a 'checkmate' move on him for another. That's a problem with the sue everyone model.

Mark Harris said...

for some reason the link to the Lawyer's letter and attachments doesn't seem to work. What I get from the site is

http://www.pghanglican.org/news/local/filesforposting/3.28.08%20Lewis%20Letter.PDF

Don't know what the problem is.

Kevin said...

Mark, this is the top story on BB, SF & T19, with all those hits, the serves may overloaded and crashed.

Rolin said...

It would be expected for +John David Schofield to be removed from the HOB email lists; this would be in line with the view of +JDS, who sent a letter of resignation from the HOB; and with +KJS, who with the majority of a quorum purportedly deposed +JDS; but not, however, in line with certain DioSJ standing committee members who consider that they are a) still in TEC and b) still have +JDS as their un-deposed bishop.

The omission of a non-deposed member of the HOB from normal HOB business is, of course, a travesty. However, this is a valuable signal of KJS' future strategy. Even though his name may be restored on the list (for now), you can count on her to omit his name when critical and crucial information needs to be quickly disseminated. She'll find a way.

You can also be sure that +Duncan's office will be using other means to keep up with the shenanigans of +KJS/Beers.

Br_er Rabbit

Anonymous said...

TO Mark Harris
go here
http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/11381/
and then click on the link to get to the letters.

Don't know why BB's link does not work and this one does ...

Marie at Rez

Anonymous said...

BabyBlue:

Seriously, it could be a major blessing in disguise - a severe mercy... read her Easter and Congress letters lately?????

I think the bishops should throw a party.

Eclipse