With a baby on the way, David Beales and his wife were property hunting when a unique opportunity arose.

“I was looking for just a house, and my wife stumbled upon the Anglican Diocese’s (property ads),” said Beals.

St. Saviour’s stood out. The quaint chapel in Vic West includes a house, which once served as a rectory. There’s also a hall, occupied until recently by Rainbow Kitchen. The soup kitchen is moving to Esquimalt.

Beales, a professional ballet dancer, plans to convert the hall into a studio both for practise and possibly some private lessons.

“It turned out to be an amazing opportunity, so we jumped on it,” he said.

His purchase was set to close Feb. 6, marking the second property sold on a list of seven for sale by the Anglican Diocese of B.C.

When news first broke of the Diocese’s plan to sell its assets in 2010, the media’s initial focus was on uprooting parishioners and the larger struggles of Christian churches to retain people.

As the properties begin to change hands, however, the impact to the wider community is being felt.

Cindy Ralph has taken charge of finding a new home for the Lansdowne Cooperative Preschool. It has operated out of St. Albans Anglican hall in Oaklands for 50 years.

“We’re the last fully co-operative preschool on the Island,” she said.

The mother of two is among 60 families that share responsibility for running the preschool, from management meetings to “duty days” in the playroom, alongside paid early childhood educators.

“It develops a community for the children and for the parents,” Ralph said. “I’ll have lifelong friends through some of the parents I’ve met.”

It’s also affordable, due in part to the required volunteer hours and in part to the low rent the preschool pays to the Anglican Diocese.

“We make a donation of a really reasonable amount,” she said. “We’re completely realistic knowing that wherever we end up, that fee is going to go up.”

The Salvation Army is also among the groups in limbo.

It operates Hope House, a 90-day residential program for teenage boys aimed at getting their lives back on track. It is located inside St. Saviour’s rectory and the lease is up in October.

“We don’t know what’s gong to happen,” said Kyla Ferns, spokesperson for the Salvation Army.

Neither does Beales, its new owner.

The property offers many possibilities and Beales is open to maintaining several community uses.

Beales hopes to get permission from the city to rent out the chapel for special occasions. “A lot of people who went to that church are still alive and would like to have things there,” he said.

The chapel also boasts a beautiful pipe organ. “I’ve spoken to some of the Council of Canadian Organists … If they would like to play and maintain it, I don’t mind,” he said. “One of them has played that organ for 60 years and they were very happy to hear that.”

The rectory, however, poses a dilemma.

“I appreciate what Hope House is; I fully respect it,” he said. “The original goal was to move in (to the house) … because at the moment I am renting.”

His soft spot for the organization, however, means he’s open to the idea of living elsewhere, so it can continue.

While it’s a possibility, it’s also way more than can be expected of a private purchaser.

Rental income is “never sufficient to make it a viable undertaking,” said Chris Pease, asset manager for the Anglican Diocese. Because tenants are mostly non-profits or small organizations, he said, “we’re lucky if we recover our costs.”

Pease admits the quick sale of St. Saviour’s surprised him.

While a “lovely old structure,” its heritage designation limits any development opportunity, he explained.

“The reason why halls were generally attached to churches is that prior to the creation of municipal recreation complexes, there weren’t any other community centres,” he said.

“The church really has done a lot in creating the societies we have today,” Pease said. “If you look at the church now, it’s into assisting a lot of the poor and those that are marginalized.”

But that’s changing too, as attendance dwindles.

“We see the government being pushed more and more to take over that responsibility,” he said.

At a glance: Anglican properties for sale in the Capital Regional District, with listing price. All but St. Albans were first listed in June, 2010.

• St. Saviour’s chapel, hall and rectory, Victoria, $0.85 million, sale expected to close Feb. 6

• St. Albans chapel and hall, Victoria, $1.2 million, sale pending

• All Saints, View Royal, listing price: $1.4 million

• Brentwood Memorial hall, Central Saanich, listing price: $0.38 million, sale pending

• Church of the Holy Spirit, Saanich., sale pending by church group

• St. Columba, View Royal, $0.9 million

• St. Martin in the Fields, Saanich, listing price: $1.15 million, sold to religious organization

Dr John Sentamu, the second most senior Church of England cleric, told the Daily Telegraph that marriage must be between a man and a woman.

