MAY IT PLEASE THE COURT
Here and there in the Anglican media, you will read about how this or that liberal Episcopal bishop is hostile to or persecuting orthodox ministers in his diocese. I don't like to make such charges against anyone because (1) they are emotional and inflammatory and we Midwesterners run as fast as we can from emotion, and (2) it is impossible to read anyone's heart. I can, however, present whatever evidence exists.
David Virtue reports that six orthodox ministers in the Diocese of Connecticut have run afoul of Bishop Andrew Smith:
The "Connecticut Six", a group of orthodox rectors at odds with their bishop over faith and morals and the national Episcopal Church’s decision to consecrate an openly homoerotic bishop to the episcopacy, faced their bishop Andrew Smith this week over succession issues and got stonewalled.
The Rev. Mark Hansen of St. John’s, Bristol, one of the six, along with his wardens and attorney met with Bishop Drew Smith to deal with the crisis that could lead to reduction of their parish status to "mission" level and possibly face inhibition and deposition if they do not fall into line with the bishop’s understanding of diocesan policies, canons and constitutions.
The bishop had issued an edict to the "Connecticut Six" and a deadline of February 15 to comply with his demands to accept his understanding of DEPO, pay their fair share to the diocese or face the music.
When Rick Gonneville, warden confronted Smith about the "deadline" of Feb. 15, and what action he would now take, Smith replied "nothing", VirtueOnline was told. "He said this after sending two written "threats" about canonical issues setting a deadline of Feb. 15th. But now he said he had no plans for doing anything on the 15th. If his intention had been to get us to cave in, he failed. But it certainly caused a lot of unnecessary stress and anxiety, not only on my part but on the part of my family and the Parish." said Hansen.
"I went into the meeting with a written proposal, very straightforward, about succession issues. He stated that his responsibilities did not allow him to make the concessions we asked for, even though the DEPO Bishop, who would play a key role in the proposed plan, would have been someone approved by him. Smith stated that he would allow another bishop to visit for two years but refused to relinquish anything."
The Rev. Gilbert Wilkes, rector of Christ and the Epiphany in East Haven Ct. said "We met with the bishop at his invitation but basically we were told to accept DEPO or him and the concerns we voiced, he did not give one inch."
"The options seem to surrender now or surrender later. What are we going to do then about clergy succession?" The bishop said he would never interfere with that but added that he could not control the Standing Committee as well as candidates for ordination. He said he could accept half the diocesan norm for financial support which is 12.5%.
Given the fact that the Episcopal Church threw every word it had ever uttered about homosexual activity into the garbage when it gave Gene Robinson a pointy hat, Smith's reverence for ECUSA rules is hypocritical but not particularly surprising. After all, he's hardly alone. Selective Episcopal bishops are the rule rather than the exception so this situation does not, by itself, indicate a hostility toward orthodox Episcopalians on Smith's part. But this next story, related by John Derbyshire in National Review, is far more damning:
On February 6 last year a fine lady named Maggy Brimelow died, after a struggle with cancer that had lasted several years. Maggy was the wife of Peter Brimelow, and was known to many at National Review, where Peter was an editor in the 1990s. Peter currently co-manages the VDARE immigration-restrictionist website, which posted an obituary notice for Maggy here. Our own David Frum wrote a fine tribute to her, which can be found among the links on that obituary notice.
Maggy was that unusual thing, a convert from the Roman to the Anglican style of Catholicism. Travel in the other direction — "doing a Newman" — is much more common. At the time she made the switch, in 1997, the Brimelows were living in Connecticut, and Maggy was actually received into the Episcopal Church by Andrew Smith, at that time a suffragan (that is, a kind of assistant bishop) to the diocesan bishop, Clarence Coleridge. She became an active church member, amongst other things a clear conservative voice on the Bishops’ Advisory Committee to Coleridge and Smith. She was strongly against the ordination of openly homosexual clergymen, and at one point distinguished herself by being one of only 5 parishioners out of 5,000 to vote against the "Year of the Jubilee" initiatives — a series of measures pushed by liberals in the Episcopal hierarchy to usher in the third Christian millennium.
Maggy established a strong spiritual relationship with a lay healer working in the Connecticut diocese. At his own request, I shall not name this person. A married man with a distinguished combat record in one of the more strenuous branches of the military, he is also a conservative, with views as strong as Maggy’s (and mine) against the ordination of open homosexuals. Perhaps for this reason, Bishop Smith, who is a liberal, would not allow this lay healer to qualify for ordination. (He has since moved to a different diocese, under a conservative bishop, and is to be ordained.)
As her cancer advanced and it became clear that the disease would soon end her life, Maggy obtained great spiritual comfort from her sessions with this adviser. Then, a few weeks before her death, she got something of a surprise. Showing up for a counseling session with her adviser, she was told that a new church rule had been implemented that forbade any male church officer from being alone with any female parishioner. She would only be able to take counseling with a third person in the room. (Oddly, considering the condition of the Episcopal Church, this ruling seems not to apply in the case of male parishioners...) This was part of the ludicrously named "Safe Church" initiative that began in the 1990s, with the purpose, of course, of protecting Episcopal clergy from abuse allegations.
Maggy felt, reasonably enough, that a waiver should be made for herself, a 50-year-old married woman in the last stages of a terminal disease. Anyone who has been in a very close spiritual relationship, of the kind Maggy had with her adviser, knows that it cannot be conducted with a stranger present. She wrote a polite letter to Bishop Smith at the beginning of January last year — a month before she died — begging for such a waiver. She pointed out, amongst other things, that the sessions with her spiritual adviser had been taking place in an office with a large window in its door, this window looking out on a busy corridor. (Off which the adviser’s wife worked in an adjacent office.)
Maggy Brimelow’s letter — Peter has showed me a copy (and has no objection to my airing the issue here) — is only a little over a page, and closes with an expression of regret for having taken up the bishop’s time: "I am sure that the volume of your correspondence is enormous, the time to deal with it scarce... A simple nihil obstat would be more than eloquent." The letter — which was sent by certified mail — received no reply. To this day, Bishop Smith has not acknowledged this very reasonable plea from a dying woman, a communicant he had received into the church himself, but whose views were in conflict with his on a subject which, the bishop apparently believes, is much more important than the spiritual consolation of the terminally ill.
Connecticut is a small state; you can drive across it in less than a day. So two possible conclusions can be drawn from this episode. Either Andrew Smith has the single most incompetent office staff in the entire United States and he is humiliated that this letter got buried in someone's in-box. Or he is a singularly repulsive human being who hates orthodox Christians with a corrosive hatred.
You decide.
Fr. J.
Submitted by EJN
at 2/1/2005 1:56:38 PM