A Temporary Measure

Jack Leo Iker, Bishop of the Diocese of Fort Worth in the Episcopal Church, made a bold observation and pronouncement yesterday in his address to the delegates at the diocese's annual convention.

And then just last week, the Presiding Bishop sent me an open letter, that she quickly posted on the internet, threatening disciplinary action against me if I did not prevent this Convention from acting on certain legislative proposals. I believe all of you have seen my reply. What you may not have seen is the Episcopal News Service story saying that if I did not heed her warning it would (and I quote) “force her to take action to bring the diocese and its leadership into line with the mandates of the national Church.” Now hold on there a minute. I don’t want to force her to do anything, but I must object to the claim that the Presiding Bishop has any canonical authority in this Diocese or any legitimate power over the leadership of this Diocese. She has no authority to bring Fort Worth into line with the mandates of a so-called “national Church.” There is no such thing as “the national Church.” We are a confederation of Dioceses, related to each other by our participation in General Convention. From the earliest days of the beginnings of the Episcopal Church in this country, including the formation of dioceses and eventually the creation of the General Convention itself, there has been a strong mistrust of centralized authority that is deeply rooted in our history as Episcopalians. We do not have an Archbishop in this Church, who has authority over other Bishops and their Dioceses. Instead, we have a Presiding Bishop, with very limited canonical responsibilities, mainly administrative in nature. We must object to the tendency in recent years in this Church to create some sort of central bureaucracy at the top that holds power and authority over the various Dioceses of this Church. We do not have a Curia that dictates policy and dogma in this Church. We do not have a Presiding Bishop with papal authority over us, nor do we believe in the infallibility of any Bishop or any council or, indeed, of any General Convention. If I may be so bold to speak on your behalf, dear friends: the leadership of this Diocese does not need to be brought into line with the mandates of some mythical “national Church.”

Well done, your Grace. The loose structure of the Episcopal Church would indeed seem to make it difficult for Katharine the Great, along with her Imperial Chancellor, to swoop down from New York and crush dissension in your diocese. Sadly and ironically however, it is that same lack of powerful central authority that permitted egregious innovations to irreversibly corrupt the Episcopal Church and will, I fear, do same to the entire Anglican Communion, owing to its own lack of central authority. Bishop Iker, along with (should they join him) his worthy counterparts Ackerman and Schofield of Quincy and San Joaquin respectively and the only Episcopalian dioceses remaining that may make any claim to Catholicity, ought to regard alignment with the Province of the Southern Cone as a lifeboat: welcome, to be sure, and on which their dioceses will thankfully remain afloat, yet still only a temporary vessel upon which they must continue the journey to the only seaworthy craft extant.