On 18 November, a meeting was held between The Rt Rev Susan Moxley, Bishop of the Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, and the Parish Executive and Parish Council of Christ Church, Windsor. There seems to be a difference of opinion as to what transpired.
The following note has appeared in Christ Church’s Sunday bulletin for the past three Sundays, beginning on 30 November:
Meeting with the Diocesan Bishop: Bishop Sue Moxley met with the Parish Executive and Parish Council on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008. There was agreement on the following points: the acknowledgment that the allotment is not a legal obligation; the recognition that parishes could not and should not be required to enroll in the Diocesan Insurance programme and/or the payroll programme; the realization that, in the Maritimes, Anglican parishes are their own corporations entrusted to do what they can and must to maintain themselves; and that the canons have no coercive power, no binding force. The Parish Executive reiterated its request to have the Bishop’s blessing on its five-year plan which would allow the Parish to make reasonable contributions to the diocese and the wider church but without jeopardising the existence of the Parish. Bishop Moxley was presented with a signed copy of “Gates of Heaven: Sweet Love Remembered.” We hope that the meeting will result in improved relations with the Diocese and encouragement and respect for the many and great efforts of the Parish.
Included with bulletin materials this morning was a photocopy of a letter from Bp Moxley addressed to Rector and Wardens, Parish of Christ Church, and printed on diocesan letterhead. The text of that letter follows:
I have received a letter dated November 25, 2008, from the Rector. If this represents the minutes of the meeting, it is clear I should have brought a note taker.
There are comments made that are incorrect:
1. I said nothing about the legality of allotment. I did not say that “the canons have no coercive power, no binding force.” I did say that the Canons include no stated recourse when a parish chooses not to pay allotment, or to join the Diocesan Insurance program.
2. I did agree to raise the question of what is put on the letters going out to parishes with the request for allotment, stipend, and benefits, specifically in relation to the letter to Christ Church, Windsor, which does not participate in the Central Payroll. This year’s letter has already gone out, so we will consider this change for the next year’s round of letters.
3. It is clear that parishes in this Diocese are corporations. They also are part of the Diocese.
4. The Anglican Church Act and Canon law exist to order the life of the Diocese, the relationships among parishes; regions, archdeacomies and the Synod. Christ Church has its existence within the Diocese, just as it has its existence within the Province of Nova Scotia and the country of Canada. Obeying the law is part of life. If you or your parish wish to change a law, your recourse is to seek to change it thrqugh the acknowledged channels. In the case of our church, that means submitting a resolution for a specific change to the Executive Secretary of Synod, the Rev’d Janet Hatt. The deadline for resolutions for Synod 2009 is February 26, 2009.
5. I am glad that you noted my inquiries about the Christ Church Foundation. I trust that those will also be noted in the Minutes of the meetings.
6. I will consider the parish’s 5 year plan. There are other parishes and clergy in the Diocese that need my attention at this moment. I will provide an answer to the parish by December 31, 2008.
7. Since you printed your interpretations of the meeting in the past Sunday bulletin, I would ask you to include a copy of this letter in the next Sunday’s bulletin and forward to me a copy of the bulletin.
Finally, this note was also printed in this morning’s bulletin.
Nota Bene: At the request of Bishop Sue Moxley, a letter from her is included in this Sunday’s bulletin material which takes issue with the summary of the meeting communicated to her by letter and as presented in the notice above. The Parish Executive, present at the meeting with the Bishop, stand by the letter and the notices unequivocally and without reservation. At the back of the Hall, copies of their reply to the Bishop’s letter are also available.
To prevent this post from becoming longer than it already is, I refrain from posting the full text of the letter of reply to the bishop, noting only that the Parish Executive says to Bp Moxley: “You speak of incorrect comments but only item #1 of your letter identifies an area where you claim disagreement”. The rest of the letter contains point-by-point responses to Bp Moxley’s seven items.
By the by, Gates of Heaven: Sweet Love Remembered is a history of Christ Church parish written by our rector, The Rev David Curry.
The actions of Miss Moxley are certainly characteristic of the heretical liberal approach to all things. Being without a foundation to stand upon they are always friendly and agreeable when face to face but then take their stances based upon reinterpretations of their scriptures (The Canons) and denial of their statements (after they have had time for reflection and feel impervious due to separation from the situation) made at any public gathering. I am impressed with this congregation’s willingness to stand by their assertions of what occurred at the meeting without being intimidated by her reinterpretations and revisions made after the fact and in the “safety and seclusion” of her office. Her reticence and lack of intention of doing anything for this parish is clear in her putting them off due to “more pressing issues.” I have personally had only one occasion to be in the same meeting as her and saw her aggressive and irrational nature. This parish needs our prayers.
