FAQ: Aren’t the ACNA property canons designed for a congregational rather than catholic church?

It appears that the ACNA might be starting off on rather shaky ground in many areas….Maybe this New Province has come too quicly and too soon and has not put all its ducks in their proper rows before forming. Shouldn’t thes types of things be hashed and smoothed out before you pull all together?

ODC (#1), I don’t think the fact that Matt is running a series dealing with Frequently Asked Questions implies that the ACNA “might be starting off on rather shaky ground” or “has come too quickly and too soon.”  These things were hashed out by the leadership before the Constitution and Canons were adopted by the Common Cause Leadership Council.  This series is merely an attempt to address questions and concerns (even hypothetical ones) that might occur to the rest of us who were not in those discussions and to demonstrate, by means of these questions and answers, why the ACNA is, in fact, beginning on a very solid foundation.

INFO: The Polish National Catholic Church officially states in it’s Canons that Church Property is owned by the local congregation.  This does not make the PNCC any less “Catholic” than the RCC, which places Church Property in Trust to the Bishop.

ODC,

Toalltheworld is right. I am addressing concerns people have expressed who are simply unfamiliar with the documents themselves.

It does occur to me that parishes may be hijacked quite methodically and intentionally by activists ... even as they have been in TEC.  I would hope that the risk of a diocese being “taken over” in this way would be ameliorated by recognition in the province that bishops, and not democratic representative bodies are the arbiter of doctrine.

I recommend reading Benjamin Franklin’s speech to the Constitutional Convention in 1787.  Obviously, times change but people do not - especially when it’s time to form a government.

Compromise, deal-making, visionary planning, risk-taking, coalition building, taking counsel, thinking carefully, truth-telling, faith, and prayer - lots and lots of prayers - our founders knew it all when they wrote the U.S. Constitution.  We are in such times now - we don’t jump out of the boat when we are still at sea.  But land may yet be in sight.

If we want to take part in the process - then contact your representatives to the Constitutional Covention this summer.  Matt’s doing us all a great service here.

bb

My apologies…but to me there are a few things that
i personally wish they had spent more time on before coming together. Starting with a consensus of “we will table and shelf certain things and work them out later” or “we will have to agree to disagree” IMHO isn’t a very rock solid start..But they didn’t ask me nor is my opinion a valued one anyway! Just one tiny insignificant voice of many who feel the same way I do.

Hi ODC,

I hope your post is not an attempt to insert your misgivings about WO into a thread dealing with ACNA property canons.

Fr. Matt,
Not at all…there is already a thread (a good one) regarding that. My misgivings have much to do with territory and episcopate oversight. How many bishops are already in geographic areas of one another. Some in the very same counties and cities! That is just one item of concern to me.

I am not at all concerned with whether any property and/or money “belongs” to a congregation, as opposed to the diocese or the province, as a whole. The issue of “title” to property and assets has been handled in a variety of ways by a variety of authentic catholic churches since the very earliest days of the Church—and, as far as I know, there is no substantial issue of ecclesiology or theology implied by congregational “title” to property and tangible assets.

There IS, however, a fairly substantial issue of authentic ecclesiology implied by any Church that does NOT define itself primarily in terms of GEOGRAPHY.

The delineation of orthodoxy, church discipline, and the proper roles of bishops, priests, and deacons are ALL matters that are COMPLETELY CONTINGENT upon a strict understanding of the geographical limits of the Church—be it a province, a diocese, or a parish. The Catholic Church (which, of course, is not limited to the Roman Catholic Church, but includes the various Eastern Orthodox Churches, etc.) has ALWAYS defined itself first and foremost as a geographical entity. Indeed, the very word “catholic” is a term of GEOGRAPHY—not a theological term.

One will note, for instance, that Scripture does NOT make reference to any sort of confessional distinctions among the earliest churches. We read of “The Church at Ephesus”, for instance, and NOT, say, “The Charismatic Church at Ephesus” or “The Aramaic Rite Church at Jerusalem.”

Obviously, the entire discussion of “border crossings” is a hot-button issue for those of us on the orthodox side of the Anglican tumult here in North America. After YEARS and decades of incessant assaults upon orthodoxy by the revisionists now in control of TEC—assaults that are invariably accompanied by hypocritical cries of “Border Crossings!” by the revisionists—a LOT of orthodox Anglicans seem willing to simply ignore the profound significance that would ensue from a complete disregard for the geographical boundaries of any given church.

