A reorganizing convention is scheduled for Feb. 7. Committees are preparing a budget, reviewing canons to bring them into compliance with national norms, communicating with the wider church and the public, nominating qualified lay and clerical candidates for diocesan offices and designing strategies and programs for various outreach ministries. In time, the full range of diocesan ministries will be reestablished.
On Feb. 7, the presiding bishop will call the convention to order and preside over election of a Standing Committee (three clergy, three laity), the highest level of elected leadership, and other officers. She also may then ask the convention to ratify a provisional bishop, appointed by her in consultation with the Steering Committee, to oversee the diocese until a bishop can be elected under ordinary circumstances.
Meanwhile, the church’s worship is going forward. Retired priests — including one woman — are leading services in the faith communities, and the parish congregations’ life of prayer goes on unimpeded.
The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth is alive and getting healthier.
The people reorganizing the diocese want those who have separated to know that we hold them in our prayers as our brothers and sisters in Christ and that we hope to see the day when we are all back together at the same table, a family of blessed, happy Episcopalians.
Read more here.
Katie Sherrod writes at her blog:
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Since our entire Standing Committee -- Christopher Cantrell, Timothy Perkins, Thomas Hightower, Judy Mayo, Frank Salazar, and Walter Virden -- has left the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori informed them she does not recognize them as the Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth.
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Dec 15,2008
Dear Sirs and Madam,
I am writing to you because I have been informed that you constitute a group holding itself out as the Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth. It has come to my attention that recently you have taken actions in support of an attempt to take the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth out of the Episcopal Church and into affiliation with the Province of the Southern Cone. I understand that these have included meeting as the purported Standing Committee of an entity that identifies itself as a diocese in union with the Province of the Southern Cone, and electing officers of such a purported committee. These actions directly conflict with the Constitution and canons of the Episcopal Church.
Canon 1.17.8 of the Episcopal Church provides that "[a]ny person accepting any office in this Church shall well and faithfully perform the duties of that office in accordance with the Constitution and Canons of this Church and of the Diocese in which the office is being exercised." Your recent actions demonstrate that you have been and are unable to well and faithfully fulfill your duties as members of the Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth under Canon 1.17.8. Accordingly, with this letter I inform you that I do not recognize you as the Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth.
I regret the decisions you have made to attempt to take the Diocese out of The Episcopal Church and the necessary consequences of these actions. I give thanks for your service in the past, and pray that it may once again be a blessing to this Diocese. I remain
Your servant in Christ,
Katharine Jefferts Schori
More news of the REAL Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth here
1 comment:
++KJS is the very epitome of "Let your Yes be 'Yes', and your No be 'No'": God bless her!
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