PROGRESSIVE
EPISCOPALIANS OF PITTSBURGH
4530 William Penn Highway #109
Murrysville, PA 15668
Contacts:
Joan R. Gundersen, President
Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh
Telephone: +1 (412) 799-0440
E-mail: jrgunder@hotmail.com
Christopher I. Wilkins, Vice President
Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh
Telephone: +1 (412) 831-1737
E-mail: ciwilkins@juno.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Revised Appeal Reveals Coup Plans against Episcopal Church
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania — February 1, 2007 — The release, on
January 29, 2007, of the text of a third version of the request for
alternative primatial oversight (APO) advanced by the Episcopal Diocese of
Pittsburgh should dispel any doubts about the goals and strategy of its
leaders. The Rt. Rev Robert Duncan is clearly attempting an ecclesiastical coup
against both The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.
Bishop Duncan and the Pittsburgh Standing Committee issued their first request
for APO on June 28, 2006. On July 20, 2006, seven dioceses (including Pittsburgh) submitted a combined appeal, supposedly superseding their individual requests.
The Archbishop of Canterbury had asked for the dioceses to agree on a single
appeal. This was a more modest petition than the earlier one, and contained an
extended attempt to justify the appellants’ request. This document, like the
most recent third appeal, long remained secret.
The latest document, dated November 6, 2006, is addressed to “Primates
representing the Global South,” and was delivered a few days later to members
of the Steering Committee of the Global South Primates and Network
representatives, including Bishop Duncan, meeting in Virginia. The diocese
released the document two days before it was required to be handed over to
attorneys for Calvary Episcopal Church as part of the discovery process
mandated by the courts.
The November 6 request is more radical and more forthright than the earlier
ones. The document identifies a “separate ecclesiastical structure”—that is, a
new church—for the “biblically orthodox Anglicans in this country.” It
describes APO as an “interim strategy” to provide “cover” for Bishop Duncan and
his allies while they fight their “domestic legal and property battles” and
until a convention can organize “the [emphasis added] permanent Anglican
entity in the U.S.” The document not only assumes that this new entity will
take the place of The Episcopal Church in the Anglican Communion, but it
assumes that the Diocese of Pittsburgh will then not be a part of The Episcopal
Church. It also encourages the primates of the Anglican Communion to exceed
their powers and to ignore the understandings and agreements that created the
Anglican Communion. The primates have no authority beyond the bounds of their
own provinces, however; their only role in the Anglican Communion is advisory.
According to Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh (PEP) president Joan R.
Gundersen, “What Bishop Duncan and the Pittsburgh Standing Committee are
proposing is nothing less than an international coup that would overthrow not
only the established government of The Episcopal Church, but destroy the
Anglican Communion. The Anglican primates have no authority over The Episcopal
Church, no matter what Bishop Duncan or the Standing Committee might wish.”
Bishop Duncan is indeed the duly elected bishop of a diocese within The
Episcopal Church. Despite his rhetoric, however, he is not the ruler of an
independent ecclesiastical entity—that is, the Diocese of Pittsburgh—that he
can freely associate with whatever church he chooses. Each Episcopal Church
leader is subject to the General Convention, which elects the Presiding Bishop,
establishes the church’s constitution, canons, and administrative units, to
which certain rights and responsibilities are given in trust to be used to
further the Church’s mission and ministries. The constitution and canons of The
Episcopal Church do not allow delegation of the duties of the Presiding Bishop
to another bishop, especially one without jurisdiction in any of the nations
containing Episcopal Church dioceses. The rejection of all duly appointed
institutions of governance in The Episcopal Church would appear to be a
violation of Bishop Duncan’s ordination vow to submit to the discipline of The
Episcopal Church.
No amount of spin, rhetoric, desire, or other smokescreen can hide what this
latest APO request makes plain: an attempt to sever this diocese from the
General Convention, the Presiding Bishop, and the entire Episcopal Church. This
cannot be done—at least not by canonically legal means. No diocesan leader in
The Episcopal Church has the power or the right to make such a severance. The
Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh is an administrative unit of The Episcopal
Church created by the General Convention. It does not—and cannot—exist apart
from the General Convention. Bishop Duncan and the Standing Committee are free
as individuals to separate from The Episcopal Church, but they do so as individuals
and cannot take the diocese, or any part of it, with them.