Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Episcopal Church USA Situation Far Worse Than Imagined

If the secular media was not so focused on the Catholic Church and running endless stories on such things as female ordination that might have the peculiar yet revealing comments that Primate Katharine Jefferts Schori made at an important meeting of the upper echelon.

It is really worth your time looking at the analysis of Anglican Curmudgeon at Constitutional Crisis in ECUSA - Pt IV: Leeks, Watermelons and Fleshpots of Egypt.

Truly breathtaking.

Stand Firm gives an overview of what the Cumudgeon said at Anglican Curmudgeon: Cracks at the Top [another superb analysis by the Curmudgeon]:

*For the first time in its 221-year history, the Church has mortgaged its prime property to help pay for lawsuits;
*Church leadership (and the lack thereof) has caused the DFMS and its treasurer to play fast and loose with the stated purposes for drawing on donor trust funds to finance diocesan litigation;
*The Church has loaned more than a million dollars of its sorely needed funds to groups with no ability to repay such amounts, even if they finally prevail in the pending lawsuits;
*The Church has gone to inordinate lengths to prop up groups as Potemkin dioceses, just so they can serve as plaintiffs in the lawsuits, while having little potential to remain viable on their own;
*General Convention, 815 and the Executive Council are all running in different directions, with no regard for the limits imposed by the Constitution and Canons; and, last but not least,
*The Church is in a deadly, downward spiral of declining membership, declining revenues and greatly increased debt.

To be clear I don't think their New York Headquarters has been mortgaged yet but it is apparent it is likely.

A overriding theme of the people that paid close attention to this meeting is this. That the Episcopal Church USA will slash it budgets to the bone but the LITIGATION and their cost will continue. That litigation being the suing of breakaway Diocese and the "loaning" of money to Parishes to sue their Dioceses that are lets say more traditional leaning.

In other words the Primate is making a choice to mortgage property so as to obtain other property that will never have the value of the money loaned.

Now perhaps what she and her liberal supporters are doing is smart. At this stage they might think they have to go to the end in their high stake gambit of making sure that no legitimate alternative Episcopal Church structure forms.

However as you can see it "appears" there still might be even a few progressive voices in the higher ranks that are seen the Primate is ruining the Church and trying to apply the breaks. I have a feeling they waited too long too speak out.

All the while it appears the march on for her to obtain almost like Papal management skills marches on. She might reign over ruins but she will or her successor will reign as some Episcopal type Pope. Though I am getting to the point where I would not be shocked if her supporters did some enabling act at the end of her to allow her to stay forever.

See CURIA-SER AND CURIA-SER from MCJ as to her power moves as relating to latest meeting.

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