South Carolina Resolutions to respond to Schori
The Diocese of South Carolina’s annual convention will consider five resolutions on March 26, three of which stress diocesan authority amid conflicts with Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.
In proposing one resolution, the diocese’s standing committee calls it a “Response to Ecclesiastical Intrusions by the Presiding Bishop.” That resolution refers to the diocese’s “legal and ecclesiastical authority as a sovereign diocese within the Episcopal Church,” adds that “the Presiding Bishop has no authority to retain attorneys in this Diocese that present themselves as the legal counsel for the Episcopal Church in South Carolina,” and demands that she “drop the retainer of all such legal counsel in South Carolina as has been obtained contrary to the express will of this Diocese.” …
– Full report from The Living Church.
(Photo of Bishop Mark Lawrence: Diocese of South Carolina.)
Should South Carolina be nervous?
From the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina –
“Recent actions by The Episcopal Church which impact the Diocese of South Carolina have caused the Bishop and Standing Committee to postpone our upcoming Diocesan Convention. Bishop Lawrence has written an important pastoral letter to both the clergy and laity of the Diocese which explain the actions taken.”
– Read Bishop Mark Lawrence’s pastoral letter explaining why he has postponed the diocesan convention. (PDF file.)
A matter of Trust(s)
Here’s an excerpt from the weekly update from Bishop David Anderson, President of the American Anglican Council –
Beloved in Christ,
As we went to press last week there was breaking news of the decision of the Supreme Court of South Carolina, finding in favor of the local parish of All Saints’, Pawley’s Island and against the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina and The Episcopal Church (TEC). Among the findings of the court is that the so-called “Dennis Canon” is illegal in SC and has no effect. The basis for this is that one person can’t establish a trust on someone else’s property. It is the person who owns the property that is the one to establish a trust, if they wish to. Makes sense, doesn’t it? As the court stated in the finding, “It is an axiomatic principle of law that a person or entity must hold title to property in order to declare that it is held in trust for the benefit of another or transfer legal title to one person for the benefit of another.” Read more
Split in church is tragically real
“Recent opinion pieces published in the Gazette about divisions in the Episcopal Church reveal more than intended.
One writes that only ‘four bishops’ have left the church and that ‘the vast majority of Episcopal churches’ don’t want to leave. This is the Episcopal Church’s oft repeated mantra — division in the church is numerically minor, therefore wildly overblown. This rhetoric fuels the crisis it seeks to deny. It isn’t helpful to claim that there is some smoke but no fire when there are flames everywhere. …”
– Suzanne Schwank, Chairwoman of the Diocece of South Carolina’s Department of Christian Faith Formation writes in The Beaufort Gazette.
(Photo from the Presiding Bishop’s visit to South Carolina in 2008.)
‘He just slipped away, our noble prince’
Canterbury, England
I am glad I came here for this Lambeth and worshipped one last time in the Cathedral home of Augustine and Dunstan, Anselm and Becket, Cranmer and Laud, Temple and Ramsay. I had come to speak a word of hope and perhaps to intervene on behalf of our beloved, but in the last resolve the family refused the long needed measures. So he just slipped away, our noble prince, one dreary morning in Canterbury with hardly even a death rattle.
The new prince was born last month in Jerusalem. I was there—arriving late, departing early. I was never quite sure what I was witnessing. It was an awkward and messy birth. He hardly struck me as I gazed upon him there in the bassinet as quite ready to be heir to the throne. I even wondered at times if there might be some illegitimacy to his bloodlines. But that I fear was my over weddedness to a white and European world. May he live long, and may his tribe increase—and may he remember with mercy all those who merely mildly neglected his birth.
As for me my role for now is clear, to hold together as much as I can for as long as I can that when he comes to his rightful place on St. Augustine’s throne in Canterbury Cathedral he will have a faithful and richly textured kingdom. …
– From Bishop Mark Lawrence of South Carolina.
(See also, from March 2008, Bishop Mark Lawrence upholds the uniqueness of Christ.)
Photo: Bill Murton, Diocese of South Carolina.
