Actually, We Were Looking for Some Cooperation...

Somewhere, buried in this rant from David Virtue:

http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=6167

is the following claim:

From the DIOCESE OF COLORADO comes the latest word from the Rev. Don Armstrong, rector of Grace Church & St. Stephen's in Colorado Springs.

The petty harassment by Diocesan attorney Martin Nussbaum continues of Grace Church & St. Stephen's.

Nussbaum has so far managed to freeze a scholarship trust fund that has benefited hundred's of parish college students, but now will only be collecting interest until the property issue is settled.

Also frozen at Grace Church is the parish's discretionary fund--which has most recently been used to help families of soldiers from Fort Carson serving in Iraq--little does the bishop care about those who defend his freedom of religious persecution.

The parish rector has been also been forced off the board of Ecumenical Social Ministries by board president and Roman Catholic priest Don Dunn--the diocesan attorney's own pastor.


Three points need to be made here:

1. The scholarship trust is actually an area where we were trying to make cooperative progress with Mr. Armstrong to the benefit of students in both congregations. The whining in this Virtue entry appears to be the best measure of his ability to cooperate at this time. Somehow I do not expect it to get better. Perhaps this shameful attempt to leverage this most generous program is a sign that the end is nearer that we thought.

2. The discretionary fund is the subject of Count 5 in the Presentment, on page ten:

http://www.graceepiscopalcolosprings.org/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/presentment.pdf

and perhaps best left frozen until this matter is settled, since there is a very public issue with how this fund has been handled in the past (i.e., not enough spent on families such as those from Fort Carson serving in Iraq and too much, um,...elsewhere).

3. The feedback I am hearing from the Grace Episcopal clergy is that these new members from Grace on the ESM board are welcome substitutes and that Mr. Armstrong had not been participating in the last few years, anyway. Perhaps such a claim as is seen in the Virtue entry would have some impact if the new members from Grace were not being welcomed so enthusiastically.


Such an attack on Mr. Nussbaum (whose preparation in response to the secessionist claims for property has been exemplary) for the consequences of Mr. Armstrong's own transgressions does not make sense.

Time to get a grip on reality...it is not necessarily being published in the conservative blogs.