Episcopal Church Ousts 61 Clergy In Gay Bishop Dispute

FRESNO, Calif. — National leaders of the Episcopal Church have ousted 61 clergy who aligned with a former bishop in California when he broke with the national church in a dispute over the Bible and homosexuality.

Former Bishop John-David Schofield led the Diocese of San Joaquin to become the first full diocese to secede from the U.S. denomination in 2007. Four years earlier, Episcopalians consecrated their first openly gay bishop, setting off a wide-ranging debate within the church and upsetting conservative congregations.

Schofield ultimately was removed as head of the diocese and barred from performing any religious rites. He maintains he is an Anglican bishop under the worldwide church.

Episcopal leaders said Wednesday they were deposing all clergy who severed their ties and joined Schofield in affiliating with an Anglican archdiocese in Argentina.

Jerry Lamb, the new Episcopal Bishop of San Joaquin, called the decision to oust the clergy "heartbreaking."

"But, the fact is, they chose to abandon their relationship with the Episcopal Church," he said.

Schofield said in a statement Wednesday that Anglican leaders across the globe recognized the deposed clergy as priests and deacons in good standing.

"Clearly, the traditional understanding of what it means to be a member of this historic Communion has been tragically altered by this action," he said. "The Episcopal Church needlessly isolates itself from their brothers and sisters around the world."

In December, the breakaway diocese joined with three others and dozens of individual parishes in the U.S. and Canada to announce that they were forming a North American Anglican province to rival the Episcopal Church. Schofield said Wednesday that 23 dioceses now plan to affiliate with the new province.

Its future status in the worldwide Anglican Communion is unclear. It's unprecedented for an Anglican national province to be created where a national church already exists.

Comments

[Robert Hopper]

Bishop Schofield may indeed maintain that he is an Anglican bishop under the worldwide church ... whatever that might be. Of course, there is no worldwide Anglican Church ... but there is a worldwide Anglican Communion ... and it is very easily determined that neither Bishop Schofield nor his diocese is officially recognized. All one need do is visit the Anglican Communion's website. And if that's not proof enough ... just write to Anglican Communion Office, St Andrew's House, 16 Tavistock Crescent, London W11 1AP, England.

[Morcat]

The Episcopal Church will go on and be better for the absence of the dissenters. Their elementary-school level of theology is a detriment to enlarging the Kingdom of God. They are pawns in the hands of The Institute for Religion and Democracy that intends to destroy most of the mainline churches and call it "renewal". Their eyes are so clouded by their homophobia that they cannot appreciate what dupes they have become.

[DausonLovi]

I am sad to see this story in the news as I’ve attend the Episcopal Church and have embraced its teaching of unity. For me, is awful that “tradition” can uproot wonderful values such as love and peace. Can a church claiming to believe in one God, maker of heaven and of earth, really be following the principals and teaching of said loving God by ousting its own kind? How can they say they follow the Jesus of the gospels who ate with sinners when they ban their own?

I have to wonder, when will the time come that unity, as so embraced and taught within the Anglican Church that I’ve attended, will truly be the banner that waves over a religion, a people, a faith…love? Why are we still so caught up with “tradition” when we ought to be brought together by something more powerful than that? Love/the Divine…

[Treehuggindirtworshiper]

I believe this was done inorder to relieve the priests that had already left the church and it's teachings. Polity in the ECUSA mandates that all property belongs to ECUSA. In order to retain the buildings and property they needed to remove them from ECUSA. Many congregations and Dioecese have tried to keep church property when the choose to leave ECUSA.

[livesimply]

I was confirmed Episcopalian as a kid and Bishop Jerry Lamb married me when he was a minister in Ashland, Oregon. I'm not sure what he's trying to say. I have not attended the Episcopal church in over 25 years, but I appreciated that they were willing to ordain gays. To everyone who has a judgment about this, just remember... to each his own. If you like a church, then go. If not, then don't go.

[mjc]

Not sorry those clergy were outed, just sorry they could not represent the Christ they proclaim as He really is. Early in the New Testament there are stories of who came to the cradle to view Jesus and one of the first groups was shepherds "abiding' in the field. Shepherds were probably not strictly heterosexual males and were mostly in the fields with the sheep except perhaps for times when the sheep were sheared. Hard even to envision a Jesus who allowed prostitutes to follow him as well as tax collectors but denied those who were homosexual to come near him or be welcomed. Someone, not sure who it was, said of homosexuals that God does not make mistakes; however, people who believe they are THE ones to speak for God do, and often. Don't believe that it would have been God's or His Son's vision for humans that only heterosexual MEN could teach the principles of Christianity and direct its sacraments either. Narrowing God to fit the human looking-glass, however, is as old as mankind.

