When the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church convenes June 11-14 in Parsippany, New Jersey, its members will spend time reflecting on the past, present and future shape of the Church and of the Anglican Communion, as well as considering issues of ministry and governance according to Mary Frances Schjonberg of the Episcopal News Service.

"The Church's governing body between General Conventions will, as part of its agenda, look to the past to hear a report about the effort to gather information about how the Episcopal Church may have benefited from slavery.

The Council will look to the present and the future as it discusses how the Church might reach out to Episcopalians in a small number of dioceses and parishes where the leadership is disaffected with the wider Church.

Council will consider a report and resolutions in response to portions of the communiqué issued by the Anglican Primates at the end of their February meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; get a summary of responses to its invitation for Episcopalians to discuss the proposed Anglican Covenant; and will hear about the experience of one gay Anglican in Nigeria.

"I am sure that a number of international concerns will be the subject of our conversation and deliberation," said Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. "Among them, Anglican Communion issues, of mission including the Towards Effective Anglican Mission meeting and matters of peace and justice such as our Millennium Development Goal efforts. We'll talk about how we can grow our partnerships around the Communion; as well as relationships with our covenant partners such as Brazil, Mexico and Philippines.

"The current conflict around the draft Anglican Covenant and the process for its consideration, as well as the Lambeth Conference and the House of Bishops' response to the Primates' Communiqué, will be discussed. We will also include in that discussion the conflict caused by incursion into the Episcopal Church from other members of the Anglican Communion."

"We will consider domestic issues including the federal Farm Bill and our concern about domestic poverty, as well as matters of internal governance," she continued."

The lesbian and gay members of Executive Council will meet with Bonnie Anderson and other members of the Communiqué response committee on Sunday evening.

Read it all HERE with links to more information.

A draft of a response to the Anglican Communion Primates' latest communiqué is ready for consideration by the Executive Council, the church's governing body between General Conventions. Episcopal News Service reports:

In a public plenary session, House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson said that Executive Council members would discuss during private conversation later in the day a draft report of the EC008 Task Group, requested by the Executive Council (via Resolution EC008) during its March 2-4 meeting in Portland, Oregon. (Council normally spends some time during each meeting in such private conversation.)

The EC008 Task Group document suggesting a Council response to the communiqué issued by Primates of the Anglican Communion at the end of their February meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania will be discussed during an open plenary session on June 14.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and Anderson appointed the EC008 Task Group. Resolution EC008 named Anderson, who is vice president of Council, to chair the work group. (Jefferts Schori is president of the Council.)

The Executive Council meeting, at the Sheraton hotel in Parsippany, New Jersey, began with three hours of committee meetings on the morning of June 11 and another two hours in the late afternoon with the plenary session in between. Council had dinner with representatives of the host Diocese of Newark.

During the plenary session, Jefferts Schori and Anderson reported on their activities since the March Council meeting.

Later in the afternoon, Nigerian Anglican Davis Mac-Iyalla, founder of his country's only gay-rights organization, Changing Attitude Nigeria, met with Council's International Concerns (INC) and National Concerns (NAC) committees.

The Presiding Bishop reported that she recently spent time with Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams while she was in Washington D.C. last week to testify on global warming before a U.S. Senate committee hearing.

Read more HERE.

Episcopal Life Online reports on the second day of the Executive Council meeting, which they spent touring the newly renovated Church Center at 815 Second Ave., New York. That street address (815) often acts as shorthand, in blogspeak, for official communications from the Presiding Bishop and the Episcopal Church.

In addition to touring the physical space, the Executive Council got to see a demonstration of Episcopal Communities software, "an online collaboration space that was developed as a way for any Church-related group to meet online, exchange documents and otherwise communicate," according to the story.

Episcopal Life Online has the rest, including a detailed report on the renovations and the schedule for the remainder of the meeting.

Resolutions from the Task Group on the Primates' Dar es Salaam Communique will be on the agenda for the Executive Council. According to Episcopal News Service

The proposed statement, and three resolutions, suggest a response to portions of the communiqué issued by the Anglican Primates at the end of their February meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The communiqué contained the Pastoral Scheme and called for the Episcopal Church "to effect a moratorium on the election and consent to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate who is living in a same gender union until some new consensus in the Anglican Communion emerges."

