A Statement by the Council
of Forward in Faith UK
on the deposition of the Revd David L. Moyer

The Council of Forward in Faith UK condemns as arbitrary and illegal the actions of Bishop Charles Bennison of Pennsylvania in deposing the Revd David L Moyer, Chairman of Forward in Faith North America and in removing the license to officiate of the Revd Garrin Dickinson.

The persecution, by an apostate bishop, of faithful priests is an offence against the whole church, affecting as it does the very integrity of the bishop’s office as guardian of faith and order.

We call upon Bishop Bennison, even now, to heed the admonition of the Archbishop of Canterbury and his own Presiding Bishop, to rescind the deposition, to re-instate both priests and to reinstate, for the parish of the Good Shepherd Rosemont, that alternative episcopal care which he himself only recently withdrew and which the Canons of the Episcopal Church are agreed to allow.

We applaud the courageous actions of Archbishop Bernard Malango and Bishop Robert Duncan in receiving Fr Moyer into their dioceses as a priest in good standing, and we call upon all faithful bishops to lend them every support and encouragement. We believe that such support is crucial if the slender foothold which traditional clergy and laity still retain in the Episcopal Church is not to be eroded completely.

Bishop Bennison’s action is a stark reminder to the whole Communion that the Episcopal Church is now intolerant of that biblical Faith and apostolic order which remains normative for the majority of Christians. ECUSA is a church in which no opponent of women’s ordination will ever again be elected bishop, in which men opposed to women’s ordination can be ordained in only a small number of dioceses, and where a task force of the national church is charged with bringing those three dioceses opposed to women’s ordination into conformity with the prevailing opinion.

The Presiding Bishop has called the crisis at Rosemont ‘a sad exception’. It is, on the contrary, all too typical. He says, ‘very strongly’, that ‘traditionalists’ have a place in the Episcopal Church. We believe, on the contrary, that the continuance of orthodox biblical Christianity in that Church will be seriously in question if this infamous deposition is not vigorously contested.

Geoffrey Kirk
For and on behalf of the Council of Forward in Faith UK