LET'S HEAR IT

FOR THE SUPPLY PRIESTS

 

 

 

You must read the wonderful essay by Dan Ennis "How Supply Priests Helped Save the Episcopal Church in South Carolina." Mr. Ennis was senior warden at St. Anne's of Conway. Find it here . It was published in The Magazine of Episcopal Café on 27 November. There were many heroes who helped save the Episcopal Church in South Carolina, but we often overlook the supply priests. We should not; and no one could tell us why better than Mr. Ennis. Besides, my new son-in-law is one of them, I am proud to say: the Rev. Phil Emanuel who is serving the intrepid faithful in Cheraw.

So, let's all show our gratitude for the clergy who stepped in to minister to those who kept the faith even at cost. From one end of the diocese to the other, the secessionist rebels seized the local church properties even though under Church law they were held in trust for the Episcopal Church and the Episcopal diocese. Loyal Episcopalians were forced out of their homes through no fault of their own. They were innocent victims, but they refused to be vanquished. The schism has been a hard time but from it has come a bounty of grace, in part thanks to the selfless generosity and service of the indispensable supply priests, the "break-the-glass-and-pull-the-lever" clergy.

 

 

 

THE "ANGLICAN CHURCH IN NORTH AMERICA"
IS NOT A PROVINCE
OF THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION

 

 

 

In order to whip up support for joining the Anglican Church in North America, the leaders of the Diocese of South Carolina are misrepresenting the ACNA as an "Anglican" "province," meaning it is a province in the Anglican Communion. It is "Anglican" in name only. ACNA is not now, has never been, and will not be a province of the Anglican Communion. It is a separate denomination, certainly with friendly ties to the anti-homosexual-rights organizations of Anglican primates called GAFCON and Global South. The good and faithful communicants of the DSC need to understand the truth about the status of the ACNA before they vote.

 

ACNA was created in 2009 in an alliance of the four schismatic dioceses: Pittsburgh, San Joaquin, Ft. Worth, and Quincy and GAFCON. Its aim was to become the replacement for TEC as the legitimate province of the Anglican Communion in the U.S. Many of the GAFCON primates had broken off communion with the Episcopal Church in the wake of TEC's confirmation of the first openly gay bishop in 2003. GAFCON was created in 2008 in a conference in Jerusalem, attended by Bp Lawrence, that drew up a declaration (the "Jerusalem Declaration") denouncing rights of homosexuals and rejecting the authority of the Anglican provinces, i.e. TEC and Canada, that accepted such rights. ACNA styled itself a "province." In fact, it was not, and is not, a province of anything. It is an independent entity. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is clearly on record saying that the ACNA is a separate church not in the Anglican Communion.

 

Before this year, there was talk in the Anglican Communion of making ACNA the 39th province. Under pressure, the Archbishop of Canterbury invited ACNA's archbishop, Foley Beach to the primates' gathering in Canterbury last January as an observer. He was not considered a primate and was not given a vote as a primate. He was invited only to appease GAFCON. In the meeting the issue of admitting ACNA to the Anglican Communion came up. The GAFCON/Global South primates abandoned ACNA on the spot. The primates issued a statement saying that if ACNA should want to join the Anglican Communion it would lave to apply to the Anglican Consultative Council. They added a discouragement to ACC against admitting ACNA. Since then the GAFCON/Global South block has had two opportunities to press the issue and abandoned both. In the ACC meeting in April, no one mentioned ACNA joining the Communion. In the Global South meeting in October, ditto, even though Beach is a member of the GS "Steering Committee" as he is also a member of GAFCON's primates' council.

It is clear that in its retreat from schism in the Anglican Communion, the anti-homosexual rights coalition, led by the equatorial African primates, has abandoned the idea of ACNA being a province of the Anglican Communion. This means they have also abandoned their aim of having ACNA replace TEC in the Communion. The people of South Carolina need to understand this before they attach themselves to this entity.

 

As I have pointed out in earlier posts, there is plenty of downside to joining ACNA, primarily from its authoritarian structure that gives great power to the bishops and virtually none to the laity. The most obvious problem will be in getting the diocese's choices of bishops confirmed. DSC's bishops in the future will be determined by the bishops of ACNA who have to give 2/3 vote for confirmation of an election for bishop. This is a steep obstacle. Ironically, Lawrence would not be a bishop today if this were the rule in the Episcopal Church. ACNA is a fraud in that it pretends to be localized but in fact is a system far more authoritarian than the one DSC left in 2012.

 

The DSC leaders have a regrettable habit of spreading misinformation about the diocese's relationships with other bodies. Before the schism of 2012 they spent years promoting untruths, half-truths, exaggerations, and opinions advanced as facts in their concerted campaign to herd the good communicants out of their ancestral church. It worked for the majority. Now they are trying it in an effort to get DSC into ACNA.

Something has gone wrong in the diocesan leaders' plan to move DSC into ACNA. Last spring they announced there would probably be a diocesan convention in the autumn of this year for the first of the two necessary votes to join ACNA. The clergy met in September to discuss joining. Autumn is nearly over and there has been no mention of a convention. We do know that Bp Lawrence is out in the parishes talking up the idea. He will be in Old Saint Andrew's this Sunday to discuss the topic. He has made joining ACNA his cause. Why the delay? My guess is that the leaders are not yet sure they can get a strong vote in favor and need more time to propagandize the idea before calling for a vote.  

 

The communicants of DSC need to understand, before they go along with another bad choice, that the ACNA is not in any way a province of the Anglican Communion in spite of what their leaders are telling them. Joining ACNA will simply be moving into another denomination and one this is not now and will not be in the Anglican Communion. The only way DSC will ever be in a province of the Anglican Communion is to return to the Episcopal Church. 

 

 

THE DARKNESS BEGINS

 

 

 

The United States started down its path to darkness two weeks ago in the election of Donald Trump as president. The night is overtaking us quickly. Videos are showing white supremacists shouting "Hail Trump" in a not-so-subtle reminder of another great nation that brought catastrophe upon itself by willingly marching into the abyss of totalitarianism. Those Americans who dismissed Trump as a foolish clown, a rude and crude buffoon, an inept politician who could not harm the country should think again. Just look at what has happened in the two weeks since the election. Trump is no joke.

 

Authoritarian strong-men typically carry out several sweeping changes to solidify their power. Trump is showing signs of these. One is to surround himself with loyalists and put them in secondary positions of power. This is happening in the appointments Trump has already announced. Naming Jeff Sessions as Attorney General should send chills down any thinking person's spine. He was rejected for a federal judgeship in the Regan era because of reported racist remarks. The people of Alabama then rewarded him with election to the U.S. Senate. He has been in the forefront of the move to clamp down on immigration and was an early supporter of Trump on this issue.

 

As a political power, Trump has no opposition. The Republican party has completely caved. Its leaders, even some who had spoken out in moral indignation against candidate Trump are now groveling before him. Nothing spoke louder of this dynamic that the sad imagine of Mitt Romney arriving before a magisterial Trump standing at the front door of his palatial New Jersey golf club. It reminded me of Louis XIV standing at the top of the long and ornate staircase at Versailles receiving his foreign representatives who had to climb up to him. The symbolism was too obvious, then and now. Romney kowtowed to the strongman he not so long ago called a phony, a fraud, and a con man. It is remarkable what a dangling of the Secretary of State job can do to even the most principled of men. As for the Democrats, they are holding on to only one shred of power, the 60 vote requirement to cut off debate in the Senate. Otherwise, they had been reduced to impotence. Bottom line, the strongman has virtually no opposition to whatever power he wishes to wield.

