Common Sense Has Died; No Services Scheduled (Too Few Mourners)

[Note: This piece appeared a while back in our local paper. Since it is a very good read, I am posting it for your entertainment while I work on some weightier posts to come. ;>) ]

Someone sent me a little missive out of London mourning the death of Common Sense.

It was sad to hear, as citizens and government leaders today debate issues whose solutions would be obvious if Common Sense still had a pulse. It didn't say exactly when Common Sense kicked the bucket, or get into much detail on the cause of death. I'm guessing he died from loneliness and that his death was excruciatingly painful. We all need social interaction to help feed our spirit and nobody seemed to be paying much attention to Common Sense.

We need look no further than Sacramento and Washington, D.C., to see evidence of neglect and abuse of Common Sense.

In his absence, our government leaders have felt compelled to pass laws that would otherwise be obvious if Common Sense were still around. He would know without being told, for example, that you shouldn't stand on an oven door to reach for a box of cereal, or that it would be a great idea to wear a helmet if you drive a motorcycle 100 miles an hour in a forest.

I'm guessing he'd also suggest that you shouldn't text the passenger in the back seat while driving on the Coastal Highway, or across the Bay Bridge in fog. And he'd remind us that before the invention of soy milk there were actually cows, with udders that squirted milk if you gave them a proper tug. Many people — called farmers, according to history books — actually drank that milk and grew strong enough to change a wagon wheel with their bare hands.

He'd also have probably reminded us that a home we built for $300,000 in 2001 could not possibly have been worth $700,000 four years later, or that we shouldn't sign paperwork without reading it, no matter what size the print is.

There's a great chance he would have whispered in the president's ear that there is a thousand years of history that tells us you can't win a war in Iraq, or Afghanistan, and that you should never spend more money than you make. Common Sense would have shaken his head at the notion of giving an Afghan tribal chief a bag of cash while closing schools and senior citizen centers back home.

And he might have even ended the immigration debate by simply saying, “You can come here, but not on our dime. We really need to take care of our own citizens first and we don't have enough money to even do that very well. So when you sneak into our country, bring some cash with you to cover your own education and medical bills. Or ... file the proper paperwork and come in the front door. The sign on that door, by the way, is in English.”

He might also be wondering how, with 14 million people collecting unemployment benefits in this country, there can still be jobs “no American wants.” If there are still jobs no American wants, perhaps we should reconsider our unemployment benefit policies. I know ... the horror of it. “You want me to pick what?”

And if the Chinese can make a solar panel for $10 while it costs $1,000 to make a similar solar panel in California, Common Sense would have raised a red flag on any proposal to loan the California solar company $500 million of taxpayer money. Then — since the executives of that failed solar company won't tell us what happened to the $500 million government “loan” — Common Sense would find out why it costs $1,000 to make a solar panel in California in the first place and how we are supposed to compete with the Chinese for any manufacturing jobs.

If Common Sense wasn't dead by then, I'm sure that decision finally put him out of his misery. It likewise would have driven him over the edge to stand by while a Chinese sculptor was contracted to build a monument to the late Martin Luther King, Jr. Common Sense might have wondered why they couldn't find a black sculptor to chisel a monument to that Civil Rights hero, or why anyone would have a monument like that built in a country that has no respect for basic human rights, even if they did save $8 million (they argued that's how much less it cost to build the monument in China and have it shipped here). Common Sense would have wondered about the process that went into that decision.
. . .

It would be obvious to Common Sense that the best way for us to get out of this recession is to keep government as far away from Main Street as possible. Common Sense knew that government was never qualified, nor designed to create jobs. Most politicians know nothing about jobs because they've never actually had one. And ... no ... spending taxpayer money is not a job, it's a hobby for some and an addiction for others.

“Government,” Common Sense would always say, “never injected a single penny into the economy that it didn't first take out of the economy.” There are many in government today who think money comes from the Tooth Fairy.

According to his obituary, Common Sense was survived by several step-brothers: I Want It Now, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I'm A Victim.

