Agenda, Agenda Uber Alles

http://stillonpatrol.typepad.com/still_on_patrol/2008/03/agenda-agenda-u.html

[Still On Patrol] 17 Mar 2008-- The vote last week by the Politburo House of Bishops to purge depose Bishops John David Schofield and William Cox continues to stir controversy over what the Canonical process for deposing Bishops does or does not say. The Living Church reported last week that the vote was not canonically proper because it failed to be supported by a majority of the Politburo HOB. KGB Chairman Chancellor David Booth Beers later announced that The Living Church had it all wrong, that the vote need only be by a majority of the Politburo Bishops present at the meeting.

Let's take a look at the Canons rather than accepting anyone's word. I'm no Canon lawyer and no expert on Church polity and all that, but I have read more than a few statutes in my time. Title IV, Canon 9, Section 2 reads, in pertinent part, "If the House, by a majority of the whole number of Bishops entitled to vote, shall give its consent, the Presiding Bishop shall depose the Bishop from the ministry...". Again, I make no claim to be a Canon lawyer, but to my brain this does not say "by a majority of the Bishops present." We are taught in statutory interpretation to not only give words their plain meaning, but to assume by the absence of other words that their omission was intentional. This Canon does not speak in terms of Bishops present, but in terms of "the whole number of Bishops entitled to vote", i.e., the then-sitting House of Bishops in its entirety.