The Diocese of California has overhauled its canons, saying the action will make its operations more transparent and its leaders more accountable.
 
At a special convention May 10, delegates voted to eliminate the bishop’s complete control over property and created an executive council to replace a more complicated, less transparent administrative structure.
 
The actions were the culmination of a process set in motion by California Bishop Marc Andrus about 10 months ago. But the actions of the neighboring Diocese of San Joaquin also served as inspiration, and Bishop Andrus contended that opposition to that move might have been greater had the structure of the diocese been more transparent.
 
“Some have said that people who might have acted to prevent the actions in San Joaquin didn’t do so because they were not kept fully aware of what was happening,” Bishop Andrus said after the convention.
 
The actions of the special convention meeting at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco will replace a legal entity called a corporation sole that gives entire control over diocesan property to the bishop. That change will not take place until 2011, to allow time for changes to deeds, title insurance and filing for property tax exemption on the 16 missions, 11 parishes and seven other properties of the diocese. The changes to the deeds alone are expected to cost $1,000 per property, according to a memorandum issued to the convention by Chancellor William Orrick. 
 
The most sweeping change by the convention was the creation of an executive council that will hold interim authority between diocesan conventions, manage the operating budget, investments and property and approving appointments. The council will have 12 members elected by the deaneries. The bishop, also a member, would appoint up to five members, and an additional six would be elected by the annual convention.
 
The membership of the council produced one of only three challenges to the proposal. The original proposal called for half of the members to be clergy. But a member of the governance committee that produced the recommendation warned that the change would cut in half the representation of the laity on the current diocesan council, which has two lay members for each member of the clergy.
 
“We always talk about empowering the laity, but we are going to lose one lay person from each deanery,” said the Rev. Sue Thompson, vicar of St. Edmund’s, Pacifica. Delegates adopted her amendment, which allows deaneries to elect two lay members.
 
The convention also reduced the proposed power of the executive council by making it clear that the council is subordinate to the diocesan convention, and the convention must ratify the council’s actions. Jay Luther of St. Paul’s, San Rafael, had called for an amendment that would have eliminated some restrictions on the actions of the council. But the convention rejected that amendment. Instead it adopted a second amendment, proposed by attorney Christopher Hayes, a member of the cathedral parish, that limits the executive council to actions necessary to carrying out the “policies, programs and budgets” approved by the convention.
 
One of the lengthiest debates occurred over a proposed vision statement that called for the diocese to work against “heterosexism.” Richard Grey, a member at St. Stephen’s, Belvedere, objected to what he called “a poor choice of words.  We need to revise this to something more meaningful and positive. Using words like ‘heterosexism’ is going to drive people away.”
 
But Ms. Thompson countered that “Heterosexism happens when people forget that there are relationships other than those between a man and a woman.”
 
Delegates discussed whether to oppose discrimination based on sexual preference or sexual orientation, ultimately settling on “sexual orientation” and eliminated the term “heterosexism.” It also added “ageism” as another practice to oppose. Asked later if he had anticipated a 20-minute discussion over heterosexism and other “isms,” Bishop Andrus replied, “This is our diocese, after all.”
 
Timothy Roberts
 
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