A church which is not defined primarily in geographical terms—and a church which does not evangelize, promote orthodox doctrine, or discipline heresy within fairly clear geographical boundaries—cannot, in any sense of the word, be considered even remotely “catholic.”

In my humble opinion, North America will suffice for the geographical limits of the new province. Within this new province, however, it will be absolutely necessary that the ministries of ALL bishops be defined, first and foremost, by specific and unique geographical limits for each and every bishop functioning within this new province. Anything less than this—any attempt to fudge this, in some way, via “affinity groups” or some other novel (revisionist) notions, will result in a church that will inexorably move away from any claim to catholicity.

My reading this is that a trust cannot be imposed using canon law: “...claim of ownership arising out of the canon law ...”  This should not prevent a diocese from creating a legal, civil trust following the secular laws.  This makes sense.  Since ownership in the end is determing by secular courts, the ownership should be established based on secular laws.

Anything less than this—any attempt to fudge this, in some way, via “affinity groups” or some other novel (revisionist) notions, will result in a church that will inexorably move away from any claim to catholicity.

While I’m in sympathy with this sentiment, the solution at very best would seem to indicate a return of Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism.  Are there any geographical areas of the new or old provinces that do not also contain Roman Catholic ones?  Who is to decide that TEC or the new province is soley “The Church” for a geographical region?Since the new province fairly clearly is NOT geographically bound, what does this mean when we draw our line in the sand and say, “Unless this particular canonical understanding is met, all will end in ruin.”  Yes, geographical oversight by bishops is an old rule of thumb.  It was also superceded in cases of heretical bishops.

Hi JOV, not at all. First you reading Article 12 of the constitution apart from the context of the canon reproduced in the post above. The canon was written to clarify the constitutional article. The canon is very clear. A diocese that seeks to establish a trust claim (that does not already exist), by secular or canonical means, will run afoul of the constitution and canons of the province and be subject to discipline. To do what you suggest would require a diocese to depart from the church.

Hi bluenarrative, I think I will disagree not with your explanation of the tradition—I don’t know enough to do that—but with your estimation of the importance of that tradition. I do not agree that catholic orders are necessarily contingent upon contiguous geographical borders and boundaries.

ODC, that question is addressed quite well in both the constitution and canons with the 12/50/1000 rule which will be the subject of a future post.

#14, I think it is important, canonically, and speaks to the requirement that we be one church as opposed to many denominations.  Reunification with Rome, Orthodoxy, and all of Protestantism seems implied by this canon. It’s a tall order top put the onus for this on the formation of this Anglican province.

Yes! Agreed monologistos..God has called us to become one not many…...But how can we humans do that?

Impossible for us, possible for God.  He doesn’t seem to be fixing the problem as we might imagine He might.  Guess it’s going to be a drawn-out process, unlikely to be completed in this world.  We are not off the hook but let’s not set pie-in-the-sky goals that we know we cannot reach with an eye towards justifying our failure to really try.  We do the best we can, one step at a time.

monologistos, I always appreciate your comments. And I do not substantially disagree with anything that you have posted on this thread. The reunification of ALL the catholic churches SHOULD be the goal—but, yes, it is hard to imagine such a thing actually coming to pass.

Yes, Anglican and Roman Catholic dioceses overlap both here in North America and in other parts of the world. The reasons (theological reasons, that is) are complex and not worth discussing here.

What is, I think, much more germane is the fact that Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox dioceses do NOT overlap—except in some odd instances involving schismatic and/or politically-defined national Orthodox churches. For instance, the ONLY Russian Orthodox dioceses in North America are those associated with those Russian Orthodox who severed their ties to Moscow (the “official” and Vatican-recognized Russian Orthodox Church, in spite of the fact that it had clearly been turned into a tool of the Soviets) at the time of the Russian Revolution.

Similarly, there is no Roman Catholic bishop of Jerusalem. There is, obviously, a Roman Catholic bishop RESIDENT in Jerusalem—but his “official” bishopric is long-vacated nominal see (some place like, say, Hippo) and, in fact, he functions at the sufferance of the Orthodox Primate of Jerusalem.

