The U.S. Episcopal church is going after its breakaway conservatives.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, head of the 2.4-million-member U.S. church, last week slapped Bishop John-David Schofield, leader of California’s 8,000-member Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, with an “inhibition.”
It ordered him as of January 11 to “cease from exercising the gifts of ordination in the ordained ministry of this church” and stop all “episcopal, ministerial and canonical acts.”
That happened because the Fresno, California-based diocese last month seceded, becoming the first Episcopal diocese to do so, and aligned itself with the conservative Anglican Church of the Southern Cone, based in South America.
Schofield told the Episcopal leadership neither he nor the diocese were under their jurisdiction any more.
The civil courts may be courts of last resort.
Blithe Spirit 