Episcopal leader says S.C. diocese can't secede

From South Carolina-

While clergy and parishioners from one of the nation's oldest dioceses meet to chart a future outside the Episcopal church, the church's national bishop has issued a pastoral letter saying the Diocese of South Carolina can't leave the mother church of its own accord.

"While some leaders have expressed a desire to leave the Episcopal Church, the diocese has not left," Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori wrote in a letter Thursday. "It cannot, by its own action. The alteration, dissolution, or departure of a diocese of The Episcopal Church requires the consent of the General Convention, which has not been consulted."

But leaders of the diocese, who have split with the national church over issues including ordination of gays, do not see it that way.

In an Oct. 15 letter, Jefferts Schori informed diocesan Bishop Mark Lawrence that he is considered to have abandoned the church and is barred from performing any "Episcopal, ministerial or canonical arts" while the full House of Bishops investigates.

More here-

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