It is worth remembering that it was the appointment of an Anglican Bishop as the Diocesan Bishop of Jerusalem that drove Newman across the Tiber. By his own admission, Newman never would have gone over to Rome if the C of E had simply sent an Anglican bishop to Jerusalem to provide episcopal oversight to resident Anglicans; a bishop from an English diocese, functioning at the discretion of the Orthodox Primate. By claiming Jerusalem as an ENGLISH diocese, the Church of England, in Newman’s estimation, had grossly violated catholic order.

The passing of the geographical concept of the parish was hardly traumatic.  I anticipate this particular transition will be no more earth-shaking.  Indeed, in our current world of voluntary networks, it is likely inevitable.

Bill+

[13] Matt Kennedy
Since I am no lawyer, I’m probably in over my head, but since end of the canon stated “No diocese, cluster, or network (whether regional or affinity based) may assert a trust claim over the real and personal property of its parishes without the express written consent of the congregation.”  The canon does not prevent a trust, it prevents a trust from being imposed unwillingly.  I think this is a great way of doing it.  If a diocese wants a claim to property they have to do it correctly, with the express written consent of the congregation.  As has been mentioned above in this thread, there can be problems with both ways.  This canon seems to me to just make sure that if the “diocese has a claim” way is chosen, it has to be by mutual consent.  I’m guessing since there will be mutual consent, it would be done according to secular laws.

Matt,
On a previous go round on this issue with me, you agreed that the golden rule holds true, i.e. he who controls the gold rules,
You wish, along with the proposed constitution of ACNA, for the congregation to control the property (the gold),
thus the congregation rules.
The system of church government where the congregation is the locus of authority is known as Congregationalism. 
You are advocating for a hybrid form of church goverment with a split between property power and theological power.
Where is the error of logic in the above? 
Property ownership is real power.  Look at how many TEC churches and dioceses have stayed in TEC because they fear being able to leave and keep their property. 
Calvin would not abide a separation between theological power and property rights power.  People and institutions are wholistic things with theological, spiritual, physical, estheticial, historical etc. dimensions.  See Kuyper, Dooeyweered et. al,  Its not good to split this whole apart with the Province in theological power but not in power over property. 
Given how your ex bishop did bad things to your parish, I can understand your desire for congregationalism. congregational control of property is not small c catholicism or anglicanism.  Its a hybrid.

#19, Bluenarrative, I hope you don’t appreciate ALL my comments ... sometimes, I’m just silly.  Anyway, yes, I appreciate the problems at hand.  Orthodox jurisdictions in the US are a mess, beyond what you have mentioned, although there begins to be some glimmers of potential for improvement.  These things take time.  Would you have the various churches who would enter into this province not?  Are things improved upon by the fragmentation of the Continuers?  Or the blatant heresy of TEC?  I don’t think an insistance that they must or should return to the mother churches is going to work for most of them at this time.  If I thought Anglicanism was the preferred alternative, I would still be Anglican ... although I have no idea where I would have to go.  A bit in each part is dear to me.  I suppose the Anglo-Catholicism of Nashotah House and the leadership of Archbishop Ramsey would be closest to my theological understanding although I come from a more evangelical Episcopalian background and unlike Ramsey, I have no desire for union with Rome until she repents and returns to us.  I AM very fond of Gregory Venerables.  Well, now I must go out to a party with some of my Catholic friends.  If the occasion merits it, I will invite them to repent as it amuses us to so incite one another.  While tomorrow does not mark a new liturgical year, as we measure things it is an opportunity for a new start.  God bless.

One of things we often fail to take into account that all of us who have left TEO have seen the destruction caused by heretical leaders both theologically and property-wise. Another is that the leaders of ACNA are (one or both) people of low ego, or they are able to displace ego with the need to take care of the people who have been forced out into the wilderness. In any event, I take issue with the statement that Catholicity is a function solely of geographic boundaries. It is the state of mind in which we bind ourselves together in trying to serve the Lord as He would be served, not how many deeds we hold, or where our diocesan boundaries are. The Holy Spirit is powerfully at work in ACNA and we need to recognize and seize upon His presence. I was surprised at how few people were watching on AnglicanTV during the signing and Eucharist at Wheaton (around 400, as I recall).
desertpadre

Let me begin with a caveat that I have not studied the new ACNA C&C;in detail. I share some of the concerns expressed about the non-geographical entities. I predict this feature may be a transitional element though with a long transition in the case of women’s ordination.

