Diocese of BC refuses to negotiate: Update on St Mary’s Nanoose Bay
Feb 20th, 2009 by Kate
By email, from the latest ANiC newsletter.
The diocese has refused to negotiate with the congregation of St Mary’s Nanoose Bay despite the specific request issued from the recent Primates Meeting in Egypt that mediation be pursued to resolve disputes. The people of St Mary’s have been ordered by the bishop’s commissary, Bruce Bryant-Scott, to vacate their building this week. For now, the congregation will move their services to a local library. The congregation has also chosen to mark their new beginning with a new name: Christ’s Church (Oceanside). While not abandoning their claim to the church building at this time, the current interim order in the St. Mary’s Metchosin case has set the precedent for parishes in the B.C. diocese who realign with ANiC. In that case, the court granted the diocese use of the building until a trial takes place in respect of the trust claims on the property.
We should all be used to this sort of thing by now, probably, but still I find it very sad to think of the faithful people displaced. I even feel sorry for the interim priest sent in to hold the broken place for the bishop. A retired prison chaplain, I presume he’s accustomed to broken situations and hard cases. Still, I don’t suppose he welcomed this particular assignment with any great joy. I will remember them all in my prayers this Sunday.
Indeed, Noli. Indeed.
Once again we see the same old thing. They want to talk and have everyone else listen, and they will talk and talk and talk, until they convince everyone else that they are right and everyone else was wrong. But when asked to listen to someone else talking, and the refusal is so abrubt that it is just plain rude. Forbid that anyone should say anything that these revisionists would find unagreeable. We should all know by now that it is their way or the highway. But they forget, and we remember, that the highway is in fact the road to Damascus.