A variety of appointed experts on Episcopal Church canon law concur with Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who does not believe it is necessary to obtain an inhibition prior to holding a vote to depose a bishop charged with abandonment of communion. Bishop Jefferts Schori sent a two-page letter that sets out her understanding of the abandonment canons for the House of Bishops on April 30.
 
Once the nine-member Title IV [disciplinary] Review Committee has certified that a bishop has abandoned communion, Bishop Jefferts Schori said “the bishop in question is given 60 days to respond. In her letter, she explained that the provision requiring the consent of the three senior active bishops of the church in order to inhibit the accused bishop does not grant the three senior bishops veto power “over consideration of the merits of the deposition by the House of Bishops,” and she notes that a significant number of persons, many of whose positions are filled by appointment of the Presiding Bishop, agree with her.
 
The language of Title IV, Canon 9, Section 2 describes an ecclesiastical disciplinary process of an “inhibited bishop” for abandonment by the House of Bishops and requires the consent of the three senior bishops before the Presiding Bishop can revoke an inhibition if the accused bishop provides a written statement that “the facts alleged in the [Title IV Review Committee] certificate are false” ... or the accused makes “a good faith denial that the bishop made the declarations or committed the acts relied upon in the certificate.” The canons pertaining to consent from the three senior bishops with jurisdiction have all been removed from the revised disciplinary procedure proposed for approval by the 76th General Convention next year.
 
Elsewhere in the letter, Bishop Jefferts Schori explains her understanding of what does and does not constitute a relevant response to a charge of abandonment and the method employed for a vote by the members of the House of Bishops on those charges.
 
“A letter of resignation from the House is irrelevant to the charges brought forward by the Review Committee and the deposition proceedings, since deposition concerns a person’s ordination in this Church, not simply participation in the House of Bishops,” she wrote. “Resignation from the House thus has no bearing on following through with the charges brought forward by the Review Committee. Deposition in this situation makes clear in an official way that the bishop in question is no longer permitted to exercise ordained ministry in this church.”
 
Bishop Jefferts Schori said every bishop entitled to vote is invited to the meeting, and that ample notice is given that there will be a vote to depose. Therefore as long as there is a canonically defined quorum present and a majority of those present consent, the deposition is valid. She cites two previous deposition votes conducted in the 1990s as precedent for this interpretation.
 
“These are weighty matters, and it is important that we take seriously our procedures, as well as their purpose and intent,” Bishop Jefferts Schori said. “These matters with which we are confronted have ramifications for many outside our House. For those who would like an alternative to deposition, we already have one, in the form of renunciation of vows in this church, so that anyone may pursue his or her conscience and desires in another part of Christ’s Body. This option makes clear and clean an individual’s departure from The Episcopal Church.
 
“These are indeed difficult decisions that we at times are called to make, and I have no doubt that all of us would wish things were different,” she concluded. “We must respond to the situations with which we are faced, compassionately but not naively, knowing that we make these decisions not for ourselves alone but for the people whom we are called to shepherd and oversee.”

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