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PITTSBURGH: Attempted Coup to Unseat Bishop Fails
By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
1/15/2008
An attempted coup by US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, her attorney David Booth Beers, and liberal parish priest Harold Lewis to unseat Bishop Robert Duncan, the Bishop of Pittsburgh, failed recently when three canonically required senior bishops refused to sign inhibition papers that would have prevented him from functioning as a bishop.
The back room attempts to fast track and inhibit the evangelical catholic bishop, saying that he had abandoned the communion of the Episcopal Church, had all the makings of Tammany Hall politics. It all fell apart when bishops Leo Frade of Southeast Florida, Peter Lee of Virginia, and Don Wimberly of Texas refused to go along with the public lynching. (It is not known at this time how many of the three bishops did not give consent).
The charges that Bishop Duncan has abandoned the communion simply do not hold up. When he heard the news Duncan said, "Few bishops have been more loyal to the doctrine, discipline and worship of The Episcopal Church. I have not abandoned the Communion of this Church. I will continue to serve and minister as the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh."
The Title IV Review Committee acted with alacrity to give Mrs. Jefferts Schori what she wanted, drawing up a 41-page brief in near record time. By contrast, it took the Title IV Review Committee almost a year to inhibit revisionist Pennsylvania Bishop Charles E. Bennison for conduct unbecoming a priest with charges that included his failure to stop his brother from having sexual relations with a 14-year old girl - a minor.
The news, along with a copy of the allegations made by the chancellor to the Presiding Bishop against Bishop Duncan, and the Title IV Review Committee's decision to certify that Duncan "had abandoned the communion of this church," came in a letter from Mrs. Jefferts Schori late in the day on January 15. In a letter to Duncan, Mrs. Jefferts Schori said she sought the canonically required permission from the House's three senior bishops with jurisdiction to inhibit him, based on the certification, and from the performance of any episcopal, ministerial or canonical acts.
Mrs. Jefferts Schori said she was very "sorry" she was not able to inhibit Duncan, even though she asked them to do it. She was forced to inhibit Pennsylvania Bishop Charles E. Bennison for his egregious behavior." On 11 January 2008 they informed me that such consents would not be given at this time by all three bishops," Mrs. Jefferts Schori wrote.
"Pursuant to the time limits stated in Canon IV.9, the matter will not come before the House of Bishops at its next scheduled meeting in March 2008, but will come before the House at the next meeting thereafter," the Presiding Bishop wrote in her letter.
"I would, however, welcome a statement by you within the next two months providing evidence that you once more consider yourself fully subject to the doctrine, discipline and worship of this Church," Mrs. Jefferts Schori wrote in her letter to Duncan.
Earlier, on December 19, The Title IV Review Committee told Mrs. Jefferts Schori that a majority of its nine members agreed that Duncan had abandoned the communion of the church "by an open renunciation of the Doctrine, Discipline or Worship of this Church."
The Review Committee, led by Upper South Carolina Bishop Dorsey Henderson, the committee chair, said that the committee received submissions alleging Duncan's abandonment of communion from "counsel representing individuals who are either clergy or communicants in the Diocese of Pittsburgh" and from the Presiding Bishop's chancellor, David Beers, and his colleague, Mary E. Kostel. They asked the Review Committee for a determination. This included the Rev. Harold Lewis of Calvary Episcopal Church who has tried several times to unseat Duncan through the civil courts.
Some 41 pages of material submitted by Pittsburgh counsel, which allegedly "trace the course of Bishop Duncan's actions from the meeting of the General Convention in 2003 through the most recent Annual Convention of the Diocese" in early November, were included in the committee's certification. It should be noted however, that these pages are a combination of Beers and the attorney for the Rev. Harold Lewis.
Pittsburgh's diocesan convention, held on November 2, gave the first of two approvals needed to enact constitutional changes to remove language in the diocesan constitution stating that the diocese accedes to the Episcopal Church's Constitution and Canons as the church's constitution requires.
The Presiding Bishop sent Duncan a letter prior to the convention, asking him to retreat from his advocacy of the changes.
The following is a copy of Schori's letter to Duncan
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/PBLetterToDuncan.pdf
The following is Bishop Duncan's correspondence and confidential documents from the Title IV Review Committee http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/DuncanCert.pdf
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