He supported civil partnerships, he said, but only “dictators” tried to overturn history and redefine marriage.

Dr Sentamu also said the Church should do more to avoid its leadership being mainly white and middle class.

The government will open a consultation on the issue of same-sex marriages in March. A consultation on the subject by the Scottish government ended last month.

‘Tradition and history’

But the Archbishop told the Telegraph that it was not the role of government to “gift” the institution of marriage to anyone.

“I don’t think it is the role of the state to define what marriage is.

“It is set in tradition and history and you can’t just (change it) overnight, no matter how powerful you are.

“We’ve seen dictators do it, by the way, in different contexts and I don’t want to redefine very clear social structures that have been in existence for a long time and then overnight the state believes it could go in a particular way.”

Dr Sentamu pointed out that bishops in the House of Lords did not seek to obstruct the introduction of civil partnerships between same-sex couples in 2004.

“We supported civil partnerships because we believe that friendships are good for everybody.”

He said the Church also had no opposition to plans to allow civil partnership ceremonies to take place in places of worship, if agreed by the religious denomination in question.

But Dr Sentamu said the Church would not stand idly by if the government sought to allow same-sex marriages to be on a par with heterosexual ones.

He said: “If you genuinely would like the registration of civil partnerships to happen in a more general way, most people will say they can see the drift. But if you begin to call those marriage, you’re trying to change the English language.

“That does not mean you diminish, condemn, criticise, patronise any same-sex relationships because that is not what the debate is about,” added Dr Sentamu.

The archbishop said: “The Church has always stood out – Jesus actually was the odd man out. I’d rather stick with Jesus than be popular because it looks odd.”

Prime Minister David Cameron told the Conservative Party conference last year: “I don’t support gay marriage despite being a Conservative. I support gay marriage because I’m a Conservative.”

Black churchgoers ‘leaving’

Dr Sentamu also said both black parishioners and white working class churchgoers were poorly represented in the Anglican church.

“Where we have lost out is black people who had been realised Anglicans, who are now joining Pentecostal churches. That’s a huge drain,” he claimed.

“Heaven is not going to be full of just black people, just working-class people, just middle-class people, it’s going to be, in the words of Desmond Tutu, a rainbow people of God in all its diversity,” he added.

The Archbishop said he had never encountered racism from white clergy during his rise through the ranks of the Church.

But he said: “When I was a vicar there was a lady who didn’t want me to take her husband’s funeral because I was black. I took one funeral and at the end a man said to me, ‘Why did my father deserve to be buried by a black monkey?’ We received letters with excrement in.”

Archbishops Rowan Williams of Canterbury and John Sentamu of York have suggested that the Church of England and the Anglican Communion ought to be in “an open-ended engagement” with the Anglican Church in North America.

The organization is made up of individuals and groups that have left the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada, as well as those that have never been members of those two provinces. It includes entities such as the Reformed Episcopal Church, formed in 1873, and the Anglican Mission in the Americas, founded by Rwandan Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini and Moses Tay, the now-retired primate of the province of South East Asia, in 2000.

Williams and Sentamu made their remarks in a report to the Feb. 6-9 sessions of the Church of England’s General Synod.

The report comes in response to a resolution the synod passed two years ago in which the Church of England recognized and affirmed ACNA’s desire “to remain in the Anglican family,” but said it was not yet ready to be in full communion with the breakaway entity.

The archbishops said that theirs was “a report on work in progress since the consequences of the establishment of ACNA some two and a half years ago are still emerging and on a number of issues any assessment at this stage must necessarily be tentative.” They offer some details on three issues: the range of possible relationships between other Christian churches and the Church of England, how a “particular local Church” can be accepted as part of the Anglican Communion, and under what circumstances the orders of another church might be recognized and accepted by the Church of England.

They noted that General Synod determines the nature of its relationship with other Christian churches and that the Anglican Consultative Council‘s constitution allows for new members by decision of the Standing Committee of the Communion and with the assent of two-third of the primates of the Churches already listed in the constitution. And, they said, people ordained in churches that accept the historical episcopate may be received into the Church of England and be authorized to minister.

