Episcopal liberals prepare for split

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A liberal Episcopal group is crafting a strategy to disenfranchise about 16 conservative bishops if the denomination's pivotal General Convention next year in Columbus, Ohio, results in a church split.

Informally named the "Day After" for the aftermath of the June 13-21 event, the strategy outlines a way to file canonical charges against conservative bishops, unseat them from their dioceses, have interim bishops waiting to replace them and draft lawsuits ready to file before secular courts for possession of diocesan property.

The strategy was revealed in a leaked copy of minutes drafted at a Sept. 29 meeting in Dallas of a 10-member steering committee for Via Media, a network of 13 liberal independent Episcopal groups.

"It was a worst-case scenario -- what people in various dioceses would need to do if their bishop and much of their diocesan leadership decided to walk away from the Episcopal Church," said Joan Gundersen, the steering committee member who drafted the minutes.

Conservatives also "have made statements to that effect," she said.

In July, about 20 liberal and conservative Episcopal bishops met secretly in Los Angeles to discuss how to divide billions in church assets in the event of a split.

The memo assumes that the Episcopal Church will refuse to renounce its 2003 consecration of V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire as the denomination's first openly homosexual bishop, an action many archbishops in the 70-million-member Anglican Communion have urged it to do.

If the 2.2-million-member Episcopal Church votes to uphold Bishop Robinson's consecration, conservative bishops are widely expected to walk out. Sixteen of them are affiliated with two conservative groups -- the American Anglican Communion (AAC) and the Anglican Communion Network.

"What will be our response the 'Day After,'" the minutes ask, "when [conservative] bishops start announcing they are in a 'new' Anglican Communion and the Network is 'recognized' as the only legitimate expression of the Anglican Communion in North America?"

The AAC condemned Via Media by calling the minutes a "planned coup of biblically faithful dioceses."