I can attest to the calibre of this parish council & rector. Integrity, competence, intelligence, wisdom & foresight are their hall marks. Should logic & memory fail, perhaps College St should fine tune its own gimmicks & engage in a listening process… or would that be a discernment process? Of course, the smelling salts should be within easy reach.
Looks like we were in the wrong on this one. You can tell by the wording of the minutes that the propositions contained therein were not things that Moxley+ would ever have ‘agreed to’. It is very unfortunate when folks are given good reason to just distrust the truthfulness of orthodox believers.
When we lose the pending Ontario legal cases overwhelmingly and are saddled (completely rightly, legally and morally) with hundreds of thousands of dollars of legal costs we will have to reexamine the importance of simple honesty in our fight. (Along of course, with wisdom and prudence)
Lying is not pleasing to God, even in heated situations, or when it seems to be in a good cause.
Toral
Alan Stewart, LL.M.
(Good Shepherd, St. Catharines)
You are jumping to conclusions, Toral. For a start, nobody knows what is going to happen in court, why assume that we will lose? I also don’t see anything in this post to make me assume that the parish leaders were lying. Why do you assume the worst?
Toral [#3],
You have lost me completely:
First of all, who is not being honest and how do you know; second, we have beaten this to death elsewhere, but your saying “When we lose” makes no sense at all unless you have been granted a gift of prescience denied to the rest of us; thirdly, you seem to be saying we should lose – are you?; fourth, you seem to be saying that our legal defence is somehow dishonest – are you?
Lastly, you appear relish the idea of our losing. Do you?
#3 Toral
I wasn’t there and neither were you, so it’s a bit over the top to accuse one side or the other of “lying.” That being said, I agree it’s hard to imagine any ACoC bishop explicitly agreeing to the various propositions outlined in the parish bulletin of Christ Church, Windsor.
On the other hand, I recently walked away from an internal meeting with colleagues honestly believing that a certain decision had been reached, only to find out later that my boss thought we’d agreed to the exact opposite. So I can easily imagine the parish leadership walking away from their meeting with the bishop believing that she’d agreed, at least implicitly, to x, y, and z. We tend to remember what we WANT to have heard, sometimes at the expense of what was actually said. That’s why it’s always best to take contemporaneous notes (dated and signed) and insist upon a clear summary of decisions and outcomes at the end of meetings – even friendly meetings – in order to avoid misunderstanding.
Toral, I agree that we’ll probably lose the disputed properties in court (this ain’t Virginia, Santa Claus), but you never know. Stranger things have happened. I’ve never been a bettor attracted to long odds and even Jesus didn’t use civil court as a pulpit when accused, so I think it’s just wrong, but others are determined to proceed and won’t be gainsaid. If so, all the more reason to be STRICTLY accurate and avoid trumpeting implicit episcopal “agreements” in parish bulletins that might come back some day in court to bite explicitly in the ass.
Toral [#3], Your statement beginning “You can tell” is baffling to me because I cannot tell any such thing. Please explain it for me.
By implication, you accuse my rector and Parish Council of “lying”. That is a very serious accusation to make when your only apparent support is that “you can tell”.
I appreciate the comments that have been made in response to the post about events at Christ Church, Windsor. While reluctant to wade in, I wish to call attention to the following points.
First, and this is of the greatest importance, Parishes in Eastern Canada are corporations. Their identity and being does not depend upon the determinations of Synods and their policies nor simply upon the whims of bishops. The Parish of Christ Church, like many a parish in the Maritimes, pre-dates the establishment of the synods, itself a corporation, too. At stake is the relation between three different but interrelated corporations; the Parish, the Bishop and the Diocesan Synod. The corporate status of the Parish is fundamental.
Secondly, and this, too, is of the greatest importance, the identity of Parishes as Anglican does not depend upon the vagaries of synods and their confusions but upon the foundational principles of our Canadian Anglican identity. The Parish of Christ Church has been explicit and clear about relation to ‘the Canterbury Connection’ via the Solemn Declaration of 1893. As a Parish we have taken a principled stand with respect to the presenting issue of the day as well as to the subsequent confusions and conflicts of polity that have arisen.
Thirdly, regardless of Bishop Sue’s protestations, the Canons have no coercive power or binding force as a matter of fact, meaning in law, ie, canon law. There is no provision for dealing with parishes that fail to meet canonical requirements. Personally, I doubt that any Parish, in the shrinking number of Parishes in the Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, would pass muster on that score. In fact, several years ago, the idea was mooted about including coercive measures into the Canons for Parishes deemed to be recalcitrant. It didn’t happen and it would only beg the greater question about the relation of the Parishes to the Synod. Parishes in Maritime Canada voted to become members of the Synod. At no point did they surrender their own corporate status to the Synods.
