Isn't this the diocese that Fr. Ralph Osbourne went to recently from Greene? ed.
VOL EXCLUSIVE
By Mary Ann Mueller
Special Correspondent
www.Virtueonline.org
May 14, 2010
EAU CLAIRE, WIS---The Episcopal Diocese of Eau Claire seems to be floundering without a sitting bishop to give it spiritual, moral and decisive leadership and direction.
To help curb this lack, the Diocese is reaching out to retired Bishop Edwin Leidel, Jr. to help fill the void created when Bishop Keith Whitmore decided to leave the snow shovel, skis and sled behind and head for the warmth of the bright Dixie sun in Georgia where in the spring of 2008 he became the Diocese of Atlanta's assistant bishop.
However, before the western Wisconsin diocese reached out to Bishop Leidel for episcopal leadership, the Diocese of Eau Claire entered into an intensive discernment process seeking to discover God's Will for the small yet feisty See which takes up all of the northwestern Wisconsin's Indianhead Country and then some.
The 26-county Diocese of Eau Claire shares the upper two thirds of Wisconsin with its neighbor to the east, the 27-county Episcopal Diocese of Fond du Lac. The remaining 19 Wisconsin counties encompass the bottom third of the Dairy State which makes up the Episcopal Diocese of Milwaukee stretching from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River. Historically, the Diocese of Eau Claire was carved out of the dioceses of Milwaukee and Fond du Lac in 1928.
The first thing Bishop Leidel wants to do is to personally visit each of the 22 parishes and missions in his new far-flung rural diocese and get to know the clergy and people of the Diocese of Eau Claire and the temperament of each congregation.
This week in a telephone interview with VOL, Bishop Leidel stated that his vision for the Diocese of Eau Claire is to "help the people come to a common decision about their future."
He says he plans to come on board on Aug. 29 under a year and a half contract with the Diocese. A Letter of Agreement confirming the arrangement was to be signed by the Episcopal Diocese of Eau Claire's Standing Committee on Friday. However Standing Committee President Fr. Guy Usher was unavailable for comment.
Bishop Leidel had not heard as of mid afternoon Friday when VOL spoke with him as to whether the Letter of Agreement has been accepted and signed by the Standing Committee. He was busy moving back to Wisconsin where his elderly father and namesake still lives. The bishop says he plans on spending a total four months a year within the Diocese of Eau Claire in three separate stretches. He says he is looking forward to serving the Diocese of Eau Claire.
The bishop, who was born in Baltimore but raised in the Milwaukee area, is the retired bishop of the Diocese of Eastern Michigan, a post he held for a decade from 1996-2006.
During that time The Episcopal Church shows that the ASA figures of the Diocese of Eastern Michigan fell from 4,005 in 1996 to 2,803 in 2008 with an increase 135,164 in Eastern Michigan's population.
Bishop Leidel will be taking over one of the smallest dioceses in The Episcopal Church. Only a handful of dioceses fall below 1,000 ASA and hover around 2,000 membership figures. The Diocese of Eau Claire is one.
Episcopal Church figures show that the Diocese of Northern Michigan is the smallest with 1,778 members followed by what is left of the Diocese of Quincy with 1,823 remaining TEC members.
The Diocese of Eau Claire shows a membership of 2,117 followed by the Diocese of Western Kansas with 2,113 souls.
Only 2,246 members are left of the TEC Diocese of San Joaquin. The Diocese of North Dakota has 2,596 hardy souls. Only 612 make up the Navaholand membership rolls.
Worship figures on any given Sunday are dismal. According to 2008 TEC figures, each of the small dioceses has fewer than one thousand in the pews on a Sunday morning.
Episcopal Churches in Northern Michigan only draw 653 souls, followed by Western Kansas at 801 and North Dakota at 804. The rump Diocese of San Joaquin shows that 896 remaining TEC members go to church on Sunday with rump Diocese of Quincy drawing 935 Sunday worshippers. Only 200 worship on a Sunday in the Navajoland.