 

A second move a dictator uses in solidifying power is to abolish other political parties and imprison his opponents. Trump does not need to worry about a Democratic Party opposition. It is almost non-existent. However, it is not out of the realm of possibility that he will imprison his opponent. With ultra-conservative Sessions as Attorney General there is a real possibility that the FBI will reopen the investigation of Hillary Clinton's emails and indict her. This could mean a trial which could mean conviction and punishment. It is not unthinkable given the vindictiveness Trump displayed in the campaign.

 

A third move a dictator uses is to abolish the free press. On Monday, a downright terrifying event occurred along this very line. Trump summoned 25 TV news network executives and reporters to his Manhattan Versailles (Trump Tower) and informed them in no uncertain terms what he expected of the press. Moreover, it was all ordered off-the-record. See a report of this confrontation here . It was reported that he unloaded on his most outspoken critics, CNN and NBC. My canary-in-the-coal-mine is CNN's Wolf Blitzer, one of the attendants. The moment the Wolf capitulates is the moment we know the Bill of Rights is dead. 

 

All signs indicate this will be a strong counter-revolution that will last for a long time. In fact, roll backs are already happening weeks before Trump takes office. The House of Representatives just defeated a bill that would have required federal contractors not to discriminate against LGBT persons. Now the contractors are free to discriminate at will. This is just the tiny tip of a big iceberg. There is much more to come, some of which we cannot even imagine today. There are horror stories of rolling back voting rights, abolishing Medicaid, and privatizing Medicare and Social Security, not to mention "registries" for Muslims, and mass deportations of immigrants. A powerful and massive internal police to carry out these policies may be on the horizon.

 

What could all of this mean for the schism in South Carolina and for the Episcopal Church? It is impossible to know the effect on the Church which has been in the forefront of human rights for the last sixty years. The Church's great democratic crusade culminated last year in the adoption of same-sex marriage. It is unimaginable that the Episcopal Church would bend to any pressure to scale back its commitment to the equal rights of all people. However, the conservatives in power will likely soon restore a Scalia-type majority to the Supreme Court that may well take a dim view of the Church's social reforms. Eventually, a state decision on the issue of the Church/diocesan relationship will probably be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. It could either refuse to take the appeal or it could take the appeal and rule against the Church as backlash against its social policies. At this point, much is uncertain.

 

What is certain is that basic American democratic-republican values are on the line both in the structure of the government and in the relationship of the government and social groups. A strongman is in the process of consolidating power. He was elected after he ran a campaign of bigotry, fear and division. The early signs of the new administration are frightening. Those of us who are committed to the defense of historic American principles had better renew our vigilance and prepare to fight in the trenches. Wolf Blitzer where are you?

See also the thoughtful essay by House of Deputies President Gay Jennings here .        

JUDGE DIANE GOODSTEIN
FOR THE SC SUPREME COURT?

 

I am beginning to wonder if we have gone down the rabbit hole into Wonderland where in is out, up is down, left is right, night is day. Last week, the electorate chose the least qualified person ever to be nominated by a major party for the U.S. presidency, the only one never to have been elected to office, hold public office, or serve in the military. Moreover, we chose him over arguably the best qualified person ever to run for the presidency.

 

Now comes the news that Judge Diane Goodstein is one of the three finalists to be one of the five justices of the South Carolina Supreme Court. See Steve Skardon's comments and the Post and Courier article at www.scepiscopalians.com .

 

We will all remember her as the circuit court judge presiding over the Church trial in July of 2014 who rendered an astonishing decision. It was appealed to the SC Supreme Court which held a hearing on it in September of 2015.

 

Goodstein has been in the running before for a seat on the state's high court, once in 2007. She has been in the public eye several times over the years since she was elected by the state legislature to be a circuit court judge in 1998. In 2008 questions were raised about her possible collusion with the Catholic Church to settle child abuse cases. Gregg Meyers, a lawyer for some of the clients, said "'Apparently all counsel were colluding to move settled cases to Dorchester County to get the cases to Judge Goodstein.'" A newspaper article said Meyers was "'accusing the church of delaying payment of $1.375 million and colluding with class counsel and Diane Goodstein, the circuit court judge in Dorchester County who presided over the class-action case.'" [Adam Parker, "Charges Fly in Suit over Catholic Diocese Settlement," Charleston Post and Courier, June 25, 2008, http://www.postandcourier.com/news/charges-fly-in-suit-over-catholic-diocese-settlement/article_61076476-5e27-5d1e-bb93-a7b0adc3271a.html ].

Another matter concerned property. ["Judge, Husband Settle Bankruptcy Dispute," Summerville Patch, March 15, 2013, http://patch.com/south-carolina/summerville/judge-husband-settle-bankruptcy-dispute ]. Goodstein and her husband agreed to pay $500,000 to settle a lawsuit that they had improperly transferred real estate holdings involved in bankruptcy proceedings. Her husband, Arnold Goodstein, had built a large construction business but declared bankruptcy following the housing crash of 2007-08. Diane Goodstein did not admit guilt in the matter of the questionable transfer of property to her and disputed the claim of impropriety, yet she agreed to the half-million-dollar payment. [see also Charleston Post and Courier, Katy Stech, "Goodstein Details Downfall," July 24, 2010, www.postandcourier.com/article/20100724/PC05/307249990 ]. 

When it came time for Alan Runyan, the lead lawyer for the independent Diocese of South Carolina to bring lawsuit against the Episcopal Church, basically to claim ownership of the properties in question, he chose the circuit court in Dorchester County which had only two judges. He could have chosen the more appropriate major circuit court in Charleston, or another of the eight circuit courts in the boundaries of the Diocese. At the least, Runyan would have known much about Goodstein since one of the four lawyers in his firm in Beaufort, Andrew Platte, had been a clerk to Goodstein. [ http://www.speightsrunyan.com/attorneys/andrew-platte/ ]. It was no accident that Runyan chose Goodstein's court as the one to enter his lawsuit against the Church on January 4, 2013. As time would tell, he was not to be disappointed.

Anyone considering Goodstein for the state supreme court would do well to review her conduct of the Church trial in July of 2014 and her decision of February 2015, or at least go over the state supreme court's remarks about them. Not one of the five justices had a good word for her conduct of the trial or her decision. In fact, quite the opposite. They went to lengths to criticize the one-sidedness of the trial and lack of substantial rationale in her order. If one reviews the trial transcript, this is readily apparent. For instance, when the main witnesses for the Church side took the stand, each could hardly get out a sentence without being interrupted, often by the judge. As an example there was Martin McWilliams an esteemed law professor at USC. On the stand and under the Church lawyer's questioning, diocesan lawyer Henrietta Golding interrupted him 62 times and made 19 objections, all of which Goodstein sustained. Runyan broke in 24 times making 6 formal objections. Goodstein sustained 5 of them. Judge Goodstein herself interrupted McWilliams 141 times. This turned out to be mild compared to what happened to the greatest historian in the state, Walter Edgar, when he took the stand. Goodstein's written decision was apparently very close to what Runyan wanted. It sounded to me as if he had written it himself. If so, it was too clever by half. It was so over the top, the supreme court justices apparently discarded it right away. It is almost certain that they dismissed it and are in the process of writing a new decision(s). My guess is that this is the holdup. I think if they were going to remand to Goodstein, they would have done so by now.

