James Simons, a priest in the Diocese of Pittsburgh, former board member of the American Anglican Council and presently a member of the President of the House of Deputies Council of Advice, was a signatory on a letter released in Pittsburgh back in January that announced that he and a number of other rectors would not be supporting efforts to realign the Diocese of Pittsburgh with another Anglican province.
There were a number of questions at the time about the timing of the letter’s release and effect it would have on the debate in Pittsburgh.
Jim has responded to those questions by posting a detailed narrative of the process by which the group that signed the letter attempted to respond to their bishop in good faith over nearly a year’s time.
Jim describes how the group arrived at the decision to finally go public with their stance back in January:
“On January 15th 2008, the Bishop was informed by the Presiding Bishop that he had been charged with abandonment of the communion. Up until this point no negotiations had happened between the diocese and the Presiding Bishop’s office. The group of rectors who would not realign met on January 18th (a meeting scheduled long before the charges were announced). Since the reason for delaying the statement was to enable negotiations and it was clear that those negotiations were not forthcoming, we decided to write a brief statement about our decision, and pray for the next week about issuing it. At the end of that week we agreed to issue the statement with the twelve signatures. Three members of the group met with the Bishop on January 28th to inform him of the statement after which it was mailed out to every parish on the 29th. Unfortunately, a member of the group sent the statement to the press without consulting the other eleven and so it was in the Pittsburgh papers the day after being sent.”
Read the full article here.