We're really Babes in Armor."
PITTSBURGH: Attempted Coup to Unseat Bishop Fails
By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
1/15/2008
An attempted coup by US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, her attorney David Booth Beers, and liberal parish priest Harold Lewis to unseat Bishop Robert Duncan, the Bishop of Pittsburgh, failed recently when three canonically required senior bishops refused to sign inhibition papers that would have prevented him from functioning as a bishop.
The back room attempts to fast track and inhibit the evangelical catholic bishop, saying that he had abandoned the communion of the Episcopal Church, had all the makings of Tammany Hall politics. It all fell apart when bishops Leo Frade of Southeast Florida, Peter Lee of Virginia, and Don Wimberly of Texas refused to go along with the public lynching. (It is not known at this time how many of the three bishops did not give consent).
The charges that Bishop Duncan has abandoned the communion simply do not hold up. When he heard the news Duncan said, "Few bishops have been more loyal to the doctrine, discipline and worship of The Episcopal Church. I have not abandoned the Communion of this Church. I will continue to serve and minister as the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh."
The Title IV Review Committee acted with alacrity to give Mrs. Jefferts Schori what she wanted, drawing up a 41-page brief in near record time. By contrast, it took the Title IV Review Committee almost a year to inhibit revisionist Pennsylvania Bishop Charles E. Bennison for conduct unbecoming a priest with charges that included his failure to stop his brother from having sexual relations with a 14-year old girl - a minor.
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GJ - See how little it takes to stop a tyrant? All the trembling Lutheran pastors-- secretly blogging, secretly emailing, secretly meeting--should do a little blocking instead of punting.
