Source:  Episcopal Life Online

March 10, 2010

By Mary Francis Schjonberg

When the Diocese of South Carolina gathers for its annual convention March 26, it will consider a series of resolutions related its role as a diocese of the Episcopal Church.

Among the proposed resolutions, posted here, is one in which the convention "affirms its legal and ecclesiastical authority as a sovereign diocese within the Episcopal Church" and "declares the presiding bishop has no authority to retain attorneys in this diocese that present themselves as the legal counsel for the Episcopal Church in South Carolina." The proposed resolution also demands that Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori end any retainer her office has with such legal counsel.

Another resolution would give "explicit canonical force" to what it describes as Bishop Mark Lawrence's practice of "dealing pastorally with parishes struggling with their relationship with the diocese or province." The resolution would add a section to the diocesan canons giving the ecclesiastical authority in the diocese the power "to provide a generous pastoral response" to such parishes.

In a resolution titled "Recognition of the Heritage and a proclamation of the Identity of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina," the convention would declare that "for more than three centuries this diocese has represented the Anglican expression of the faith once for all delivered to the saints" and that "we understand ourselves to be a gospel diocese, called to proclaim an evangelical faith, embodied in a catholic order, and empowered and transformed through the Holy Spirit."

The resolution also proposes that convention "promise under God not to swerve in our belief that above all Jesus came into the world to save the lost, that those who do not know Christ need to be brought into a personal and saving relationship with him, and that those who do know Christ need to be taught by the Holy Scriptures faithfully to follow him all the days of their lives to the Glory of God the Father." . . .

Read the entire article here. 

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