The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katherine Jefferts-Schori, has sent a letter to Archbishop Greg Venables of Argentina asking him not to meddle in internal U.S. church matters and not to “bring further discored into the Episcopal Church.” Venables is coming to the United States to meet with leaders of the Diocese of Fort Worth May 2-4. The Fort Worth diocese is considering aligning with the Province of the Southern Cone [in South America.] Meanwhile, the bishop of Fort Worth, Jack Iker, has sent a letter of his own to Jefferts-Schori, telling her to stop meddling in his diocese.

Here is the text of the letter from Jefferts-Schori:
Dear Gregory,

I write to urge you not to bring further discord into The Episcopal Church. Visiting a special convocation of the Diocese of Fort Worth with the expressed purpose of describing removal to the Province of the Southern Cone is an unprecedented and unwarranted invasion of, and meddling in, the internal affairs of this Province. I ask you to consider how you might receive such a visit to your own Province from a fellow primate. The actions contemplated by some leaders in Fort Worth are profoundly uncanonical. They also prevent needed reconciliation from proceeding within this Province.

I urge you to focus your pastoral ministry within your own Province. May your ministry there be fruitful. I remain

Your servant in Christ,
Katharine Jefferts Schori

For more on her letter, click here.

To read Iker’s response, click here.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 at 2:46 pm and is filed under Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.