I am not saying Goodstein should not be on the South Carolina Supreme Court. I am saying that those legislators voting should consider the known records of all three candidates involved and weight all the evidence for each of them. Goodstein has a public record as a circuit court judge. At age 65, with not many years before mandatory retirement, she deserves full consideration. As for probably her highest-profile case in recent years, my guess is that even Judge Goodstein would agree that the Episcopal Church-diocesan trial was not her finest hour. In fairness to her, I think the scope, depth, and complexity of the issues raised in this particular case in South Carolina were probably beyond any single judge, at least on the lowly state circuit court level. (The four earlier cases of diocesan secession were simpler.) That is why I think the Episcopal Church-diocese issues will eventually have to be resolved by the collective wisdom of the highest court in the land.


To change gears, I have been spending a lot of time in my garden lately. I need it. I am sharing a couple of pictures to remind myself and others that the Wonderland we are really in is God's magnificent creation. It is all around us and in ways most gloriously at this time of the year. The star of my garden right now is the simple maple tree. Nothing can compete with its magnificence, especially in early morning and late afternoon when the sun illuminates its wonderful brilliance. These pictures are from this morning. (BTW I am praying for rain. We are in an exception drought. No measurable rain in 109 days and none in sight.)

  

      



 

 

"IT IS TIME TO COME HOME"

 

 

 

Following the political disaster of last week, I am desperate for some good news; and here it is. Another priest of the pre-schism diocese who abandoned the Episcopal Church to follow Mark Lawrence has returned to the Episcopal Church. On November 11, the Rev. Matt McCormick reaffirmed his ordination vows and rejoined the Episcopal Church becoming part of the Episcopal Church diocese of South Carolina. Read about it here . McCormick said, '"I love the Episcopal Church, I am a cradle Episcopalian who has been nurtured by this church, and my orders to call as a priest were issued in the Episcopal Church. The Episcopal Church has always been my home, and now it is time to come home."'

 

In 2013, Bishop vonRosenberg released and removed 104 priests and deacons of the pre-schism diocese who had abandoned the Episcopal Church to follow former bishop Mark Lawrence in the schism of October 2012. Three have now returned to the mother Church: H. Dagnall Free, Jr., Jeff Wallace, and now McCormick.

 

The schismatic Diocese of South Carolina continues its troubles and decline. It has lost members every year since the schism of 2012. It has failed to find meaning and identity. Apparently, there is trouble about joining the Anglican Church in North America. Last March the diocesan committee on affiliation, hand-picked by Lawrence, recommended the diocese join the ACNA. They predicted a diocesan convention would be called in the Fall of 2016 to pass the first vote. Since then, we have heard nothing of a convention. Apparently, there is unexpected opposition in the breakaway group about joining ACNA. If it were a sure thing, DSC would have called a convention by now. Two conventions will have to vote approval before it can join ACNA. After four years, the schismatic diocese is still a rudderless ship lost at sea led by a crew equally lost. It is not in the Anglican Communion and will not be even if it joins ACNA. The idea of making ACNA a province of the Anglican Communion has been abandoned by GAFCON. ACNA will never be a province of the Anglican Communion.

 

So, I say to the DSC, as the Rev. McCornick said, It is time to come home. You have no other home but the Episcopal Church and if you have not realized this by now, you will in time.  

 

 

WHAT'S GOING ON WITH DSC'S "DISCERNMENT" ON AFFILIATION?

 

 

In last March's convention of the Diocese of South Carolina, we were told that a special convention would likely be called in the Fall of 2016 for a first vote on DSC's joining the Anglican Church in North America. There has been no mention since then about a special convention. Fall is well under way and there has been no word about a meeting. It takes a couple of months to arrange such a convention. It looks as if there will be no special convention to vote on affiliation this Fall. What's the problem?

 

There must be two votes before DSC can affiliate with any larger group. If the regular annual convention in March of 2017 votes to join ACNA, another convention must vote the same. The application would presumably come before the bishops of ACNA in their June 2017 conference. If DSC does not call a special convention before the March 2017 annual convention , it will have to do so between March and June in order to be accepted into ACNA on June.

 

Bishop Lawrence has made it very clear that he wants DSC to join ACNA. He held a clergy conference last month on that very subject. No one could have missed the point. The recommendation to join ACNA came last March in the annual diocesan convention from the task force on affiliation. This task force was hand-picked by Lawrence. It is unimaginable that DSC would not go along with Lawrence's wishes.

 

Bishop Lawrence has presided over 10 conventions of the DSC. There have been dozens of resolutions passed, perhaps a hundred in all, most either unanimously or nearly so. Of all the many resolutions called up for vote, only one has even been defeated. That was a proposed resolution from the Revs. Craige Borrett and Kendall Harmon in March of 2009 to suspend the General Convention, that is for DSC to boycott the 2009 General Convention. The clergy voted it down. That is the one and only resolution ever defeated by vote in one of the 10 conventions led by Lawrence. (It showed that the clergy of DSC were not quite ready to leave the Episcopal Church. The diocesan leadership was to change that attitude quickly.) I found only three proposed resolutions that were tabled, that is, suspended. One was "The Rubric of Love" in the October 2009 special convention. It expressed "love" and support for homosexuals. It caused a near melt-down of the convention; and the diocesan leadership, seeing the chaos, called for a vote to table. It passed 182-117. Next year that resolution was "withdrawn" i.e. killed. So much for "Love" for homosexuals in DSC.

 

Another proposed resolution to be tabled was the Rev. Shay Gaillard's call to support "Anglicans for Life" an anti-abortion group. The leaders of the March 2012 had that one tabled so as not to muddy the waters they were preparing for the great issue of the homosexuality. The General Convention of 2012 was about to meet and was expected to give green light to a liturgy for the blessing of same-sex unions. Gaillard's proposal was tabled, but brought back in the first secessionist convention, in March of 2013, in Florence, for passage. The last proposed resolution to be tabled came in 2014 when the diocesan leaders put forth one to give the local rector control over the parish property. That one was tabled and mysteriously disappeared never to be heard from again. No explanation of it has ever been put forth.

 

The closest a diocesan convention has ever come to going against the wish of Lawrence was in March of 2015 when a proposed resolution on marriage came up carrying a sentence condemning transgender, a topic that everyone knew was important to Lawrence. In the vote, two-thirds of the convention voted for the resolution, after it was slightly revised. One-third abstained or voted against.

 

The historical fact is that the DSC has never refused Mark Lawrence anything. It is unthinkable that they would deny him his wish to join ACNA. This begs the question of why there is no special convention this Fall. If this decision, like all others, is a slam dunk, why not go ahead and call a special convention to approve and get it set up for the March 2017 convention to give second and final passage? Is it because they are unsure of passage? I would be very surprised if this were the case. Or, are they waiting for the state Supreme Court ruling?

 

There has been no public explanation of why a special convention has not been called this Fall. But then, DSC operates under a lot of secrecy, has for years. However, it does make one a little suspicious that all is not well in DSC these days.

