A VOL EXCLUSIVE
By Mary Ann Mueller and David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
May 31, 2010
Rumors are flying, e-mails are zipping across cyberspace, and letters are being written between two Episcopal bishops over a Sunday worship service being re-established at Nashotah House an Anglo-Catholic seminary in The Episcopal Church.
"The rumor mill is running-and it's out of control." blogs the Very Rev. Robert S. Munday, dean of Nashotah House Seminary as he tries to stem the tide of misconstrued information.
On April 22, VOL first learned about the Sunday community worship in an e-mail from Andrew Johnson, president of the Board Southeast Wisconsin Chapter of the American Anglican Council (SEWAAC), when he noted in a SEWAAC Update, "Just this past Sunday, April 18, saw the start of a traditional Anglican worship service being conducted at Nashotah House. These 10:00 AM Sunday morning services are open to the public and fill a void for those of us who have been looking for a traditional Anglican worship service that is not part of the Episcopal Church. This is the start of new Orthodox Anglican congregation being called St. Michael's at the Mission. We are truly thankful for Nashotah House and all they do."
Last week the Rt. Rev. William Wantland, retired bishop of the Diocese of Eau Claire and a frequent visitor to Nashotah House, commented on his May trip back to Wisconsin's oldest institution of higher learning to witness this year's graduation, hear former Rochester (UK) Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali's commencement address, and attend the spring meeting of the Nashotah House Board of Trustees, "Nashotah graduation was great, with a good sermon from Bp. Nazir-Ali but with the Bishop of Milwaukee raising Hell over The House having a Sunday morning Mass (as it has done at least three times in the past), which he sees as an attempt to start an ACNA parish."
That in a nutshell is the point of contention between Nashotah House and the Episcopal Diocese of Milwaukee. Is the new Sunday worship service at Nashotah House in reality the beginning of a SEWAAC-supported ACNA parish or is the newly re-instituted Sunday worship service a living laboratory where Nashotah students can learn firsthand about the inner workings of parish life and worship through hands-on experience?
On April 28, a meeting took place in Milwaukee among Milwaukee Bishop Steven A. Miller; Nashotah's Dean Munday; and the Rt. Rev. Edward L. Salmon, Jr., retired Bishop of South Carolina and chairman of Nashotah's Board of Trustees, to hash out the parameters of the new Sunday worship experience at The House.
In a copy of the two letters between Bishop Salmon and Bishop Miller leaked to VOL, the two bishops demonstrated their deep difference of opinion on how the late April meeting went and what it means to have the new community worship service starting at The House.
"I think it was helpful to acknowledge that the relationship of the bishop of Milwaukee with Nashotah House is fractured at best," writes Bishop Salmon in his one page letter. "While Nashotah House is an Episcopal-related institution, it is not under the authority of a diocesan bishop, it is our obligation to maintain a gracious relationship."
Bishop Miller does not agree that there is a gracious relationship between his Episcopal Diocese and The House. He believes he was blindsided.
The Milwaukee bishop charges in his two-page response that Bishop Salmon's letter to him was first made widely available to the Nashotah House community. As the Episcopal Bishop of Milwaukee he first learned about Bishop Salmon's letter via e-mail before the Nashotah letter was even in his hands.
"I don't know whether you are aware that copies of your letter were released within the Nashotah House community ...I had seen a copy of the letter forwarded to me by e-mail last weekend," writes Bishop Miller in his May 6th letter. "I would have preferred to received your letter and respond to it before it was distributed more widely."
Although the Nashotah letter was mistakenly dated May 29 rather than April 29, 2010, the envelope apparently bears a May 4th postmark. It was not delivered to Bishop Miller's Milwaukee office until May 5.
"The most urgent matter we discussed had to do with the accusation that the laboratory worship service that Nashotah House had begun two Sundays ago was actually an ACNA congregation," writes Bishop Salmon to the Milwaukee bishop. "Various documents by related individuals seemed to establish that.
"I have met with SEWAAC representatives this morning and confirmed with them that Nashotah's House's Sunday morning worship service is a laboratory for seminarian training and is related only to Nashotah House," Nashotah's Trustee Chairman continued. "It is a service for anyone interested to attend, and is in no way related to being in opposition to the diocese or any local congregation."
"While I am grateful for your concern about the 'fractured' state of the historic relationship between Nashotah House and the Bishop of Milwaukee, we agreed that this fracture began long before I become bishop of this diocese," Bishop Miller wrote. "However, my primary concern is about clarity of understanding regarding the canonical implications of the beginning of what, from all outward appearances, is a congregation, and not just a lab setting for liturgy..."
