Attorney A.S. Haley on TEC SC Diocese: "There They Go Again… Sad, Sad News from the DSC"

Kate Schori, TEC's PB

Attorney A.S. Haley, long-time observer of the legal manourvres by the Episcopal Church, offers his initial review of Kate Schori's recent efforts to repress and oppose Mark Lawrence, Bishop of South Carolina.  More as the story unfolds.

Stand Firm | There They Go Again… Sad, Sad News from the DSC

There They Go Again… Sad, Sad News from the DSC

It has been obvious for quite some time that the Episcopal Church (USA) has wanted to pick a fight with Bishop Lawrence and his Diocese of South Carolina, one of the larger and more successful in the Church. But success in winning new communicants has never counted for much ever since the advent of the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori to head up ECUSA. No, what counts far more in her book is subordination to her metropolitical delusions of grandeur.

So it was entirely predictable that the Bandit Bishop would make the first move, acting through her new Disciplinary Board for Bishops (the existence of which the Diocese of South Carolina does not recognize). The announcement that sets out all the details, recently posted on the Diocese’s Website, has been published here at SF in this post.

The details included in the announcement show a considerable degree of forethought and planning on the Diocese’s part. ECUSA’s move automatically triggered amendments to the diocesan constitution which resulted in the immediate disaffiliation of one of the Church’s oldest dioceses, and the calling of a Special Convention (to decide, among other things, with which branch of faithful Anglicans the Diocese will affiliate next).

Now equally predictable is the reaction of 815 to these moves. The House of Bishops will be called to a special meeting to “depose” Bishop Lawrence, even though he is no longer subject to their jurisdiction, and no longer claims (or desires) any right to exercise episcopal office in the apostate ECUSA.
 
Then the Presiding Bishop will gather together the 1,000 or so Episcopalians who belong to the Episcopal Forum and similar dissident groups, illegally call her own “Special Convention”, and have her loyal minions proceed to elect a “Provisional Bishop” (whom will it be this time—will +Lamb be dragged once more into the breach for his old friend, Bishop Katharine?), who can immediately serve as the plaintiff in a lawsuit to be filed in South Carolina state court. Time and again, those wishing to “remain Episcopal” have allowed themselves to be used as tools for this purpose, even though they have no viability to be a diocese on their own, and will require indefinite subvention from the national Church.

So: there they go again ...

Be sure to go to the Diocese’s Website to follow the links to all the documents provided. I shall have much, much more to say about this needless confrontation, and the resulting self-inflicted tragedy (where ECUSA under its Presiding Bishop is literally shooting itself in its collective foot), in the days to follow.