VirtueOnline News

VirtueOnline-News: Bishop's canon calls for the excommunication of prominent layman Now typically I defend my Bishop -- see my blog entry dated Wed., June 22. He generally reasonable, caring and a very likeable person. I consider him my friend. But this article has me worried about him. I had heard about this story from another priest. I'll have a tough time defending him on this one. I know he's under a lot of stress right now and I wonder if that is contributing to this strange behavior. He has a vision for every parish being a mission outpost and has hired staff for his office accordingly. Because of a major budget shortfall, he'll instead have to cut some of the staff he just hired. We've also had a priest in our diocese misuse church finances and falsely accuse someone else of wrongdoing. Then within the same parish there is an accusation of misconduct of a priest that happened 30 years ago but has come to light now. If that wasn't enough, the diocese is dying. It seems that the healthiest churches are evangelical and they're mad at him and don't want anything to do with him. Some have stopped sending funds. There are about 100 churches but the majority can't afford a priest and are dying. (See David Virtue's article.) It's just not a good time to be an Episcopal Bishop.