While stating that six recusant priests remain under “threat of inhibition,” the Rt. Rev. Andrew D. Smith, Bishop of Connecticut, did not immediately carry out his threat to depose them after an April 18 meeting with the Bishop of Western Massachusetts ended inconclusively after four hours.

The Connecticut rectors contend that theirs is a dispute about doctrine while Bishop Smith contends it is about the canonical authority of a bishop.

The disagreement has widened to include the primates from other Anglican Communion provinces, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and a sizeable portion of the Episcopal Church House of Bishops.

Bishop Smith, accompanied by Bishop Gordon Scruton of Western Massachusetts as mediator, met with the Rev. Mark H. Hansen, St. John’s, Bristol; the Rev. Donald L. Helmandollar, Trinity, Bristol; the Rev. Christopher P. Leighton, St. Paul’s, Darien; the Rev. Gilbert V. Wilkes, Christ and the Epiphany, East Haven; the Rev. Ronald S. Gauss, Bishop Seabury Church, Groton; and the Rev. Allyn B. Benedict, Christ Church, Watertown at diocesan headquarters in Hartford.

“Communion with the bishop is a precursor to consider other matters that are before us,” Bishop Smith said. “By leaving the meeting tonight without acknowledging my authority as their bishop they have placed themselves under threat of inhibition by refusing to live within their vows.”

The six said they welcomed the meeting called three days earlier as an opportunity “for sincere and open dialogue,” but instead “walked into a trap, a brutal and long meeting in which Bishop Smith attempted to coerce us individually into an admission that we had abandoned communion.”

The threat by Bishop Smith to inhibit and depose without trial active parochial clergy who had not threatened to leave the Church under a canonical procedure used in the past to depose clergy who had been joined the Roman Catholic Church elicited widespread protest.

On April 11, six retired bishops castigated Bishop Smith. This was followed by a more irenic letter signed by another group of 17 active bishops who asked if there was “some way to head off the terrible confrontation that now appears inevitable, not only in Connecticut, but also among us bishops?”

The 17 reminded Bishop Smith that the House of Bishops’ Covenant [TLC, April 3], banning cross-border incursions by bishops had been predicated “on the assumption of the functioning of the Panel of Reference, called for by the primates in February 2005.” The “threat of inhibition and deposition of the clergy,” which arose only after the “Connecticut Six” had made known “intent to appeal to the Panel of Reference,” was unjust.

“What about due process and right to ecclesiastical trials, both of which are denied when this Canon on Abandonment of Communion is used in this way? Who is it that has abandoned the communion?,” they asked.