Episcopal Diocese Votes to Leave

By: Ann Rodgers | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

People Mentioned in the Article
  • Bishop Robert Duncan
  • Joan Gunderson
  • Joan Morris
  • Martin Luther
  • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori
  • Rev. Daniel Hall
  • Rev. George Werner
  • Rev. Jonathan Millard
  • Robert Williams
Quotes in the Article
  • Donegan:
    • "As a lesbian, I have found the Episcopal Church to be embracing. I have been transformed by the love in this church,"
  • Duncan:
    • "We have a tough road ahead. We will be faithful and charitable and do everything we can to help those congregations who are uneasy about this, or who may be very opposed to this, to be part of our fellowship,"
    • "This is the most wonderful diocese in the church,"
    • "There is no reason that we cannot continue being this way with each other"
    • "Maybe some day God will put us back together,"
    • "The matter finally comes down to an unavoidable choice between cultures. There is the culture of the wider Episcopal Church: Theologically innovative, at the edge of mainstream Christianity, secularly attuned, declining ... and ready to sue or depose to obtain its way," he said. "By contrast there is the culture of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh: Scripturally centered, critiquing the secular agenda, among the fastest and few growing dioceses of the Episcopal Church, relative to the population decline ... allowing vast freedoms in the form and manner of ministry."
  • Gunderson:
    • "I think it's been a tragic mistake. The Episcopal Church is not what it has been called [by those who want to leave]. I mourn the division and its consequences,"
  • Hall:
    • "I cannot support this resolution because of this time of spiritual desolation in which I find myself ... St. Ignatius commends us to refrain from making significant decisions when we find ourselves so desolated,"
  • Luther:
    • "Here I stand. I can do no other." It continued, "I will neither compromise the faith once and for all delivered to the saints, nor will I abandon the sheep who elected me to protect them."
  • Millard:
    • "At the end of the day, the issues before us aren't about canons and conventions and procedures and lawsuits. They are about the centrality of the cross of Christ,"
  • Morris:
    • "None of us has a full understanding or could divine the full truth, but we do have a divine call to search together as one body in Jesus Christ, regardless of the differences among us. Without each other we each see a smaller truth and lose the corrections that we need from each other,"
  • Werner:
    • "Her heart is filled with Jesus,"
    • "On a case-by-case basis, all things are possible. The presiding bishop will carry out her fiduciary responsibility. She will keep the door unlocked. She will welcome people back,"
  • Williams:
    • "Today's action of the Diocese of Pittsburgh is not final,"
    • "But, more to the point, dioceses do not leave the Episcopal Church. Dioceses are set in place by the churchwide general convention."
Mentions of the Schism in the Article
  • Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh has voted to leave that denomination and realign with a theologically conservative Anglican province in another, yet to be chosen, nation
  • divisions between liberal and conservative Episcopalians, and between many of the U.S. bishops and their counterparts in the global South, derive from differences over biblical authority and interpretation
  • Debate was fraught with talk of litigation and of loss of pensions and cuts in salary for clergy who left the Episcopal Church
Parishes Mentioned in the Article
  • Ascension parish
  • Church of the Redeemer
  • First Lutheran Church
  • Sheldon Calvary Camp
  • St. Andrew's Church
  • Trinity Cathedral

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Summary

After the annual convention, the laity voted 118 to 58 and the clergy voted 109 to 24 to join another Anglican province. The votes were still casted even after threats from Bishop Schori to have Bishop Duncan removed from power as a bishop of Pittsburgh.
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