5/12/2006

Episcopal Lay Group Urges Church Trials for Gay Bishop and his Consecrating Prelates

WASHINGTON, May 11 /Christian Newswire/ -- A national organization of Episcopal laypersons has appealed to 37 bishops, who opposed entry of an openly partnered homosexual into their ranks, to file for church-law indictments against the gay priest and 42 bishops who consecrated him. The target defendant group includes the presiding bishop, who was chief consecrator, and key liberal leaders in the U.S. province of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

Responses to letters to the traditional bishops were requested by May 22. Ten or more bishops are required to initiate such “presentment” proceedings in the province of about 2.2 million members.

(Geographic lists of proposed defendant bishops and complainant bishops follow.)

Lay Episcopalians for the Anglican Communion (LEAC) listed in its letters five “distinctions” which make charges against Robinson and his consecrators “uniquely different from allegations in all past presentments.”

In a press release today the traditionalist group said its purpose is to determine, through the denomination’s judicial system, the meaning and validity of church law, doctrine and practice, and to punish any bishops who have violated their ordination and consecration vows or committed other “grave offenses.” Last month it asked the gay, V. Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire, and his consecrators to “recant, repent, resign or retire.” None did. The opposing bishops received copies of that letter, which is on LEAC’s internet website.

The letter requesting judicial initiative coincides with the start of LEAC’s national campaign petitioning the same bishops to commence the legal action. LEAC said internet sign-ups, which began last month, have been received from nearly all dioceses. There is also national distribution of the petitions, which will continue at the group’s Episcopal general convention exhibit in Columbus, Ohio, in June.

LEAC was organized this year in response to appeals from theologians and major clergy-led Episcopal organizations for strong activism by laypersons in the traditionalists’ struggle to turn back “revisionist” incursions against foundations of their Christian faith. It supports the new Pittsburgh-based Anglican Communion Network, a group of biblical faithful Episcopal dioceses, parishes and priests, and the American Anglican Council of Atlanta, a 10-year-old advocacy organized and run by clergy.

LEAC says it is able to confront liberal bishops without exposing faithful dioceses, parishes and priests to “tyrannical reprisals by autocratic bishops.” Liberal bishops recently “have met traditionalists’ defense of Scripture with seizure and attempted seizure of churches and dismissal of parish clergy,” today’s press release said.

“To protect clergy-led organizations from bullying bishops, we do not accept support from even faith- friendly groups run by clergy. Our funding is 100% by individual donations,” a spokesman said.

The denomination was fractured in both the United States and the worldwide Anglican Communion in 2003 by what LEAC called “reckless pursuit of a gay agenda that is hostile to Scripture and to the historic order of our church.”

“The consecrating bishops’ acquiescence to and promotion of the radical gay-lesbian-transgender agenda wrecked our church as we know it. The American province broke theological faith and defaulted in its historic contract to provide a bonding conduit with the Anglican Communion. The errant bishops’ actions schismatically split the American province from the Anglican Communion, undermined Christian society’s foundation stone of family development and ignored a variety of serious, non- HIV/AIDS homosexual public health issues.

“Responding to increasing pressure from the radical gay movement, the church’s leadership has identified the agenda’s leading voice, “Integrity,” as a bona fide Episcopal organization officially listed in the ‘Episcopal Church Annual.’ Pushers of the homophilic agenda are becoming virtually a shadow government, autocratically breaking down traditional elements of Christian faith and order. They promote practices and doctrine prevailing in non-Christian churches which are without a Divine Jesus, the Holy Trinity or the authority of Scripture,” the statement said.

“Worse, the revisionist bishops brook no interference from their intimidated underling priests. Bishops’ tyrannical reprisals against priests and their parishes across the nation have become commonplace.

“We plead with those who opposed Bishop Robinson’s consecration, particularly those who vigorously and fervently put their names on the line seeking to reverse radical 2003 actions. We believe they should now stand up together and initiate the only remaining process capable of stopping Bishop Robinson and his consecrators’ final onslaught to rid the church of its historic Scriptural base.

“LEAC advances under our motto of “TRUTH + CLARITY + COURAGE” and asks remaining faithful bishops to defend their church with similar conviction.”

Last Saturday the Diocese of California elected as its new bishop Rev. Mark Andrus, who campaigned on a theologically radical platform endorsing ordainment of homosexual clergy and same-sex “blessings.” A spokesman for Integrity, the national homosexual organization, proclaimed its pleasure with the California election, saying Andrus is a “great champion . . . for equality for (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered) people,” according to The Washington Times.

Bishop Robinson’s approval for consecration at the denomination’s 2003 general convention was among “gay agenda” items adopted which led to disarray among American Episcopalians and disrupted their affiliation with the worldwide Anglican Communion. Robinson and his wife and mother of his children divorced. He later met his gay partner.

