Clarify Officers of The Episcopal Church Resolution

One of the resolutions drafted by those gathered in Columbus recently clarifies the roles of various officers in The Episcopal Church.  The entire resolution can be found here or as a PDF here.  This resolution picks up on the work that TREC began in its Study Paper on Churchwide Governance and Administration on February 25, 2014.  We, however, have made a number of different choices in what we are proposing than TREC proposed in their Final Report.

Two points are worth noting by way of introduction.  First, our resolution really is primarily about clarifying the roles of our officers.  The canons describing our leadership is an amalgamation of the positions necessary for running our General Convention, of the by-laws of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, and of the duties of Executive Council officers, with various means of linking them having grown up over time.  This resolution does its best to clarify and systematize these offices, while keeping them as consistent as possible in different parts of the canons.

Second, in clarifying the roles, we have focused on authority, responsibility and accountability.  Officers should be accountable to the people or bodies who created them, and the bodies creating them should also be the ones defining the scope of their responsibilities.  Since Executive Council is the body responsible for carrying out the work of General Convention between conventions, the Executive Council is the body to whom most, but not all, officers are responsible. 

This post will go through the various offices of the church that are clarified by this resolution.  I will do my best to describe what we propose its role and responsibilities to be, and what we recommend changing from current practice.  Where applicable, I will also mention what other choices we considered and what might be at stake in making other choices.

The Presiding Bishop
The Presiding Bishop retains essential responsibilities in this resolution.  Formally, the Presiding Bishop is the President of DFMS, the Chair and President of Executive Council, the Primate and Chief  Pastor of the Episcopal Church, the Presiding Officer of the House of Bishops, and is to make pastoral visits to every diocese, work with dioceses during Episcopal vacancies, take order of the consecration of bishops, and appoint others to various church roles.  Additionally and no less importantly, the Presiding Bishop is charged with responsibility for visionary leadership regarding the policies, strategies and programs of the church, to speak God's word to the church and to the world, and to represent The Episcopal Church in our work with our Anglican Communion and other Ecumenical partners.

Or, to put it another way, the Presiding Bishop has two primary responsibilities: first, visionary leadership of the church formally as Chair of Executive Council and morally/spiritually by virtue of the office of Presiding Bishop, using the opportunities given to that particular voice; and second, as chief pastor to the bishops of this church.  These responsibilities are given by the bishops who elect the Presiding Bishop (and who this resolution has confirmed by the House of Deputies according to current practice).  We believe that these two roles are of crucial importance to the future of our church at this time, and we structure this office to be able to live into those two primary roles.

The primary change in current practice is that we remove responsibility for direct staff oversight from the Presiding Bishop (except for the direct personal staff necessary for the above functions).  This resolution makes the Presiding Bishop President, but not CEO, of Executive Council for three reasons.  First, and perhaps most importantly, we want the Presiding Bishop focused on visionary leadership and pastoral care of bishops, not worried about staff supervision.  We don't want there to be any question about where the Presiding Bishop should be focused.

Second, the lines of accountability for the roles described above are appropriate for a Presiding Bishop elected by bishops for a nine-year term.  If the Presiding Bishop were also to have primary day-to-day responsibility (as opposed to leadership responsibility as the board chair) for staff who implement General Convention policies, then some mechanism would need to be in place to make the Presiding Bishop accountable to either General Convention or to the Executive Council.  While we considered a number of such mechanisms, such as requiring the Presiding Bishop to be elected at every General Convention by bishops, clergy and lay orders, we felt that those mechanisms would interfere with the other important responsibilities of the Presiding Bishop.  What does not work is to have a Presiding Bishop elected by one house at one General Convention responsible for carrying out the directives of three entire General Conventions with no ability to make a change if the will of Convention changes from one triennium to the next, but the gifts and inclinations of the Presiding Bishop do not also change.

Third, and equally importantly, very few of our bishops have had the opportunity to develop the skill set necessary to run an organization and staff the size of The Episcopal Church.  Most of our dioceses operate at a much smaller scale, and we need to be able to find people to oversee the staff with the experience of running large, complex organizations.  We would not want to eliminate visionary bishops from the office of Presiding Bishop because they lack the needed managerial experience, nor would we want the mechanisms for implementing a vision to stumble due to organization missteps.  Therefore, this resolution separates the leadership and pastoral office of Presiding Bishop from the organizational management office of Executive Director.

