A.S. Haley: Rushing to Judgment: a Spurious Defense of Title IV (Part III)

Monday, February 28, 2011

One of the most striking ways in which the proposed revisions to Title IV of the national Canons depart from previous precedent is in the broad new powers they give to the Presiding Bishop. In essence, they make the relationship between the Presiding Bishop and the other bishops in the House of Bishops analogous to the relationship between a diocesan bishop and the clergy in his or her diocese. When one bishop has such pastoral and disciplinary powers over other bishops, s/he is said to be "a metropolitan," or to have "metropolitical powers." Such metropolitan bishops are frequently (but not always) called "Archbishops."

Until the proposed changes to Title IV take effect next July 1, ECUSA will never have had a metropolitan bishop in its more than 221 years of existence since 1789. Archbishops are known to the Church of England -- the Archbishop of Canterbury has metropolitan authority over all the bishops and clergy in the Province of Canterbury, while the Archbishop of York exercises the same authority over all the bishops and clergy in the Province of York. But the strong feeling against bishops in this country after the Revolutionary War meant that there could be no thought of the creation of any such position for the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.

Why, then, did the Title IV Task Force II revisers think that they could engineer such a drastic change in the polity of ECUSA? And not only bring about such a drastic change, but accomplish it in such a back-door manner?  the rest