c. 1996 Religion News Service

DALLAS (RNS)-A group of 10 Episcopal Church bishops who accused retired Bishop Walter Righter of heresy for ordaining a non-celibate gay man as a deacon said Tuesday (May 28) it has not yet ruled out whether it will appeal Righter’s acquittal by a church court.

Instead, the group said it will file a formal”Statement of Exceptions”to the May 15 acquittal of Righter and also take its case to the denomination’s 1997 General Convention, seeking passage of church legislation that would specifically bar such ordinations.

In addition, the 10 bishops said they would take steps”to create a fellowship of Episcopal parishes and dioceses”to resist gay ordinations.”We categorically reject the opinion of the Court for the Trial of a Bishop,”the 10 bishops said in a statement released at a news conference.”We decry this opinion as deeply flawed and erroneous.” The statement was released by Bishop James Stanton of Dallas and Bishop Jack Iker of Fort Worth, two of Righter’s 10 accusers.

On May 15, an eight-member church court found that Righter’s 1990 ordination in the diocese of Newark, N.J., of Barry Stopfel as a deacon, the first step toward the priesthood, did not violate any”core doctrine”of the church.”The court finds that there is no Core Doctrine prohibiting the ordination of a non-celibate, homosexual person living in a faithful and committed sexual relationship with a person of the same sex,”the court said in a 7-1 ruling acquitting Righter of heresy.

The 10 bishops, known as presenters, filed heresy charges against Righter, the retired bishop of Iowa who was assisting in the Newark diocese at the time, about a year-and-a-half ago in an effort to block the growing number of ordinations of homosexuals to the Episcopal priesthood.

Another of the 10, Bishop William Wantland of the diocese of Eau Claire, Wis., who also is an attorney, said the group had not yet made a decision on appealing. It has 30 days from the May 15 ruling in which to appeal.

In their statement, the bishops said they would ask the church’s General Convention, which meets next year in Philadelphia, to adopt a canon (church) law declaring that:”All members of the clergy … shall be under the obligation to model in their own lives the received teaching of the Church that all its members are to abstain from sexual relations outside of Holy Matrimony.” The 10 also declared that they would bar from their dioceses clergy who did not subscribe to the moral standard prohibiting sex outside of marriage.

At the news conference, Stanton denied that the group’s effort to create a network of dissenting parishes and dioceses would create schism in the church.”The church again and again has reaffirmed stands for traditional morality,”he said.”The schism has come from those who say we’ve got the truth and want to impose it on everybody else.” In attacking the May 15 court ruling, the 10 bishops said the decision”has swept away two millennia of Christian teaching regarding God’s purposes in creation, the nature and meaning of Christian marriage and the family, and the discipleship in relation to sexuality to which we are called as followers of Jesus.” They said the court’s distinction between”core doctrine”and other doctrinal teaching”is without precedent.””We therefore declare that bishops who knowingly ordain non-celibate homosexual persons or who permit or endorse the blessing of homosexual unions do so without the authority of Scripture … and are thereby threatening the unity and order of the church,”they said.”As a sign of the seriousness of this threat, we disassociate ourselves from such … teaching and preemptive action by bishops, other clergy or dioceses,”they said.

MJP END RNS