To reiterate: this resolution removes direct staff oversight from the Presiding Bishop because we believe that our church at this time needs a Presiding Bishop who is focusing on the big picture spiritual leadership and not over-encumbered by managerial responsibilities.  As travel requirements have increased in recent years, this focus becomes even more important.  A scriptural analogy would be Acts 6, when then Apostles appointed others to handle the details so they could focus on prayer and serving the word.  We want the Presiding Bishop to have adequate time for prayer and serving the word with his/her fellow bishops, so that word can be shared with the church and the world.

The President of the House of Deputies
This resolution makes very little change to the office of President of the House of Deputies.  The President of the House of Deputies remains Vice President of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society and vice chair of Executive Council.  This office is elected by the House of Deputies according to current practice.  The President of the House of Deputies, in the role of vice chair of Executive Council, jointly nominates a number of other officers with the Presiding Bishop.

I would also note that another of our resolutions on the budget process provides a stipend to the President of the House of Deputies.  We believe that a stipend allows deputies from various walks of life to stand for election to this important office.  We have not proposed this change in this resolution on clarifying officers, but we hope that providing a stipend would be passed by Convention in some form.

The Executive Officer of General Convention
The Executive Officer of General Convention was one of the most difficult roles to clarify.  We might also have referred to the role as Secretary of The Episcopal Church, however, and probably would have if we were re-writing the canons from scratch.  Given the way the responsibilities for this office had previously been laid out by the canons, we decided to keep the current title of Executive Officer of General Convention, who also becomes the Secretary of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society and Secretary of Executive Council.

The way secretarial responsibilities flow in the current canons is rather discombobulated.  The House of Deputies elects a Secretary of the House of Deputies.  The Secretary of the House of Deputies is then made Secretary of General Convention by joint action of both Houses.  The Secretary of General Convention is made the Registrar of General Convention by canon, and given responsibility for many things relating directly or indirectly to General Convention.  The Secretary of General Convention is then made Secretary of Executive Council and the Secretary of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society by canon.  So far so good, except for the oddity that the Secretary of the House of Deputies necessarily becomes the Secretary of (both houses of) General Convention.

Lines of accountability gets tangled, however, when the current canon creates an Executive Office of General Convention, directed by an Executive Officer who is appointed by the Presiding Officers.  The Secretary of General Convention is part of this office and is apparently supervised by the Executive Officer of General Convention.  However, the Secretary, not the Executive Officer, is given all of the responsibility directly by the General Convention and cannot be held accountable by the Executive Officer.  Additionally, the canons in a number of places give responsibility for various work directly to the Secretary of General Convention and in another place say, in effect, that all responsibilities of the Secretary of General Convention are given to the Executive Office, and, thereby, the Executive Officer.

To clarify these lines of accountability and responsibility, this resolution does two things.  First, the resolution allows the House of Deputies to elect a Secretary of the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops to elect a Secretary of the House of Bishops.  Second, the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies jointly nominate an Executive Officer of General Convention, who is then elected by Executive Council.  The Executive Officer of General Convention is responsible for all of the work that the canons previously delegated to the Secretary of General Convention.  This resolution would allow the Secretary of the House of Deputies to become the Executive Officer of General Convention, but that move is not assumed to be automatic, either.  The Executive Officer of General Convention becomes the Secretary of the Executive Council and the Secretary of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society as the Secretary of General Convention does under the current canons.  Additionally, the Executive Officer of General Convention can be fired by a two-thirds vote of Executive Council.

The election and accountability of a number of the officers in this resolution are handled in the same way as the Executive Officer of General Convention.  We have set the lines of accountability up this way because we believe that the officers directly responsible for staffing the implementation of the programs and policies of General Convention must be accountable to the Executive Council as the board of the church between General Conventions.  That accountability means that those filling these offices are elected by Executive Council and that Executive Council has the ability to fire them if they are not performing.  Allowing the chair and vice chair to jointly nominate and Executive Council to elect, with a clause for removal by a two-thirds vote by Executive Council, seems to us good governance practice in our structure.