The February 2010 resolution referred to “the distress caused by recent divisions within the Anglican churches of the United States of America and Canada,” and the archbishops said that that distress will continue “for some considerable time.” The divisions occurred over the decisions of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada related to full inclusion of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) people in the life of the church, the ordination of women and the authority of scripture.

“Wounds are still fresh,” Sentamu and Williams write. “Those who follow developments in North America from some distance have a responsibility not to say or do anything which will inflame an already difficult situation and make it harder for those directly involved to manage the various challenges with which they are still grappling.”

Thus, they said, the outcome of the open-ended engagement that they suggest “is unlikely to be clear for some time yet, especially given the strong feelings on all sides of the debate in North America.”

The two men stressed that the Church of England “remains fully committed to the Anglican Communion and to being in communion both with the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church.”

The actual  report is here.

The Vancouver School of Theology has declared itself in danger of bankruptcy.

The school’s board of governors voted to declare a state of “financial exigency” on Wednesday, as it requires “extraordinary action” to avoid insolvency.

“The declaration of financial exigency is a formal necessity that will allow the board of governors to take the difficult steps that will restore the financial health of the school so it can continue its task of educating leaders for the church and world,” the school said in a statement.

It reports that a series of financial hits – including the 2008-09 economic downturn that created losses in its endowment funds, which were invested in securities – as well as the loss of funding from the United Church in 2011 and a reduction of funding from the Anglican Church are factors that have put it in economic straits.

“All of a sudden the economy tanked and that severely damaged the endowment funds,” said the school’s acting principal and dean, Stephen Farris.

“We are in a difficult financial situation,” he added. “It is serious but not disastrous.”

He said the pronouncement of “financial exigency” would make possible the layoff of tenured professors, which may be required to balance the books.

The school is embarking on a series of cost-cutting measures, including staff cuts, restructuring, fundraising and new partnerships in order to turn its situation around.

Farris is planning a meeting with students to explain the situation on Monday.

“This is still a really good school,” he said.

“You chose this school for a reason and the reason is still there. We will make sure that good quality education carries on.”

School spokeswoman Shannon Lythgoe said enrolment is healthy, with approximately 140 full-and part-time students enrolled.

“This does not impact our students’ ability to complete their courses of study or our ability to intake students in the future,” she said.

Lythgoe stressed that student bursaries remain well-funded and the school expects that it can turn things around.

“The analogy is being on a canoe and looking toward a waterfall and having the opportunity to change course – that is what we are talking about,” she said.

The school was founded in 1927, and has grown to offer studies in the United, Anglican and Presbyterian churches. Students can pursue general theology courses and train for ordination at the institution, which offers diplomas and degrees ranging from 10 months to three years.

I wonder how Regent College, Vancouver is doing…

WELL I DON’T KNOW if you have been keeping score, but it would seem that the courts have pretty consistently sided with the provincial churches in the property disputes that have been brought before them. Although we might have hoped and prayed otherwise, perhaps it should not surprise us that a secular judiciary has made its judgment on formal matters of canon law which it understands, rather than on the substantial matters of doctrine which are beyond its grasp. There are of course still some cases before the courts, but as we watched two iconic churches, St. John’s Vancouver (formerly St John’s, Shaughnessy) and Christ Church Savannah, courageously move en masse to new homes this fall, we cannot but think that the matter has been decided. We wish God’s blessing on those churches who have boldly made this decision, and praise God that our fellowship in Christ is not determined by synods or supreme courts. So where does this leave those of us who remain?

As a result of the recent legal decisions, one cannot help but recognise that the threat of property disputes to the ACC is now significantly diminished. These have been a real concern to many dioceses, not just the prospect of losing buildings, but also that lawsuits are simply money pits for everyone involved.  Now that that the legal question seems to be settled, we can expect certain prelates to lead their flocks more boldly into a glorious liberal future.
Furthermore, it would seem that the pendulum of theological liberalism has not yet swung to its furthest point. Although, the progressive campaign has been an incremental one, it shows no sign of running out of steam. This fall the progressives in the Diocese of Toronto, who have already been given license to bless same-sex unions set their sights further yet, when they passed motions to memorialize General Synod to reopen the Marriage Canon, and to petition their bishops to remove any barriers to the ordination of actively homosexual men or women. Perhaps most alarming about this, is that they passed these motions against the expressed will of Archbishop Colin Johnson. While, he would not be described as a theological conservative, Archbishop Johnson has been relatively successful at maintaining unity within his diocese. It would seem his tempering influence to the progressive agenda may no longer be effective.