There was no mention of an actual Big Brother, but I'm pretty sure Common Sense left one of those behind as well.

--Jeff Ackerman

Statement by Bede Parry Posted: Jefferts Schori Was Informed about His Past

The Website of Patrick Marker which delves into sexual misconduct (and murder!) at Conception Abbey in Missouri has posted a .pdf copy of a two-page statement signed by former priest Bede Parry on May 7 of this year. The statement sets forth a full chronology of Bede Parry's sexual misconduct with young male students at both Conception Abbey and St. John's, in Minnesota, while he was a student there.

Of particular interest to Episcopalians, and in light of the previous posts I have put up on this topic (here, here and here), Bede Parry's statement contains this unequivocal declaration about what was communicated to the Presiding Bishop, the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, when she was the Bishop of Nevada:

"Also in 2000, I considered joining the Prince of Peace monastery in Riverside, California. Prince of Peace had me undergo a series of psychological tests. After the testing, Prince of Peace’s Abbot Charles Wright informed me I was no longer a candidate. The psychological evaluation had determined that I had a proclivity to reoffend with minors. Abbot Wright called Conception Abbey’s Abbot Gregory Polan with this information."

"Abbot Polan would later share the information with Robert Stoeckig from the Catholic Diocese of Las Vegas, Episcopal Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and the human resources department at Mercy Ambulance in Las Vegas. Bishop Daniel Walsh, Monsignor Ben Franzinelli, Bishop Joseph Pepe, Archbishop Robert Sanchez and Rev. Bob Nelson were also made aware of my previous misconduct."

When compared with his earlier statements to the Kansas City Star at the time the Missouri lawsuit against Conception Abbey became public (and subsequently confirmed by his attorney), this statement provides further proof that Bede Parry had lied to Bishop Jefferts Schori about the extent of his previous abuse when he applied to her for reception as an Episcopal priest in 2002, and that she must have discovered the lie when she was fully informed by Abbot Polan of the findings with regard to Bede Parry. It is inconceivable that any Episcopal bishop at that point would not have called for the fullest background check of Bede Parry, if not have shown him the door right then and there.

Canon III.11 of the Episcopal Church at the time required that before he could be received into the Church, Bede Parry had to furnish proofs of his "godly and moral character", and that his departure from the Roman Catholic Church had not been on account of "any circumstance unfavorable to moral or religious character . . .". Again, it is inconceivable that the full information made available to Bishop Jefferts Schori could have satisfied either of these requirements before she agreed to receive him in the fall of 2004.

[UPDATE 11/07/2011: An alert reader points out that Bede Parry also says this in his statement (emphasis added):

In 2002, I pursued a cooperative dismissal from the Catholic Church. Fr. Dan Ward, a canon lawyer from Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, prepared the documents.

So Father Parry appears to have no longer been a priest in the Catholic Church (even one on suspension) at the time of his reception into the Episcopal Church in 2004, but had agreed earlier to being dismissed from his orders. While sacred orders in the Catholic Church, once validly received, never become invalid, the dismissal of a member of the clergy entails the loss of any ability to exercise the powers of his order. This new wrinkle raises the question: was Bishop Jefferts Schori made aware of Parry's cooperative dismissal from his orders in the Catholic Church? And if his prior offenses were grounds enough for his dismissal from orders, why were they not likewise grounds for refusing to receive him as a priest in the Episcopal Church?

Canon III.11.1(a)(2) in effect in 2003 required that Fr. Parry supply "[e]vidence of previous Ministry and that all other credentials are valid and authentic" (emphasis added). How could he have met this requirement if his credentials had been declared invalid by the Catholic Church -- with his cooperation and consent?? The questions for Bishop Jefferts Schori just get curiouser and curiouser. . . .]