Unlike in other parts of Canada where the corporate status of the Parishes has been compromised, in the Maritimes that principle is integral to the well-being and the future of the Anglican witness, a witness in the land. If there were any legal obligation we would have been before the courts long ago. There are relatively clear restrictions on the powers of the episcopate. The episcopate has prohibitive powers with respect to the sale of property but no directive powers with respect to the funds and monies of the Parish. In other words, the Parish is not a franchise of GSAnglican, Inc. or FRedHIltz. Inc. Its identity is determined spiritually and intellectually, not economically.
This is all about money. Allotment. Monies determined without real accountability in terms of who can pay what and how much and which relate to nothing more than what is needed to maintain the bureaucratic church. It is of course at the expense of two things: (a) parishes and (b) parish ministry. There is a further legal entanglement. The Canons in NS/PEI specify one financial commitment on parish funds, a commitment to the clerical stipend.
In the east, the undermining of the parochial ministry in support of the bureaucracy of the institutional church contravenes the history and challenges the principles of the institution itself.
What is sad in this case is the rejection (thus far) of the attempts of the Parish to contribute to the Diocese and the work of the wider church, notwithstanding the areas of serious disagreement, and to do so without jeopardy to the responsibility of the Parish and its Mission.
(Rev’d) David Curry
#8 David
Thanks for a thought-provoking post. I’m interested in hearing more about your parish’s principled stand against the diocese. I take it you’ve been witholding your allotment, or at least portions thereof. Please expand on what you’re doing and how the diocese has responded. My parish is unwilling to pull out and join up with ANiC, but many are frustrated with temple tax going to top-heavy diocesan administration and flakey programs. Meanwhile, we’re struggling to make ends meet locally. What, if anything, would happen if we just stopped paying in?
If ACoC were to behave in a Christian manner, it would allow the ANiC (now ACNA) Congregations to keep the buildings, and sincerely wish us all the best as we continue on our journey with God.
Will we loose the court cases? I honestly do not know, but from what I have garnered so far, I doubt it. That being said, so what if we loose. The Church is not the buildings. The Church is the people, and there is not a court anywhere in the world that can take the people away from ACNA.
No matter what, ACNA will continue on. If we loose our buildings, than we will either construct new ones, or purchase existing ones from other denominations that are in decline (perhaps even some from ACoC). In fact, purchasing some of these old buildings may prove to be less expensive than the legal bills.
If ACoC thinks that it is “winning” by keeping our buildings, than they may very well be mistaken. It gets to be very expensive to keep on old empty building open. And when ACoC finally does decide to sell these old empty buildings, just how much money will they get? The land in places like Toronto is undeniably valuable. But outside Toronto, it will be a “fire sale”.
It’s not that we have been withholding funds, rather we don’t have them (and for various reasons). We don’t and can’t accept the allotment and arrears as a legal obligation, in other words, as a real debt. To do so would mean bankruptcy. Nor do we accept the assumption that the identity and the existence of Anglican Parishes depends upon this sort of regulatory compliance since it undermines the principle of the corporate status of the Parishes. On a practical note, this forty-year old system isn’t working (“forty years long was I grieved with this generation and said …”?) and isn’t a sustainable model. We have attempted a more honest approach, a way of being able to contribute something to the diocese and the wider church but without prejudice to the existence of the parish.
The way the current diocesan policy plays out is really a kind of corporate take-over – the parishes being collapsed into the synod and the existence of the parishes being determined by their ability to contribute whatever synod demands. It isn’t simply about the tax percentage demanded, though 21.5% without regard for operating costs is a bit rich! (So much so that it is being reduced gradually over several years to about 15%). It is really about the Parishes as corporations who are the faithful trustees of what has been entrusted to them, both in terms of the temporalities of the Parish (property and assets), and the spiritual principles that define an Anglican identity, mission and witness in the land. The history from Bishop Inglis onwards, until quite recently (i.e. the last 40-50 years), was one of mission, the mission of the Church in rural communities, the idea of a little church in every little community. This conflicts with the more recent tendenz of contraction into the bureaucratic church, paid and maintained at the expense of the Parishes themselves. It is not sustainable and threatens the parish ministry and the parishes themselves. This is not to say that there aren’t real problems that parishes in a largely rural diocese face but that this burden of allotment is crippling. It is not a legal obligation and pushing it only pushes parishes to bankruptcy.
