MCJ: THE LEAST OF THESE

For those in the DCNY this may sound like a local story considering the cutting of three diocesan positions and the budgeting for legal expenses. ed.

Posted by Christopher Johnson at Midwest Conservative Journal:

Thursday, October 23, 2008

What the Episcopal Organization wants to spend its money on:

Included in the proposed 2009 budget is $600,000 for legal support to dioceses and expenses for Title IV disciplinary actions. Any costs above that amount will have to be taken from the church's short-term reserves, Barnes said, noting that because of previous commitments made for $5.4 million of the $6.5 million in reserve, there is $1.1 million available that could be used for those expenses. Those previous commitments include a recent dedication of $2.4 million for the effort to relocate the Archives of the Episcopal Church and a 10-year-old promise to reserve $3 million for future pension enhancements for lay employees at church center.

In 2008, the council budgeted $450,000 for legal expenses but $1.97 million was spent. The difference was taken from short-term reserves as the council had directed when it passed the budget.

"We don’t know what the [2009] legal expenses will be in excess of what we're estimating right now," Barnes told council members.

What the Episcopal Organization would rather not spend its money on:

Members from nine congregations on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation slated for closure by the Diocese of South Dakota met Sept. 20 in Kyle to discuss their options.

In August the Rt. Rev. Creighton Robertson, Bishop of South Dakota, announced plans to close churches in Red Shirt Table, Oglala, Wolf Creek, Wakpamni Lake, Manderson, Kyle, Potato Creek, Porcupine and Allen due to falling attendance and rising costs. Two other churches, Church of the Advent in Calico and St. Julia's Church in Porcupine, will move to “station status,” which means the building will remain open but services will be held there only four times each year. That leaves five churches open for weekly services on the entire reservation, an area encompassing nearly four counties.

When you spend your entire life in one church, walking away from it is a considerable psychological wrench. I don't know how it is with others but early on, I constantly asked myself questions. Was I right? Should I have done this?

Might it have been better to sharply reduce the times I attended rather than eliminate them completely? Should I go back in order to testify against the direction of the national church?

Did I overreact? Was Gene Robinson truly enough of a reason to sever all connections with every friend I had and the only church I ever knew? After all, Episcopal indifference toward John Spong didn't pry me loose and there were times(for example, my mother's funeral) when my parish was a Church in the highest sense of that word.

So I guess I owe the Episcopalians for making it easier for me. Again and again, over the last five and a half years, the Episcopal Organization has made it literally impossible for me to even consider worshipping in the church my mother loved more than any in the world and the one into which I was baptized.

There have been the constant lies since the start of this current controversy. There's been the unbelievable arrogance toward the rest of Anglican Christianity and the venomous contempt, spoken and implied, directed toward those Christians who don't think Gene Robinson should be a bishop.

Then there's this. The Episcopalians can find all the money in the world to sue conservative Christians out of their meeting houses in order to benefit a small minority of rich liberals. But they can't seem to find the money to maintain a serious presence among a people who desperately need a strong and compassionate Christian witness.

And don't give me that crap about how this is a diocesan matter and the national church can't intervene. Does anyone not remember that civilized and entirely Christian separation agreement in the Diocese of Virginia which was capped on the orders of 815?

If the national church considered this a priority, it could and would find the money to keep those parishes open. But it is obvious that the national church does not consider the Lakota, and, by extension, any other desperately poor people a priority.

It is vitally important to hold on to vast stretches of real estate in order to benefit a small number of rich, white liberals. It is not important at all to maintain a witness among the Lakota or any other powerless people. No better example of the moral corruption of the Episcopal Organization can be found or even imagined.