 

 

 

 

THE DECLINE OF THE GLOBAL SOUTH

 

 

 

The organization of Anglicans called the Global South has just held its sixth conference, in Cairo. It issued two important documents that are worth studying, a Communiqué ( here ) and a Statement from the Global South Primates and GAFCON Primates Council Concerning Same-Sex Unions ( here > "Statement..." 08 October). These documents reaffirm two realities that were already apparent: homosexuality was the driving issue splitting the Anglican Communion, and Global South/GAFCON have failed to break up the Anglican Communion into two hostile camps on that issue.

 

The second item, the Statement, speaks for itself simply and clearly as it condemns homosexual behavior. It continues the fundamentalist belief that God assigned gender and that people who go against their assigned gender are rebelling against God. In other words, homosexuality is a learned behavior and not an innate state. "Our role is to restore them to God's divine patterns" (#10). Restore them. Homosexuals are not really homosexuals, they are "same-sex attracted" (#11). There is nothing new in this Statement. It would be dismissed offhand by a great host of psychological and medical professionals.

 

The first item, the Communiqué, is much more interesting and revealing about the state of the anti-homosexual rights provinces of the Anglican Communion. Here are some items to note in this document:

 

1---(#2) 16 provinces participated in the recent Global South conference. That represented less than half of the 38 provinces of the Anglican Communion. It also meant 8 of the 24 provinces that are part of Global South did not attend. This indicates a weakening of the anti-homosexual movement in the Anglican Communion.

 

2---(#8) the new Global South Primates Steering Committee is headed, once again, by Mouneer Anis of Egypt (Mark Lawrence's constant defender). Of the nine primates, four are from equatorial Africa, the provinces that have been historically the most opposed to rights for homosexuals. This shows the continued importance of the issue of homosexuality among the core of Global South/GAFCON.

 

3---(#22a) Explicit recognition that the division in the Anglican Communion came from the issue of homosexuality: "We recognize that division and dislocation amongst orthodox Anglicans have arisen during the disputes on human sexuality." Any claim from the Diocese of South Carolina, or any other breakaway group, that this was about "theology" or "polity" is just nonsense. Even Global South finally admitted the obvious. It is time for DSC to do the same. The schism of DSC from the Episcopal Church was directly caused by DSC's rejection of equal rights for homosexual persons.

 

4---The Communiqué is replete with references to sexuality.

 

5---The attitude toward the Anglican Communion is ambivalent. On one hand it called for unity in the Anglican Communion: "bind Anglicans worldwide together as one people" (#23). On the other hand, it criticized the Instruments of Communion of the Anglican Communion for failure to "discipline" those [Episcopal Church] who supposedly abandoned the historic faith and to check the marginalization of Anglicans in "heterodox Provinces" [ACNA and DSC]. 

 

     It is important to note what the document do not say. It does not call for, or even imply, division, schism, or any form of rebellion against the Anglican Communion. Global South/GAFCON has abandoned its threat to bolt the Anglican Communion. In the end, it only set up a "task force" to study the future (#33).

 

     While Global South/GAFCON recognized the Anglican Church in North America as a fellow "province," the documents said nothing about supporting it for membership in the Anglican Communion. In fact, that is a dead issue. In last January's Primates' Gathering in Canterbury, Global South/GAFCON abandoned ACNA on the spot and agreed that if ACNA should want to join the Anglican Communion it would have to go through the Anglican Consultative Council. In addition, the primates recommended that ACNA NOT be admitted to AC. When the Anglican Consultative Council met last April, all but three of the Global South/GAFCON provinces attended. Not one of them raised the issue of the admission of ACNA to the Anglican Communion. The fact that the new Communiqué completely ignores the issue of ACNA's joining AC confirms the point that this is dead. GAFCON helped create ACNA in 2009 with the goal of making it the replacement province in the Anglican Communion to take the place of the Episcopal Church. It is abundantly clear now that this stratagem has completely failed.

 

     People of South Carolina should understand that joining ACNA will NOT be joining the Anglican Communion. ACNA is not now and will never be a province of the Anglican Communion. At best it is "recognized" by a minority, and a shrinking one at that, of the most socially conservative provinces of the Anglican Communion.

 

The take-aways from the recent Global South Conference:

 

---the hard right of the Anglican Communion is still obsessed with the issue of homosexuality.

---the hard right knows it has failed to remove the pro-homosexual rights provinces from the Anglican Communion, most notably the Episcopal Church. It is at a loss to know what to do about this.  

 

---Opposition to equal rights for homosexuals is declining in the Anglican Communion. One province after another is taking up the issue of equal rights for homosexuals. We are on the downward slope, historically speaking, on this issue that peaked in 2015 with the U.S. Supreme Court and the Episcopal Church's adoption of same-sex marriage.

 

---Global South/GAFCON is on the decline in the Anglican Communion. They know they have lost the war on homosexuality. They are now only fighting a rear-guard action to delay the acceptance of historic reality as long as possible. At this point, it is just that, only delay of the inevitable.

 

 

 

 

 

ONE YEAR:
Reflections on the SC Supreme Court
Hearing a Year Later

 

 

 

September 23, 2016, marks one year since the Supreme Court of South Carolina held a hearing on the Church case. We are all still anxiously awaiting the Court's decision. 

 

In the last few days, I have gone over again the hearing transcript and the documents around it. Here are my thoughts about what has happened and what is happening in the Court. I offer these only as my opinions.

 

---The case before the Court is an appeal of Judge Diane Goodstein's circuit court decision of February 3, 2015. In short, that ruling was: --the Episcopal Church (TEC) is congregational, --the Diocese (DSC) is an independent self-governing entity, --the parishes are the owners of the properties, --DSC properly amended its corporate documents to legally withdraw from TEC. This was a total victory for DSC. 

 

---DSC asked the state Supreme Court (SCSC) to affirm Goodstein's decision. TEC/ECSC asked SCSC to reject the decision and write a new one.

 

---The five justices of SCSC conducted the hearing for about an hour before noon on September 23, 2015. The proceeding was led and dominated by the Chief Justice, Jean Toal. Other justices were Donald Beatty, Costa Pleicones, John Kittredge, and Kaye Hearn.

 

---Soon after the hearing, perhaps the same day, the five justices met in private and voted on a decision. One justice had already been assigned to lead the case. My guess it was Toal, who came loaded with documents to the hearing and dominated the entire hearing from start to finish. The majority then started writing their decision and the minority, if there were any, started writing their dissenting opinions either together or separately. Along the way and while the decisions were being drawn up, justices could change their votes, so that the majority/minority dynamic could change. Only when all justices were satisfied would they release the written opinions.

 

 

THE PROBABILITIES OF WHAT HAS HAPPENED

 

These are my best guesses at the moment.

 

---The justices unanimously rejected Goodstein's decision. This was clear during the hearing. Toal and Hearn eviscerated it. Not one justice had one word of support for it. They had two problems with it 1-the very lopsided way Goodstein had conducted the trial and 2-the injudicious written decision. Toal and Hearn were particularly appalled at the way the revered experts professors Edgar and McWilliams had been treated in the trial. Thus, the court rejected DSC's request to uphold the decision and granted TEC/ECSC's request for a new opinion.

 

---Another choice of the justices was to agree with parts and disagree with other parts of Goodstein's order and remand it to her for re-adjudication under certain guidelines. If they were going to do this, I think we would know it by now. I doubt that remand was their choice.

