Jake, We Hardly Knew Ye

Rev. Terry Martin's blog "Father Jake Stops the World" is coming down for good. See the news here:

http://frjakestopstheworld.blogspot.com

Father Jake has been a steadfast supporter of discourse within the church and has posted numerous times about the issues associated with the split in the Anglican Communion and Episcopal Church. His support of those displaced in the property theft schemes in Virginia, Colorado and California, amongst others, has been most welcome and appreciated. The sense of right and wrong he was able to express has been a source of comfort to those wronged in these maneuverings, and an accusing finger in the face of those committing the crimes.

Father Jakes's site was mostly known for its comprehensive coverage of the current day issues that Episcopalians face in the Anglican world. The vitriol being passed in the general Anglican blogosphere can get to anyone, especially one showing the kind of responsibility to host a positive viewpoint such as Father Jake's for five years running. I imagine this break will be a welcome chance to recharge the spirit.

"Jake's" compassion, understanding and commitment will be missed, but no one is more deserving of a chance to make a start in a new direction. I look forward to seeing more from "Jake" in the future. Thank you, Jake. You made a difference and it was important to us.

Maybe this is why justice takes so long...

See the details here:

http://www.csindy.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A25317

The docs must be under the leg of the pool table!

601 N. Tejon

I could not let these pass by.
They came in as comments elsewhere a while ago, but clearly deserve a thread of their own
Time to fire up the blog again:

"I read with dismay the Tidings article about McWilliams House. I first saw the "scaffolding" on Christmas Eve. It used to be that (this) church was a good neighbor, looks like CANA is becoming a blight on the neighborhood. Perhaps they're trying to get an urban renewal grant, which they can then use to pay their lawyers to delay delay delay........."

and

"How precious. According to Wroblewski in CANA's latest court filings, they are letting the front deck on McWilliam's House fall down so that the homeless and vagrants won't sleep there. Sounds like that new NBC show, "Live from Tejon Street, its Sunday Morning"........"

After all of the secessionist hand-wringing over the ability of the Episcopalians to manage property (irrelevant, Dareleen, to the pending cases, by the way...even legally-illiterate-I can see that much in the padded volumes your group has filed so far, including your poorly conceived affidavit), now we have this. The condition of McWilliams House is a disGrace/CANA.
I can feel the embarrassment all the way over here and it must be EXCRUCIATING being over there, Jon.

I suppose this is what we could expect, since property management has NEVER been a strong point of the secessionist group (case in point: divestiture of the adjacent properties on Willamette Ave. to cover up other management shortcomings).
Two wrongs did not make a right in that case...just made them look even more foolish in light of the current circumstances.

Removed as obsolete

Armstrong Defrocked

Details can be found here:

http://www.graceepiscopalcolosprings.org/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/armstrongdeposed.doc


Listen to KRCC here:

http://www.krcc.org/krccnews/Armstronggone.m3u


Colorado Springs Gazette article here:

http://www.gazette.com/articles/church_29212___article.html/armstrong_diocese.html


Rocky Mountain News article here:

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5736914,00.html


The rent-an-auditor approach did not influence this at all.
The next venue for this issue is criminal court...now that the police have the time (see RMN article).

Donald Armstrong...SC Recommends Defrock

Please see the details here:

http://www.coloradodiocese.org/06_newsandevents/PDFs/ec_finaljudgement.pdf

The decision of the Standing Committee is final, meaning the will no longer be deliberating.
The Bishop has 30 days to announce the final sentence.
Donald has two weeks to respond in some constructive manner to try to influence the Bishop's announcement, which can have a result as severe or less so than the sentence of the Standing Committee.

Let me see, that puts us at about...Halloween...at the latest.
Do you suppose our Bishop has a sense of humor?

Opinions?

An Open Invitation to Discuss...Vestry Elections are Coming.

The upcoming vestry vote, scheduled for Monday, September 10 (with some alternate times being discussed as I write this, I believe) will give us a unique opportunity, not afforded members of Grace Episcopal Church for the last 20 years, to vote for 3 new members of the vestry in an open election of volunteer participants with prior notification and biographical information available for each.

First things first:

...thanks to all of those volunteering for election. This is a trail-blazing opportunity and you are the trailblazers.

...thanks to the current vestry for sponsoring this event at this time in this manner. It is this activist approach to pursuing a new direction that will shape Grace Episcopal Church's future.

