Debunking Myths and Avoiding Episcopal Overreach: Conducting Clergy Searches According to the Canons

Consider the following scenarios:

A Search Committee is told they must wait patiently for a list of rector candidates from the diocese. They are not allowed to go out and conduct their own search.

The chair of a search committee is told that unless his church offers a full-time position, they won’t get any candidates.

A warden is told that because they can only offer a part-time salary, they can’t call a rector. 

A priest is told by the Canon for Transition Ministry that he isn’t a good fit for their diocese.

Another priest is told that “the bishops have discussed the matter” and that he is not a good fit for a particular parish — even though that parish asked him to apply.

After their rector of 15 years is called to another parish in another diocese, a vestry is told by the canon overseeing churches in transitions that they are not allowed to call a new rector. Instead, they must call a priest in charge, who, after a period of time, may be called as the rector.

These real-world examples from recent searches are typical of the broken clergy transition process in today’s Episcopal Church.

The search process is stymied by a lack of awareness — at all levels: parish, diocese, and clergy-in-search — of the canons that govern the election of a rector.

This is exacerbated by the shortage of clergy. By one account from the summer of 2023, there were “622 congregations filling vacancies and only 87 clergy identified as actively searching for calls.” As another observer put it: “The clergy job market is a train wreck.”

In our Episcopal polity, power is not concentrated in any one role or office. Each order of the Church has a part to play, and each player has canonical rights and responsibilities: bishop, vestry, and rector candidates.

The knowledge and practice of this used to be called “churchmanship” (in contrast to our contemporary associations with that term: high church, low church, etc.), and it is now a lost art. Recovering an understanding of the national canons — and how local diocesan canons must accede to them — will restore confidence and trust to a system that is not working.

Parishes With Rectors Are the Canonical (And, in Some States, the Legal) Norm

Many clergy advertisements list open positions for a priest in charge, often with the proviso that the priest can become the rector after a certain period of time. The Diocese of Connecticut has made this a blanket rule: no church may call a rector when its pulpit falls vacant. Each church must participate in what that diocese calls “Transition Is the New Normal,” after a report of the same name written by the Reverend Lee Ann Tolzmann.

That report describes the new normal as:

Parishes in clergy leadership transitions who are seeking a full-time or three-quarter time priest will enter into an extended time (average three years) with a Priest in Charge, who can then become a candidate for Rector.

This “new normal” bypasses the canons and normalizes parishes without rectors for lengthy periods of time — in Connecticut’s case for an average of three years.

Though there is some evidence that pastoral tenure is increasing beyond the proverbial five-to-seven-year mark, three years is a considerable amount of time for pastor and congregation to be on the hook. It amounts to between 42% and 66% of the average tenure being spent “in transition.”

However, a parish with a rector is both the canonical, and, in many states, also the legal norm.

For instance, Chapter 51, Article 3, Section 42 of the Consolidated Laws of New York State (“Religious Corporations”) describes the duty of a rector to call a meeting of the vestry:

No meeting of the Vestry or trustees of any incorporated Protestant Episcopal parish or church shall be held unless either all the members thereof are present, or three days’ notice thereof shall be given to each member thereof, by the Rector in writing either personally or by mail.

Elsewhere the law states that “the churchwardens and Vestrymen so elected and their successors in office, together with the Rector, when there is one, shall form a Vestry and shall be the trustees of such church or congregation” (emphasis added).

In other words, in the State of New York, an Episcopal parish with a rector — whose legal duty it is to convene the vestry — is the norm. It is also the canonical norm for the Episcopal Church as a whole. Title I, Canon 14, Section 3 reads:

Unless it conflicts with the law as aforesaid, the Rector, or such other member of the Vestry designated by the Rector, shall preside in all the meetings of the Vestry.

When priests in charge become the new normal, both the authority and autonomy of the vestry is encroached upon, the right of clergy to tenure is suspended, and all without any canonical or disciplinary justification.

Vestries Elect Rectors 

Most wardens and search committee chairs that I’ve spoken to are surprised to learn that the national canons give their vestries absolute authority to nominate their own candidates for rector and to conduct their search for nominees on their own terms, on their own timelines.

Vestries alone are authorized to elect a rector. They do not need the bishop’s approval to call their preferred nominee, however the bishop (or Ecclesiastical Authority) has an important advisory role to play.

Vestries must present their nominee(s) to the bishop (or Ecclesiastical Authority) and vestries are obliged by the canons to call a special meeting to consider the bishop’s response to their nominations, if any. Per the canons, bishops have 60 days to respond to a vestry’s proposed nominees.