 

---The justices probably decided to write a whole new decision, and that is where the internal divisions showed up. What would the new decision be?

 

 

MY GUESSES AT THE CAUSE OF THE LONG DELAY

 

---In the hearing the justices were in unanimous agreement that Goodstein's decision was unacceptable. That is all they agreed upon.

 

---Toal and Hearn took their objections down entirely different paths. They became the competing  leaders for the new decision.

 

 

TOAL'S SIDE

 

---Toal seemed to be primarily interested in local corporate and property rights. I saw two main points of hers: 1-the "settlor" (property title holder) must establish in writing  a trust for another party (the implication was that TEC could not impose a trust by itself), 2-a body incorporated under the state laws of SC is protected independently by the state laws.

 

Toal excoriated DSC lawyer Alan Runyan perhaps for getting the courts entangled in what she considered issues of lesser importance. After she raked him over the coals about what she apparently saw as Runyan's misuse of the 2009 All Saints decision, just before the end of the hearing she brought him back and spoon-fed him apparently what she saw as his two main arguments. She asked of Runyan: "They [DSC] withdrew their accession to the national church and as a corporation they had the authority to do that, that's your argument, isn't it?" "If we see it as a matter of corporation law, and don't get tangled up in all the doctrinal issues, as a matter of corporate law they legitimately filed papers accomplishing that, that's your argument?"

 

When Hewitt made his brief closing rebuttal, she hammered home the same issues. She said to him: "So once the, let me see if I get you, you want us to declare that the corporate law of South Carolina is that once you put a purpose clause in your charitable corporation you are forever bound to that purpose clause and, it can never be changed even if your constitution and other operational documents are properly amended to do so?" "What corporate, what constitutional documents were violated by amending the purpose to withdraw their accession from the national church?"

 

Thus, it seemed to me that Toal was trying to settle this case under state corporate law, in favor of DSC. It must be remembered that she was the author of the 2009 state Supreme Court decision called All Saints. In that, she had made two main points: All Saints parish was the owner of the property under a 1903 quit claim deed, and All Saints had properly amended its corporate documents to withdraw legally from the diocese.

 

Justice Beatty made only two brief comments in the hearing. He was the only other justice there who had been part of the All Saints decision. He had joined in it and had signed it. My guess is that he remained with Toal on this one.

 

 

HEARN'S SIDE.

 

---In the hearing, Justice Hearn advocated strongly and relentlessly for the Church side: TEC is hierarchical, there is no inherent conflict between hierarchy and neutral principles, the Dennis Canon was in effect as part of the accession to the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church, and the court should defer to TEC as a hierarchical religious institution.

 

---If the scenario of a Toal-Beatty v. Hearn split is true, this left two justices as the deciding factors, Pleicones and Kittredge. At least three justices were required for a majority decision. Toal-Beatty had to bring over one of them. Hearn had to sway both of them.

 

---Which way did Pleicones and Kittredge lean in the hearing? This is difficult to answer because each said relatively little. It seemed to me that Pleicones probably favored the Church side. He was a Greek Orthodox and certainly understood hierarchical institutions. (Of course, Toal, a devout Roman Catholic also understood all of the meanings of hierarchy.) Pleicones made four comments that may have revealed a pro-Church attitude. As soon as Hewitt opened his presentation to the court, Pleicones broke in to raise the issue of whether the Episcopal Church was hierarchical. Later he asked how the case was different than that of All Saints. At another time he questioned the effect of a trust on parish property. Perhaps Pleicones's most important remark came when Runyan declared: "The Dennis Canon is not religious doctrine. It's purportedly declaring an interest in property." Pleicones responded, "It's a governance measure though, is it not?" This seemed to indicate that Pleicones might have had a favorable attitude toward the Dennis Canon. My guess is that Pleicones probably joined Hearn.

 

---To me the biggest mystery of all was Justice Kittredge. He made more comments in the hearing than Beatty and Pleicones. He was mostly concerned with clarifying the issues and the positions of the two sides. As Pleicones, he wondered about hierarchy and the relevance of the All Saints decision. Once when Runyan was defending the parishes' right to control their property, Kittredge asked him, "I'm just wondering if, does your analysis there, is it impacted if we determine that this is a hierarchical church? Could your clients unilaterally take the steps they took if it's determined to be a hierarchical church?" Runyan said hierarchy was completely irrelevant. It did not seem to be irrelevant to Kittredge. Toward the end, he made the most enigmatic remark of all in response to Toal's question to Hewitt about amending corporate documents. Kittredge said, "If they are properly amended. I have no problem with it. What you're [Hewitt] saying is, it's got to be amended in accordance with the rules regarding amendment?" 

 

The problem was in deciding whether the Diocese had amended its corporate documents "properly." That got down to a basic difference. The Church side argued that the DSC was incorporated in 1973 explicitly "under" the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church. The DSC lawyers argued that DSC had the right to amend its corporate charter to unilaterally withdraw its recognition of the Constitution and Canons of TEC regardless of what it said in 1973. The question then that the justices had to decide was whether DSC had the right to remove itself at will from TEC. I do not see how they could decide such until they had determined whether or not TEC was hierarchical. By discarding Goodstein's decision off hand, they indicated a leaning away from the congregational interpretation.

 

One very important event has happened since the hearing that will certainly impact on the justices' decision(s). On April 5, 2016, a California court of appeals ruled in favor of the Church in the San Joaquin case. That court made two major points relevant to SC: 1-the Episcopal Church is hierarchical, and hierarchy is not incompatible with neutral principles (the CA courts followed neutral principles), and 2-the earlier decision in the Diocese of Quincy case in Illinois was irrelevant to California. The state courts in Illinois had ruled in favor of the local entity. The breakaway side declared the Illinois decision to be the law of the land. The problem was that state courts have jurisdiction only in that state. The California court ruled that the Illinois decision had no bearing in California because the state laws were different. Thus, unless the state laws in South Carolina are identical to those of Illinois, the Quincy decision in favor of the breakaway diocese would have no relevance to South Carolina. The California decision of April 5 could have had a major impact on the writing of the supreme court decisions in South Carolina. If so, it would be in favor of the Church side.

 

Bottom Line----my wild guess is that the reason for the long delay in a decision is that SCSC split. Toal-Beatty were for DSC and Hearn-Pleicones were for the Church. The big question mark then is how Kittredge came down. It is impossible to tell from his remarks in the hearing.

 

When will we know? It is unusual for the court to go for more than a year. However, given the size and complexity of this case that involves the most basic principles of the Constitution, it should not be surprising that it will take a long time to settle. I think chances are we will have a decision before the end of this year. But then, your guess in all of this is as good as mine.   

 



 

THE PROBLEM WITH DSC'S AFFILIATION "DISCERNMENT"

 

 

The Diocese of South Carolina's website has posted a report from the clergy conference of 14 September concerning the diocesan discernment of affiliation with the Anglican Church in North America. The diocesan task force on affiliation was created two years ago and hand-picked by Bishop Lawrence. Last March, it recommended affiliation with ACNA. This guarantees it will join ACNA. The DSC has never denied anything to Bishop Lawrence.

