This is a live blog covering the afternoon session of the House of Deputies that took place July 10, 2022.
Back to Business, Again
A059 on liturgical revision will be placed on the legislative calendar to be heard in the evening session.
The House is adjourned.
We fear the liveblog has swallowed our transcription of President-elect Julia Ayala Harris’s moving tribute to Gay. She spoke of Gay calling her to tell her she was on the Task Force to Re-Imagine the Episcopal Church, and how amazed she was tht Gay knew so much about here.
Sally Johnson regales the House with all the positions that Gay was the first ordained woman to hold.
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, Bishop Bonnie Perry and Bishop Sean Rowe are in the House via video telling us their favorite Gay Jennings story.
Perry talks about recognizing at the General Convention in 2006 that you needed Gay on any team you fielded if you wanted to get things done.
Rowe talks about a time he called her with a difficult problem and she told him she had one things to say to him: Man up.
Jennings thanks the House from the bottom of her heart, and there is another standing ovation.
Celebrating President Jennings
Deputy Johnson’s speech, humorous and over the top leads to the House rising to give the president a standing ovation to commemorate her 10 years as president and 31 years in the House.
Bryan Krislock, the parliamentarian is extolling Gay for her mentorship. “The poise and demeanor and manner in which she conducts herself in this house is exemplary.”
The House is watching a video from John Bercow, former Speaker of the House of Commons. He is “ordering” Gay to celebrate her tenure in extravagant fashion. He says his order must be heeded at once. And the celebration must be “financed elsewhere.”
He works in the word “chuntering” and then “condign.” And then Trollope novels about church politics! “Above which I am sure you have stood.”
“Onwards and upwards, I say.”
Deputy Debra Bennett of the Diocese of Ohio is at the mic. “I have arrived with a word of gratitude.” She praises Gay’s generosity, ready wit and wise counsel in “raising up leaders.”
“We are grateful for your ministry and your leadership these ten years. We are who we are because of who you are. And so we say thank you.”
Deputy Sam Candler: Gay Jennings, thank you, thank you, thank you. “You answered the call with faithfulness and strength and endurance.”
He says she has spoken on matters of equity and justice “with the progressive spirit of Jesus.”
“May God continue to bless your art history. May God bless your ministry. Amen.”
Back to Business
The Houses passes the afternoon consent calendar.
Deputy Sally Johnson, chancellor to the president, is taking a point of personal privilege whether the president likes it or not. She’s up to something humorous, if her tone of voice is any indication.
The Next Vice President
Deputy Rachel K. Taber-Hamilton has been elected the next vice president of the House of Deputies. She will be the first indigenous woman to serve in the position, also the first ordained woman to be elected vice president of the house.
Totals
- Taber-Hamilton: 448
- Johnson: 334
Rachel Taber-Hamilton: “I want to thank you for moving up that vote while I still had nails on my fingers.”
She thanks President Jennings and Vice President Rushing. “He has presented an amazing model to follow in his utter dedication to this house, to this president and to the beloved community.”
She wants to “assure that every voice will be brought to bear” and is committed to work with president-elect Julia Ayala Harris. She believes lay people will be essential to the church in meeting its current challenges.
“Finally I do want to thank and acknowledge a commitment to our international entity and body as a church,” and especially those in dioceses that could not be here.
Drawn-out Wi-Fi Hampered Elections
The House will elect members of the Court of Review. This court hears appeals of disciplinary matters involving priests and deacons. But there is a problem. “We designed an elaborate system and we found it does not work,” Deputy Sally Johnson says. The problem is that there are geographic restrictions meant to guard against over representation. These restrictions are such that it is hard to field a slate of candidates. Yesterday’s slate did not meet the restrictions and the elections are nullified. New elections will take place with what Johnson describes as some unusual ballots. Meanwhile, the canon that caused this problem will be revised at this convention.
On the first unusual ballot, the house is electing two clergy from Provinces I through III. (For the purposes of this election, Puerto Rico, which will probably be in Province II by the end of the convention, is in Province IX, as it was at the start.)
Winners: Carrie Schofield-Broadbent, Chris Wendell
On the second unusual ballot the House is electing two deacons from Provinces IV through VI.
