Canonically Defective Testimonial Alleged in Virginia Coadjutor Request

http://www.livingchurch.org/publishertlc/viewarticle.asp?ID=3517

[The Living Church] 24 July 2007--The standing committee did not use a properly worded canonical request last winter when it sought consent to the election of the Rev. Shannon S. Johnston as Bishop Coadjutor of Virginia, a defect not considered serious enough by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori to invalidate the election.

Instead the standing committee of the Diocese of Virginia used what the Rev. Canon Carl Gerdau, canon to the Presiding Bishop and Primate, described as a “short form,” successfully employed by a number of other dioceses in recent years. The so-called short form has been “used for a long time and no one has ever objected to it before,” Canon Gerdau said in an interview with The Living Church. “We don’t think this is a defect.”