The events of the last 1, 5 10 and 20 years have been unprecedented in this church and some of these events have been so outrageous that sometimes it is difficult to put our current situation in perspective. Keep in mind that we are a sizable church:

540 members (or very close to that), including adults and children.

424 voting members, including legal adults, comparable in definition to the voting list assembled by Grace/Nigeria (I think that was 792 total, with 342/370 voting to leave, if you catch my drift...424).

In short, as a sizable church with designs on near-term reoccupation of our traditional digs, we have the ability to accumulate and manage significant financial resources, perhaps more fully realizable when we are home again, but significant, even in exile. Indeed, the diocese may be able to expect big things out of us with such a large count, so the ability to manage financial contributions and expectations will be paramount for the existing and new vestry members. In this context, it might be good to have a response from the prospective vestry members to the following questions:


1. For those who have had prior vestry experience at Grace, what are the necessary changes you are going make about your approach to being a vestry member this time around?

2. How does a vestry member best help promote the financial well-being of the church through promotion, cost-control, etc.?...what kind of vision applies here?

3. At what point do we start making our contribution to the diocese?

4. In what capacity and under what circumstances should the vestry engage other members of the parish in church business?...Is this desirable?

5. What is the vestry's role in getting the priest-in-charge matter settled and when?

6. What can the vestry do to better publicize what they are doing to manage the financial affairs of this church to avoid appearing secretive?...or inactive?

7. How is an activist vestry best achieved?...Is that even desirable?


Please post a response to any or all questions, or even something you would rather talk about at your earliest convenience. If you respond with your name and you are running for the vestry, your comment will be published. I will be reviewing this blog routinely to ensure timely update.

Core Message Reminder from the Bishop of York

Check out this thread for some very interesting discussion on the comments from the Bishop of York concerning the relative importance of the issues before us:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/25/nsentamu125.xml


Particularly noteworthy is this comment:

"As long as someone does not deny the very basic doctrines of the Church - the creation, the death, the resurrection of Christ and human beings being made in the image of God - then the rest really helps but they are not the core message.

"And I haven’t found that in Ecusa or in Canada, where I was recently, they have any doubts in their understanding of God which is very different from anybody. What they have quarrelled about is the nature of sexual ethics."

So, this downplay suggests nothing to steal a church over, huh?


Father Jakes's related thread is worth a look, especially in the first half:

http://frjakestopstheworld.blogspot.com/2007/08/andersons-variation-on-godwins-law.html

The Charges Finally Gain Some Traction

The action now moves out of the church and into the criminal courts:

http://www.krcc.org/krccnews/2007/08/springs_police_investigating_r_1.php



Father Jake has better blogging on this than I could ever support here:

http://frjakestopstheworld.blogspot.com/2007/08/police-investigation-of-don-armstrong.html

http://frjakestopstheworld.blogspot.com/2007/08/armstrong-found-guilty-of-theft.html

News Worthy of Awakening this Blog: GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS!!!

Read it here:

http://www.coloradodiocese.org/06_newsandevents/PDFs/ecclesiastical%20trial.pdf


or here:

The Bishop and Diocese of Colorado are grateful to the Ecclesiastical Court of the Diocese for faithfully fulfilling their canonical responsibilities in hearing the case against The Rev. Donald Armstrong involving allegations of misappropriation of church funds.

The preliminary judgment made public today by the five members of the Ecclesiastical Court found unanimously that the Rev. Don Armstrong is guilty on all Counts included in the Motion for Summary Judgment in his case. Those counts are: Count 1 – commission of crimes, including theft of $392,409.93 from Grace Church, and causing Grace Church to issue false W-2s and underreport Armstrong’s income and benefits by $548,097.27; Count 2 – that Armstrong received illegal loans totaling $122,479.16 in violation of Diocesan Canons; Count 3 – unauthorized encumbrance and alienation of Grace Church’s real property; Count 4 – violation of the temporary inhibition placed on Armstrong; Count 5 – the improper use of clergy discretionary funds; and Count 6 – failure to maintain proper books of account.

Last week’s evidentiary hearing before the Ecclesiastical Court is the culmination of a well-defined disciplinary process established by the Canons of the Episcopal Church whereby serious allegations of wrongdoing against any member of the clergy can be thoroughly and impartially investigated, and throughout which the accused has numerous rights and protections. The Ecclesiastical Court—whose members are elected by The Diocesan Convention—functions independently of the Bishop and is governed by the disciplinary laws and processes of the Episcopal Church’s Canons. Those Canons exist to guard the well-being of all members of the church, and when there is wrongdoing to help restore the spiritual and institutional health of the church.

