Dioceses in US Episcopal Church Continue to Appeal for Oversight from Canterbury

|TOP|The divisions in the US Episcopal Church deepened this week as the Diocese of Dallas became the seventh in the denomination to appeal to Canterbury for oversight.

The move follows the rejection of a resolution at the recent General Convention which called on member churches to halt the consecration of gay bishops.

Now a split has appeared over the legal validity of the Convention’s compromise resolution, B033, which settled for the call to member churches to only “exercise restraint” in considering whether to consecrate a gay candidate.

Both liberals and conservatives in the church have voiced strong opposition to the resolution which stops at urging members to “exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion”.

|AD|Conservatives in the church remain angry that the resolution does not go far enough in its response to the Windsor Report.

The Dallas Diocese, left dissatisfied with B033 and the events of General Convention joins dioceses in Central Florida and South Carolina, as well as the Dioceses of Fort Worth, Texas, Fresno in California, Pittsburgh, and Springfield, Illinois, in requesting foreign oversight.

The Diocese of Dallas said the US Episcopal Church had voted to “lead the Episcopal Church to walk apart from the rest of the Anglican Communion”.

The Bishop of Dallas James Stanton said that a special panel would examine the diocese’s relationship with the Episcopal Church before going on to reports its findings to an October Convention.

Although the Diocese of Albany, New York, did not request overseas leadership it Standing Committee said that it stood “in solidarity and deepest sympathy” with those appealing “to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Panel of Reference for various aid and relief”.

It added that it rejected B033 as an “inadequate response” which “wilfully failed to meet both the spirit and letter of the Windsor Report in areas of human sexuality”.