The Great Masquerade

As we watch the national Episcopal Church implode, I sometimes have to supress a smile. You really can't make this up. At the local and diocesian levels, it is as if a comic tragedy is being played out. If someone had described this senario to me five years ago, I would have said that person was nuts because priests are men of integrity and bishops are titans of virtue. The reality is that as the money gets tight, funny things start to happen.

Suppose a priest angered so many of his parishioners that they left by the hundreds. So many turned their backs on his manipulations and lies that the once thriving parish began to fail. A parish with no debt suddenly could not support itself. The parish began to draw on it's reserve fund to pay the priest's salary. Even though the number of parishioners falls every year, this priest demands and gets his 3% raise every year.

Suppose a bishop cared more about being a bishop than about ministering to the diocese. What if the diocese had many parishes that were failing. So many that the diocese was failing. Would it make sense for the bishop to be interested in saving the failing parishes? Would it make sense for the bishop to try to figure out what can be done to save the diocese? Seems logical to me that healthy parishs make for a healthy diocese.

Imagine parishioners at that poor, old, dying parish struggling mightly to remove an unmotivated, complacent priest only to find that the parish can't remove the rector. Only the bishop can remove him. Their appeals to their bishop go unanswered. More parishioners walk away, further weakening the tiny parish. Why would the bishop not help? The bishop is familiar with this parish, the parishioners, the beautiful church grounds, park, and residence. Why would the bishop refuse help this wonderful old parish in it's struggle to survive?

In the Episcopal Church, the diocese holds title to all parish properties. The diocese holds the deeds in 'trust' for the parishioners.

Money is as tight at the diocese as it is at the tiny, dying parish. Only a new priest at the tiny, struggeling parish can save it from extinction.

What if the bishop refuses to remove the failing old priest at the dying parish? What if the old priest hangs on, depletes the reserve fund, alienates a few more parishioners and makes it to retirement. With few parishioners, no reserve funds, and no prospects for hiring a new rector, the parish fails. When the parish fails, the diocese sells the parish property. This beautiful old church and its' property will easily fetch more than a million dollars. This influx of cash replentishes the diocese funds and allows diocese to survive, and the bishop continues to being a bishop for a little while longer.

How would it make you feel if you realized that scoundrals masquerading as priests and bishops had looted your church, then sold it.

I suppose this is what happens when priests lose their faith, but not their jobs.