A.S. Haley: An Open Letter to My Fellow Episcopalians in South Carolina

Friday, January 25, 2013

Dear Committed Episcopalians in South Carolina,

As a lifelong Episcopalian myself, and as an attorney of 42 years’ experience who in 1980 began to be conversant in the canon law of my Church, I write to you on the eve of your special convention in Charleston tomorrow, which will be convened by our Presiding Bishop. (Full disclosure: I am currently co-counsel to the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin, and am actively opposing my own Church’s litigation against their former bishop, because I so strongly believe that what it is doing in that regard is just plain un-Scriptural, and wrong.)

I do not write with the purpose of sowing discord or confusion. There are those already in the leadership of our Church who have done more than enough of that.

I write instead because I perceive clearly that you are about to be sold a bill of goods, and the goods in the bill are not genuine. Therefore, my principal message to you is: caveat emptor! Look carefully at the motives of those who want to sell the goods to you.

This particular bill of goods was first written only in 2008. I repeat: these goods did not exist in our Church before 2008, when they were invented out of whole cloth by our Presiding Bishop’s Chancellor, Mr. David Booth Beers. (He may or may not be present at your gathering tomorrow; I have no information on that point. But his presence is not necessary, because Bishop Jefferts Schori herself has become so conversant with the goods in question that she is fully capable of offering them to you as the real thing.) the rest