Saturday, September 20, 2008

Episcopal Church divided over deposing the Bishop of Pittsburgh

UPDATE: Only 56 (out of 112) Diocesan Bishops voted to depose fellow Diocesan Bishop, Bob Duncan. Out of 290 bishops eligible to vote, only 127 even showed up for the House of Bishops meeting last week to consider deposing the Bishop of Pittsburgh. That means half the House of Bishops stayed home. That's far worse than the numbers that boycotted Lambeth. All we can say is no wonder they didn't want the press there. Read it all here.

It appears that the current Presiding Bishop has a problem.

Tip of the Tinfoil to the extraordinary chief elf at
TitusOneNine.

LATER: Of course, the retired bishop of Utah did show up and voted Bishop Duncan out the church.

3 comments:

An Anxious Anglican said...

BB: Any word on whether T19 is correct in its accounting of the Virginia delegation, i.e., 2-1 against? Any thoughts about all that? Thanks for all you do! AAA

Unknown said...

The divided vote amongst the Virginia delegation is indeed interesting. Certainly, Bishop Lee had voted against the inhibition of Bishop Duncan and his vote was the tie breaker. That Schori would go around him - which clearly she foolishly did - while making landmark interpretations at the deepest level of some major components of those canons at this particular time - would not make anyone happy, most especially the past and future Bishops of Virginia.

That David Jones though would vote contrary to the diocesan and his coadjutor is also quite interesting. Why would he do that?

For the most part, David Jones has kept his own personal views hidden all these years and perhaps now they are finally coming out. I could see where he would actually side with the six or seven dioceses who led this vote to depose Bishop Duncan. There's been indications in the past that indicated that he leaned that way. Bishop Gray, the former Assistant Bishop (and former Bishop of Northern Indiana) was far more orthodox (Bishop Lee sent Bishop Gray to Plano) but he's retired now.

I can recall a couple of times in the past when either Bishop Jones did not realize or remember that orthodox Episcopalians were also in the room and he would be speaking quite freely in expressing what I thought were indeed his true political views. They were certainly not the views he would share when he came to visit Truro.

Still, to take the route to depose Bishop Duncan when his own boss did not (and that his boss organized support for a roll call as well which would out him) and in fact would publicly oppose it is still a surprise. I wonder who were the bishops that Bishop Lee got together to call for a roll call? Was David Jones one of them? I wonder.

Both the Coadjutor and the Diocesan voted no. That is also quite interesting. I admit I have some other thoughts on why they voted no and those musings hit much closer to home.

At this time, though, we're going to wait on those musings - at least for now.

bb

Anonymous said...

Otis Charles and his gay lover (whom you have a link to a picture) had FIVE previous marriages between them they "tied the knot."

A bishop must be above reproach...

Am I unhappy that the revisionists choose their leaders?

If I were Bp Duncan, I would be amused that I had been rejected by Otis Charles. Sublime irony.