 

In reading the report, I see a major problem. The diocesan leadership is promoting the assertion that the ACNA is a localized institution ruled from the ground up (read the report here ). The idea that power in ACNA rests at the bottom is not true. Communicants of DSC need to understand this before they affiliate.

 

In the circuit court trial of July 2014, the witness on the stand for St. Michael's of Charleston amused some listeners by declaring that no one in the leadership of that parish had ever read the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church. Well, the Constitution and Canons of ACNA are freely available on the Internet for everyone to read at ACNA>Governance. I highly recommend that every communicant of DSC read them. You can find them here ).

 

 

I have already made two posts about the DSC affiliation with ACNA:

 

March 29, 2016---"South Carolina and the Anglican Church in North America."

 

April 28, 2016---"A Cautionary Note for the DSC."

 

 

The idea that DSC will govern itself is simply not true and can be understood by a careful reading of the governing structure of the ACNA. The ACNA is misleading in suggesting that power rests at the bottom by incorporating the principles that local entities will own their own properties and will have the right to secede from the ACNA at will. One should recall that DSC voted to leave the Episcopal Church under the claim it was too authoritarian. The issues of property and the right of secession were major points in the litigation against TEC, such as the circuit court trial of 2014. If communicants assume they are joining a group that will achieve local rule, they are mistaken.

 

The ACNA is actually an authoritarian organization with power concentrated at the top. At the very top is an archbishop. TEC has no archbishop. Every bishop in ACNA is required to swear personal loyalty to the archbishop. Bishop Lawrence will be directly responsible to a superior authority. Most importantly, the people of DSC will lose control over the choice of bishops. This recently happened in Pittsburgh. A diocese may elect a bishop, but he (women cannot be bishops in male-chauvinist ACNA), cannot take office until approved by two-thirds of the bishops of ACNA. This gives those bishops near dictatorial power over DSC's choice of new bishops. In TEC new bishops are usually approved by at least half of the diocesan standing committees, a much lower bar. In short, the people of South Carolina will lose control over their right to choose their own bishop. Again, if these people think they are getting local control they are sadly mistaken. Yes, they will have their local properties and yes, they can withdraw from ACNA at will, but while in ACNA, the people of South Carolina will follow the will of the bishops of ACNA. This is far more authoritarian than TEC ever was. The irony here is rich. I urge the good people of South Carolina to read the C and C of ACNA.

 

Of course, joining ACNA is problematical in other ways. It is not now and almost certainly will never be a province of the Anglican Communion. ACNA is a 2009 creature of an alliance between an anti-homosexual rights minority of ex-Episcopalians in the U.S. and like-minded Anglican archbishops in equatorial Africa. It was formed to promote a reactionary social policy of opposition to the rising demand for equal rights for homosexuals and equality for women. The Third World fundamentalists who formed GAFCON aimed to break up the Anglican Communion into two groups. They failed. In the primates' gathering at Canterbury last January, they collapsed. They managed to get only a slap on the wrist for TEC. At the same time they abandoned ACNA. They said if ACNA wanted to join the Anglican Communion it would have to go through the Anglican Consultative Council. That was the kiss of death. GAFCON abandoned ACNA. ACNA is now out in the cold where it is almost certainly going to stay. DSC's joining ACNA will not make it part of the Anglican Communion.

 

Bottom line--DSC is not now in the Anglican Communion. It will not be in the Anglican Communion after it joins ACNA. GAFCON has abandoned ACNA. To be in the Anglican Communion, DSC must return to the Episcopal Church.  

 

 

 

 

PRAYERS FOR BISHOP SPONG

 

 

The Rt. Rev. John (Jack) Spong suffered a stroke last Saturday. Keep him and his family in your prayers. For more information, see the announcement in Episcopal Café here .

 

Bishop Spong, now 85 years old, was bishop of Newark from 1979 to 2000. He was born in Charlotte, North Carolina and was graduated from Chapel Hill.

Spong was arguably the most important "liberal" Episcopal Church theologian and writer in the late twentieth century. His prolific writings called on contemporary Christians to reinterpret the traditional religion in light of the realities and needs of modern civilization. (Conservatives on the other hand insisted that Christianity was an absolute religion of "received" unchanging truths that must be transmitted unchanged.)

In modern Church history, Spong is remembered as the most prominent bishop advocating for the cause of the full inclusion of homosexuals in the life of the Episcopal Church. In 1979, General Convention passed a resolution disapproving of the ordination of practicing homosexuals. Throughout the 1980's the understanding was that such ordination was "inappropriate." However, the Church did not make it a matter of canon law or even forbid it. The conservative/liberal split on this issue in the Episcopal Church was this: conservatives regarded homosexual behavior as innately sinful; liberals saw it as amoral, that is, inherently neither good nor bad. Conservatives insisted that non-celibate homosexuals not be allowed ordination. Liberals insisted that the Church should not bar open homosexuals from ordination. By around 1990, the division in the Episcopal Church was roughly into thirds, a third opposed to the ordination of homosexuals, a third favorable, and a third undecided. 

In 1988, Bishop Spong was the first bishop in the U.S. to establish the blessing of same-sex unions in his diocese. In 1989, Spong ordained an openly homosexual man. Presiding Bishop Browning, his council, and the House of Bishops all condemned Spong's action. However, they did not censure him. The 1990's turned out to be the time of the war between the anti and pro homosexual sides in the Episcopal Church. The issue rocked every General Convention of he decade. The highlight of the war, and its turning point, was the ecclesiastical trial of Spong's assistant, Bishop Righter, in 1996. What conservatives thought was going to be their Gettysburg turned into their Waterloo. Much to their chagrin, the court dismissed the charges and declared that there was no doctrine in the Episcopal Church forbidding the ordination of practicing homosexuals. After that, it was just a matter of time until homosexuals gained full inclusion into the Episcopal Church climaxing with the establishment of same-sex marriage in 2015. Spong had been the pioneer of it all.

In regards to the schism in South Carolina, Spong was the most important figure in the Episcopal Church outside of South Carolina except for Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori. In the 1980's, during the episcopate of the evangelical Bishop Allison (1982-90), the Diocese of South Carolina came to focus, virtually to obsession, on Spong as the symbol of all that was wrong in the Episcopal Church and on homosexuality as the cancer destroying true religion in the Church from within. Indeed, Allison perhaps saw himself as the anti-Spong in the Church turning out his own theological writings in defense of conservative religion. This was the start of the 30-year journey to the schism of 2012. Bishop Salmon continued rallying the diocese throughout the 1990's in its campaign gainst Spong and the pro-homosexual lobby. Spong was the necessary enemy to rally the diocese against the mother church. By the time Mark Lawrence arrived in South Carolina to become bishop, in January of 2008, the stage had long been set for the run-up to the schism. Indeed, there was evidence presented in the 2014 circuit court trial of a conspiracy of the anti-Church party in the diocese to bring in Lawrence and have him lead the diocese out of the Episcopal Church with property in hand. In a very real way, the schism of 2012 was the Diocese of South Carolina's answer to Bishop Spong.

Thus, whichever side one is on, one has to see Bishop Spong as one of the most important figures in modern Episcopal Church history. Personally, I see him as a towering hero for human rights, a pioneer who went against the odds to stand up for what was right, endured hateful denunciations, and was finally vindicated by the majority of the Episcopal Church. There is an old saying that you can't make an omelet until you crack eggs. Bishop Spong cracked many eggs and made a great omelet.
May all of us who stand for human rights for all people pray for a great champion of those rights, Bishop Spong.

