News Updates

Correcting our Cover Story of 12-6-09

Posted on: November 20, 2009

The Living Church regrets that it did not offer Mike Watson, author of the cover essay in the December 6 issue, timely review of revisions that led to several problems in the text. At the author�s request, we have replaced the online version of the essay with his original manuscript.

Watson Original

1 Comment

1.

Ronald Caldwell writes:

"There is no provision in TEC's constitution or canons that states that a diocese many not disaffiliate..." True, just as there are no provisions that a diocese may not do this or that on numerous other things. The United States Constitution does not state that a state may not secede from the union. Yet, would anyone seriously debate this issue today? Certainly not. The authors of constitutions simply cannot foresee every possible issue in the future and so leave their documents with implied conditions and powers.

For a national entity to maintain its integrity, it cannot allow either local nullification of its rules or local secession. That's just as true of the Episcopal Church now as it was of the U.S. government in the nineteenth century. No one should seriously expect the Episcopal Church to voluntarily relinquish its dioceses or for dioceses to give up its local properties to secessionists. The constituted authorities of the national church and dioceses would be derelict in their duties if they did that.

Posted on: November 21, 2009 10:05 AM

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