[Fr. Tony Clavier] DEPOSITION
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Fr. Tony Clavier
Sep 28, 2008, 7:01:19 PM9/28/08
to clavi...@googlegroups.com
I can't get my head around the strategy adopted by the PB and her advisers, now granted an imprimatur by about half of our diocesan bishops. As I mentioned before today, when I was bishing, the more TEC bishops sought to lambaste those who were on the edge of leaving, the more they left. One of the larger APA congregations is in Atlanta. It shares a block with an Episcopal church, merely because the congregation bought a former Presbyterian church building which adjoined St Patrick's.
Nothing did the tiny APA parish more good than when the then Bishop of Atlanta wrote an article denying the authenticity of our congregation on the grounds that it belonged to a group which could not be Anglican because it was not in communion with the See of Canterbury. Of course he was technically right. But he sounded as if he was saying that the members of the extra mural Anglican parish were frauds or fakes or con men. That article gained the new congregation some substantial members!
I have long written that the word "deposed" is an unfortunate and theologically erroneous term to describe the withdrawal of a license to practice within a specific jurisdiction. If a cleric is found guilty by due process of some frightful crime, then that cleric in most "catholic" bodies is "degraded" or "unfrocked" and prohibited from exercising whatever ministry was bestowed locally by a jurisdiction acting for the Holy Catholic Church. To employ a term to embrace everything from a frightful crime to merely deciding not to function as a cleric or to join some other church or denomination, let alone to transfer to another part of the same Communion, albeit under rather odd circumstances only leads people to assume that a deposition is draconian. Merely adding a clause assuring the world that "Mr. Duncan" hasn't run off with the organist of either sex, still may be parsed as his having done something which deprived him of ecclesiastical title and status.
Now if a jurisdiction claims that in baptism, the Eucharist, Ordination etc it merely acts for the Holy Catholic Church, and to removes from a deposed cleric who joins the Duck River Free Will Baptist Church his style and title, unless he (or she) abjures such status calls into question the intent and theology of such a jurisdiction. IF ordination is as indelible as baptism, one may no more deprive a cleric of ordination than one can baptism. It the crime is heinous perhaps such a person may be excommunicated, deprived of even the rights bestowed in baptism. But one does not suggest that if Fr Bloggs is odd enough to become Coptic Orthodox, he becomes Mr. Bloggs. One may not want others to follow his example, may even want to find ways to win him back and prevent an exodus, or thwack the offending cleric to discourage others following him, but one cannot in so doing deny that which one teaches about ordination.
Thus we not only have a canonical problem on our hands, we have a theological problem. If +Bob Duncan, exasperating as he may be, perhaps worthy of severe censure by his peers, is now "Mr. Duncan" then all the chatter about TEC having a "catholic" doctrine of Holy Orders is nonsense. Its leaders believe that just as a lawyer may be disbarred so a cleric may be de-sacramentalized. So why is it that if +Bob decides to repent and believe TEC to be right, he may be restored to his status through the mail?
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Posted By Fr. Tony Clavier to Fr. Tony Clavier at 9/28/2008 05:59:00 PM
Nothing did the tiny APA parish more good than when the then Bishop of Atlanta wrote an article denying the authenticity of our congregation on the grounds that it belonged to a group which could not be Anglican because it was not in communion with the See of Canterbury. Of course he was technically right. But he sounded as if he was saying that the members of the extra mural Anglican parish were frauds or fakes or con men. That article gained the new congregation some substantial members!
I have long written that the word "deposed" is an unfortunate and theologically erroneous term to describe the withdrawal of a license to practice within a specific jurisdiction. If a cleric is found guilty by due process of some frightful crime, then that cleric in most "catholic" bodies is "degraded" or "unfrocked" and prohibited from exercising whatever ministry was bestowed locally by a jurisdiction acting for the Holy Catholic Church. To employ a term to embrace everything from a frightful crime to merely deciding not to function as a cleric or to join some other church or denomination, let alone to transfer to another part of the same Communion, albeit under rather odd circumstances only leads people to assume that a deposition is draconian. Merely adding a clause assuring the world that "Mr. Duncan" hasn't run off with the organist of either sex, still may be parsed as his having done something which deprived him of ecclesiastical title and status.
Now if a jurisdiction claims that in baptism, the Eucharist, Ordination etc it merely acts for the Holy Catholic Church, and to removes from a deposed cleric who joins the Duck River Free Will Baptist Church his style and title, unless he (or she) abjures such status calls into question the intent and theology of such a jurisdiction. IF ordination is as indelible as baptism, one may no more deprive a cleric of ordination than one can baptism. It the crime is heinous perhaps such a person may be excommunicated, deprived of even the rights bestowed in baptism. But one does not suggest that if Fr Bloggs is odd enough to become Coptic Orthodox, he becomes Mr. Bloggs. One may not want others to follow his example, may even want to find ways to win him back and prevent an exodus, or thwack the offending cleric to discourage others following him, but one cannot in so doing deny that which one teaches about ordination.
Thus we not only have a canonical problem on our hands, we have a theological problem. If +Bob Duncan, exasperating as he may be, perhaps worthy of severe censure by his peers, is now "Mr. Duncan" then all the chatter about TEC having a "catholic" doctrine of Holy Orders is nonsense. Its leaders believe that just as a lawyer may be disbarred so a cleric may be de-sacramentalized. So why is it that if +Bob decides to repent and believe TEC to be right, he may be restored to his status through the mail?
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Posted By Fr. Tony Clavier to Fr. Tony Clavier at 9/28/2008 05:59:00 PM
Thomas Rightmyer
Sep 28, 2008, 7:43:19 PM9/28/08
to trig...@juno.com, clavi...@googlegroups.com
The Episcopal Church has
abandoned the notion that it is the only authentic expression of the One Holy
Catholic and Apostolic Church in the United States. It has sought to be an
ecumenical leader in this country and the world. The 1886 Chicago
declaration of the House of Bishops, adapted and endorsed by the Lambeth
Conference in 1888, recognized the spiritual reality of other Christian bodies,
and the various full communion agreements since have sought to reconcile the
ministries of the various parts of the one church.
The Lima document "Baptism,
Eucharist and Ministry" of the World Council of Churches Faith and Order
recognizes three elements of the one ministry of Christ - service, pastoral, and
oversight. All churches set apart in various ways various persons to
exercise these elements of ministry, and each church has its own ways
of recognizing the action of its own and others actions.
The language of deposition has
meaning only within a closed ecclesiastical system - what I call the dog in the
manger mentality. In the present missionary situation each part of
the church can recognize its own ordinations and some ordinations of
other parts of the church, and it can withdraw the ministerial authority within
its own community, but no more.
Tom Rightmyer trig...@juno.com Asheville,
NC
Tom Rightmyer trig...@juno.com Asheville, NC
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