Diocese of Quincy (ACNA)

This article is about the Diocese of Quincy of the Anglican Church in North America. For the Episcopal Church's Diocese of Quincy, see Episcopal Diocese of Quincy.

The Diocese of Quincy is an Anglican Church in North America diocese encompassing 31 parishes, 25 in Illinois, and also in Wisconsin, Colorado, Tennessee and Florida, in the United States. The diocese was a founding member of the Anglican Church in North America in 2009.

Most of the current diocese was part of the Episcopal Church from its establishment in 1877, until in November 2008 a majority of the diocesan synod voted to leave and associate with Anglican Province of the Southern Cone as part of the Anglican realignment movement.^[1][2] After the synod, statements from the Episcopal Church and the Southern Cone express conflicting views of what constitutes the diocese.^[2]

The former diocese cathedral was St. Paul's in Peoria since 1963,^[3] although the diocese retained the name of the location of its original see city, Quincy, where its cathedral was St. John's,^[2] in order to lessen confusion with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Peoria. The current is the Cathedral of St. Andrew the Apostle, in Peoria.

Keith L. Ackerman was bishop from June 24, 1994 until his resignation on November 1, 2008. He is a member of Forward in Faith, the Society of King Charles the Martyr, the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, the Guild of All Souls, the Society of Mary, and the Society of Our Lady of Walsingham.^[4]

Juan Alberto Morales, previously the first abbot and founder of Saint Benedict's Abbey in Bartonville, Illinois,^[5] became Bishop of the Diocese of Quincy on September 18, 2010. He was installed by Robert Duncan, Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America.^[6]

Members of the cathedral parish of St. Paul, the largest parish in the Diocese of Quincy, voted on December 4, 2008, 181 to 35, to not be "realigned" or "removed" from the Episcopal Church, remaining as part of the Episcopal Diocese of Quincy.^[7]

The Diocese of Quincy currently has between sixteen and twenty seminarians, with most attending Nashotah House in Nashotah, Wisconsin.

Anglican realignment

The diocese does not ordain women to the presbyterate,^[2] but does have two female deacons.^[8] As of 2006 it was one of only three dioceses in the Episcopal Church that did not ordain women; the other two were the Diocese of San Joaquin, whose convention voted to secede from the Episcopal Church in December 2007, and the Diocese of Fort Worth, whose convention voted in November 2008 to secede.^[9]

In 2006, the diocese issued a news release saying that it was "unwilling to accept the leadership" of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, and passed resolutions asking for "alternative pastoral oversight" and withdrawing consent to be included in Province 5 of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America.^[9]

On November 7, 2008, the 131st Synod of the Diocese of Quincy voted to leave the Episcopal Church and instead join the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. As Ackerman's resignation as bishop took effect on November 1, Edward den Blaauwen of Moline, Illinois was appointed to preside over the synod.^[2]

The major resolutions, which both passed, were to annul the diocese's accession to the constitution and canons of The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, and to join the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. After the vote to realign passed, it was announced that Archbishop Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone appointed den Blaauwen as Vicar General in the absence of a sitting bishop.^[2]

Also passed by the synod were: a resolution that parishes may withdraw from "the Synod of this Diocese" by a two-thirds vote within the following nine months, and clergy may transfer to other dioceses; a resolution that other parishes outside the geographic boundaries may join the synod of the diocese; funding for the Province of the Southern Cone and the Anglican Communion Network; support for the Common Cause Partnership; and a new diocesan canon to govern marriage, defined as being between "one man and one woman".^[2]

The Episcopal Church's Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, stated that "The Episcopal Diocese of Quincy remains, albeit with fewer members".^[2] The legitimacy of other secession actions has been actively challenged by The Episcopal Church, which takes the position that dioceses and parishes may not leave without the Episcopal Church's governing bodies.^[10] As a consequence, the long-term effect of these votes is unclear, as with similar cases in the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin and the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh; both of those two dioceses have split into two factions, with each faction claiming to be the legitimate succession of the traditional diocese. Neither secession nor annulment of accession is provided for by the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church. The Constitution and Canons of the Province of the Southern Cone allow only dioceses in the six southern nations of South America,^[11] but the Province of the Southern Cone has agreed to accept realigning dioceses "on an emergency and pastoral basis".^[12] None of these three dioceses was listed as part of the Province of the Southern Cone by the Anglican Communion office.^[13]

The Diocese of Quincy won a decision on an element of a legal dispute on property ownership over the Episcopal Church, on December 18, 2011, from the Eight Judicial Circuit, in Adams County, Illinois. The court ruled that "even if the church is hierarchical, that would not end the matter because a "neutral principles of law" approach should be applied to resolving the property ownership dispute."^[14]

References

External links

• Official website of the Diocese of Quincy