What Are the Choices for South Carolina? (Part 2)

There is also nothing to preclude Bishop Lawrence from participating in meetings of the House of Bishops only to the extent that he finds them fruitful, and furnishing him with an opportunity to have his grievances heard by his colleagues in meaningful dialogue. Attendance at the House of Bishops is a right, not a duty.

As the diocesan, Bishop Lawrence of course retains full control over the licensing of clergy to minister within the boundaries of the Diocese. And Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori has already made her canonically mandated visit to the Diocese (shortly after Bishop Lawrence's consecration), so there is no need to arrange any further visits from her during her remaining term of office.

So life in the Diocese of South Carolina, at least from its point of view, could continue pretty much as it has to this date. Indeed, by reducing its participation in the national Church to an absolute minimum, the Diocese would be putting into practice the principle of subsidiarity, in which the national Church could stand to have a refresher lesson or two. Subsidiarity is the idea that the affairs of an organization are dealt with at as local a level as possible, and that only those matters which truly affect the organization as a whole need to receive attention at the topmost level. [Emphasis added] (It is the principle on which PECUSA itself was founded, and which governed its affairs for the first 150 years of its existence.)

During this period of showing its displeasure with the way the national Church is running itself, the Diocese of South Carolina could also use its continued membership to forge strengthened ties between it and similarly minded dioceses in the Church. For the truth is that if ECUSA is ever to see reform, it will have to take place at the hands of numerous dioceses, and not just one or two acting on their own.

The forging of such alliances should not be regarded as any kind of "disloyalty" to the national organization (although there are certainly those at the top who will choose to view it that way). Rather, it is the exercise of a right that is inherent in the democratic structure of an unincorporated association: the attempt to influence its actions by persuading enough of its members to agree until there is a working majority. Associations are governed by democratic procedures, by and large; ECUSA, even with its more complicated voting procedures in General Convention, is still no exception. Read more

Read also:
What Choices Are There for the Diocese of South Carolina?

A. S. Haley provides one of the clearest explanations of the principle of subsidiarity that I have encountered on the Internet. ACNA leaders talk up this concept but my study of the ACNA governing documents--constitution, canons, model diocesan constitution and canons—shows that the actual application of the principle in the ACNA is far less than they tout it. In practice the principle of subsidiarity takes back seat to a tendency toward centralization—the concentration of power and authority in a center or central organization. The application of the principle of subsidiarity would result in the spreading out of power and decision-making and a lateral organization, not a centralized, hierarchical one