With respect to moral and doctrinal matters, we have taken a modest and principled theological and pastoral stand about the controversies surrounding human sexuality as well as affirming our commitment to the wider Anglican Communion (vis-à-vis, the Solemn Declaration). Apart from the overreach of synods (whether with or without the direction of bishops) about the temporalities of parishes, there is the further matter of synodical overreach on matters of doctrine and faith – things which do not lie within their competence. This point is very clear in terms of the constitution of NS/PEI synod itself. All that we have done is to reclaim and recall the foundational principles that define a Canadian Anglican identity for ourselves as a parish.
I did not see the comments in response to my post until I was pointed to them just now in another thread.
I shouldn’t have used the word “lying” amd retract it insofar as anyone considered it an accusation against any particular person/s.
At the same time it is clear that no bishop anywhere has ever gone to a meeting and agreed to the propositions that the bishop is said to agree to particularly that canons have no coercuve power or binding force. I suppose I cannot prove it except to assert that if the notetakers claim a bishop said this and she denies this 95% of an unbiassed group of judges will believe the bishop. These summaries are as believable as if some bishop plus lawyers had an meeting with ANiC people and produced notes stating “the ANiC people agreed that the ACoC is the legitimate expression of Anglicanism in Canada and departing ANiC congregations have no claim to their former properties.”
5 David No there is nothing dishonest in the ANiC legal argument; I have stated else where than insofar as it was summarized in Justice Milanetti’s reasons for judgment, it appears to be well designed and to have left out nothing that it could usefully have included. I most definitely do not relish the idea of losing. It will be very expensive and painful; worse I fear it could have disastrous consequences if the flock comes to think it has been misled. It will also, I expect, lead to self-pitying laments about the evil of the secular world and how it is the enemy of Christians, etc; a belief which, while true and relevant in certain circumstances, has no application to our particular situation in Ontario law.
Noli Aemulari’s take on the situation was in retrospect more sensible than mine.
I am afraid that the thinking of many ANiC people is distorted by two errors: 1) the belief that a position that is spiritually right must also be right in both church law and secular law; and 2) plain old wishful thnking.
I’ll mention again that these comments have nothing to do with British Columbia, where the law is different and, I understand, the value of the properties involved much larger, ehich makes legal action a more reasonable “bet”.
I can’t imagine Cheryl basing her advice on wishful thinking, somehow.
Toral [#12],
I presume you mean by this that the ANiC congregations, if they lose the legal case, might feel they were given an overly optimistic assessment of their chances in the courts. In actual fact, our lawyers have only ever said that we have a triable case and that losing is a distinct possibility. As a member of one of the “flocks” I can’t see either myself or others thinking that we were misled.
Point 1: We don’t know who is “right” according to secular law; that is what will be determined in the courts. I don’t think anyone is naive enough to think the spiritual and secular views of what is right will necessarily coincide.
Point 2: Prayerful thinking, yes; wishful thinking, no.
re: # 12 Toral’s comments
These comments seem more to do with issues regarding ANiC. The simple point with respect to Canons here in NS/PEI (and elsewhere) and that relates to your concern is that in the East, Parishes are corporations in their own right and neither the Bishop nor the Synod hold title to Parish properties. Secondly, the Canons do not contain any coercive measures for dealing with the failure to meet them. The Bishop(s) have recourse to ecclesiastical courts (though the nature of those is another matter) with respect to discipline and morality on the part of clergy. There is no mechanism in the Canons for removing parishes from Synod and, after all, parishes became part of the synod on a voluntary basis (one by one) and did not surrender their corporate status or legal responsibilities by so doing. Thirdly, the Parish Executive supports unequivocally and without reservation the account of the meeting. What she said is not so surprising because it belongs to the nature of the association, properly considered, however much it has been complicated by this other optic – namely, what happens in other dioceses. Neither is it so surprising that there are denials of what was said since the clarity of the matter disturbs the fiction under which the Diocese would like to continue.
From the standpoint of ANiC, as Cheryl and others remarked to me some time ago, the fact that Parishes in the East have corporate status (in law) and have title to their own properties is a strong position. The danger has been in the attempts by Synods and Bishops to get the parishes themselves to compromise their own corporate status and to surrender voluntarily the means of the own continuance and future. It is different situation than further west but it sheds light on the assumptions of the understanding between Parishes, Synods and Bishops.
One thing that may become a very interesting ingredient in the mess is that the ACoC will be held by the courts to its actual written formal systems. This will be somewhat fraught, as the written formal systems are quite incomplete, and on-the-ground custom and action may not be viewed by the courts as binding.