Episcopal Press and News
QUINCY: Diocese reveals proposed realignment resolutions
Episcopal News Service. October 2, 2008 [100208-01]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
On the eve of a similar vote in the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, the Diocese of Quincy has published proposed diocesan synod resolutions that would "annul" the diocese's relationship with the Episcopal Church and join the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone.
Quincy's diocesan synod takes place November 7-8.
Resolution 2008-RM-1 "annuls its accession to the Constitution and Canons of The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, otherwise known as The Episcopal Church." Article V of the Episcopal Church's constitution calls for a diocese's constitution to accede to the wider church's constitution and canons.
Quincy's actual realignment resolution (2008-RM-2) states in the funding-implication portion of its explanation that "There is no required diocesan assessment from the Province of the Southern Cone. Any giving by the diocese would be voluntary." However, Resolution 2008-RM-5 proposes to give Quincy's Diocesan Council authority in 2009 "to approve and make payment of any assessment required to support the Provincial budget of the Southern Cone, or payment of other support of the Province as they determine."
Participants in Quincy's synod will also be asked to expand the diocese's boundaries to include parishes and missions "outside the geographical boundaries of the Diocese that has separated from another Anglican jurisdiction" and wants to join the Quincy diocese. Quincy parishes and missions would have a nine-month "grace period" in which to agree or withdraw from the diocese. Other resolutions would remove all mention of the Episcopal Church from the diocesan constitution and canons, and otherwise re-write diocesan canons, including changing the way property is held in the diocese.
Deputies to the Diocese of Pittsburgh's convention October 4 will be asked (see resolutions one, two and three here) to approve the leadership's desire to realign with the Southern Cone.
A week after Quincy's synod, at the Diocese of Fort Worth's November 14-15 convention, participants will vote on a resolution to realign with the Southern Cone. That is the only proposed resolution posted on the diocese's website thus far.