You are here: Home > News > The Harvest May/June 2005 > Bishop continue dialogue

Bishops to continue dialogue

Gathering to include conservatives and progressives

By Jim DeLa

Diocese of Southwest Florida

Building on work begun at the March meeting of the House of Bishops, the Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno of the Diocese of Los Angeles and the Rt. Rev. John B. Lipscomb of the Diocese of Southwest Florida will co-host a meeting of 20 bishops July 18-22 in Los Angeles.

According to a news release issued by the Diocese of Los Angeles, the meeting is a continuation of unofficial, informal conversations begun in March at Camp Allen, Texas.

Bruno and Lipscomb have been named by several sources as the catalysts for a group of 18–20 bishops with varying theological viewpoints who began having discussions around patio tables during the Camp Allen meeting. The conversation led to the so-called “Covenant Statement” which was adopted by the full House.

In the statement, bishops pledged to withhold consent to all elections of bishops until the General Convention meets in 2006 in Columbus, Ohio. This was in response to the Windsor Report, which asked the Episcopal Church to not consecrate any noncelibate gay or lesbian bishops until “new consensus in the Anglican Communion emerges.” The decision to call a moratorium on all election consents has caused delays in the selection process in at least five dioceses, including Southwest Florida.

Bishop Lipscomb announced on May 21 that he had been invited to participate. “I’ve been invited to LA in which [Bruno] is asking that 10 from the progressive side and 10 from the conservative side of the House sit down together and really find a way to say how we’re going to do church as we move toward General Convention,” he explained.

The bishop noted the importance of next year’s meeting. “This is an important General Convention; we have some major mission initiatives that need to go forward. We simply cannot allow the issue du jour to detract and degrade the good work the church is doing,” he said.

Meanwhile, Bruno’s office has not released any specifics about the agenda for July. “The only agenda for the July meeting is to continue the work of reconciliation that we began at Camp Allen,” Bishop Bruno said in the news release. “We need to listen to the Holy Spirit and each other to find out what God intends our Church to be.”

There has been speculation that participants will address the controversial issue of dividing assets should a formal split in the church occur. The Living Church magazine quoted one unnamed invitee who said “the invitation simply said it was to discuss a final settlement.” The Living Church also reported a second unnamed bishop, who said he would be unable to attend due to a scheduling conflict, confirmed he had been “invited to a meeting whose stated intent was to help sort out the complicated relationship between parishes and dioceses and properties.”

Division of assets “is one possible outcome,” but not the purpose of the meeting, Jim Naughton, communications director for the Diocese of Washington, told the magazine. Naughton confirmed that the bishop of Washington, the Rt. Rev. John Chane, has also been involved in planning the meeting.

The news release from Los Angeles also indicated the 20 bishops who will attend the July meeting were among those who endorsed the Covenant Statement, but the diocese’s media director, Janet Kawamoto, would not release the names of participants to The Southern Cross. The news release also indicated there would be little news to report during or after the meeting. “The July meeting will be closed to press and public,” the statement concluded.

Jim DeLa is director of communications for the Diocese of Southwest Florida and editor of The Southern Cross.