The convention votes and later consecration of Robinson divided the U.S. province and led to de facto suspension of the American Episcopal church from the communion’s Consultative Council, the operating arm. Members of the American province (“ECUSA”) -- dioceses, churches and members – were put in varying states of broken or impaired communion with foreign primates whose communicants comprise about 75% of the 78 million Anglicans in the international church. Outright removal of the province from the communion is expected by most observers at or following the 2006 convention.

LEAC assured that American Episcopal churches “are diverse and inclusive, welcoming members with differing sexuality preferences, but there are clear Scriptural and operating prohibitions concerning ordainment of priests practicing homosexual lifestyles, and certainly bishops in that lifestyle are prohibited.”

“There is a great chasm. Our church judicial system should determine just where we stand canonically, for there is no doubt where our Episcopal rank-and- file in the pews stand spiritually. We have been and again can be a traditional church, by overcoming judicially the erosion fostered by revisionist leaders, their captive seminaries and their intimidation of priests. That our beloved church was hijacked by gay agenda promoters in 2003 must not be confused with the popular will of America’s Episcopalians in the pews, who are still theologically in line with the worldwide Anglican Communion.

“The chasm is largely between factions of bishops. The side now in control is deeply influenced by advocates of the radical gay agenda. The true church of Jesus Christ now must prevail, by using judicial tools already available. Failing that, there will be no alternative but the Anglican Communion’s jettisoning the revisionist U.S. church and establishing a new traditional American province of the faithful.”

PETITION WEBSITE: www.layepiscopalians.org  Email: info@layepiscopalians.org 

PROPOSED DEFENDANT BISHOPS, by dioceses, with assignments at the time:

V. Gene Robinson (New Hampshire), consecratee. Frank Griswold, presiding bishop, chief consecrator. ORDINARIES: Joe Burnett, Nebraska; John Chane, Washington, D.C.; George Edward Councell, New Jersey; Thomas C. Ely, Vermont; James Jelinek, Minnesota; James A. Kelsey, Northern Michigan; Chilton Knudsen, Maine; Jack McKelvey, Rochester; Thomas Shaw, Massachusetts; Andrew Smith, Connecticut;

Douglas E. Theuner, New Hampshire; Orris G. Walker, Long Island. BISHOPS SUFFRAGAN: Roy F. Cederholm, Massachusetts; James Curry, Connecticut; Gale Elizabeth Harris, Massachusetts; Wilfrido Ramos-Orench, Connecticut; Catherine S. Roskam, New York. RETIRED ORDINARIES: Mellick Belshaw, New Jersey; William Burrill, Arizona; Otis Charles, Utah; Herbert A. Donovan, New York; Donald P. Hart, Hawaii; Harold Hopkins, North Dakota; George Hunt, Rhode Island; Edward W. Jones, Indianapolis; Coleman McGehee, Michigan; Walter C. Righter, Iowa; Hays H.

Rockwell, Missouri; Bennett J. Sims, Atlanta; Philip Smith, New Hampshire; Daniel Swenson, Vermont; Arthur E. Walmsley, Connecticut; O’Kelley Whitaker, Central New York; Stewart Wood, Michigan. RETIRED BISHOPS SUFFRAGAN: Jane Dixon, Washington, D.C.; Clarence Hobgood, retired bishop suffragan of Armed Forces. ON SPECIAL ASSIGNMENT: Craig Anderson, Headmaster of St. Paul’s School, New Hampshire; Steven Charleston, Dean of Episcopal Divinity School, Massachusetts. CHIEF CO-CONSECRATORS: Edmond Browning, retired presiding bishop, Oregon; Barbara Harris, retired bishop suffragan of Massachusetts; A. Theodore Eastman, retired bishop of Maryland.

PROPOSED COMPLAINANT (PLAINTIFF) BISHOPS:

Parsley, Alabama; Herzog, Albany; Howe, Central Florida; P. Duncan, Central Gulf Coast; Duque- Gomez, Colombia; Stanton, Dallas; Holguin, Dominican Republic; vonRosenberg, East Tennessee; Whitmore, Eau Claire; Morante, Ecuador; Jacobus, Fond du Lac; Iker, Fort Worth; Louttit, Georgia; Duracin, Haiti; Allen, Honduras; Jenkins, Louisiana; Gray, Mississipppi; Little, Northern Indiana; Ohl, Northwest Texas; Rowley, Northwestern Pennsylvania; R. Duncan, Pittsburgh; Ackerman, Quincy; Kelshaw, Rio Grande; Schofield, San Joaquin; Salmon, South Carolina; Thompson, Southern Ohio; Bane, Southern Virginia; Libscomb, Southwest Florida; Beckwith, Springfield; Herlong, Tennessee; Wimberly, Texas; Henderson, Upper South Carolina; D. Johnson, West Tennessee; Folts, West Texas; Klusmeyer, West Virginia; J. Adams, Western Kansas; MacPherson, Western Louisiana.

LEAC: WEB www.layepiscopalians.org  EMAIL info@layepiscopalians.org