Winners: Lisa Kirby and d’Rue Hazel.
On the third unusual ballot the House is electing two clergy from Provinces VII through IX.
Winners: Lisa Burns and Rodney Davis.
These elections are taking so long due to Wi-Fi issues that the ballot in process for Clergy Alternate to the Court of Review has been nullified, and the House has postponed Court of Review and Disciplinary Board elections until tomorrow.
The House will now elect its next vice-president.
PB & F steps up
Apologies for the late start. Connectivity issues.
Deputy Mike Ehmer of Northwest Texas, chair of Program, Budget and Finance, is presenting the budget to a joint session of the houses chaired by Presiding Bishop Michael Curry.
Budgets are the means by which we give the work that God has given us to do. The current budget continues the “Jesus Movement” organization of the previous budget. Evangelism, Reconciliation and Creation Care.
Pie charts of the budget do not capture the interconnected nature of the work funded by the budget. Such pies do not reflect the amount of the presiding bishop’s time devoted to the church’s principal priorities. The same can be said of the communications, formation, transition ministry and other departments.
Bishop Jeff Fisher of Texas says the budget is balanced.
“As you know convention has approved A125, establishing a new Episcopal Coalition for Racial Equity and Justice,” he says. “We worked with them early on to make sure adequate start-up funding was available.” The coalition will receive $300,000 for the first two years of its work.
The $2.7 million requested in A127, regarding research into the church’s complicity in the sins of Indigenous boarding schools, could not be met. The effort will receive $225,00. “We feel this amount would be sufficient to begin the work, and hope the Executive Council may be able to supply further funding during the coming tiremium.”
The budget also funds a new staff position for LGBTQI and Women s Ministry, as called for in Resolution A063. This is the only exception to the the cap on staff positions in the DFMS.
Creation care initiatives have received a 27 percent increase in funding.
There is a large increase in the governance category due to the necessity of funding two General Conventions in one triennium.
Deputy James Wiley of Montana says he finds it unusual to see any account of actual spending in considering a budget. He asks how we can say Creation Care is a priority when we spend less than one percent of the budget on it.
Deputy Ehmer says the figures on spending were not available, but it would be helpful to have them in the future. He says all of the spending on creation care across the church is not captured in the budget, and that the church is spending the money to accomplish what the church thinks it can accomplish.
There are some questions about line items that are probably not sensible to readers who aren’t looking at the budget as they read, and we are leaving those out.
Deputy Andrew Tomat of Los Angeles asks if PPP forgiveness figure in counting diocesan assessments.
Deputy Ehmer says PPP forgiveness was not exempt.
Deputies are still trying to figure out which of the resolutions that have passed are funded and to what extent. There are numerous ways to do that Deputy Ehmer says, and lists a few, including asking DFMS staff members with involvement in those areas.
Bishop Marc Andrus of California returns to the funding on creation care. He says it would be helpful if there are creation care allocations in other line items if PB&F could identify them. Deputy Ehmer says the money is in salaries of people whose work involves the church’s creation care priorities.
Deputy Louis Glosson of San Diego says a five percent draw isn’t necessarily high if you are committed to following Jesus. “How much money does the Episcopal Church actually have?” he asks.
Deputy Ehmer says “if you count endowments that varies by the minutes.Treasurer Barnes, would you like to tell us what we have at the moment?”
Kurt Barnes says the church has $600 million in invested assets. Of that $200 million are held for other institutions such as dioceses and schools. That takes the number to $400 million.
“When you look at the two classes of our endowment or trust funds, there are some that are restricted to purpose, and they have been restricted by the donor,” Barnes says. “When we look at the unrestricted assets, they are on the order of $160 million. Those are assets.. I guess the easiest way to say it, that could be freely accessed by Executive Council.”
Deputy Adrián Linares-Palacios of Puerto Rico asks the total amount of money requested that were not included in the budget. Deputy Ehmer says he doesn’t know. The convention isn’t over. Deputy Linares-Palacios asks when the information will be available. Deputy Ehmer says he doesn’t know, but not until the convention is over.
That wraps up the information session.