Title III, Canon 9, Section 3.a.2 reads:

No Parish may elect a Rector until the names of the proposed nominees have been forwarded to the Ecclesiastical Authority and a time, not exceeding sixty days, given to the Ecclesiastical Authority to communicate with the Vestry, nor until any such communication has been considered by the Vestry at a meeting duly called and held for that purpose.

Approval from the bishop is not needed for a vestry to elect a nominee as rector.

However, it is no surprise that vestries and clergy candidates are confused about this. The myth abounds that vestries must obtain the bishop’s approval before or after electing a rector. Sometimes this even appears as a written policy or procedure, as it does in the “Transition Is the New Normal” report: “A Rector is elected by the Vestry and the choice must be approved by the Bishop” (emphasis added).

Bishops Appoint a Priest in Charge

Bishops may appoint a priest in charge to congregations without a rector.

Title III, Canon 9, Section 3.b reads:

After consultation with the Vestry, the Bishop may appoint a Priest to serve as Priest in Charge of any congregation in which there is no Rector. In such congregations, the Priest in Charge shall exercise the duties of Rector outlined in Canon III.9.6 subject to the authority of the Bishop.

In every case, the bishop must consult with the vestry on this decision. Plenary power on the part of the bishop or Ecclesiastical Authority to assign a priest to a congregation is not assumed by this canon. The canon is consultative.

Most important of all, nothing about this canon changes the fact that the appointment of a priest in charge is for a limited time (albeit no time limit is specified by the canon).

Neither the canons nor the civil law (where such law exists) contemplate congregations led by a priest in charge for the normal governance of a parish. Parishes with rectors are and remain the canonical and (in some states) the legal norm.

This is underscored by the canonical stipulation that a priest in charge “is subject to the authority of the Bishop.” While this is acceptable in interim situations, the ongoing appointment of a priest in charge for an indefinite period of time can never be normal or become normative. Where this is allowed to be the case it does violence to the plain meaning of Title I, Canon 14 and erodes the autonomy of the rector, churchwardens, and vestry of a given parish.

The vestry of an Episcopal congregation with parish status cannot be alienated from this most fundamental of rights to elect its own rector from a pool of nominees of its own choosing provided that the election conforms to the canons, any applicable state law, and the parish’s own by-laws.

Letters Dimissory Must Be Accepted

Bishops and standing committees are limited in their capacity to nullify the election of a rector when the rector-elect is canonically resident in another diocese.

Again, the myth abounds — maybe because the practice is widespread — that the Ecclesiastical Authority can prevent a rector-elect from assuming his or her duties as rector by refusing (or threatening to refuse) letters dimissory.

The Rev. Charlie Holt’s election as Bishop failed to receive enough consents because this abuse was alleged against the former Bishop of Florida.

The confusion stems from a misunderstanding about letters dimissory, the means by which a priest quits his or her canonical residence in one diocese and establishes it in another after being called to a cure there.

Again, the canon is clear on this point. Title III, Canon 9, Section 4.b reads:

If a Priest has been called to a Cure in a congregation in another Diocese, the Priest shall present Letters Dimissory. The Ecclesiastical Authority of the Diocese shall accept Letters Dimissory within three months of their receipt unless the Bishop or Standing Committee has received credible information concerning the character or behavior of the Priest concerned which would form grounds for canonical inquiry and proceedings under Title IV. In such a case, the Ecclesiastical Authority shall notify the Ecclesiastical Authority of the Diocese in which the Priest is canonically resident and need not accept the Letters Dimissory unless and until the Priest shall be exculpated.

In other words, a bishop may not refuse letters dimissory presented by a rector-elect unless there are grounds for canonical inquiry and proceedings under Title IV.^[1]

Furthermore, to keep the bishop to whom letters dimissory are presented from making arbitrary judgments about the rector-elect’s character and behavior, the canon adds this clause:

The Ecclesiastical Authority shall not refuse to accept Letters Dimissory based on the applicant’s race, color, ethnic origin, sex, national origin, marital status, sexual orientation, disabilities, or age.

The anecdotes which appear at the beginning of this article suggest that bishops routinely make judgments about the “fit” of a given priest (who is otherwise in good standing) but that they do so much earlier in the search process.

This is a bishop’s right and vestries are obligated to consider the bishop’s communications to them about nominees, provided they are made within the 60-day window, but the canon does not give bishops the authority to preempt a vestry’s nominating process or the power to determine how that process must proceed.

When bishops do this, through the administrative process called transition ministry, it can leave vestries with a dearth of rector applicants in an already tight clergy labor market. In some cases, vestries never get the chance to consider someone who might have become their preferred nominee.

None of this passes canonical muster, and, in the worst cases, it may exemplify the kind of prejudice the canon seeks to quash. It also deprives clergy in transition of unencumbered access to the clerical job market and of their right to due process.