 

 



 

 

9 - 11

 

 

The world turns and history moves on. But what does history tell us? Are things getting better or worse? After a lifetime of studying history, I can tell you that my philosophy of history is that, on the whole, history is progress. The world is getting better in so many important ways. Yet, this progress is not steady and even. It moves in fits and starts. Along the road there are many catastrophic setbacks some of which are so intensely evil that at the time they make people think that the darkness has overcome the light. The Holocaust was one such event. We must not let the darkness overcome the world that God entrusted to us.

 

I think the great challenge we face in the contemporary world is to balance our enormous advances in science and technology with our morality. The former has given mankind the power on one hand to make a better world in so many wonderful ways or, on the other hand to destroy the world. The choices that we human beings make between the two will depend on the level of our moral understandings and applications. I define morality as the commitment to make a better world for the human beings around us. Will our morality promote us to make the best of things, or will our lack of morality leave us wanting and falling to self-destruction? As creatures given Free Will by God, it is ours to choose. 

 

For people of the present generation, 9-11 was the quintessential catastrophe. On a radiantly beautiful and cloudless September day fifteen years ago, all seemed well in God's world---until 1, 2, 3, 4 airplanes suddenly crashed and the world changed, literally out of the blue.

 

Where were you on 9-11? It is one of those days that everyone can remember exactly where they were when they heard the news. I was at my desk on my job as assistant head of the South Carolina Room of the Charleston County Library. The Library is on Calhoun Street, a few blocks east of Marion Square and just on the other side of Mother Emanuel Church. My phone rang around 9 a.m. and a staff member told me an airplane had hit the World Trade Center in New York. I turned on my computer to stare in disbelief. I called my wife at home on James Island to tell her to turn on the TV because a catastrophe had happened. She did. When the second plane hit I momentarily froze. I knew this was an attack by some kind of murderous force against the United States. Most of the library staff moved quickly and quietly to the staff lounge to watch a large TV. The room was crowded but eerily silent. Everyone stared at the screen. A few shed tears. A few whispered about relatives or friends in New York. I sat through the collapse of the two towers. By then I was one of those wiping my eyes. I could not take any more. I wandered back to my desk. I was too numb to absorb much of the rest of the bad news.

 

The library became like a tomb. The few patrons there ambled around as lost sheep. The staff mostly sat at their desks like zombies unable to think or do any work. At lunch I went out for a walk as I usually did. I liked to walk around the picturesque nearby neighborhoods as Ansonboro and Wraggsboro. Sometimes I went over and walked around Marion Square and down King or Meeting Streets to Broad. Sometimes I walked over to the waterfront in the aquarium area. On this day I found old Charleston strangely comforting. I do not know of another city that has suffered as much disaster, natural and man-made, as Charleston. Everything in the book since 1680: plagues, fires, hurricanes, wars, earthquakes. You name it. Yet that grand old city endured, and not just endured, soared in triumph over its adversities as her piercing church spires soared over the ancient streets. It was more charming, lovely, and beautiful on that day then it had ever been. I soaked it up. I needed it. I felt better knowing that the world too would endure against potential destruction just as Charleston had, time and again.

 

My wife came in to downtown and after work we walked down the unusually quiet streets over to the cathedral on Coming Street where Dean William McKeachie had scheduled a service after 5 o'clock. The nearly two hundred year old walls of old St. Paul's of Radcliffeboro never seemed so lovely and comforting. The place was crowded. As I recall we read the Great Litany. It was a somber, quiet, sad, but soothing lament. Afterwards we all dispersed reassured of God's presence but still too stunned to say much.

 

What good came out of 9-11? I think the jury is still out on that. I can think of a lot of bad: two unnecessary, destructive, expensive, and disruptive wars, a rising fear of foreigners in the United States, a hysteria for "security," and an escalating war on "terror." But who, where, what was the enemy? The "war on terror" was not the usual war. It was a new and frustrating combat against a foe that was elusive. Fighting the new terrorists would be like eating jello with your hands.

 

Plenty of good events have happened too since 9-11. One of those was today. "Skip" Adams was installed as the new bishop provisional of the Episcopal Church diocese of South Carolina. It is a sad "goodbye" to the great bishop "Charlie," but a cheerful "hello" to the new bishop "Skip." Life goes on. It goes on in spite of 9-11, of the Holocaust, or of the too-numerous other disasters of modern history. It goes on as does Charleston. We need to remember that today. We need to remember too on this somber anniversary the "big picture," history is progress and true progress is the reconciliation of imperfect humankind and perfect God.   

  

 

  

 

 

ANNIVERSARIES

 

 

 

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about anniversaries, probably because my wife and I just celebrated our Golden Wedding Anniversary.

 

Blog

 

There are three other anniversaries on the horizon that should be noted. One is the three year mark for this blog. I began it on September 11, 2013 (choosing 9-11 was a pure coincidence). Since then it has had nearly 150,000 "views" (149,375 to be exact). I never imagined when I began that so many people would care what I had to say. I hope my remarks have been thoughtful and informative. I appreciate all the emails I have received from my readers. Keep them coming. The most popular posting is "Chronology." Almost as popular, and much to my surprise, was my little essay on Donald Trump. It went viral on Facebook getting some 7,000 hits. Close in popularity was my modest tribute to Bishop vonRosenberg. To my surprise, it too went viral on Facebook with thousands of readers. It got the largest single one day viewing, at 3,000. I continue to be amazed at the power of the Internet and the pervasiveness of social media. This is truly a democratic age of information and communication.

(BTW, if you are wondering what is going on with the history of the schism that I have been writing for a long time now, I can tell you I am working on the last chapter, on the litigation. I hope the state supreme court decision will give closure and I can wrap it up. The manuscript is turning out to be long and detailed, well over a 600-page book as of now. When I spoke to Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori about my history of the schism, she said put everything in it because a hundred years from now people will want to know the details. I think that was good advice. My aim is to get it out and published asap after the Court rules. I do not know yet the format, perhaps an e-book.)

 

Schism

 

Another anniversary coming up is one I had rather forget. Next month will mark the four year anniversary of the schism in South Carolina, October 15 to be exact. Oct. 15, 2012 was the day Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori called Bishop Mark Lawrence and informed him of the Disciplinary Board for Bishop's decision to charge him with abandonment of communion. She informed Lawrence she had suspended him from all ministerial duties for the time being. After the call, Lawrence and the old diocesan ruling clique resolved to reject her orders and to put into effect their prearranged secret plan (Oct. 2) to remove the diocese from the Episcopal Church. This was the schism. Two days later, Lawrence  called Jefferts Schori and informed her that the diocese was no longer associated with the Episcopal Church. In effect, Lawrence abandoned the Episcopal Church which, of course, would include his consecration vows to conform to the government of the Church. The ruling clique called a special convention on Nov. 17 to rubber stamp this which it did.

 

The schism was not necessary. The issue of homosexuality, the direct cause of the schism, could have been dealt with under the arrangements of the Episcopal Church. Each bishop was left to choose whether he or she would allow the blessings of same-sex unions, and later of same-sex marriage. Bishop Lawrence could have remained in the Episcopal Church and simply disallowed these. Many bishops in the Episcopal Church have done so. The Diocese of South Carolina could have remained in the Episcopal Church and kept out equal rights for homosexuals. On this point, they gained nothing by leaving the Church.