We also need to take stock of the losses conservatives have suffered in recent years. We have experienced the loss of formidable long-serving churchmen such as brothers Harry and Tom Robinson and Fr. Robert Crouse. They have entered into their rest in Christ. But we have also been weakened in our witness as we have lost many talented priests and congregations through the fracturing of the Communion. Many of the churches who have left have encouraged numerous vocations, whose ministries will now bear fruit outside of the ACC.

At this time of year, it is much safer and more prudent to look back rather than forward, yet we at The Anglican Planet have never been terribly committed to the safe path. So let us speculate for a moment about what the future holds for conservatives remaining within the Anglican Church of Canada.

If we look south at the example of Mark Lawrence, Bishop of South Carolina, things do not look great. Despite all of the verbal reassurances that there is room for diversity in the Episcopal Church, the persecution that he has suffered at the hands of TEC has been unconscionable. It remains to be seen if the liberal victors in the Anglican Church of Canada will follow that course of tyranny, or become magnanimous in their ascendancy.

It seems to me that we are heading into some tough years for theological conservatives who choose to remain in the Anglican Church of Canada. Those of us who are committed to reforming from within will not likely see a lot of success. In all likelihood conservative clergy will be passed over for preferment, or out of conscience be prevented from accepting it. It would seem like the political options have been tried. But things are not entirely hopeless because we worship a God whose power is made perfect in our weakness. So, while it might seem that success in ecclesial politics is unavailable to us, what is still available to us is the glorious opportunity to faithfully preach the word of God, and disciple Christians, for this we should give thanks. Let us close the book on 2011 with the encouraging words of Bishop J.C. Ryle:

“Forever let us thank God that the building of the one true Church is laid on the shoulders of One who is mighty. Let us bless God that it does not rest upon man. Let us bless God that it does not depend on missionaries, ministers, or committees. Christ is the almighty Builder. He will carry on His work, though nations and visible Churches do not know their duty. Christ will never fail. That which He has undertaken He will certainly accomplish!”
A Joyous Christmas from your friends at The Anglican Planet

In Trois-Rivieres, Que., in November, the Anglican Church turned over its oldest church in the province to the municipality, which will restore it as a cultural centre. The French-speaking congregation of about 30 was unable to come up with the $2.5 million needed to repair the historic building, built in 1754 by the Roman Catholic Recollet order.

In return for ceding St. James Anglican Church to the city, the parish retains the right to use the sanctuary in perpetuity.

But in rural areas, where many congregations have as few as 12 members, the outlook is grim, said Dennis Drainville, the Anglican bishop of Quebec City, whose diocese stretches from Trois-Rivieres to the Lower North Shore and from the Maine border to Schefferville. The diocese counted 25,000 members 50 years ago; now the total is about 3,000.

Rural depopulation particularly affects English-speaking communities, Drainville said. “All numbers are declining in the region but the anglophone population is declining at a 50-per-cent faster rate than the French-speaking population,” he said.

Eight churches in the diocese closed this year and Drainville predicted that 50 of the remaining 80 will shut down over the coming decade.

While selling urban real estate can help boost church coffers, there are few takers for isolated country churches, Drainville said.

“I sell a church in the Diocese of Quebec and I’m lucky if I have 50 cents for a coffee,” he said.

In the Lower North Shore, near Labrador, 10 isolated Anglican churches are dotted along a coastline accessible only by air or water, Drainville said.

“Some of those communities have almost no children left in them. So the handwriting is on the wall. Those communities are going to die,” he said

If 50 out of 80 parishes really do close down in the next ten years, it sounds like the death knell for the Diocese of Quebec.

However, I did want to share this letter from Archbishop Duncan which seems to me to be a very wise response.

TO ALL THE PEOPLE OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH IN NORTH AMERICA:
Dearest Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Recent events within the Anglican Mission in the Americas have challenged us all. This letter is a brief report to you all about those events and about our efforts to find a path forward. The present reality is brokenness. The vision, however, that governs our fledgling Province remains unchanged: a Biblical, missionary and united Anglicanism in North America.