However, I disagree with #22 that

congregational control of property is not small c catholicism or anglicanism. Its a hybrid

.
And that

the golden rule holds true, i.e. he who controls the gold rules.

A “hybrid” polity is neither un-catholic nor un-Anglican and I think the stated “golden rule” is simplistic. I do not think any particular church polity is distinctively “biblical” or “catholic” or “protestant” any more than any one secular polity is simply best. According to Aristotle, a “mixed” polity may not be the purest form of government but it may be the most practicable. To a large extent, the U.S. Constitution and the C&C;of the Episcopal Church establish such a mixed polity.

To be honest, I think the polity of the Episcopal Church has been one of its strong points. For example, there were perfectly adequate provisions in ECUSA’s canons to defrock James Pike or John Spong or Gene Robinson. The problem was in the culture not the polity. Similarly today, the problem is not with the U.S. Constitution but with the cultural Left which is prepared to stack the courts with judges who will twist it to unjust purposes.

I think there are plenty of ways that a diocese or provincial body can exercise power over a congregation short of expelling it. One would be persuasion. Another would be prayer. One would be pressure to conform. On the other hand, the congregation’s ownership of property is an incentive to local leadership and a brake on bureaucracy and political strong-arming. It has always struck me that the Episcopal Church USA, compared to the Church of England and Church of Uganda, operates on a “small business” model that is better acculturated to the democratic spirit of our age.

The tragedy is that TEC has had the polity to be a strong Christian church on the ground but has allowed itself to be co-opted by the cultural Left, which is fundamentally out of sync with orthodox Christianity. There is no fool-proof way to stop evil-doers from co-opting a body without vigilance by its leaders and members.

Stephen Noll wrote:

“There is no fool-proof way to stop evil-doers from co-opting a body without vigilance by its leaders and members.”

  On that we certainly agree.  But again I say, quoting Brooks and Shields from the New Hour, that in any democratic group a well-organized minority of 20% can control.  If you’ve ever walked into a meeting and seen the agenda hijacked, a resolution proposed, and with only one side there to “educate” the electorate, and a vote taken, you know what I mean.  Some here may argue that the “left” and even its small vocal gay membership has hijacked TEC and has gained control of its leadership.  On TEC’s side, it would see Lambeth 1998, Dar-es-Salaam and certainly Dromantine-Nottingham as successful hijacks.  Lambeth 2008 seems to have been specically organized (the indaba process) to prevent it.  Unfortunately, since no real policy was going to emerge, the GS core elected not to attend.  I was sincerely hopeful
that there would be real “education” going on there, both from the north (its “democratic polity” issues) and the GS, its special concern of proximity with muslims tribal, and cultural concerns as well as its respect and faithfullness to “the faith once delivered” by   missionaries of the 19th/20th century.  I am still hopeful that the hermeneutics project proposed and adopted at Dar will move forward.  But, alas, I’ve heard nothing about this.

RE: “I was sincerely hopeful that there would be real “education” going on there, both from the north (its “democratic polity” issues) and the GS, its special concern of proximity with muslims tribal, and cultural concerns as well as its respect and faithfullness to “the faith once delivered” by missionaries of the 19th/20th century.”

I think some real education went on at Lambeth.  Without being able to hear or depend on the most conservative GS segment, I think the next level of mild conservatives were duly educated as they should have been—only not in the direction TEC wanted.

Chris Cairns,  I am more than a bit baffled by your reference to “post 1056 A.D. diocesan structure.” Do you mean to imply that the Catholic Church had not organized itself along explicitly geographical lines prior to this date? If this is what you meant to imply, then I suspect that you are neither well acquainted with ancient history nor with early Church history.

The word “diocese” is borrowed from the Romans, who used it to designate a geographical area under a specific type of administrative control. In fact, the entire Roman Empire had been divided up into dioceses long before the birth of Christ. The early Church, as a matter of convenience, simply borrowed these geographical delineations—intact—from the Romans and used them to designate the geographical limits of each bishop’s episcopal authority.