 

What they gained, and everyone else too was a great deal of disruption and cost. Congregations were torn up from one end of the diocese to the other. The breakaway entity has suffered a 26% loss of active membership after the schism even while legal costs soar. The DSC has admitted to spending well over $2m for lawyers. We do not know the details of where the money came from or where it went as all of this is secret. The people of South Carolina have paid dearly for something that was not even necessary in the first place.

 

The future of DSC does not look good at all. They are about to join the Anglican Church in North America which is the proxy of GAFCON in the U.S. GAFCON calls ACNA a "province" and its archbishop a "primate" but no one else does. The Anglican Communion does not now and will never recognize ACNA as a province. Indeed, the January primates' gathering in Canterbury agreed that they would not admit ACNA as a province. That issue is now dead. ACNA will never be the replacement of the Episcopal Church in the U.S. So, what's the point of joining ACNA? None. The DSC is not now and almost certainly never will be in the Anglican Communion. The idea of being an extra-provincial diocese in the Anglican Communion is simply nonsense.

 

SC Supreme Court Hearing

 

The other anniversary approaching is the first year marker for the South Carolina Supreme Court hearing of September 23, 2015. We have all been on tender hooks for a long time now.

 

Steve Skardon has just posted a thoughtful reflection on this anniversary on his blog at scepiscopalians. I recommend it. He suggests that the cause for the long delay might be from disagreement among the justices on writing a decision. He speculates that former chief justice Jean Toal may have written a decision favorable to the DSC side only to have other justices reject it and move to write another. This is a reasonable theory.

 

However, I do wonder about the mechanics of that. The South Carolina Bar has a handbook on the working of the state Supreme Court that is available on the Internet (here). On Page 6:

 

"Step 4: Decision Conference. Following each day's oral arguments, the Court meets in closed conference. The assigned justice gives his/her analysis and recommendation, the Court discusses the case, and each member of the Court casts a preliminary vote, usually in descending order of seniority and beginning with the justice who has given the recommendation. When possible, the Court reaches a decision in each of the cases argued that day, but any decision is tentative until the opinion is issued. Immediately after the Court reaches its tentative decision in a case, the assigned justice prepares an opinion.

 

Step 5: Issuing an Opinion. After the justices agree on an opinion, it is issued, or filed with the Office of the Clerk of the Supreme Court, and made available...Until a decision is issued, any justice may reconsider his or her vote on the case."

 

What this says to me is that the justices made a decision on the church case immediately after the hearing last Sept. 23. The decision was by majority vote of the five justices. There is no way to know yet whether the vote was majority ( 3 or 4) or was unanimous (5). Afterwards the "assigned justice" (I guess Toal) drew up a written  opinion. It may very well be that some justices objected to parts of her written decision. I doubt that justices changed their initial votes later although they were allowed to do so under Step 5. It should also be remembered that the justices in the minority may write their dissenting opinions and may do so individually or together. Thus, I would question the suggestion that the justices rejected Toal's decision after she had produced a written opinion. It seems to me they must have made the decision on the outcome of the case at first, before any written decision appeared.

 

Here are my guesses on what is going on in the SC Supreme Court for whatever they are worth (which may be what you paid to be on this website):  ---the justices unanimously rejected Judge Goodstein's ruling of Feb. 3, 2015 (If they had simply validated it we would have known that long before now). ---the justices decided not to accept parts and reject parts of Goodstein's decision and send it back to her to be reheard in her court (Likewise, we would know that by now). ---the justices' initial vote was on a split decision. Both sides are requiring a great deal of time to construct their rationales (a unanimous decision would have moved along faster). The long delay says to me problematical internal disagreement. On that part, I am with Skardon.

 

The case before the SC Supreme Court is a very complex and complicated one that deals in some of the most basic constitutional issues in the nation. There are three big factors to keep in mind in contemplating the case. One is the All Saints decision of 2009, that was written by Toal. The next is Judge Goodstein's decision. The third is the state Supreme Court hearing of last September 23.

The All Saints decision ruled that All Saints parish of Pawleys Island had legally broken away from the Episcopal Diocese and that All Saints had retained sole legal ownership of its property. Since this decision was not appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, it still stands as the only case in the U.S. finally settled on the side of the local parish against the diocese. It has been almost universally rejected and ignored by the rest of the states. The Court made three crucial points in its All Saints decision: 1---the Diocese did not have any interest in the property since it had given a quit claim deed to the parish in 1903 long before the Dennis Canon appeared (1979), and 2---the Dennis Canon cannot create a trust on its own for the Church and the Diocese. In SC law, only the title holder can create a trust for another party, and 3---All Saints parish had properly revised its corporate documents to separate itself legally from the Diocese. On the face of it, all of these should have been in the interest of the DSC side in last year's hearing, but that was not the case. Toal made it clear that All Saints was not necessarily the model to be followed. This was the author of that very decision speaking.

 

It seems to me the SC Supreme Court must make two big decisions in the church case: whether a diocese can leave the Episcopal Church, and whether a diocese can leave and take the property with it. These questions are fundamental to the entire case. These decisions require the Court to make some judgments about the structure of the Episcopal Church. There is no way to avoid this. However, they cannot go too far because that would violate the First Amendment requirement of the separation of church and state. I believe Judge Goodstein went too far in her decision, such as in the astonishing assertion that the Episcopal Church is congregational and organized from the parish upwards.

 

In my view, the difference in the All Saints case was that in that instance the diocese gave the quit claim deed long before the diocese and Church established the Dennis Canon. In Bishop Lawrence's case, however, he gave the quit claim deeds to all the parishes long after the Church and the Diocese had established the Dennis Canon as church law. That is why Toal wondered aloud if Bishop Lawrence had the right to do what he did. Under Church law he did not. He violated the Dennis Canon (as the Disciplinary Board said). However, the legal power of the Dennis Claim is still in doubt. Toal also made a point in the hearing that only the deed holder can establish a trust. It cannot be imposed from the outside. The Church side argued that the trust did go into effect as it was implied in the formal diocesan recognition of the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church.

 

What all this boils down to is whether the Episcopal Church is hierarchical or not. That is basically what the SC Supreme Court has to decide. I do not see how the Court can avoid this. "Neutral principles" alone does not resolve the issues. As we have seen two states have already come up with diametrically opposed decisions following the same "neutral principles" guideline, Illinois for the breakaways, and California for the Church. If the SC Court finds TEC to be hierarchical that should settle it for the Church side. If it finds TEC not to be hierarchical that should settle it for the independent diocesan side because recognizing state laws on corporations and property would favor them.

 

I suspect that the long delay reflects a serious division of opinion in the Court and a concerted effort on both parts to take their time and "get it right" this time in contrast to the embarrassment of their 2009 All Saints decision. My guess is that there is no unanimous opinion. The big question of the day then is, Who won the majority?

At this point there is no way for anyone to know what the majority of justices decided. We have no choice but to wait, however impatiently, for the high court of South Carolina to render its great decision. We can be certain that we will have a decision. We cannot be certain of when that will be. However, I will go out on (another) limb and say it will be here before Christmas. Historically speaking, it is very rare for the court to go more than 14 months on a decision.