[tel8034]

"Schofield said in a statement Wednesday that Anglican leaders across the globe recognized the deposed clergy as priests and deacons in good standing."

The Lambeth Commission formed by the Archbishop of Canterbury to address the issue of gay clergy in the Anglican church begs to differ.

Anglican leaders across the globe have no stomach for the pedophilia by the clergy which the catholic church so easily turned a blind eye to, covered up, and condoned when instead of ousting the criminal clergy, they merely transferred them to another diocese to continue with their molestation of young boys.

If Schofield's statement was true there would have been no need for a break away diocese even to be formed.

[ldillworth]

I'm an atheist, and the Episcopal church continues to be the only christian denomination I personally have any measure of respect for as an institution.

[antaeus]

A fetish for doing things exactly as Great Grandmother did them often seizes the obsessive and short sighted. We've seen it in the Roman Church with those who freaked over vernacular mass and insisted that God could only understand Latin. We've seen it some decades ago with Anglicans who couldn't deal with an update to the Prayer Book. We saw it again with female priests. These examples all involve an obsession with form that has nothing to do with core Christianity.

Let the renegade congregations go. They can pony up their own dough and start local churches of exclusion and intolerance.

[mollymac]

This sounds like Rick Perry (TX) seceding from the union.

[antaeus]

Secessionists claim local ownership, a misunderstanding that would be clarified by federal troops.

Local Episcopal congregations who want to part ways with the national church can do it; they just shouldn't expect to hold on to the prime real estate that the national church owns. Let them remove and hold their meetings in a rented gymnasium, but they can't expect to flout the national rules and keep the pretty stone building.

[springsm]

Good ole christian ethics. Damn those that are not in the mainstream of old white men. Whoopee.

[drjoann]

It is my understanding of my Episcopalian faith is that it is like a 3-legged stool. Each of the legs is of an equal length, otherwise the stool will topple. One of the legs is certainly the Bible. Another leg is tradition (Book of Common Prayer with its rubrics, etc.). And, and equal leg is my own reason and ability to think about my faith and how I relate to God and my fellow creatures on this earth.

None of the above legs is either preeminent or sufficient unto itself. The faith journey that I am on requires that I constantly do the work to balance them and to develop deeper understanding each and everyday that I draw breath.

I hate to see our Communion torn asunder over the issue of homosexuality, but I am so proud of a Church that will not back away from a position of tolerance and inclusion for all.

[PiscesPrincess]

When I was a child I remember hearing how many offshoots of various branches of Protestantism had been established over the years.
The Body of the Church by its very nature, is an imperfect organization.
So, someday when people in the Episcopal church become more enlightened and forgiving the offshoots will be brought back into the main tree.

[demfriend]

The Bible is open to be interpreted the way the reader and the translation wants it to be taken. Man wrote it to describe something that may or may not have happened many, many years before so it's like me telling the story about the people my grandfather knew..... It can be taken as gospel or it can be read as a self help book or even made to be by fanatics to cover their every breathe and action based on it but it all comes back to the translator who decided what the word meant when they changed the language to English. Many different religions have different versions which they believe to be the correct one so I doubt we could all agree but when I read the King James English version I failed to see what homosexuals were even described as much less to see them as "bad". "He who throws the first stone" is more like it.

[PiscesPrincess]

oh, its in there, somewhere; I used to know where. but its taken out of context anyway. sigh
something about not messing with the sheep when your are a shepherd.

[scottyknows]

So silly.

If you want to believe that (your sin here) is okay, then renounce whatever faith you have left, write your own bible and start your own church. At least then you wouldn't be a hypocrite.

Worked for L. Ron Hubbard.

[kforce]

So, these priests renounced their ties with the Episcopal Church and joined another Anglican diocese. What's your point?

[JohnFromCensornati]

snottynose's point is always the same. He h@tes gay people.

[LMPE]

Some Christians. Violating Jesus's call to be tolerant.

[springsm]

Some?????

[ljdnyc]

I am extremely proud to be a member of the Episcopal Church.

Alot has changed in the past 15 years...

When my father (now deceased) was a priest in the Episcopal Church and my gay brother was dying of Aids. The head of the parish told my father not to tell anyone in the congregation about my brother.

Our family could not understand­/comprehen­d this man's request. My father was heart broken by the institution that he devoted himself to.

I wish my father and brother were alive to see how our church is making history.

L. Druley-Dempsey

[Januarycarol]

Thanks for your comment.