The geographical boundaries of both Roman Catholic and eastern Orthodox dioceses that are today located within limits of the old Roman Empire, in fact, occupy precisely the very same geographical boundaries as the old Roman administrative dioceses. A map showing the boundaries of modern Roman Catholic and eastern Orthodox dioceses found throughout most of Europe, north Africa, and substantial parts of the Middle east looks exactly like an ancient Roman map showing the boundaries of their administrative dioceses.

I can assure you that there were diocesan bishops in the Church LONG before 1056 A.D.—in fact, there is ample evidence to suggest that the orders of Bishop, Priest, and Deacon were normative by the time of Clement (known to his contemporaries as “the Third Bishop of Rome”), if not earlier. More importantly, there is just as much evidence that the Church had self-consciously divided the entire Roman world into “missionary fields” (utilizing the already in-place Roman administrative system of dioceses) from the time of Peter.

Certainly, there were a variety of disputes in the early Church regarding who could legitimately be considered the true Bishop of any given diocese—the Donatist controversy comes to mind immediately. But NOBODY questioned the foundational idea that mission was inexorably connected to geography, or that the Church was to be understood primarily in GEOGRAPHICAL terms, rather than, say, confessional terms.

The early Church had an extremely difficult time addressing the various gnostic heresies in the early Church because these various heretics controlled specific dioceses. The fact that they had strayed way beyond the Pale of orthodoxy was obvious to one and all. But it took the Church several hundred years to muster up the ecclesiological stamina and theological resolve necessary to declare that occupation of any particular episcopal see did not necessarily imply authentic membership in the true (Catholic) Church.

The catholic Church has ALWAYS seen itself primarily as a geographical entity—all ecclesiology, all polity, all mission is understood primarily in terms of GEOGRAPHY—not confessional distinctions between various competing “churches.”

And, in my opinion, one should only tinker with this basic and ancient concept very, very, very cautiously.

Chris Cairns,  I just took another look at your post (#29), and find myself wondering if you think that the various dioceses in the early Church had multiple “bishops” offering different “theologies” to the people who lived in that diocese.

Protestantism, of course, has a long and rather awkward history of trying to negate—or explain away—the role of bishops in the early Church. At various times, for instance, Protestant theologians have put forth baseless theories that the orders of Bishop, Priest, and Deacon were somehow all conflated in the early Church; that these various terms essentially refer to ONE ministerial office, and not THREE distinct orders. This, of course, flies in the face of Scripture, as well as being historically unsubstantiated, and being completely out-of-line with the most ancient Traditions of the Church.

Any objective reading of early Church history will clearly reveal that from the very earliest days of the Church, there was only ONE DIOCESAN BISHOP exercizing episcopal authority in EACH (geographically delineated) DIOCESE.

Chris Cairns,  Yes, I apparently did misread your post—and I apologize for that.

I think that it was actually ME who earlier pointed out that the Roman Catholics and the “official” (for lack of a better term) eastern Orthodox Churches do not invade each other’s diocesan jurisdictions.

There are various splinter groups of Orthodox that have set up alternate dioceses, of course—and the most obvious example of this is the Russian Orthodox Church in North America that severed ties with Moscow (the “official” Russian Church) because they (the American splinter group) perceived the Patriarchate of Moscow to have been turned into a tool of the Soviets.

I do not think that anybody can actually fully understand exactly what the precise ecclesiology of the Church was when Paul wrote his epistles—the best we can do is make a few reasonable conjectures. Within a relatively short period of time after Paul’s death, however, the situation is quite different—which is why I referenced Clement being called by his contemporaries “the Third Bishop of Rome.”

What we DO know about the Church during the Pauline years is this: the Church was clearly understood to be an explicitly missionary enterprise, and the mission of the Church was inexorably and clearly bound up with a sense of geography.

It should be fairly obvious to anybody reading Paul’s letters (as well as a number of other documents from the early Church) that the various scattered and miniscule congregations of Christians (“churches,” if you will, though this designation would not really take hold until the post-Pauline era) were identified in terms of geography—and NOT in terms of their apostolic lineage or their theological distinctions, etc.

By the time of Clement, just a few years after Paul’s death, the essential ideas of the diocesan/episcopal structure of the Church—as well as the first articulations of “catholicity” by the Church—were firmly in place.