The preliminary judgment issued by the Ecclesiastical Court marks the beginning of a thirty day period during which all parties have an opportunity to respond. At the conclusion of that thirty-day period, the court will issue a final judgment along with recommendations for sentencing to the Bishop. Under the Canons of the Church, it is the Bishop’s responsibility to impose judgment. The Bishop can, at his discretion, lessen the court’s recommended sentence but cannot increase it.


I guess this is what mountain-biking can get you in your absence.

July 31, 2007 Hearing for the Presentment Concerning Rev. Donald Armstrong

The hearing of the Ecclesiastic Trial Court on the matter of the charges listed in the Presentment concerning the Reverend Donald Armstrong is open to the public.

The hearing, which will be held at:

Dagwell Hall, St. John's Cathedral
1350 Washington Avenue, Denver, Colorado

It will start at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 and will include live testimony.

Please use the comment area to organize carpools or coordinate attendance, if you feel okay about leaving contact information on this blog (it would be at your own risk). A great deal can be accomplished through inference, if you are not comfortable with posting such information.

Another CA Ruling in Our Favor

The ground swell continues:

http://frjakestopstheworld.blogspot.com/2007/07/california-court-rules-that-diocese.html

Again, it is only a matter of time.
Can someone show me a ruling in favor of a secessionist group that stands up to appeal, if not a jury?
The CANA/secessionists should not be wasting the time of the El Paso County Commercial Docket.

No Denying It Now

The parish property was officially given to the authority of the Bishop of Colorado in 1929 by the Grace Church corporation.

See this significant historical document at:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dc6t4nfc_9w7m4pr

I'll tell you, these attorneys we have are the best.

Speaking of Property...try this well-made argument

Sent in by friends of Grace Episcopal is this link to an article on Episcope:

http://episcopalchurch.typepad.com/episcope/2007/06/control-issues.html#more


Quincy appears to be as misguided as the folks down the street.

CA Court of Appeals overturns property ruling

Check out the following for positive news on the property front:

http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/3980/


See the actual document here:

http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/G036096.DOC


In this case a lower court had ruled in favor of a secessionist group, but this ruling was overturned on appeal. I am not posting this because I think that we will need to go through appeal, but because the accumulation of case law in our favor is helped by news like this.

It is only a matter of time.

The Manyoni Orphans Sponsorship Trust...This Issue is Beyond Church Politics

The following is forwarded by Bill Hazelton (Grace Episcopal) from Karl Weiskopf (Grace CANA):

"When Building for Mission, the effort to fund an office building for MOSTRUST the mission to AIDS orphans in Manyoni, Tanzania was being planned, the directors of MOSTRUST USA made the decision to be totally dependent on the Lord to provide the financing for the project. As with the vehicle fund raising in 2006, the need was made known to God’s people and the Lord led them to respond with their donations. The $28,000 original objective for the cost of the building was exceeded in six weeks and contributions are already in for more than half of the $4,200 tax that must be paid at the time of the purchase transaction for a total of $32,200.
.
The office building in Manyoni will enable MOSTRUST to be even more effective in serving the AIDS orphans who come to it for care. The small staff will be able to work more efficiently and will be equipped to process the increasing number of children more effectively. Caregivers and orphan children will be better served because of Building for Mission."


There are additional costs to assume here, such as land rent and insurance, so the work is not done, even if the buiding is covered, so it is time for some perspective:

The MOSTrust beneficiaries are African AIDS orphans, who are not concerned about who is occupying their church or whose child did or did not receive a college stipend.

The primary concern of these young people is survival in a land hostile to such attempts on many fronts, some of which they have all witnessed firsthand as children.

In contribution to MOSTrust, whether it goes to the building or to sponsoring an AIDS-orphaned child or insuring the organization's ability to proceed, you are literally helping the future of Africa through its offspring. Bishop O'Neill quoted a fellow bus rider in South Africa on the AIDS epidemic, who said "My country is dying". Donating to MOSTrust is the kind of assistance we can give to help ensure these young victims will be alive and able to participate in the future of Africa.