Statement on the Presiding Bishop’s visit to South Carolina
Statement from Bishop Mark Lawrence in response to the recent ENS article on the Presiding Bishop’s visit to South Carolina
I have read the recent article from the ENS regarding the Presiding Bishop, The Most Reverend Katherine Jefferts Schori’s visit to the Diocese of South Carolina. …
What the article failed to convey, however, is the depth of the theological chasm that lies between many of us in South Carolina (and others within the church for that matter) and the trajectory of so much of the leadership of The Episcopal Church. …
Read the full statement from Bishop Mark Lawrence of South Carolina.
(Photo: Bill Murton, Diocese of South Carolina.)
South Carolina Episcopalians get bishop
Just call him Bishop Lawrence, finally.
Mark Joseph Lawrence endured two elections in a year’s span and waited patiently for confirmation that he would be the 14th bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina. His election was approved in October, and on Saturday, he was consecrated in a liturgical ceremony at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke and St. Paul in downtown Charleston. …
Story from the Charleston Post and Courier.
See also this interview on Stand Firm, in March 2007, after the first election had been declared ‘null and void’ by the Presiding Bishop.
Diocese of South Carolina votes to join ACNA
The Diocese of South Carolina voted [on Saturday] to affiliate with the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). The vote, which was held during their 226th Convention, was unanimous in both orders (clergy and laity).
“I cast my vote to affiliate with the ACNA with eager and expectant faith,” said the Rt. Rev. Mark J. Lawrence, the 14th Bishop of South Carolina during his address to the convention. “I believe God has called us to this and I believe we will find a deeper richness in our vocation, fuller fellowship in the Spirit, a more zealous thrust in mission.”
– News from GAFCON. And from South Carolina.
‘Episcopal Church abandons Bishop and Diocese’
Comment from the Diocese of South Carolina –
“These actions … are not just an attack upon Bishop Lawrence. They also represent an assault on this Diocese and its congregations. Two of the three actions that the Episcopal Church claims prove his abandonment are in fact actions of the Diocesan Convention.”
Full text: Read more
TEC moves against Bishop and Diocese of South Carolina
“On Monday, October 15, 2012, Bishop Mark J. Lawrence, the 14th Bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina was notified by the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, that on September 18, 2012 the Disciplinary Board for Bishops had certified his abandonment of The Episcopal Church.
This action by The Episcopal Church triggered two pre-existing corporate resolutions of the Diocese, which simultaneously disaffiliated the Diocese from The Episcopal Church and called a Special Convention. That Convention will be held … on Saturday, November 17, 2012. …
The Diocese has not received a signed copy of the certification and also remains uninformed of the identity of those making these charges.”
– It only took a month to let the good Bishop know.
Details from the Diocese of South Carolina including relevant documents.
Related, from last week:
Report: Glasgow Presbytery to ‘recover all property and assets’ from St George’s Tron.
Southwark clergy write to The Times
A letter to The Times, 12th June 2010:
“We, the undersigned clergy of Southwark diocese, distance ourselves from Bishop Schori’s teaching and presiding in our cathedral.”
“Sir, We wish to express our concern over the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church (USA), Katherine Jefferts Schori, preaching and presiding at Holy Communion in our cathedral at Southwark tomorrow. Read more
NSW mourns Sir Marcus Loane
Press Release from the NSW Council of Churches
“He was a wonderful Bible teacher who expounded the Scriptures and made them clear to us.” – Deaconess Margaret Rodgers.
The NSW Council of Churches extends its condolences to the family of the Most Reverend Marcus Lawrence Loane KBE, former Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, who died on Monday in Sydney, aged 97.
Ordained in 1935, Sir Marcus was the first Australian-born Archbishop of Sydney, serving from 1966 to 1982, and was Primate of Australia from 1978 to 1982. He was vice-principal of Moore Theological College from 1939 to 1953, and Principal from 1954 to 1959. He served as Chaplain to the Australian Imperial Forces in New Guinea from 1942 to 1944. Read more
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…