wfn.org | Pennsylvania bishop opens doors for traditionalist primates

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http://www.ecusa.anglican.org/ens

2000-206

Pennsylvania bishop opens doors for traditionalist primates

by Jan Nunley

     (ENS) Pennsylvania diocesan bishop Charles E. Bennison has issued an 
official invitation to Archbishop Maurice Sinclair of the Province of the 
Southern Cone (South America) to come to the Church of the Good Shepherd, 
Rosemont, Pennsylvania on November 26.

     Sinclair and other unnamed Anglican primates were invited by and accepted 
the invitation from the parish's rector, the Rev. David Moyer, without consulting 
with Bennison, as U.S. canons require. The bishops are visiting in response to 
what they have termed a "pastoral emergency" affecting U.S. Episcopalians opposed 
to women's ordination. 

     Moyer is president of Forward in Faith, North America (FIF-NA), the U.S. 
branch of a traditionalist organization based in England, and the organization's 
national chancellor, David Rawson, is a member of Good Shepherd's vestry. FIF-NA 
was formerly called the Episcopal Synod of America (ESA); prior to 1989, it was 
known as the Evangelical and Catholic Mission (ECM).

     Sinclair and the other primates are scheduled to confirm more than 70 
people, most of them members of parishes aligned with FIF-NA.

Multiple invitations

     "I have chosen to extend an invitation to the Archbishop to confirm 
candidates at a service in the Diocese of Pennsylvania, with the expectation that 
all the clergy presenting candidates or participating in the service will receive 
me hospitably at my next scheduled full Episcopal visitation to their parishes," 
Bennison said in his address to the diocesan convention on November 4. "I am, 
furthermore, designating the service a diocesan-wide confirmation service to 
which all clergy are invited to bring candidates.

     "I have also invited Archbishop Sinclair to come to Pennsylvania a day early 
in order to share in a conversation during the day on Saturday, November 25, on 
the issues before us in the Anglican Communion, and then to be my guest for 
dinner that evening," his statement continued. "I have invited Archbishop 
Sinclair, moreover, to stay and be my guest at our annual clergy conference at 
the Hershey Hotel on Monday-Wednesday, November 27-29. I have assured him that 
his presence would enrich our conference and that I hope he will seriously 
consider being with us." 

     Bennison invited representatives from the standing committee, diocesan 
council, deans, diocesan staff and delegates to diocesan convention to be present 
"so that as clergy and laity from across our diocese we can express our communion 
with our brothers and sisters whose views might differ from ours, our deep 
respect for the dignity of all human beings, our hope that they remain part of 
one church, and our desire for unity and reconciliation."

Reciprocal visitations

     In the past three years, the number of Pennsylvania congregations whose 
clergy refuse Bennison the right to make required visitations has dropped from 
eight to five. One of them, St. James-the-Less in East Falls, has tried to leave 
the diocese, but the parish's wardens and vestry have agreed to enter an 
alternative dispute resolution process to avoid expensive litigation. On Sundays 
during his vacations, Bennison said, he worshipped in the pews of the five 
dissident congregations. "I expect that the clergy of the five congregations will 
welcome me for my visitations scheduled before [next May 15]," he said.

     Bennison added that he is not opposed to "episcopal visitors" in principle. 
"My policy is that I will entertain requests for visitations by bishops other 
than those of our diocese as long as with more frequency I am hospitably welcomed 
for full Episcopal visitations by the clergy and people of the congregation 
making the request, and that other bishops of our diocese are welcomed in the 
same congregation with as much frequency as am I," he told the convention. "The 
'pastoral emergency' will disappear if next spring the rectors and vestries of 
the affected parishes open their doors for my visitation in accordance with this 
policy and the church's canons."

     Some conservative primates maintain that the General Convention's refusal to 
embrace the 1998 Lambeth Conference statement on human sexuality opens the door 
to their own violations of a Lambeth resolution about maintaining the integrity 
of diocesan and provincial boundaries.

--The Rev. Jan Nunley is deputy director of the Office of News and Information 
for the Episcopal Church.