Global South Anglican

8/8/2006

A single request for alternate primatial oversight consolidating the requests of the dioceses of Fort Worth, San Joaquin, Central Florida, South Carolina, Dallas, Pittsburgh and Springfield has been forwarded to the Archbishop of Canterbury, The Living Church has learned.

Overseen by the Bishop of Dallas, the Rt. Rev. James M. Stanton, the 14-page petition for relief was sent to Lambeth Palace last month after Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams requested the dioceses to consolidate their requests for assistance.

In his July 31 address to the third annual council meeting of the Anglican Communion Network, the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh, noted that after the individual requests had been filed with Canterbury, the “bishops of the seven dioceses worked together on a submission to Lambeth Palace which unified and developed the original requests.”

The prayer for relief was “transmitted in the week of July 16” to Archbishop Williams, Bishop Duncan said, noting he was “hopeful” but “not necessarily optimistic” about the success of the appeal.

Bishop Duncan, the moderator of the Network, told the Network meeting the seven dioceses were hoping for help in five areas. They wished for the archbishop’s assistance in “disassociation from an ‘innovating’ ECUSA” and for “spiritual cover” for the seven dioceses “through re-assignment of the tasks” to Archbishop Williams that under canon law and custom fall to the Presiding Bishop.

The petition also seeks “recognition of Communion standing from Canterbury as required in the ECUSA constitution” and a “commitment to accountability under the Constitution and Canons.”

The bishops also sought Archbishop Williams’ intervention in “the creation of a practical cease-fire” in The Episcopal Church’s burgeoning legal wars, in order to allow for a cooling-off period within the church and to all the “Communion Covenant process” to unfold.

Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold last week offered breathing room to The Episcopal Church by canceling the fall meeting of the House of Bishops. A spokesman for the Presiding Bishop’s office told The Living Church the meeting had been canceled because of its proximity to the recently concluded General Convention.

The cancellation of the meeting by Bishop Griswold postpones until next year, at the earliest, review by the House of Bishops of the case against the Rt. Rev. John-David Schofield, Bishop of San Joaquin, proffered by the bishops of California, San Diego, Los Angeles and Northern California. Bishop Schofield’s case will now be heard after the February meeting of primates in Tanzania and will fall under the supervision of Presiding Bishop-elect Katharine Jefferts Schori.

(The Rev.) George Conger