Convention offers way to help bishops, dioceses reconcile

From ENS-

The bishops and deputies who gathered in Indianapolis in July for the 77th meeting of General Convention made a historic statement about the relationship between bishops and dioceses, acknowledging that, on rare occasions, that relationship becomes severely strained, sometimes to the point of breaking.

The statement, made by way of Resolution B021, set up a canonical process for reconciling or dissolving an episcopal relationship.

Resolution B021 was the result of a call (via Resolution B014) from the 2009 meeting of General Convention to how to help dioceses and bishops resolve their differences.

“The Episcopal Church is relatively unique in that there is no pastoral or canonical mechanism for intervention by the church at large to bring reconciliation or dissolution to bear within conflicted dioceses,” Resolution B014 noted in its explanation. The toll of that lack is “enormous,” the explanation said, and comes in the form of “bishops and their families leaving stigmatized and without the gratitude and caring of the dioceses they have served, members of Standing Committees exhausted and ill-used, dioceses being left demoralized and split by factions, and the name of the church often compromised for lack of a more humane process.”

More here-

http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2012/08/21/convention-offers-way-to-help-bishops-dioceses-reconcile/