The 2008 ASA Diocese of Eau Claire figure hovers at 892, which is down from 1160 in 1992 and 1054 in 1998. However population figures show that the Diocese of Eau Claire gained 115,857 souls in the intervening years from 1992 to 2008.
Bishop Leidel will be facing a difficult test as he takes on the challenge to help the Diocese of Eau Claire live out its sacramental life.
Two decades ago when Bishop William Wantland took over the reins of the Diocese of Eau Claire, there were more congregations. The 1985 Episcopal Church Annual shows that there were viable Episcopal congregations in Altoona, Barron, Medford, Prescott, River Falls, Shell Lake, and Turtle Lake.
At least two churches joined the diocese during Bishop Wantland's tenure. They included St. Luke's, a startup parish in Ladysmith, which is now defunct; and Holy Trinity in Conrath. Originally, Holy Trinity was a small Roman Catholic congregation, which left the Catholic Church when the Catholic Diocese of Superior decided to close it. Holy Trinity is still a part of the Diocese of Eau Claire but has no assigned priest.
Fr. Guy Usher said that at least one more church within the Diocese is in distress; it is St. Katherine's in Owen, which is also without a priest.
Several other churches are without a full time priest, part time priest, priest-in-charge, vicar or permanent supply priest including: St. Andrew's, Ashland; Christ Church Cathedral, Eau Claire; and Christ Church, Chippewa Falls.
Through the years the Diocese of Eau Claire has looked at several options to help chart its course into the future.
Listening sessions have been held throughout the Diocese to get the mind of the people. Records show regional meetings were held in Rice Lake, New Richmond, La Crosse, Ashland and Chippewa Falls. The upshot of the listening process is that at least five possible solutions were developed: the election of a full time bishop, the election of a part time and/or bi-vocational Bishop, the hiring of an assisting bishop, junctioning with another diocese, and the dissolution of the Episcopal Diocese of Eau Claire.
Episcopal Diocese of Fond du Lac Bishop Russell Jaobus pastorally reached out to his neighboring diocese and helped to provide some episcopal sacramental care during the discernment process. He also broached the subject of his diocese juncturing with the Diocese of Eau Claire. Quietly behind-the-scenes, negotiations were held, however, the Diocese of Eau Claire decided not to pursue any further juncturing discussions.
Bishop Jacobus told VOL at last year's General Convention that he could easily envision an expanded Northern Wisconsin Upper Michigan diocese by juncturing, not only with the bishop-less Diocese of Eau Claire, but also the leaderless Diocese of Northern Michigan, since both dioceses are relatively small in numbers. Since they are large in area and so spread out, the reconfigured junctured diocese would need to secure a bishop suffragan to provide proper episcopal sacramental care and oversight to all souls.
In a VOL telephone conversation with Bishop Jocobus this week, the Fond du Lac bishop reported that the Diocese of Eau Clare's Diocesan Convention voted in November 2009 to seek the leadership of a provisional bishop and to work towards retaining the Diocese's own identity. This is where Bishop Liedel first entered the picture.
The Diocese of Eau Claire came into being in 1928. Its first bishop was Frank Wilson. Bishop William Horstick followed him in 1944. In 1969 Bishop Stanley Atkins took over until 1980 when Bishop William Wantland came on board. Upon his retirement, Bishop Keith Whitmore served as bishop until he resigned to go to Atlanta in 2008.
Bishop Leidel will be one of only a handful of provisional bishops in The Episcopal Church.
Bishop Jacobus said that the provisional bishop concept is a phenomenon, which seems to be gaining in popularity as dioceses leave The Episcopal Church. The rump dioceses of Fort Worth, Pittsburg, Quincy, and San Joaquin all have provisional bishops, as does the Diocese of Eastern Oregon.
Bishop Leidel describes himself as a congregational coach, meaning that he works one on one with congregations to help them develop or redevelop their congregational identity.
In this case he will be working one on one with an entire diocese to help the diocese rediscover its unique diocese identity.
---Mary Ann Mueller is a journalist living in Texas. She is a regular contributor to VirtueOnline
No comments:
Post a Comment