Committee 18: Title IV disciplinary canons

6 Responses

  1. Paul Ambos says:

    I think A052 is intended to create an Accord with no disciplinary content.
    A105 fixes a hangover from elimination of Provincial Courts of Review that was overlooked because that section didn’t contain the word Province. Better late than never.
    Other similar errors on other resolutions should have been caught by Legislative Committees but weren’t. Maybe in 2027.

  2. Thank you for you thoughtful commentary. Will you (or someone) do a scorecard indicating how each of these resolutions made it through the process? Which ones made it out of committee and on to the floor, and then how each house voted? Again, thanks!

    • Scott Gunn says:

      I don’t know if there’s a scorecard, but you can look at vbinder.net to check status before, during, and after convention.

  3. Paul J Stephens says:

    Having received input and drafting assistance from my Province IV colleagues, at General Convention in Austin I introduced D064 which was adopted. It amended Canon IV.14.12(a) and (b) so that disciplinary matters would be included and disclosed in a clergy person’s OTM. At the time of my retirement from active ministry in early 2023, The Office of Transistion MInistry had yet to implement this Resolution in the OTM system. It would appear that A026 is somewhat duplicative of D064; however, if A026 is adopted, I hope that it will cause the OTM system to be promptly updated so disciplinary matters would be disclosed.

    • Scott Gunn says:

      But the problem with updating the OTM system is its absolutely atrocious security. If we put confidential information there, we are essentially publishing it for all to see. We need to take the time to design a more secure system — and to rebuild the OTM site from scratch. As I keep saying, I don’t blame current staff. We have not been willing to spend the money to fix this. And we seem to lack technology expertise at the churchwide level. Probably ought to fix that, too.

  4. Ron Brown-Gray says:

    Dear Scott,

    I speak from experience with not one, but with two priests who are/have been mentors to me and my husband. From a lay leader perspective, Title IV has been nothing but destructive in both situations emotionally and mentally. Without a doubt it was destructive for the individuals involved. What is entirely overlooked is how it destroyed a church and disenfranchised our lay ministry in the church. My only offering is that Title IV needs to be abolished and recreated with a congregational foundation and input as a the primary function. The beginning of the process should start with the people or complainant at the church level with clergy guidance. In the first situation which started over 18 months ago, we still don’t know of any conclusion to the case. The second one, the priest resigned their orders. As a point of concern, although our names were mentioned in the first complaint, at no time did anyone from the Diocese contact us for our response or verification of the facts. Six months ago, we finally offered our side of the situation and to this day there has been no response from anyone at the Diocese. So to quote your second paragraph, Title IV is indeed a “hot mess.”
    My purpose for responding is to get it out of my system. We resigned from our lay positions, left the church and we are seriously considering leaving the Episcopal Church as we find no viable solutions to continuing in community.