I know of no reputable Church historian who seriously disputes this. It may not agree with the cherished theologies of certain Protestants, but, as history, it is irrefutable.

I am not at all sure that the shape of the early Church was entirely a matter of political expediency. I happen to think that the Holy Spirit had more than a little something to do with shaping the Church and instituting certain traditions and practices.

I do not disagree with your claim that the post-Reformation/colonial period of Anglican expansion into the world beyond Great Britain entailed an odd (politically motivated) hybrid ecclesiology. And I think that a LOT of the mess that we Anglicans are in today is a fairly direct result of that unfortunately hybrid ecclesiology. But I do not think that the BEST solution to our dilemma would be to jettison some of those elements of ecclesiology and polity that are clearly a part of catholic order. Perhaps, I am wrong about this. But, it seems to me that when “Anglicans” self-conciously reject a huge part of their catholic heritage, then they—almost by definition—cease to be truly Anglican, and become something else.

For all that I know, it may well be that God is willing to allow Anglicanism, per se, to wither away and die a rather drawn-out and ugly death. Maybe God wishes us all to become, instead, Presbyterians, perhaps, or something else… But if He desires that we remain truly ANGLICAN, then it seems to me that He probably also wishes us to retain the ancient diocesan/episcopal structure of the Church.

Chris Cairns, 

Maybe we are not quite talking past each other…

I do not think that the traditional structure/nature of the catholic Church—a Church with ONE Diocesan Bishop having episcopal authority for a clearly defined geographical area (a “diocese,” for lack of a better term) is necessarily either “imperial” or “colonial.”

This is the structure/nature of a Church that dates back to the days when, for the most part, the Church was a tiny band of slaves, misfits, outcasts, and marginalized individuals. The notion that the catholic Church is a geographically-rooted entity has nothing whatever to do with empires or colonialism. The fact that this structure was co-opted and substantially distorted to serve 18th, 19th, and 20th century political purposes does not mean that the foundational idea behind such a notion of catholicity is inherently flawed. It only means that the HUMAN BEINGS who make up this Church are flawed. But we already knew that, I would hope…

I am sort of curious to know what, exactly, do you propose to substitute for the diocesan/episcopal polity that has defined catholicity since the very earliest days of the Church? “Affinity Groups,” perhaps? I am a member of the Church of Rwanda and, as such, I am affiliated with the AMiA. But I honestly have no idea what an “Affinity Group” is…

I hope this conversation hasn’t come to an end.  The current assumption among TEC leadership is that parishes hold the property in trust for the diocese.  In short, the diocese then has most of the authority and very little responsibility.  In any body the amount of authority borne must be in proper relationship to the responsibility.  A current piece of fruit on this is the way the leadership doesn’t care that the denomination is loosing a congregation a day—not their problem.  It’s not their problem when our most committed people leave.

I see the same pattern in place with “mandatory” “giving.”  If its mandatory, its taxes—not giving.  But giving is a very different thing than taxes, or commerce (paying for a product).  The debate about “restricted giving” illustrates the point.  “Restricted giving” is an oxymoron just as “mandatory giving” is.  The issue is, gifts are an expression of communion.  People are restricting their giving not just because they don’t want to pay for a bad product; they restrict giving because the relationship is broken.  They neither want to receive gifts from the diocese, nor do they want to give them because both create interdependence. 

I believe the Church is called to be a “gift” based community.  This goes for orders in ministry, property, money, etc…  The proper form of discipline in a gift culture is to not accept or give gifts.  When parishes hold title property they are in a position to give gifts to their bishop, and to receive his gifts as well.  “Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.”(1 Peter 5:2-3).

star-ace;

interesting that you bring up the Polish National Catholic Church.  As a priest in the PNCC, I often think about ‘property ownership’.  While the Canons of the PNCC do state that the property of a given parish is owned and maintained by the members of that congregation, if that parish decides to close or leave the PNCC the property and assets revert back to the diocese. 

This is the teachings and understanding of the PNCC on a denominational level, whereas in TEC it seems it is a diocesan issue.  Perhaps that is how the ACNA should handle the issue, per diocese, with the stipulation that the property always remains in the hands of the people not the diocese of national church.