Matt Kennedy
The following three documents from the Church of the Good Shepherd were produced in July 2006 in response to General Convention.
On July 5th, 2006 the wardens and vestry unanimously passed the following resolution:
Whereas The Episcopal Church has failed to comply with the Windsor Recommendations as requested by the Primates, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Anglican Consultative Council and;
Whereas the position of The Episcopal Church with regard to human sexuality clearly violates the plain reading of Scripture, be it;
Resolved that the Vestry, Wardens, and Rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd intend to remain constituent members of the Anglican Communion and in full submission to the Word of God and be it;
Resolved that the Vestry, Wardens, and Rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd, disassociate from the decisions of 74th and the 75th General Conventions of the Episcopal Church and commit to full compliance with all the requests of the Windsor Report as accepted and amended by the Primates of the Anglican Communion and the Archbishop of Canterbury at the Dromantine Conference and be it;
Resolved that the Vestry, Wardens, and Rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd, on behalf of the Church of the Good Shepherd, intend to seek affiliation with and submit to full episcopal oversight from an orthodox Anglican province in communion with the See of Canterbury subsequent to adequate communication with members of the congregation.
...That is the core issue. The current teachings of the Episcopal Church with regard to the authority of the bible and human sexuality lead people deeper into darkness and further from the light of Christ.
For that reason and for the spiritual safety of our families, the vestry and I do not believe that we can participate any longer. It is our intention to seek affiliation with another faithful Anglican body.
There will be two parish gatherings: one on Wednesday evening the 12th of July at 6:30pm and one on Sunday morning, the 16th of July, between services. These meetings are designed to inform and to listen. Your questions and comments are welcome and encouraged. All members of the Church of the Good Shepherd are welcome.
God has prepared us over the last three years for these crucial days in the life of this parish
We've faced some very difficult times together. God has never abandoned us but always protected us and provided for us in every circumstance. Nor, have we abandoned each other. We've become a family. We've stood together and committed ourselves to Jesus Christ and to his Word. And Jesus has built us up in numbers, in strength, and in devotion...more
Dear Bishop Adams,
I hope this letter finds you well.
I am writing with a great deal of sadness but also with resignation. The wardens, vestry, and clergy (Anne and I) of the Church of the Good Shepherd have unanimously approved a resolution to seek disaffiliation with the Episcopal Church. We have held two parish meetings and the resolution has met with near unanimous support.
The Episcopal Church’s failure to comply fully with the Windsor Report is not the only reason for this decision. The Episcopal Church has rejected the primary authority of the bible as God’s revealed Word and the final arbiter of doctrine and faith and in so doing has departed from orthodox Christianity. The Episcopal Church’s false teachings with regard to human sexuality, teachings with which you concur, serve to draw people further into the darkness of sexual sin and further from the light and freedom of Christ.
We simply cannot participate or remain affiliated with such an institution in good conscience.
We warmly remember our last meeting with you at Good Shepherd. During that meeting we agreed that our dealings together would be handled in a transparent and loving way. The resolution we have passed is just that, a resolution. No legal steps have been taken to effect our disaffiliation. Moreover, we have committed take no further steps until we meet with you.
You know our intentions. But we hope to move forward with your blessing, or, at the very least, with a mutual sense of Christian charity and friendship.
Our hope is to retain all assets and property.
We realize that you also feel that these properties are held in trust for the diocese of Central New York .
As you may know, we have asked to meet with you in the near future.
We believe that we can find a way forward that satisfies both your need to protect the interests of the diocese of Central New York and our need to protect the interests of the people of the Church of the Good Shepherd.
I’m writing to you now because I do not know when we will be able to meet and we want you to be fully informed with regard to our intentions directly rather than second-hand.
Please know that the vestry and people of the Church of the Good Shepherd and Anne and I pray for you every Sunday and love you very much. You are traveling a path that we cannot tread but we harbor no personal animosity toward you. You have always acted graciously and kindly toward us and we have endeavored to act in a like manner. May our future dealings be marked by Christian kindness, patience, and love.
In Christ,
Matt+
10 Comments:
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If we are not careful, we will end up tranferring the wealth of the Episcopal Church to trial lawyers. That would be a sad thing indeed. It would be better if we negotiated a settlement that honored the contribution of 815, the diocese, the parishes and the needs of the people there. That way, we all win (or lose equally).
YBIC,
[2] Posted by Philip Snyder (Dallas) on 04-30-2008 at 08:46 AM
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Agreed Phil and Timothy+, that is precisely what we were trying to do.
