UM . . . . WHAT???

Saturday, November 04, 2006
By Steve Levin, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh voted yesterday at its annual diocesan convention to withdraw from a national church province and seek alternative oversight.

The clergy voted 97 to 14 in favor, with three abstentions, while the lay vote was 117 to 40, with 17 abstentions. The overwhelming vote, which was expected, does not change the diocese's standing in the Episcopal Church. Nor will it have any immediate impact on the Pittsburgh diocese's 20,000 members.

The resolution underscores the Pittsburgh diocese's distancing from the national church's new presiding bishop, the Right Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori.

Pittsburgh Bishop Robert W. Duncan Jr. stressed yesterday that the resolution's passage cements the diocese's commitment to being part of the Episcopal Church and a constituent member within the 70-million-member worldwide Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church, with 2.3 million members, is the American arm of the communion.

The resolution, he said, marks the diocese's "continuing commitment to function under the constitution of the Episcopal Church ..."

Can anyone explain to me how voting "to withdraw from a national church province and seek alternative oversight" classifies as a desire to a "continuing commitment to function under the constitution of the Episcopal Church ..."???

Isn't that a bit like the seven Southern states voting to secede from the U.S.A, to create the C.S.A., and then claiming to want to function under the Constitution of the United States?