The proposed statement would have the Council acknowledge the communiqué as "a good-faith contribution" to the on-going discussion about Anglican identity and authority but state that the "requests of the Primates are of a nature that can only be responded to by our General Convention." The Convention next meets in the summer of 2009.

The statement would have the Council "question the authority of the Primates to impose deadlines and demands upon any of the churches of the Anglican Communion."

"Assertions of authority met by counter-assertions of polity are not likely to lead to the reconciliation we seek," the draft statement says. "Our salvation is not in the law but in the grace of God in Jesus Christ our Savior; so too with our relationships as Anglicans."

The statement would have the Council say that "the only thing we really have to offer in that relationship is who we are -- a community of committed Christians seeking God's will for our common life."

The draft statement claims unity through baptism, says that "we are, whether we wish it or not, God's gift to each other" and acknowledges that the church has historically struggled to embrace people who have been marginalized, including the current debate over the place and vocation of gay and lesbian people in the life of church.

The task group proposes three resolutions for Council. The first would receive and adopt the statement the group has drafted.

The second, titled "Commending the report of the Communion Sub-Group, " refers to the report of an Anglican Communion group which generally gave the Episcopal Church positive marks for its response to various requests to explain its decisions regarding same-gender blessings, the episcopal ordination of an openly gay and partnered priest, and its desire to remain a part of the Anglican Communion. The resolution would have the Council encourage the House of Bishops to consider the report as it prepares to meet in September.

The third resolution, "Executive Council's response to the House of Bishops' Mind of the House Resolution on the Proposed Pastoral Scheme," refers to the House of Bishops' declaration in March that a plan the Primates put forward for dealing with some disaffected Episcopal Church dioceses "would be injurious to The Episcopal Church." The bishops' resolution urged that the Executive Council decline to participate in it and the proposed statement would in fact have Council decline and "respectfully ask our Presiding Bishop not to take any of the actions asked of her by this scheme."

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson appointed the EC008 Task Group. Resolution EC008 named Anderson, who is vice president of Council, to chair the work group. (Jefferts Schori is president of the Council.)

Read the whole report of today's meeting Here

The Episcopal Church's Executive Council told the Anglican Communion June 14 that no governing body other than General Convention can interpret Convention resolutions or agree to deny "future decisions by dioceses or General Convention."
The Council declined to participate in a plan put forward by the Primates of the Anglican Communion in February for dealing with some disaffected Episcopal Church dioceses. Episcopal News Service's Mary Frances Schjonberg reports:

The statement, titled "The Episcopal Church's Commitment to Common Life in Anglican Communion," "strongly affirm[ed] this Church's desire to be in the fullest possible relationship with our Anglican sisters and brothers."

The text of the statement and its accompanying resolutions passed with limited debate.

The statement agreed with the House of Bishops, which said in March that the so-called Pastoral Scheme "would be injurious to The Episcopal Church." An accompanying resolution (EC012) also "respectfully requests the Presiding Bishop to decline as well." The statement itself "respectfully ask[s] our Presiding Bishop not to take any of the actions asked of her by this scheme."

The action came June 14 on the last day of a four-day meeting at the Sheraton hotel in Parsippany, New Jersey.

The statement, and three resolutions, form a response to portions of the communiqué issued by the Anglican Primates at the end of their February meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The communiqué contained the Pastoral Scheme and called for the Episcopal Church "to effect a moratorium on the election and consent to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate who is living in a same gender union until some new consensus in the Anglican Communion emerges."

Read the full statement HERE

Read it all HERE

Steve Waring, in the Living Church, reports on another of the resolutions adopted by Executive Council in their meeting yesterday:

"...council approved a resolution declaring ‘null and void’ attempts by a number of dioceses to revise their constitution to qualify their accession to the Constitution and Canons of the General Convention.

