Virginia priest defends his Eucharistic fast to Court of Review in fight against removal from priesthood
The Rev. Cayce Ramey speaks Nov. 25 during online oral arguments before the churchwide Court of Review. Behind him is an image of Cape Coast Castle in Ghana, where Ramey visited in 2017 on a diocesan trip that, he says, inspired much of his current racial justice work.
[Episcopal News Service] The churchwide Court of Review on Nov. 25 took up the appeal of a Virginia priest who faces possible deposition, or removal from the priesthood, for refraining from distributing Communion as part of a yearslong racial justice “fast.”
The Rev. Cayce Ramey, who is white, insisted he has not chosen to stop being a priest and suggested he is only being punished because church leaders have wrongly accepted the history and legacy of white supremacy as “separate from our faith and our theology.”
Under The Episcopal Church’s Title IV clergy disciplinary canons, a diocesan hearing panel ruled in May 2024 mostly in favor of the diocese, which had argued that Ramey was neglecting of his core duties as a priest and disregarding “the doctrine, discipline and worship of the church.” In Ramey’s appeal to the Court of Review, he is seeking to reverse that decision and remain a priest.
The Court of Review’s online Nov. 25 session, which was livestreamed on the General Convention Office’s YouTube channel, was intended to hear oral arguments and did not allow for any new testimony or evidence. Ramey and his attorney stated their case, that the hearing panel had erred, though Ramey spent most of his time speaking not about the disciplinary case directly, but about The Episcopal Church’s and the Diocese of Virginia’s historical complicity with white supremacy and racist systems.
It is “one of the many privileges of whiteness,” Ramey said, that “when we walk in a room, we don’t carry our history with us.” He defended his Eucharistic fast as rooted in his growing theological conviction that refraining from Communion was required of him as long as the church remained in broken relationship with Black community members and other people of color.
Ramey began his Eucharistic fast in June 2021, while he was rector at All Saints Episcopal Church in Alexandria, also known as Sharon Chapel. He stepped down as rector in December 2022, a month after Bishop Suffragan Susan Goff initiated disciplinary proceedings against him.
His attorney, JB Burtch, more directly contested the Title IV hearing panel’s findings, arguing to the Court of Review that nothing in The Episcopal Church Constitution, Canons or Book of Common Prayer “prohibits the Eucharistic fast that Father Ramey is engaged in.” Burtch also said the hearing panel exceeded its jurisdiction and incorrectly interpreted church canons. And he invoked Ramey’s Scriptural justification for the fast in Matthew 5:23-24 – “if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go, first be reconciled.”
Burtch also asserted that no bishop had explicitly directed Ramey to stop his Eucharistic fast, neither Goff nor her successor, Virginia Bishop E. Mark Stevenson, who was consecrated in December 2022.
Virginia Bishop E. Mark Stevenson, left, speaks Nov. 25 during an online session of the Court of Review to hear oral arguments in the disciplinary appeal of the Rev. Cayce Ramey.
When the Court of Review took oral arguments from the Diocese of Virginia, Stevenson and diocesan attorney Brad Davenport contested Burtch’s last point, saying Ramey had been told he could face removal from the priesthood if his fast continued. Stevenson cited a memo he issued days after his consecration that restricted Ramey’s service on diocesan bodies.
“The Diocese of Virginia has acknowledged over and over and over again that there is racism throughout the church and throughout the church’s history,” Davenport said, but the case against Ramey is not about racism. “This is a Title IV case.”
Ramey, by calling for “a theological shift” in the church’s understanding of Holy Eucharist, has overstepped his authority to implement such a shift, Davenport said, adding that Ramey has refused after more than three years to end his fast or even say when he might end it.
“A single priest cannot unilaterally redevelop, redo, reinterpret, rethink, shift or change those things,” Davenport said. “Only the General Convention can do that.”
Ramey had previously clarified that his parish never was deprived of the Eucharist, because during his fast, all of All Saints’ worship was conducted with neighboring congregations at joint services involving multiple priests, through a partnership that had deepened with the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, several of the partner congregations have merged. All Saints chose to remain a separate congregation and has since called a new priest who is willing to fully celebrate Holy Eucharist.
The Court of Review, a mix of lay and ordained members from all nine of the church’s provinces, met for more than two hours on Nov. 25, with a portion of that time reserved for members to question the two sides’ attorneys.
Many of their inquiries attempted to clarify why the diocese felt it necessary to remove Ramey from the priesthood, whether less punitive resolutions had been pursued, whether the canons explicitly required Ramey to fully celebrate Holy Eucharist and whether there were any limits on a priest’s ability to act on his convictions if those actions ran counter to some of his priestly duties.
“My problem fundamentally with this case is one of trying to figure out how we resolve the issue around a clergyperson whose individual conscience or theological difference comes to a place where … he did not celebrate, he did not administer and he did not receive Communion,” said the Rev. Gregory Jacobs, a retired Diocese of Newark priest. “And at the same time, how do we reconcile that with the impact that that inevitably has on the community of the faithful?”
The Rev. Rodney Davis from the Diocese of Northern California noted other examples in which priests’ actions have conflicted with church teachings but haven’t merited deposition. Some priests serve Communion to anyone who comes to receive, Davis said, despite the church’s clear teaching that Communion is open only to baptized Christians.
New Hampshire Bishop Robert Hirschfeld, on the other hand, asked whether another priest, using Ramey’s logic, could refuse to distribute Communion as a fast over The Episcopal Church’s use of fossil fuels, its investments in weapons manufacturers or any similar protest in the name of seeking justice.
Del Glover, a lay member from the Diocese of Washington, sought to assure both sides that the Court of Review took its responsibility seriously. The issues under consideration are “challenging and require that we approach this with the weight of the consequences that we’re addressing here,” he said.
Clergy Title IV cases typically end at the diocesan level, though clergy can mount final appeals to the churchwide Court of Review, which was first tasked to receive such appeals in 2018 under canonical changes approved by the 79th General Convention.
Laura Russell, a lay leader from the Diocese of Newark who serves as chair of the Court of Review, concluded the Nov. 25 session by thanking the two sides for participating in the oral arguments. The Court of Review now will review the case to decide Ramey’s appeal, and Russell gave no timeline for a ruling.
– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.