We are all aware that there are two Grace's, separated by a number of issues and that Bishop Alpha has congratulated the CANA faction for "walking in the old shoes", perhaps more cognitive of what an old friend is doing than of the scope and reach of the conflict. This means nothing to the orphans who have suffered such overwhelming consequences of the AIDS epidemic in Africa. They need our support independent of the issues we have with one another on other relatively trivial issues. We can put aside our differences to help make a positive change for these young Africans.

That numerous individuals from Grace Episcopal, Grace/CANA and outside of Grace are participating in the MOSTrust sponsorships, the building fund and the effort to cover those costs beyond buying the building is an acknowledgement of the significance of the problem Bishop Alpha has posed to us. Let's see what we can do to take this over the top and to the next level of support...the need we can fill goes way beyond the MOSTrust building.

Thanks to Bill and Karl and all of the MOSTrust participants and also to those who have been considering it, who now realize it is time to engage. Please see the contact link at this URL to do so:

http://www.mostrustusa.org/

MOSTrust is an organization entirely independent of Grace Church in any form and finances are handled separately from either church group.

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.

Bishop Alpha Checks in on the Split

From the Rift Valley on the front page of the secessionist church site:

http://www.graceandststephens.org/

Please keep Bishop Alpha and his diocese in your prayers.
I believe this does not represent a complete understanding of the situation in Colorado Springs.

Grace Episcopalians...YOU ROCK!

So the vote shows 342 people voting to join CANA...93% of those voting.

What this means is:

1. The boycott was an outstanding success.

2. The CANA population is finally defined to be as small as it is.

other notes:

Of 822 possible voters, only 370 turned out.

2500 people are nowhere to by found in this myth.

Thanks to your powerful and effective cooperation, the truth will be known.

Calling Jimmy Carter!

Friend and member Dr. John Horner has provided this concerning the May 20 vote:

The plebiscite at Grace CANA on May 20-26 to secede from the Episcopal Church raises a number of procedural issues that should be resolved before any fair-minded person could consider it legitimate. Regardless of whether the vote is illegal, as the Diocese of Colorado maintains, what are the procedures in place to insure that the vote itself will be valid?

Will the voting be anonymous? If parishioners are asked to place their names on ballots, will there be a reprisal against those who vote against the secession? What of those who choose not to vote? Even if the vote is anonymous a record of a parishioner’s participation in the vote will likely be kept. Will their non-participation as recorded in the census be taken as opposition to the secession by Armstrong and the vestry?

Who will do the counting? The County’s Clerk and Recorder has been slated to do the counting. But he was part of the vestry that voted to secede from the ECUSA and as such is not an unbiased observer in this process. Regardless of his credentials and his trustworthiness, he cannot be at Grace CANA for the entire week of May 20-26 to register every vote. Both Armstrong and the vestry have already stated that they will leave the church regardless of the outcome. Can either be reasonably considered impartial officials in this process?

Who gets to vote? As was demonstrated in the south before the Voting Rights Act, if you can control who votes, you can determine the outcome of any election. Grace CANA has stated that any member in “good standing may vote.” But who decides who is in good standing? Armstrong in a recent “Grace Tidings” stated that he believed “a real pruning of our parish had become necessary.” As recently as this March, members of the vestry were telling certain members of the parish that they were “no longer welcome at Grace.”—cleansing the parish before the vote to secede. Will there be any additional cleansing of the voter list before the upcoming vote?

How big of a count will be necessary in order for the vote to be considered valid? A plebiscite is a poll of all of the electorate. In the recent past Armstrong has claimed that Grace and St. Stephens is 1500 plus. Does that mean that all 1500 plus congregants must vote? Does that mean that the vestry needs a majority of 750 plus voting for the proposal? What would it mean if such a majority did vote for secession? Are the non-votes counted for the proposal or against it?

The legitimacy of an election process is essential for the governed to be willingly lead. For instance, the recent election in Nigeria was marred by ballot box stuffing and voter intimidation and the outcome of that election threatens to throw Nigeria into civil war. Will the vote at Grace CANA follow the Nigerian model? Or would Don Armstrong and the secessionist vestry employ independent election monitors to insure a valid result?

In the end, one might as well ask, what does it all mean? The reportage coming out of Grace CANA is that the vote is about whether some portion of the congregants will follow Armstrong and the vestry into CANA, taking the church property with them. But the property is under legal dispute and Armstrong himself is under a cloud of suspicion for illegal financial management of the church, and so the vote at Grace is most likely simply moot.