Local Canons Accede to National Canons

What happens when the local canons of a given diocese, or (as is more likely the case) the diocesan policies and procedures for churches and clergy in transition conflict with the national canons examined above?

Both the national canons and the several diocesan constitutions and canons make it clear that the latter must accede to the former, and in all cases canons and constitutions trump policies and procedures.

Article V, Section I of the Constitution of the Episcopal Church stipulates that any new diocese admitted to the General Convention must include “an unqualified accession to the Constitution and Canons of this Church” in its own constitution.

It was Bishop Bill Love’s refusal to allow the changes made to the denomination’s marriage canon to take effect in his diocese that caused an ecclesiastical court to find him guilty of breaking church law.

Diocesan Constitutions and Canons routinely include accession clauses such as this example from a west coast diocese:

The Episcopal Diocese of El Camino Real accedes to the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church and recognizes the authority of the General Convention of the same.

Or this example from the Article I of the Constitution of the Diocese of Connecticut:

The Diocese of Connecticut, … as a constituent part of the body known as the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, accedes to, recognizes and adopts the Constitution of that Church, and acknowledges its authority accordingly.

It is clear from both the national canons and this representative sample of diocesan constitutions and canons that no bishop, Ecclesiastical Authority, or transition minister has the authority to set policies or enforce procedures that infringe on the black-letter canonical rights of vestries and members of clergy in transition.

Creating a Trust Does Not Build Trust

An illegal trust is one that “contravenes statute, morality, or public policy.” Such a trust is void and of no effect.

An example of an illegal trust is when a corporation contrives to be both the sole supplier and the sole buyer of a product or service. This is called a monopoly.

In the examples above it can be argued that bishops and Ecclesiastical Authorities have, in some cases, and perhaps without meaning to, created a trust-like monopoly out of what should be an open, transparent, communicative, and consultative process among the various orders of the church.

When search committees and vestries are told that they cannot conduct an open search, or when transition ministers on the diocesan staff do not forward the applications of priests in good standing to the congregations to which they have applied, a harmful trust-like monopoly has been created.

As argued above, nothing in the Constitution or Canons of the Episcopal Church gives bishops and Ecclesiastical Authorities this monopoly of authority or power over a vestry’s election of a rector.

This overreach by one order of the church, when it occurs, is, in part, responsible for the low level of trust those who undertake a clergy transition have in the process.

Furthermore, it cannot be argued that the attorneys general of the various states would (or should) decline to investigate the creation of this monopoly on the grounds that it would interfere with the free exercise of religion guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution, the so-called “separation of church and state.”

In fact, such monopolistic practices impede the free exercise of religion by both the parish corporations and members of clergy that the First Amendment and the religious corporation laws (of the states which have them) are meant to protect.

Attorneys general routinely investigate allegations of financial mismanagement and sexual abuse in churches, and may reserve the right to review real estate transactions undertaken by an incorporated religious group, so there is no reason, prima facie, or by appeal to the Establishment Clause, why an attorney general should not investigate the monopolistic practices that sometimes prevail in the clergy employment market.

This is not to invite the attorneys general to review the standards by which the Episcopal Church qualifies and credentials its clergy, but only to ask them to investigate whether our clergy in good standing have equal access to the rector nominating process to which they are entitled. It is a matter of public trust to ensure that our rector elections are fair and above board.

Why has an administrative bureaucracy been allowed to take over, and, in many cases, preempt the rector nominating process, which, by canon law, belongs to our vestries? Why are vestries allowing this to happen? I submit it is because we have forgotten the art of churchmanship.

To be sure, this “bureaucracy” is staffed by our colleagues in ministry, often our friends, who do their work faithfully and out of a desire to help congregations and clergy find each other. This is not being criticized, and even though it was the subject of critique above, the Episcopal Church in Connecticut is to be commended for its innovative thinking in addressing a real problem.

Likewise, many vestries are more than happy to outsource the nominating process to diocesan staff and quite willing to accept the appointment of a priest in charge who is later eligible to become their rector.

All of this is holy and wholesome when it is done in the daylight. But trust is lost when the process becomes opaque: when words are whispered about priests, canon to canon, bishop to bishop, when applications are never forwarded to the vestries to which they were addressed, and when vestries are told they must accept as the “new normal” innovations that violate canonical norms and strip them of their canonical rights.

However, trust can be regained by reinstilling in our members an understanding of churchmanship in that older sense I mentioned above: the division of authority and exercise of power among the separate but equal orders of the church that is written into our canons.

The Rev. Jake Dell is a priest in the Diocese of New York.

^[1] The only exception to this is Title III, Canon 9, Section 4.f, which allows bishops to reject letters dimissory from priests who were refused ordination in the diocese to which they now seek to return, having been subsequently ordained in another diocese.