Bishop Miller is not only concerned about the new Sunday worship service becoming the nucleus of an ACNA congregation. He also fears that as the premier Anglo-Catholic seminary, Nashotah House draws in the crème de la crème of Episcopal and Anglican clerics to its hallowed halls including Bishop Nazir-Ali who is from Church of England, as well as Keith Ackerman, the retired Bishop of Quincy, and Bishop Wantland -- both of whom have close ties to Nashotah and are now associated with the Anglican Church in North America.
Bishop Ackerman holds an earned degree from Nashotah while Bishop Wantland has an honorary degree from the same Wisconsin seminary. There are also other Nashotans who have aligned themselves with ACNA or another Global South Anglican providence.
Some of the other living bishops in The Episcopal Church who hold earned Nashotah degrees include bishops William Love, Albany; Russell Jacobus, Fond du Lac; Charles Jenkins, retired-Louisiana; Paul Lambert, suffragan-Dallas; Edwin Leidel, retired-Eastern Michigan; C.W. Ohl, provisional-North Texas (Ft. Worth); Peter Beckwith, Springfield; Robert Shahan, retired-Arizona; Francis Gray, retired-Northern Indiana; Richard Grein, retired-New York; Dabney Smith, Southwest Florida; G.W. Smith, Missouri; Arthur Vogel, retired-West Missouri; Keith Whitmore, assisting-Atlanta; Jeffery Lee, Chicago; and Robert Witcher, retired-Long Island.
Some bishops who have honorary doctorates from The House include the Rt. Revs: Clarence Pope, retired-Fort Worth; Dan Herzog, retired-Albany; Edward MacBurney, retired-Quincy; and John Howe, Central Florida.
Dean Munday also considers several other bishops to be Friends-of-The-House including the Rt. Rev's: Bud Shand, Easton; Bruce MacPherson, Western Louisiana; Jack Iker, Fort Worth; and ACNA Archbishop Robert Duncan.
Nashotah House has cast a wide net in Anglican waters. Several non-TEC dioceses have sent their student priests to Wisconsin for solid Anglo-Catholic training. In addition. The House has been the "home" of at least one Archbishop of Canterbury -- Lord Michael Ramsey. Nashotah's Ramsey Society, which seeks not only to preserve but also to extend and enrich the Catholic witness in the Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion, is named in his honor.
"Not only did we discuss the importance of the leadership of the new Sunday morning service coming from constituent members of the Seminary community," Bishop Miller wrote to Bishop Salmon, "we also discussed the inappropriateness of those resolved or released from ministry in The Episcopal Church functioning in a clerical capacity either at the Sunday morning service or at other times in the Chapel of an institution advertising itself as 'A Seminary of The Episcopal Church'." "Nashotah House has been training priests for The Episcopal Church for 167 years," Dean Munday told a gathering of Nashotah sons and daughters at last year's General Convention in Anaheim. "And we have no intention of doing otherwise."
"I want to make it clear for the record here that more than 90 percent of our students come from dioceses of The Episcopal Church," said Munday last July.
"We have received several reports in the last few years from dioceses that give canonical exams that our graduates excel and are the best prepared of any graduates they see," Dean Munday proudly explained last year. "Bishops tell us our recent graduates are easily the best trained clergy in their dioceses."
Bishop Miller doesn't seem quite convinced of Dean Munday's assurances and told Bishop Salmon so.
"Nowhere in your letter do I find mention of this important issue which relates directly to the good order of the doctrine, discipline and worship of The Episcopal Church," Bishop Miller wrote. "The ongoing lack of a clear direction from the Board of Trustees to the Seminary administration on this matter is of grave concern to me..."
Bishop Miller felt that an e-mail, apparently written by Dean Munday, and circulating in the Diocese of Milwaukee, clearly outlined the problem. The Bishop included the body of the e-mail in his letter. The bishop wrote he received a copy of the e-mail from Dean Munday, which had also been sent to an alumna and priest in Bishop Miller's diocese.
The May 4th e-mail seemed to outline the purpose of the renewed Sunday worship.
"There are two things that make this current experiment with Sunday morning worship different from those that have gone before. We have been more successful in attracting individuals from the surrounding communities to attend and secondly the highly politicized atmosphere that currently exists in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion."
Dean Munday noted that there are worshippers who travel as much as 90 miles to attend the Nashotah Sunday service because "they are excited about the vision we are proposing for this congregation."
Then the Dean outlined a strategy for ministry including: Christian education for all ages, rekindling the Lake Country Youth Ministry as well as linking the developing Nashotah congregation with the ministry activities of the Bishop Kemper Mission Society.
