Episcopal Church expels Fresno bishop

In December, Schofield's Fresno-based diocese became the first in the nation to secede from the Episcopal Church over the issues, placing itself under the authority of a theologically conservative Anglican archbishop in South America.

The decision by the Episcopal Church's bishops to depose Schofield, made during a meeting in Texas, was the latest step in a long-playing conflict within the church and the global Anglican Communion over theology and the role of gays in religious life. The Episcopal Church is the U.S. branch of the communion but has been at odds with much of that fellowship since 2003, when the U.S. church consecrated a partnered gay priest as bishop of New Hampshire.

Wednesday's vote by the church's House of Bishops removed Schofield as head of the diocese and affirmed an earlier action to bar him from carrying out religious duties.

Schofield has "abandoned the communion of the church by . . . departing from the Episcopal Church and purporting to take his diocese with him into affiliation with the Province of the Southern Cone," the bishops said in a statement.

Schofield, who has led his Central California diocese since 1988, said in a statement Wednesday that the disciplinary process of the Episcopal Church had been "misused."

He also insisted, as he had in an earlier letter to the bishops, that although he had left the Episcopal Church, he remained both a bishop and the leader of his diocese.

Any attempt by the national church to seize "our property" would violate biblical teachings against taking fellow Christians to court, Schofield said. "It appears as though the real motivation behind all of this is the use of raw power and coveting property," he said.

During a telephone news conference Wednesday from the bishops' retreat center in Texas, Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori appeared to caution Schofield from trying to hold on to church property in the diocese, estimated to be worth millions of dollars.

"Since he is no longer the bishop of San Joaquin, it would be inappropriate for him to retain title," she said.