The resignation of nine Anglican Mission bishops, including the Bishop Chairman, from the House of Bishops of Rwanda, changed relationships with Rwanda, with fellow bishops and with the Anglican Church in North America. The resigned bishops lost their status in our College of Bishops as a result of their resignation from Rwanda. The Anglican Mission also lost its status as a Ministry Partner, since that status had been predicated on AMiA’s relationship with Rwanda. In addition, confusion and hurt has been created in Rwanda and in North America, and there is much serious work ahead of us.

Representatives of the Anglican Church in North America and of the Pawleys Island leadership met today in Pittsburgh. For the Anglican Church in North America the starting point was the importance of our Provincial relationship with the Province of Rwanda (a sister GAFCON Province) and with His Grace Archbishop Onesphore Rwaje, of our relationship with the North American Bishops Terrell Glenn and Thad Barnum and all the clergy licensed in Rwanda, and of our relationship to those represented by the Pawleys Island group with whom we were meeting. We, as the Anglican Church in North America, have been deeply connected to all three, and we can only move forward when issues and relationships have been adequately addressed and necessary transitions are in progress.

The agreement from today’s meeting in Pittsburgh was that the Anglican Church in North America is prepared to enter into a process by which our relationship with those who will rally to the Pawleys’ vision and leadership (Anglican Mission in the Americas, Inc.) might be restored to a status like the one existing before the Ministry Partner decision of 2010. All those at the meeting today agreed “that there were no subjects that were not on the table.” For the Anglican Church in North America, these subjects must include leadership, relationships, and jurisdictional participation in a way that is fully Anglican.

We made a partial beginning. Bishops Leonard Riches and Charlie Masters agreed to lead the negotiations from the Anglican Church in North America. Bishops Doc Loomis and TJ Johnston will lead from the AMiA side. There is much about what has happened that will have to be faced. The other part of this beginning will be to come alongside P.E.A.R. and their designated bishops (Barnum and Glenn), clergy, people and parishes in North America as they discern their next steps. The good news is that we know a God who has called us and who is able. [I Thess. 5:24] We are sure that He wants all the pieces back together in an ever-more dynamic, ever-more-submitted, ever-more transformed and transforming North American Church. [John 17]

Keep praying. With God nothing shall be impossible. [Luke 1:37] And besides that, He works all things together for good for those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose. [Rom. 8:28] Blessed Christmas!

Faithfully in Christ,

Archbishop and Primate
Anglican Church in North America

At its recent November (3 to 11) meeting in Asunción, Paraguay, the Executive Committee of the Province of the Southern Cone of America, together with its Bishops, voted to approve the Anglican Covenant. The Province views the covenant as a way forward given the difficult circumstance of watching certain Provinces of the Anglican Communion propose novel ways of Christian living in rejection of Biblical norms.

In response to these novel practices the Southern Cone had held churches in North America under its wing for some time while the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) was formed. However, the Province has not maintained jurisdiction over any local churches there for over a year. As a result, all so called ‘border crossings’ by any provincial members ceased (as of October, 2010) even though the Southern Cone still remains in impaired communion with US and Canadian Provinces. It is hoped that the Covenant can now provide Communion stability.

One of the Bishops commented, “We believe that life in the Communion must be maintained by a basic level of accountability if, in fact, we are a family of interdependent churches. The Covenant helps fulfill this role. Naturally, house rules should be kept to a minimum. But being a member of a family has responsibilities that must be ‘lived into’. Right now, a small faction in the Communion continues to do ‘its own thing’ enjoying many privileges and few responsibilities of family.”

Dear Friends in Christ:

And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed…….Romans 12:2

Not only have my brother bishops empowered me to write this message on their behalf, but it is being sent to you without them having opportunity to see it in advance. That indicates a level of trust that I by no means take for granted.

In fact, taking things for granted is a theme I want to reflect upon in this brief message as we approach this glorious season. Because so much has been attached to the Festival that really has nothing to do with what we really are celebrating, it becomes easy for even the devout Christian to take it for granted and get so caught up in what the culture has transformed into something so completely foreign to what it really is meant to be.

When the media and so many people we know keep wishing us “Happy Holidays” it is so easy to take it for granted that this is what it is, forgetting that their word holiday is derived from our grand old word Holy-Day.

