Act II, Scene I

The next meeting of the U.S. college of bishops will begin on 19 September in Salt Lake City. In addition to discussing the recently completed Lambeth Conference, the bishops will debate the future of the Rt. Rev’d. Robert Duncan, Ordinary of Pittsburg. The meeting has not yet begun, but the fundamentalists are already crying “foul!”

If one surfs the World Wide Web, one will learn that certain sites are already damning the Presiding Bishop to perdition for violating the canons of the Episcopal Church. Now, mind you, those howling are those who are leaving or who have left TEC. Why they care about the activities of bishops of a church they have left is beyond me.

We will hear the same argument that we heard when Mr. Schofield was “laicized.”

· Not enough retired bishops present to fulfill the required number of assents to the deposition.

· Because of that, the “yes” vote is really a “no” vote because the required number of “yes” votes will not be met.

· Therefore, the Presiding Bishop will sign an illegal document that will have no “force” because of the above.

We went though this drama when Mr. Schofield was deposed. The vote was certified and no one objected until much later. This time I predict that there will be objections on the floor coming from Texas or perhaps Florida.

I am not certain of the number of bishops what would have to be present. The canons seem to be open for interpretation and there are as many opinions are there are bishops in the Anglican Communion. Even if every bishop with voice and vote show up, it will not satisfy the fundamentalists. I believe GC09 must address this issue and amend the canons in question so that only Ordinary, Suffragan, or Coadjutor bishops have a vote. There is no reason why retired bishops should have a vote. I do not know of any corporation that give voting rights to retired executives a vote.

There will be a new objection in the case of +Duncan:

Canon IV.9 states that a bishop must be inhibited before deposition

It is true that he has not been deposed thanks largely to the Rt. Rev’d. Leo Frade of Southeastern Florida, one of the three senior most bishops who must approve any inhibition.

One of two scenarios will happen:

Bishop Duncan will show up for this meeting.He will make some Martin Luther type speech wherein he says he can do nothing but what he is doing to preserve the faith once delivered, a lamb being led to the slaughter, a martyr for the faith. He will also object to the proceedings because he has not been inhibited. Like the famous scene in The Disappearance of Sister Amy, he will proclaim it is all a liberal plot hatched in hell by the apostate leaders of TEC.

He will not attend, but will assert that he has not, nor does intend to abandon TEC. He will rub the humiliation all over himself like ointment so that he may shine for Jesus.

In either case, however, there is the little matter of the recent “Duncan Memo” that somehow found its way into the e-mail boxes of unintended recipients. One paragraph of that memo states:

The three dioceses of Pittsburgh, Quincy and Fort Worth have taken first constitutional votes on separation with second votes just weeks away. We all anticipate coming under Southern Cone this fall, thus to join San Joaquin. This process cannot be stopped -- constitutions require an automatic second vote, and to recommend against passage without guarantees from the other side would be suicidal. [Emphasis added.]

Duncan has declared he will be “under Southern Cone this fall.” In his delusional world, that does not constitute abandoning the Episcopal Church. (Was he born in South Carolina?) It will be difficult to convince any one, bishop or not, that he has not in the process of abandoning TEC.

In light of this memo, it is difficult to understand this statement on one of the fundamentalist sites:

And the Rev. Kaeton and others like her circulate purloined private correspondence in an effort to drum up enthusiasm for taking yet more illegal action, so that the invasion of privacy becomes the justification for what those who will vote to depose already think they know: that “abandonment” has indeed occurred, and Bishop Duncan is guilty as charged.

We do not “think we know” we do know – we have his own words, from his own computer, in his own e-mail. It is fact.

It is almost comical that, given the way the fundamentalists are attempting to steal TEC property that they would say +Duncan’s email was purloined. Ah, what is it the bible says? Oh, yes, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can understand it?” Jeremiah 17.9

Well, that’s one man’s opinion, any road.

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Here is the full text of the Duncan Memo:

From: Duncan, Bob [mailto:Duncan@pitanglican.org]
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 12:35 PM
To:*********
Subject: Windsor Contiuation Group Concerns

Dear *******,

It was very good to be with you at Lambeth. I especially appreciated the time we spent together looking at the relationship between the Common Cause Partners and the Communion Partners, as well as considering issues that are before the WCG.

I thought that you might appreciate hearing from me about concerns the approach of the WCG has caused for me and for all the Common Cause Partners.

The WCG proposes "cessation of all cross-border interventions and inter-provincial claims of jurisdiction." There are at least four serious problems with the thinking surrounding the work of the Windsor Continuation Group in this regard.

The first difficulty is the moral equivalence implied between the three moratoria, a notion specifically rejected in the original Windsor Report and at Dromantine.

The second is the notion that, even if the moratoria are held to be equally necessary, there would be some way to "freeze" the situation as it now stands for those of us in the process of separating from The Episcopal Church.

The three dioceses of Pittsburgh, Quincy and Fort Worth have taken first constitutional votes on separation with second votes just weeks away. We all anticipate coming under Southern Cone this fall, thus to join San Joaquin. This process cannot be stopped -- constitutions require an automatic second vote, and to recommend against passage without guarantees from the other side would be suicidal.

The third reality is that those already separated parishes and missionary jurisdictions under Rwanda, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and Southern Cone (including Recife) will never consent to the "holding tank" whose stated purpose is eventual "reconciliation" with TEC or thevAnglican Church of Canada. (It was obvious to all at Lambeth that the majorities in the US and Canada have no intention of reversing direction.)

The fourth matter is that the legal proceedings brought by TEC and ACC against many of us have been nowhere suspended by these aggressor provinces, with no willingness to mediate or negotiate though we have proposed it repeatedly, not least since Dar es Salaam.

For your information, I have written to John Chew and Donald Mtetemela in a similar way. I have also written to the Global South Primates who signed the open letter dated 3 August.

I hope this finds you well. As I pledged when we saw each other, I will do what I can to keep you informed of thinking among the Common Cause Partners, and will do what I can to see that any solutions imagined include both the Communion Partners (on the inside) and the Common Cause Partners (most of whom are on the outside of TEC, or on their way out.)

Blessings to you and yours,

+Bob