Financial Strain Evident at New York Diocesan Convention

From The Living Church:

Posted on: November 21, 2008

The annual convention of the Diocese of New York approved a resolution petitioning General Convention to grant continued use of either the lectionary found in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer or the Revised Common Lectionary indefinitely. Convention met Nov. 15-16 at a hotel and convention center in Mahwah, N.J.

Convention approved several other resolutions, including one calling on “the governor and the legislature of the State of New York to ensure civil marriage equality in this state by enacting the necessary legislation to permit same-sex couples to marry.”

None of the approved resolutions produced extended debate, but approval of the $13.3 million budget as presented was approved only after the Rt. Rev. Mark Sisk, Bishop of New York, spoke in favor of it. The budget, which represented an increase of more than $880,000 over the previous year, was prepared last summer, before the severe financial downturn affected Wall Street. Some convention delegates were prepared to go through the budget line-by-line on the convention floor, but Bishop Sisk urged against a floor fight. Instead, he promised that the trustees would carefully monitor expenses in light of the new financial situation facing most parishes. Bishop Sisk also promised that the diocese would not take excessively punitive measures against congregations which are unable to meet their assessment due to financial hardship.

In 2006 the 75th General Convention directed that the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) become the official lectionary of the church effective on the First Sunday of Advent, 2007. General Convention also made a provision that year for continued use of the prayer book lectionary “for purposes of orderly transition, with the permission of the ecclesiastical authority until the first Sunday of Advent, 2010.”

However, the explanation approved by convention notes that “there is not a broadly-based consensus in the Diocese of New York that favors the Revised Common Lectionary over the lectionary found in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. Rather, since the adoption of the Revised Common Lectionary in 2007, it has become clear that well-reasoned preferences for both lectionaries are found among the church and clergy of the diocese.”

While recognizing the action of General Convention, and the new place of the RCL in The Episcopal Church, Bishop Sisk has asked that the 1979 lectionary be used at all occasions in which he makes an episcopal visitation to a congregation of the diocese. He has further given blanket permission for any and all churches to continue using the prayer book lectionary through the First Sunday of Advent 2010. “Many churches in the diocese, so permitted, have thus chosen not to introduce the Revised Common Lectionary into their worship, while many others have,” the resolution noted.

In other news from convention, the Rt. Rev. E. Don Taylor, vicar Bishop for New York City, announced his intention to resign during the coming year.