Episcopal Church Votes to Oust Bishop Who Seceded

The Episcopal Church moved to remove the bishop of the San Joaquin Diocese in California on Wednesday, in reaction to the diocese's unprecedented decision late last year to secede from the church over theological issues.

The bishop, John-David Schofield, is the first bishop to face such action as a result of the disputes over the church's stance on homosexuality.

At its semiannual meeting, in Texas, the church's House of Bishops voted "to consent to the deposition from the ordained ministry" of Bishop Schofield.

The vote and the events leading to it underscore the discord tearing at the Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion, of which the church is the American branch, since the church ordained the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, a gay man in a long-term relationship, as bishop of New Hampshire in 2003.

In December, Bishop Schofield presided over a vote by his diocese, in the Central Valley of California, to split with the Episcopal Church and align itself with the Province of the Southern Cone, which is in South America.

After the vote, the Episcopal Church's leadership said Bishop Schofield would have a few months to change his mind and the course of his diocese, which had about 8,800 members before the December vote. The bishop held to his position but later resigned from the church's House of Bishops. The vote to remove him said he had "repudiated the doctrine, discipline and worship of the Episcopal Church."

Bishops have been deposed in the past, including one four years ago for financial impropriety, said Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, the chief pastor of the Episcopal Church. But experts said the church and dissident dioceses were treading new ground as those dioceses weigh leaving the church for another part of the 77-million-member global Communion.

See Episcopal Church Votes to Oust Bishop Who Seceded
New York Times, United States