Rift between Peoria-based Diocese of Quincy and The Episcopal Church likely would lead to property dispute

Sunday, October 14, 2007

By MICHAEL MILLER
of the Journal Star

PEORIA - The Episcopal Diocese of Quincy's struggle with The Episcopal Church may continue with a dispute over semantics and end with a dispute over property.

When the diocese's annual synod meets Friday and Saturday in Moline, resolutions that could drastically alter Quincy's affiliation with The Episcopal Church may be considered.

If diocesan leaders express their intent to affiliate with a different province or Anglican organization, it will raise the technical question of whether an entire Episcopal diocese can leave TEC.

A departure - or claimed departure - also likely would land the two sides in court over the question of whether a diocese could take its institutions, property and endowment with it. The national church says a diocese only holds those things in trust for TEC.

The Peoria-based Diocese of Quincy, which includes 23 churches and missions in west-central Illinois, has long been one of the regions in The Episcopal Church to disagree with the church's liberal direction.

After years of procedural patience, a crisis over that direction may be coming to a breaking point in the worldwide Anglican Communion, with the word "schism" being used freely.

Earlier this year, leaders of other provinces around the world unhappy with TEC's practices and policies asked the U.S. church's bishops to promise not to consecrate any more homosexuals as bishops, to promise not to create rituals for blessings of same-sex unions and to give alternate oversight to those dioceses, such as Quincy and Springfield, that requested it.

The House of Bishops met in New Orleans last month and offered a response, but the reactions are mixed. Quincy Bishop Keith Ackerman said his diocese's leaders were waiting to see how those primates will respond to the bishops' actions before deciding their course.

So far, the response by the global south archbishops has been negative, but some members of the communion's joint standing committee called the American bishops' resolution acceptable.

Ackerman has said his primary concern is to uphold the diocesan constitution and keep the Diocese of Quincy in good standing with the worldwide communion in the event that The Episcopal Church is kicked out.

TEC spokeswoman Neva Rae Fox said a Quincy vote to leave would have to go through the church's General Convention in 2009 in order to be recognized. Dioceses can't leave The Episcopal Church on their own say-so because they were created by the church's General Convention, Fox said.

"They're dead wrong on that," said Wicks Stephens, legal adviser for the Anglican Communion Network in Pittsburgh, of which the Diocese of Quincy is a part.

"If you read the constitution and canons of The Episcopal Church, in order for a diocese to come into union with other dioceses of The Episcopal Church through the General Convention, that diocese has to meet certain standards, including forming itself, becoming financially sustainable and other things, including allegiance to The Episcopal Church."

The Rev. Jim Naughton, director of communications for the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C., said, though, that "this is an argument that didn't exist until they needed it to exist."

"No one has previously interpreted constitutions and canons in this way," said Naughton, whose diocese leans liberal and who contributes to an Episcopalian blog called The Lead.

But the Rev. John Spencer, president of Quincy's joint standing committee, agreed with Stephens.

"If you actually read the constitution carefully, what it says is the people and the churches and the clergy form a diocese," Spencer said.

Dioceses, the vicar of St. Francis Church in Dunlap said, created the General Convention, not the other way around.

Plus, according to Quincy chancellor Tad Brenner, the diocesan constitution "specifically gives us the ability to end that association" with TEC.

Fox, though, said whatever the leadership in Quincy does, TEC will still have a diocese in the west-central part of Illinois.

"The Episcopal Church would remain," Fox said. "The Episcopal Church is there. The Episcopal Church is very active there in doing the things that we do, the mission of ministry."

In what buildings such Episcopal Church ministry will take place, though, is what may end up being determined in court. TEC already has sent signals it takes property ownership seriously by suing several Virginia churches that left the national church.

Ackerman said he's not sure exactly how much money the diocese would have at its disposal to defend itself against lawsuits. Reserve amounts, he said, are "quite minimal." TEC's 2007 budget includes $300,000 for trial and legal costs.

Both Ackerman and Spencer said they hope an out-of-court resolution can be worked out if Quincy leaders vote to affiliate with a non-U.S. province. One of Ackerman's first duties as bishop was to deal with a church split in Quincy after one group there declared it was leaving The Episcopal Church. He settled it, he said, by sitting down and talking with the dissidents.

"Litigation is a shameful way for Christians to behave," Ackerman said.

"Once you get to the point of running into the courtroom," Spencer said, "what you've really said is, 'We're not willing to talk.' And we're willing to talk."

This article comes from the Peoria Journal Star
http://www.pjstar.com/

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