It’s official: the Episcopal Church is in schism, according to Reuters:
An entire California diocese of the U.S. Episcopal Church voted to secede on Saturday in a historic split following years of disagreement over the church’s expanding support for gay and women’s rights.
The Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, based in Fresno in central California, voted to leave the church, which has been in significant upheaval since 2003 when U.S. Episcopals consecrated the first openly gay bishop in the church’s more than four centuries of history.
The vote was 173 lay and clergy convention delegates in favor, with 22 against.
Amid the dissent of recent years, the Episcopal Church said 32 of its 7,600 congregations had left, with another 23 voting to leave but not taking the final step. San Joaquin is the first of the church’s 110 dioceses to complete the split.
Last year, clergy and lay representatives of the 8,800- member Diocese of San Joaquin — with 47 churches in 14 counties — overwhelmingly voted at their annual convention to split with the U.S. church, but held off on a final decision until Saturday’s meeting.
The Fresno Bee adds:
The vote Saturday was 70-12 by clergy and 103-10 by laity for a combined total of 173-22. It confirmed a preliminary vote last year.
And the Episcopal News Service weighs in with an article headlined, “San Joaquin votes to leave Episcopal Church, realign with Southern Cone; Some delegates vow to ‘Remain Episcopal’; Presiding Bishop comments on action”:
“The Episcopal Church receives with sadness the news that some members of this church have made a decision to leave this church,” said Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. “We deeply regret their unwillingness or inability to live within the historical Anglican understanding of comprehensiveness. We wish them to know of our prayers for them and their journey. The Episcopal Church will continue in the Diocese of San Joaquin, albeit with new leadership.”
Last time I checked, the “historical Anglican understanding of comprehensiveness” didn’t include full-fledged heresy, but what do I know.
Samantha Bland, a parishioner at Christ the King Church in Riverbank called upon delegates to focus on teen pregnancy, soaring foreclosure rates, methamphetamine addiction and dwindling resources plaguing Central Valley congregations “instead of this distraction.”
Because spreading and defending the faith once delivered to the saints from those who would toss it overboard is just a distraction from the real work of the Church, which is reforming banking laws.
Nancy Key, a co-founder of ‘Remain Episcopal,’ said those who wished to remain in the Episcopal Church have felt marginalized and maligned.
“It feels like spiritual violence,” said Key, a parishioner at Holy Family Church in Fresno, which has chosen to remain within the Episcopal Church. “All we want to do is be in the Episcopal Church that actively ordains women and is inclusive,” she said. San Joaquin is among three dioceses that refuse to ordain or deploy women priests. The others are Fort Worth and the Peoria, Illinois-based Diocese of Quincy.
All she wants is for San Joaquin to be like all the other Episcopal dioceses–ordain women approve homosexual behavior, think-and-let-think about trivia like the resurrection and the atonement and stuff. I’ll bet the orthodox of her diocese find that compelling.
The ENS article quoted Bishop Schofield, but not a single delegate to the convention who voted in favor of this action. Nice bit of balanced reporting there, folks.
(Reuters, Fresno Bee and ENS links via T19.)
Posted by David Fischler 
Posted by David Fischler 
