TLC: Retired Quincy Bishop Faces Church Trial
March 26, 2008

A canonical case against the Rt. Rev. Edward H. MacBurney, retired Bishop of Quincy, will be heard by Court for the Trial of a Bishop. It will be the first such case since the canons were amended by General Convention in 2006 to include members of the clergy and laity among the judges in a disciplinary case against a member of the episcopacy.

Bishop MacBurney has been served with a presentment, an ecclesiastical indictment. It charges him with violating Article II, Section 3 of The Episcopal Church Constitution and Title III, Canon 12, Section 3 which states: “No Bishop shall perform episcopal acts or officiate by preaching, ministering the sacraments, or holding any public service in a diocese other than that in which the Bishop is canonically resident, without permission or a license to perform occasional public services from the ecclesiastical authority of the diocese in which the bishop desires to officiate or perform episcopal acts.”

Bishop MacBurney, 80, was Bishop of Quincy from 1988-1994. In June of 2007 Bishop MacBurney confirmed several persons at Holy Trinity Anglican Church in San Diego. An overwhelming number of members of Holy Trinity voted to leave The Episcopal Church and affiliate with the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone in 2006. The Rt. Rev. James R. Mathes, Bishop of San Diego, filed the initial complaint against Bishop MacBurney. the rest