Sandra Teresa Soledad Montes Vela, a lay executive council member from the Episcopal Diocese of Texas, announced on Facebook that she has resigned from the Episcopal Church’s interim governing body, saying it would be unprincipled for her to remain a member.
“In prayer and heartbreak, with conviction and peace, I have resigned from the Executive Council of The Episcopal Church. I refuse to belong to any space that asks me to betray truth or silence my integrity,” Montes said in her Facebook post on October 23, two days after the council’s last meeting concluded. She later forwarded to Episcopal News Service the resignation letter she sent to the church’s presiding officers by email.
“This most recent meeting was, for me, when the hummingbird stopped returning to the flower,” she told the presiding officers. The meeting was held October 20-21 at Kanuga, an Episcopal conference center and camp in the Diocese of Western North Carolina. Montes did not attend in person but participated via Zoom.
