Another ENS Article on the Title IV Canons

Posted by Kendall Harmon

“Procedurally it’s a disaster. In terms of what it’s done to clergy rights it’s more than a disaster,” Diocese of Newark Alternate Deputy Michael Rehill told ENS. “It needed basic total revision. It was adopted hastily without anybody apparently having any thought about how it was actually going to work in some respects.”

In other ways, Rehill, insists, the drafters knew exactly what they were doing. He says their intent was to take away “all the rights of clergy” and give “incredible power to bishops to get rid of priests.”

Rehill, a former Diocese of Newark chancellor, is the chief operating officer of Canon Lawyer, which defends Episcopal clergy in disciplinary matters.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Polity & Canons • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology

4 Comments
Posted August 16, 2012 at 7:00 am [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. Archer_of_the_Forest wrote:

Wow…a guy from the Diocese of Newark no less. That’s saying something.

August 16, 9:53 am | [comment link]
2. Archer_of_the_Forest wrote:

And I completely agree about the power to Bishops. I was on the Judiciary Committee for my diocese when the new canons went into effect, and we were all basically dismissed en masse. Heretofore, we all ran and were elected to terms via Diocesan convention. After the new canons, the Bishop appointed everyone to a trial proceeding. The Diocese had absolutely no say whatsoever on whom could sit on a trial court. It was truly a magnificent power grab of Machiavellian proportions.

August 16, 9:58 am | [comment link]
3. Cennydd13 wrote:

If Title IV gives such power to the bishops, then what’s stopping them from inhibiting or otherwise discipling their Presiding Bishop for the uncanonical abuse of power exercised by that woman?  Title IV is worthless if it doesn’t apply to the Presiding Bishop, too.

August 16, 10:06 pm | [comment link]
4. Milton Finch wrote:

So it should be, Cenny!  So it should.  I believe we are dealing with that Animal Farm thingy again.  Two legs, four legs.  So plain for all to see excepting the characters playing the parts.

August 16, 10:57 pm | [comment link]
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