‘Any amendment to a diocesan constitution that purports in any way to limit or lessen an unqualified accession to the constitution of The Episcopal Church is null and void, and be it further resolved that the amendments passed to the constitutions of the dioceses of Pittsburgh, Fort Worth, Quincy and San Joaquin, which purport to limit or lessen the unqualified accession to the constitution of The Episcopal Church are accordingly null and void and the constitutions of those dioceses shall be as they were as if such amendments had not been passed,’ council stated in Resolution NAC-023.

After the resolution was approved, the Rt. Rev. Stacy Sauls, Bishop of Lexington, said Episcopalians had all agreed to live by certain principles and rules and that council believed it would be ‘helpful to have an authoritative statement [on the matter] with respect to any litigation that might occur in the future.’"

Read the rest here.

The Executive Council of the Episcopal Church's General Convention ended its four day meeting in Michigan on Sunday. The Executive Council took a number of actions during its meeting, including a slight rebuke to the House of Bishops taking an action beyond its authority, agreeing to commit the Episcopal Church to remaining in the Anglican Covenant process and agreeing to fund the re-organization process for the Church Center that a task force had proposed.

"As it concluded its three-day fall meeting at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Dearborn, Michigan, the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church thanked the House of Bishops for its efforts that resulted in a statement to the Anglican Communion issued in September. However, Council Resolution NAC026 said that where the bishops' statement called 'particular attention to the application of [General Convention] Resolution B033 to lesbian and gay persons, it may inappropriately suggest that an additional qualification for the episcopacy has been imposed beyond those contained in the constitution and canons of the church.'

Resolution B033, passed by General Convention in June 2006, calls upon diocesan standing committees and bishops with jurisdiction 'to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.'"

Read the rest here.

The Living Church, reporting on some of the housekeeping details taken care of at the Executive Council, pulls out the news that income is down and adjustments need to be made to the national church's budget adopted at General Convention in Columbus. Nearly a quarter of the deficit arises from the reorganization plan that was approved by Executive Council at their meeting this weekend.

"Some $1.8 million will need to be trimmed from the 2008 budget when the national Executive Council meets in Quito, Ecuador, next February.

The deficit, which includes up to $550,000 in additional expenses for staff reorganization, was discussed during meetings of Executive Council’s Administration and Finance Committee. Council met Oct. 26-28 in Dearborn, Mich.

The majority of the deficit is due to an updated forecast of revenue about 2 percent less than the $50.4 million approved in the budget by the 75th General Convention in 2006. The remainder is due to additional estimated expenses of $444,000 attributed to the Church Center staff reorganization."

Read the rest here.

The newly appointed president of the Standing Committee of San Joaquin of the Province of the Southern Cone is Mr. Ted Yumoto. At present The Episcopal Church lists Yumoto as a member of its Executive Council representing Province VIII. His term runs to 2009; see here and here.

As earlier reported, on Saturday Bishop John-David Schofield removed certain members of the San Joaquin standing committee. His explanation at the time read, in part:

Therefore, this morning I received the resignation of those members of the Standing Committee who do not meet the above qualifications. Communication and correspondence related to the Standing Committee should now be directed to the new President of the Standing Committee, Mr. Ted Yumoto, at the Diocesan Offices.

The members of the Standing Committee were elected and seated prior to the convention’s overwhelming vote to accept the invitation of the Province of the Southern Cone. At the moment of ratification, qualification for service on Standing Committee, as well as elected and appointed diocesan leadership positions changed. Therefore, certain members of that Standing Committee who do not meet the above qualifications, by their own conscience, understood that they were not qualified to remain in those positions unless and until they can accept fully their membership in the Province of the Southern Cone. Every one of these former members of that Committee are strong, faithful and orthodox leaders within this Diocese who are taking the opportunity afforded them for discernment as parish priests and we thank them for their past, present and future service. Communication and correspondence related to the Standing Committee should now be directed to the new President of the Standing Committee, Mr. Ted Yumoto, at the Diocesan Offices.

