"Under Stress We Regress"

Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, moderator of the Anglican Communion Network repeated this axiom at an ACN event in Pittsburgh about two years ago. We see this both nationally and locally. The fiasco at the House of Bishops with circumventing the clear dictates of the church canons to act against two bishops is a case in point. The work of the presiding bishop concerning the Diocese of San Joachin that is the subject of the post below is another case in point. Stress makes our ability to think clearly harder and the more the stress the more difficult it is to think clearly. So, in times of stress, like the persisting crisis in pecusa, the tendency is to react rather than act out of a rational sense, in these cases, of what is right and wrong.

Locally we have seen this in the Diocese of Central NY in the handling of the case against Fr. David Bollinger. From the inhibition, the calling of an emergency meeting of clergy based on the recommendations of a public relations firm, the withholding of evidence by the diocese, we see evidence of stressful regression. Honesty, openness and fairness are tossed out the window. What remains are manageriall machinations based on political calculations.

I am told that at the diocesan convention a resolution was brought forward to release the Shaffer Report. I was also told that the convention voted not to demand its release on the premise of "let's get beyond the past." This report is the evidence that the diocese refused to release to Fr. Bollinger and his defense team. The diocese determined that they would rather lose their ecclesiastical court case rather than release this document. The convention decided that they'd rather not know what's in that report.

That might make sense if the convention had some idea of what was in the Shaffer Report, but to blindly refuse to even see what's in the report smacks of denial more than prudent moving forward. What was the diocese afraid of? Was the convention afraid to find out about illegal actions on the part of the diocesan leadership? Poor decision making? You'd think that a good organization would want to know the truth about their leadership. The Diocese of Central NY would rather not know. Under stress we regress.