c. 1996 Religion News Service
(RNS)-For nearly 10 months, the eyes of the 2.5 million-member Episcopal Church have been fixed on a nine-bishop panel wrestling with the question of whether to bring retired Bishop Walter Righter to trial on charges of heresy.
On Wednesday (May 15), in the sanctuary of the Cathedral Church of St. John in Wilmington, Del., preceded by a Holy Communion service, the nine bishops who make up the Court for the Trial of a Bishop may resolve the matter.
The court will announce whether the Episcopal Church has a doctrine forbidding the ordination of homosexuals to the ministry.”It will also announce the nature and timing of further proceedings to be held before this court in this matter, if any,”the court said in a statement.
Righter, 72, the retired bishop of Iowa, has been charged with violating church doctrine, or committing heresy, and with violating his oath as a bishop for his 1990 ordination of Barry Stopfel, a non-celibate homosexual, as a deacon, the first step toward priesthood. Righter was serving as an assistant to Newark Bishop John Shelby Spong at the time.
If the court decides the Episcopal Church has a doctrine forbidding ordination of non-celibate gays and that a full-blown trial of Righter is warranted, it will be only the second time in the 206-year history of the Episcopal Church that a bishop has been brought to trial on heresy charges.
In the 1920s, a retired bishop of Arkansas was found guilty of heresy for writing that communism was superior to Christianity and denying Jesus’ divinity.
Issues surrounding questions of human sexuality have divided the mainline, generally liberal Protestant denomination for two decades.
The drawn-out proceedings against Righter, who now lives in New Hampshire, began in January 1995 when 10 bishops filed a presentment-or list of charges-against Righter, accusing him of acting contrary to church teaching in ordaining Stopfel.
Under church rules, 75 bishops-25 percent of the church’s active and retired bishops-had to agree the charges should go to trial, a number Righter’s accusers secured last August.
Since then, the court has held two public sessions-one in Hartford, Conn., and one in Wilmington-to examine issues and hear motions from lawyers representing Righter and his accusers.
On Feb. 27, in Wilmington, in a session lasting most of the day, the court heard arguments over whether the church has a”doctrine,”a fundamental position, forbidding such ordinations, or merely a”discipline,”a position short of the fundamental truth of a doctrine.
A major issue in the proceedings has been the authority of resolutions adopted by the church’s General Convention, its highest decision-making body, and whether such resolutions are part of the doctrine of the church.
In 1979, a resolution adopted by the General Convention said that it is inappropriate for the church to ordain a practicing homosexual. Righter’s accusers have pointed to the resolution to undergird their position.
But Michael Rehill, chancellor of the Diocese of Newark and Righter’s lead attorney, said that 1979 resolution is not doctrine and that it is advisory rather prescriptive.
Rehill said that if the denomination wanted to stop the ordination of gays it could do so by changing the church’s canons, or laws. He pointed out that such efforts have failed.
LJB END ANDERSON
