Global South Anglican

Living Church

06/14/2007

Executive Council today approved resolutions rejecting the primates’ proposed pastoral scheme and another declaring that diocesan government is subordinate to the will of General Convention.

The actions came during a morning plenary on the gathering’s final day. Council has been meeting since June 11 at a hotel convention center in Parsippany, N.J.

“We have received from the House of Bishops of our church a request to decline to participate in the proposed pastoral scheme; with an explanation for the reasons our bishops believe that the scheme is ill-advised,” stated the draft of a document accompanying the resolutions on the pastoral council scheme. “We agree with the bishops’ assessment including the conclusion that to participate in the scheme would violate our Constitution and Canons. We thus decline to participate in the pastoral scheme, and respectfully ask our Presiding Bishop not to take any of the actions asked of her by this scheme. We affirm the pledge of our bishops to ‘continue to work to find ways of meeting the pastoral concerns of the primates that are compatible with our own polity and canons’.”

During brief debate in plenary, Belton T. Zeigler of the Diocese of Upper South Carolina questioned whether the primates’ proposal violated The Episcopal Church’s polity.

“I have looked very carefully at [what the primates proposed] and it occurs to me that all actions [proposed by the primates] are to be done in consultation with our Presiding Bishop,” Mr. Zeigler said. “There is nothing I see that would be injurious to our polity. It concerns me that we would say no to this process without seeing what it is.”

Mr. Zeigler added that he felt there are parts of the primates’ proposal that could be implemented without violating our polity. He proposed a substitute amendment which would have referred the primates’ proposal back to the House of Bishops for reconsideration. His proposal was seconded by Ted Yumoto of the Diocese of San Joaquin, but they were the only council members who voted in favor of the substitute version.

After defeat of the substitute, the original proposal rejecting the scheme outright was approved with two no votes and one abstention.

In other news, council approved a resolution declaring “null and void” attempts by a number of dioceses to revise their constitution to qualify their accession to the Constitution and Canons of the General Convention.

“Any amendment to a diocesan constitution that purports in any way to limit or lessen an unqualified accession to the constitution of The Episcopal Church is null and void, and be it further resolved that the amendments passed to the constitutions of the dioceses of Pittsburgh, Fort Worth, Quincy and San Joaquin, which purport to limit or lessen the unqualified accession to the constitution of The Episcopal Church are accordingly null and void and the constitutions of those dioceses shall be as they were as if such amendments had not been passed,” council stated in Resolution NAC-023.

After the resolution was approved, the Rt. Rev. Stacy Sauls, Bishop of Lexington, said Episcopalians had all agreed to live by certain principles and rules and that council believed it would be “helpful to have an authoritative statement [on the matter] with respect to any litigation that might occur in the future.”