Bishop Iker Describes Inhibition by PB as ‘Irrelevant’

November 24, 2008

A letter inhibiting the Rt. Rev. Jack L. Iker, Bishop of Fort Worth, and documents supporting her reasons were issued by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori on Nov. 21. Bishop Iker, whose diocesan convention voted overwhelmingly to leave The Episcopal Church and affiliate with the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone on Nov. 15, issued the following response to the Presiding Bishop’s announcement:

“Katharine Jefferts Schori has no authority over me or my ministry as a Bishop in the Church of God. She never has and she never will,” he said. “Since Nov. 15, both the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth and I as the diocesan Bishop have been members of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. As a result, canonical declarations of the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church pertaining to us are irrelevant and of no consequence.”

The inhibition, which required the consent of the Title IV [disciplinary] Review Committee, is actually the third submission that Bishop Jefferts Schori made to inhibit Bishop Iker. On two separate occasions the Presiding Bishop’s chancellor, David Booth Beers, wrote the committee on behalf of the Presiding Bishop, seeking to have him removed along with Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh during the fall House of Bishops’ meeting. the rest