Read more »

Almost in answer to our question yesterday about whether Ted Yumoto can remain on the national Executive Council (here), Episcopal Life is reporting that the Province VIII executive committee needs nominations for a lay representative to the national Executive Council to fill the position considered vacated by Ted Yumoto:

The Rev. Jack Eastwood, Province. VIII president, said that a decision was made to vacate the seat held by Ted Yumoto of the Fresno, California-based Diocese of San Joaquin after Yumoto told them he "had voted to amend canons and the constitution of the diocese" to realign with the Argentina-based Anglican Province of the Southern Cone.

Eastwood said he was appreciative of Yumoto's "stable and consistent" leadership to Province VIII and the church over the years. But, the provincial leadership "agreed that we need to have a representative who is professing to be a member of the Episcopal Church and not some other loyalty," Eastwood said January 24.

"I'm really very sorry this is happening," said Eastwood, the retired rector of St. Paul's, Oakland. "But, we felt we needed to take this action for the province and the responsibility to represent it on Executive Council, we felt we needed to move forward on this."

At the end of their meeting this week in Quito, members of the Executive Council sent a message saying that the Diocese of Central Ecuador may provide a model for the reconstitution of the Diocese of San Joaquin, in addition to reviewing the financial health of the Episcopal Church (which ended the year with a $1 million surplus).

The Living Church provides some background on the Ecuador situation and some notes on the announcement from the Executive Council:

The previous Bishop of Central Ecuador was deposed in 2006 for failure to provide adequate financial information over the course of a number of years. Subsequently the diocese learned that title to many of its assets–including the cathedral, the diocesan office building and a school‑were listed as personal property of the former bishop. During the meeting in Ecuador council members toured a number of diocesan outreach ministry projects and congregations. “We are gratified to see the rebirth of hope for the people of this diocese, which has emerged revitalized from the necessary inhibition and deposition of its bishop and a restructuring of the diocese under the leadership of Bishop Wilfredo Ramos-Orench, appointed by the House of Bishops as provisional Bishop,” council said. “This is a new and unfamiliar landscape for all of us,” council members said in a section of the letter referring to Episcopalians in the Diocese of San Joaquin. “We stand with you and commit ourselves to provide pastoral care, to aid in reorganization, and to support legal actions necessary to retain the assets of the diocese for ministry. We will hold clergy leaders accountable to their vows to uphold the doctrine, discipline and worship of this church, and lay leadership accountable to the fiduciary responsibilities of the offices they hold. Up to $500,000 of income from trust funds will be made available in the calendar year 2008 to support the mission work of the Diocese of San Joaquin and similarly situated dioceses.”

The whole thing, including a link to a PDF file of the letter from the Council, is here.

The Executive Council of the Episcopal Church has ended its meeting in Ecuador and issued a statement to the Episcopal Church. In the letter, the Executive Council discusses the situation in the Diocese of San Joaquin in particular.

"The Executive Council issued a letter to the Episcopal Church February 14 during the final day of its four-day meeting here praising the transformation of the Diocese of Ecuador Central and saying it gives the members hope in light of the attempt of the leadership of the Diocese of San Joaquin to transfer their diocese to another province in the Anglican Communion.

'We are deeply concerned for those who want to continue as members of The Episcopal Church but now find themselves in parishes or dioceses attempting to depart,' the letter. 'To the members of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, know we stand with you. Your struggles and needs inform our prayers, deliberations, and plans.

'This is a new and unfamiliar landscape for all of us. We stand with you and commit ourselves to provide pastoral care, to aid in re-organization, and to support legal actions necessary to retain the assets of the diocese for ministry. We will hold clergy leaders accountable to their vows to uphold the doctrine, discipline and worship of this Church, and lay leadership accountable to the fiduciary responsibilities of the offices they hold.'

The letter also summarizes the Council's time in Quito, commends Ecuador Central for its mission and ministry, and briefly discusses the financial state of the Episcopal Church."

In other news released at the meeting, the Episcopal Church's national budget is going to show a surplus due to larger than anticipated contributions by many dioceses to its common work. Council also heard reports on the ongoing process in the Communion to define a broadly acceptable Covenant.

Read the rest of the news report here.

The text of the letter (in pdf format) issued by the Executive Council can be read here.