"We believe that the Catholic devotional societies that exist at Nashotah House (Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, Society of Mary, Guild of All Souls) in addition to our chapters of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, the Daughters of the King, and the Order of St. Luke will benefit from the continuity of having permanent members who are local laity..." he writes explaining that because of the high turnover of seminarians the student body chapters of these organizations struggle to remain viable from one school year to the next.
Taking in the contents and context of the Dean's e-mail, Bishop Miller continued his letter to the Nashotah bishop.
"This appears to be a congregation which is physically within the Diocese of Milwaukee meeting at Nashotah House. All Episcopal congregations within the Diocese are subject to the jurisdiction of the Bishop," the Milwaukee bishop wrote. "It also appears that we need further honest conversation about the 'vision', which is drawing people to this congregation."
TEC Canon I.13:1 states, "Every Congregation in this Church shall belong to the Church in the Diocese in which its place of worship is situated."
Bishop Miller clearly regards this Canon as applicable to the Nashotah's Sunday developing worship group.
Dean Munday sought to do damage control over the weekend. Writing on his blog To "All the World" on Friday, Munday wrote a piece, "Tearing Down the Rumor Mill - Sunday morning worship at Nashotah House."
In it he wrote, "I have had experiences with the rumor mill at various times in my life; but perhaps none more vexing than the episode in which I am enmeshed at present."
Then he goes on to explain that Nashotah House has had a long history of celebrating Sunday Eucharist. Sometimes the service would take place on in the morning and other times at night, he wrote.
"The Chapel of St. Mary the Virgin, which was rededicated last year on its sesquicentennial anniversary as a house of worship, was originally built as St. Sylvanus and operated as a quasi parish church serving the spiritual needs of the Nashotahans and their surrounding neighbors.
"Through the years Nashotah House has reached out to help meet the spiritual needs of the surrounding community, not just prepare men (and now women) for the priesthood. Several times a Sunday service has been started at Nashotah with varying success and duration.
"Daily prayer has been a part of the Nashotah spiritual experience since the earliest days of the seminary's foundation when Jackson Kemper first planted its spiritual roots.
"Going all the way back to its founding in 1842, Nashotah House has always been as much a spiritual community as an educational institution. The integration of the practical dimensions of a worshiping community with the academic side of our life would also move the House away from the "ivory tower" image of which seminaries are all too often accused."
The Dean differs with Bishop Miller over what constitutes an Episcopal parish. He contends that any worship conducted at Nashotah House is outside the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Milwaukee.
Dean Munday explained in his blog, "The Sunday morning service, like any other worship service of Nashotah House, occurs under the authority of the Dean, who is designated by the Statutes of Nashotah House as the Ordinary, who himself functions under the authority of the Statutes and the Board of Trustees.
"The Sunday morning worship service and those who attend it ... do not constitute a congregation in the canonical sense, since Nashotah House, while it has always performed baptisms, weddings, funerals, and invited bishops to hold confirmations, does not receive or issue letters of membership, or function in any other way as a congregation, as defined by the Canons of the Episcopal Church."
The Dean also observed that while the seminary may receive students from a variety of traditions -- including other Anglican bodies -- the Trustees, administration, and faculty of Nashotah House have no interest in changing the historic relationship of Nashotah House to The Episcopal Church. Those on the faculty who are clergy of The Episcopal Church cannot celebrate the Eucharist or function canonically at a worship service of another denomination.
Apparently the miscommunication problem came up when SEWAAC ostensibly "mischaracterized what we were doing in their newsletter," wrote Munday.
"And the rumor mill began its work," Dean Munday blogged. "Before the day was over, one attendee (who was unaware of the painstaking lengths to which we had gone to discuss what this service could and could not be) had e-mailed some old friends that Nashotah House was starting an ACNA congregation."
Meanwhile Bishop Miller wrote to Bishop Salmon, "I am confident you will work to resolve this matter in accordance with the disciple of this Church which we vowed to uphold when we were ordained deacon, priest, and bishop."
Dean Munday is determined to press on as he blogs: "So what am I going to do? Well, first of all, I am not going to give up the things I am doing that are "right and a good and joyful thing" for many people. We will celebrate the Eucharist at Nashotah House on Sunday, just as we do every other day. The service is at 10:00 a.m. Everyone is welcome."
Recently Dean Munday announced his intention to run for the position of bishop in the Diocese of Springfield following the recent retirement of Bishop Peter Beckwith.
---Mary Ann Mueller is a journalist living in Texas. She is a regular contributor to VirtueOnline
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