The Treasurer of The Episcopal Church
Much like the Executive Officer of General Convention above, the office of Treasurer of The Episcopal Church is a clarification of a number of "Treasurer" offices in the current canons.  This resolution gives the Treasurer of the Episcopal Church responsibilities currently given by canon to the Treasurer of General Convention, the Treasurer of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, and the Chief Financial Officer of Executive Council.   The Treasurer of The Episcopal Church is nominated by the Presiding Bishop and President of the House of Deputies, elected by Executive Council and able to be fired by a two-thirds vote of Executive Council.

As we were sharing drafts of this resolution for feedback, one suggestion was made to keep the current process of having General Convention elect a Treasurer.  This idea has merit, particularly in keeping an additional check and balance over the church's finances by having a Treasurer independent of the chair, vice chair and Executive Council.  We decided to propose a Treasurer elected by Executive Council for two reasons which we felt together outweighed the value of an independently elected position.  First, we wanted a clear and easy way to hold the Treasurer accountable between conventions, and to replace the Treasurer if need be.  Second, we felt that a consistency with other officers was helpful as we try to simplify the canons. 


The Executive Director
I would guess that most Episcopalians do not know that the church currently has an Executive Director.  The canons currently specify that "the Presiding Bishop shall appoint, with the advice and consent of a majority of Executive Council, an Executive Director . . . who shall be the chief operating officer and who shall serve at the pleasure of the Presiding Bishop" (Canon I.4.3(d)).    This Executive Director, who is accountable only to the Presiding Bishop, also serves as one of the Vice-Presidents of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society.

This resolution changes the nature of the Executive Director position.  First, and most importantly, we propose the nomination of the Executive Director by the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies, who is elected by Executive Council.  Executive Council also has the power to terminate the Executive Director by a two-thirds vote.  The Executive Director is responsible for supervision of all staff except those working specifically under the direction of the Presiding Bishop, the President of the House of Deputies, or the Executive Officer of General Convention.  This means that except for the personal staff of the presiding officers and the administrative functions of convention, the responsibility for carrying out the policies, programs and mission of General Convention and Executive Council falls upon the Executive Director.  The proper lines of accountability for the Executive Director, then, are to Executive Council and not to the Presiding Bishop.  Under this resolution, the Executive Director is no longer a Vice-President of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society and has seat and voice (but no vote) on Executive Council.  We have also removed the titles of Chief Operating Officer or Chief Executive Officer from the resolution, although the Executive Director fulfills the functions of the CEO and would be responsible for the functions of a COO, although some of those duties could be delegated to staff the Executive Director supervises.

Having the Executive Director elected by Executive Council with out a term limit also means that a good Executive Director may remain in office even when the Presiding Bishop changes. 

The General Counsel of The Episcopal Church
Currently The Episcopal Church does not have a General Counsel.  The Presiding Bishop has chancellor (as does the President of the House of Deputies), and other lawyers may be hired for particular activities.  However, good organizational practice would dictate a General Counsel to represent the best interests of the overall church, which may be different than the interests of the Presiding Bishop, the President of the House of Deputies, a Diocese or any other particular person or entity within the church.  This resolution creates this position, to be nominated by the Presiding Officers, elected by Executive Council, and accountable to Executive Council.


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A Note on Canon Paul Ambos's Resolution D006
In the process of working this resolution through the General Convention filing process, a resolution by Canon Paul Ambos, D006, appeared on the General Convention website.  His very good resolution makes some changes that are very similar to what we have proposed in this resolution.  While not changing the roles of Secretary to the General Convention (or Executive Officer of General Convention), Treasurer of the Episcopal Church, or General Council of the Episcopal Church, he address some of our key concerns about accountability between the Presiding Bishop and staff.

Specifically, his resolution follows some of TREC's language and creates a Church General Manager (instead of an Executive Director).  The Church General Manager is appointed by the Presiding Bishop with the advice and consent of a majority of Executive Council, and is President of Executive Council.  The Presiding Bishop is made chair of Executive Council.  The Church General Manager "shall serve at the pleasure of Executive Council and be accountable to Executive Council." The Church General Manager is chief executive officer and has oversight for implementing the work given to Executive Council by General Convention.  Much of D006 accomplishes what we would accomplish in the corresponding section of our resolution with slightly different language.  I am grateful to see Canon Ambos's helpful addition to our conversation on restructuring the church for mission.