[3] Posted by Matt Kennedy on 04-30-2008 at 09:27 AM
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I think we need to get +Schori a new dictionary where the description of the word negotiation gets changed from “sue the pants off of them” to “find a win-win for both sides to show Christian love to others.”
[4] Posted by Already left on 04-30-2008 at 05:19 PM
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Just because you have a “fiduciary responsibility” over property doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t alienate that property. If Mr. A gives me $100,000 to hold in trust for the benefit of Mrs. B, I have a fiduciary responsibility to Mrs. B for the money--but that does NOT mean I can’t give $20,000 of that money to Dr. C. to pay for Mrs. B’s urgently-needed medical treatment. In that case, it’s quite probably IN Mrs. B’s best interest that I DO thus dispose of the entrusted money. Indeed, under those circumstances, Mrs. B might very well sue me, and win, for BREACH of fiduciary duty if I refused to pay for her treatment, but just reinvested the trust property in an effort to preserve and increase it. It has long sounded to me like a number of the players here are hiding behind “fiduciary duty” when in fact they are simply doing what they wanted to do in the first place. It is no stretch to argue that for, say, an institutionalist bishop like John Howe could nevertheless reasonably believe it to be in the best interests of TEC for Howe to let the conservatives depart with their property. TEC holds itself out to the public as a church. If Howe let the conservatives walk with their property, told the press, “This is turning the other cheek, and it’s the Christian thing to do,” and Howe thereby avoids lawsuits and an enormous black eye for TEC, and assists TEC in maintaining its existence and preserving the illusion that TEC is a Christian entity, it’s certainly arguable that he’s acting in TEC’s best interests in so doing. It’s acting in the beneficiary’s best interests--NOT preserving the trust assets in perpetuity--that is the real fiduciary duty. This needs to be clear. Now, TEC might very well disagree with Howe as to whether letting the conservatives go with their parishes is in TEC’s best interests. They might sue him, alleging breach of fiduciary duty. But those are different questions from the question of what Howe’s actual fiduciary duty is, and of what range of actions is permitted to Howe in the reasonable exercise of his discretion as fiduciary. What ought not to happen is for people to cry “fiduciary duty” as if that ended the discussion. It does not. If a not-so-orthodox bishop thinks it is genuinely in TEC’s interests to litigate to the death a case over the property of a departing orthodox parish, let the bishop say so, and not just cry “fiduciary duty” as if that answered the question. If the not-so-orthodox bishop thinks it could very well be better in the long run for TEC and its public image if the conservatives were sent on their merry way with a blessing and a smile, but thinks TEC will sue him if he does that, then he should say that. TEC is nominally a church, and, like many other nonprofit and charitable entities, it is not necessarily violating its raison d’etre if it gives things away without market payment.
[5] Posted by Africanised Anglican on 04-30-2008 at 07:57 PM
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Fr. Kennedy,
[6] Posted by One Day Closer on 05-05-2008 at 08:53 AM
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One Day Closer, Thank you for these prayers. Unfortunately, they were not answered. If you look at the date of this note, you will see that it is dated for July 5th 2006. What we are doing is publishing correspondence between the bishop and my church during the months and years leading up to the diocese’ filing a lawsuit to steal our property.
[7] Posted by Matt Kennedy on 05-05-2008 at 08:56 AM
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Oh Fr. Kennedy,
[8] Posted by One Day Closer on 05-05-2008 at 09:04 AM
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I asked the Lord that I might grow
’Twas He who taught me thus to pray,
I hoped that in some favored hour,
Instead of this, He made me feel
Yea more, with His own hand He seemed
Lord, why is this, I trembling cried,
These inward trials I employ,
John Newton, c. 1779
[9] Posted by Ralph on 05-05-2008 at 10:06 AM
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Matt+, your wrote: “What we are doing is publishing correspondence between the bishop and my church during the months and years leading up to the diocese’ filing a lawsuit to steal our property.” I read the letters but did not find any response from +Adams. Did you ever get any response? If so, can you share it?
[10] Posted by EmilyH on 05-05-2008 at 10:34 AM
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From Fr. Matt’s 7/21/06 letter to Bp. Adams,
A paragraph like that is all that’s needed to work charitably out of the whole Anglican mess. One “side” is talking about “fiduciary responsibility”, the other about people’s souls… when those priorities can’t be harmonized, a charitable negotiation would be correct.
There have been cases (Overland Park, Plano) where parishes and diocese have applied this. I think that the Primates’ Communique might have helped this happen more broadly.
The fact is that lawsuits are spiritual defeat, and can’t be justified as fiduciary responsibility. TEC/any diocese would realize more money by negotiating a fair sale and other considerations than by expending the money on lawsuits, especially the costly appeals.