The Episcopal
Church has barred a California bishop from practicing his
religious duties until March after he led his congregants to
secede from the national church.
Bishop John-David
Schofield drew sharp criticism from the U.S.-based
denomination when he urged his conservative diocese to sever
its ties to the church last month in a fight over the
Bible and homosexuality.
Clergy and lay
members of the diocese of San Joaquin became the first
full diocese to break from the U.S. wing of the 77
million-member worldwide Anglican family when
they voted to secede December 6.
Schofield cannot
give sermons, do confirmations, or perform any religious
rites until the national denomination's leaders meet to
determine a final judgment by March 13, the Reverend
Canon Charles Robertson, canon to Presiding Bishop
Katharine Jefferts Schori, said Friday.
''He was aware of
the consequences of his action, warned repeatedly, and
there comes a time when it is important for the church to
hold its own leadership accountable,'' Robertson said.
''This allows him
time to recant and to steer off this course,'' he said.
The bishop gave
no signs of changing direction in a statement issued late
Friday by the diocese.
''It is the
primary duty of bishops to guard the faith, and Bishop
Schofield has been continually discriminated against for
having done so,'' the statement read. ''How is it that
over 60 million Anglicans worldwide can be wrong and a
few hundred thousand in the American Church can claim
to be right?''
Despite the
secession vote, the national church considers the diocese
and its property to still be a part of the U.S.
denomination, a claim Fresno leaders reject.
''The holdings of
the diocese are still holdings of the diocese unless
the court rules something differently,'' said the Reverend
Van McCalister, a diocesan spokesman, in an interview
Thursday. ''There isn't any law to deal with this
because nobody foresaw that such a thing would
happen.''
The San Joaquin
diocese's decision to affiliate with the like-minded
Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, based in Buenos
Aires, Argentina, will likely kick off a legal brawl
over the diocese's multimillion-dollar estate.
The Fresno-based
congregation had explored breaking ties with the
American church since 2003, the year Episcopalians
consecrated their first openly gay bishop, V. Gene
Robinson of New Hampshire.
Schofield and
other conservatives believe Scripture bans same-sex
relationships, and the Fresno bishop counseled his flock
that they risked moral decay by staying within the
church.
The diocese
serves about 8,500 parishioners in 47 congregations in
central California. (Garance Burke, AP)