Sadly, we can take for granted that this is the way things are and there is no point in us trying to turn them into what they should be.

We are told in Scripture not to conform but to transform. But, I fear that conformity is a tremendous temptation when we are surrounded by so many aspects of this season that we not only take for granted, but we may even begin to feel that they are not so bad after all.

Let us remind ourselves that most of us in the Anglican Network in Canada are where we are this Christmastide, without buildings we loved and friends we once cherished, because we were not prepared to take things for granted. We had the courage to say that because we had to be faithful to Holy Scripture, we could not follow the path down which so many of our leaders were trying to take us. We had to take a stand that involved saying firmly that without that Baby in the manger,there was no other way by which we could be saved.

We knew the price making this stand would take, and came to realize the reality of what it means “to give and not to count the cost”. And most of us would willingly do it again.

That experience, I believe, should embolden us as a Church to reclaim this Commemoration of “the birth in time of the timeless Son of God” for what it really is.

Because of what happened that first Christmas night, the world never would be the same again. And, when the impact of what really happened hits us, neither can we be the same again.

It is our prayer that as we gather around the manger, the enormity of His Love will so enflame our hearts and change our lives, that even while we celebrate we will share that message with others.

Your bishops and their wives (Stephen and Nona; Ron and Jan; Trevor and DeeDee; Charlie and Judy) join Trudy and me in sending our love and warmest greetings to each one of you, in whatever part of our extensive Diocese you may live. The shared love that comes with this greeting is another very special thing that none of us will ever take for granted.

Come, strong men, and see
This high mystery,
Tread firm where the shepherds have trod,
And watch, mid the hair
Of the Maiden so fair,
The five little fingers of God*

Yours in the Infant Jesus,

The Right Reverend Donald F Harvey
Bishop and Moderator

* G. K. Studdert Kennedy The Unutterable Beauty

The Archbishop of Canterbury is going to resign next year. At least that’s the story making the rounds of newspapers in London, and the interesting part is not that the 61-year-old Rowan Williams should be willing to give up another decade in the job. Or even, if the Telegraph is right, that the clergy and his fellow bishops are working to push him out…

Anglicanism remains widespread, with 80 million members around the world, from the Episcopal Church in the United States to the followers of Henry Luke Orombi, archbishop of Uganda. England is still the largest Anglican province, with 26 million members, at least nominally. But far more Anglicans are in church on a Sunday morning in Kenya and Nigeria than in Britain, and the center of Anglican belief is now firmly in Africa—a major part, as Philip Jenkins noted in his 2002 book The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, of the nearly complete conversion of sub-Saharan Africa to Christianity over the last 100 years.

The rise of the African church could have made Canterbury an important player in international relations—not exactly a rival to Rome (Catholicism’s one billion adherents make that unlikely) but at least a second European center with which Africans would have felt a relation and to which they could have looked for intellectual and ecclesial authority…

The current archbishop is a cultivated, intelligent man: a published poet and literary figure with theological sophistication and a talent for administration. Rowan Williams never possessed either the international star-power of someone like John Paul II or the intellectual depth of Benedict XVI. Still, he has more or less succeeded in his decade-long attempt to hold Anglicanism together with a kind of quiet, British suasion.

He pursued that end, however, mostly by trying to make himself an utterly neutral figure, beginning his reign as archbishop, for example, by leaving the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, an important British pro-life group. And his Laodicean pose has led him into such inanities as his 2008 call to enact some form of the “unavoidable” sharia law in Great Britain—even while his fellow Anglicans in Nigeria were being attacked by Muslim mobs…

The last full meeting of the Lambeth Conference—the once-a-decade meeting that brings together leaders from all the national churches to discuss and pass denomination-wide legislation—did not go well, back in 2008. African bishops pulled in one direction, holding separate meetings and hinting at schism, while the Western leaders pulled in the other direction, demanding that all churches in the communion embrace their views on human sexuality. That the church kept any unity at all was a tribute to the meliorating work of the Archbishop of Canterbury. And with Williams no longer at the helm, little will be achieved at the next Lambeth Conference.

While not wishing to be judgemental, I’m reminded of John F. Kennedy’s famous misquote of Dante on June 24, 1963: “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crisis maintain their neutrality.”