It must be remembered, in considering all of this evidence, that 2003 was a year of intense examination in the Episcopal Church concerning its standards to prevent sexual abuse of minors and children. First, General Convention in summer 2003 enacted Resolution B008, "Protection of Children and Youth from Abuse." This recommended that dioceses obtain "a written application, public records check, an interview and reference checks" for every applicant who would "regularly work with children." (Bede Parry had been functioning as the organist, and assisting with the choir, at All Saints Las Vegas before applying to be received as a priest.) Next, the Episcopal House of Bishops, of which Jefferts Schori was a member, met in August 2003 and promulgated a pastoral letter addressed as follows:

To be read or cause to be distributed in every parish, mission, preaching station, and church-related institution which works with children and youth

The letter went on to state, in part:

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

We your bishops are steadfastly committed to seeing that the Episcopal Church is a community of safety and health for all people. The Body of Christ, the Church, must be a place where adults, children, and young people find the love and blessing of God, and where no one might be hurt and where their hurts may be healed.

We are all aware of the reports in the media, during the past year and more, of incidents of sexual misconduct in churches. Many of these tragedies have involved children and young people. While the Roman Catholic Church has most often been mentioned in news reports and accusations, the rest of the Church and many secular agencies have also been caught up in trying to address the damage done to our children by sexual predators. The Episcopal Church is not immune to this scourge in our society and we must respond to it honestly and forthrightly. . . .
. . .
Because of these mandates of love, respect, service, and justice, we have acknowledged our obligation to articulate clear standards about sexual harassment and misconduct, and to ensure that all our work and ministry is guided by them. We have been committed to sexual conduct training and abuse prevention for all our clergy and lay leaders. We have been clear that exploitation and abusiveness are always unacceptable in our common life. We have made efforts to become aware of the spiritual and emotional damage that is done by sexual misconduct, and to do our best to guarantee that none who come to us will suffer such harm. In spite of our best efforts, it is sad when we discover that we have not done enough.

As if these statements were not enough to raise the red flag in the Diocese of Nevada, the Pastoral Letter from the House of Bishops went on to discuss the kind of abuse with which Bede Parry had been most prominently involved (bold emphasis added):

While we were in conference together at Kanuga, North Carolina in the spring, many of us had the opportunity to learn more about pedophilia, a form of predatory sexual behavior that has caused untold harm in our society and in the Body of Christ. It is especially important that we as a church focus on understanding and preventing pedophilia.

While we need to be aware that pedophilia is a reality in our society, which can be manifest in the church, we must be very clear about the nature of this tragic problem. Pedophilia is pervasive; one in eight males and one in four females will be molested before they reach the age of eighteen. Of reported cases in the general population, sixty percent (60%) of abusers are known to their victims, thirty percent (30%) are family members or relatives, and ten percent (10%) are strangers. We must be aware that the Church is a community which offers predators the opportunity to become known and trusted by parents and their children.

We also know that offenders are predominantly male and heterosexual. We must take great care not to equate pedophilia with homosexuality in our minds or our conversation, and we must never assume that only men molest children in this way.

What we have learned most recently about the repetitive nature of pedophilia makes it imperative that we take very clear steps together to do the screening necessary to ensure that our children encounter God’s love among us, and that we do all in our power to protect them from the distorted perceptions of love offered by predators.

The Bishops went on to emphasize the specific measures that had been listed in Resolution B008, and then advised the Church that in conjunction with the Church Insurance Group and the Church Pension Group, a set of model expectations and standards would be promulgated regarding the protection of children and youth from predators and sexual abuse. Remarkably in light of later developments, the Pastoral Letter concluded in part with these words:

. . . In the case of pedophilia, our consistency in carefully screening, choosing and training all who work with children and youth will serve to allay any concerns about favoritism or carelessness, prohibiting those who have harmed children from ministries involving children, while providing the ability to firmly guide those who might harm children into other areas of ministry which serve the Church and contribute to our mission.

Following this letter, exactly as stated, (a) the Diocese of Nevada under Bishop Jefferts Schori adopted in October 2003 its own Manual of Policies and Procedures Concerning Sexual Misconduct, and then (b) the Church Pension Group promulgated a nationwide set of model standards for dioceses and parishes to follow. Those standards required a full application which included the inquiry: "Have you ever been accused of physically, sexually or emotionally abusing a child or an adult?" It also required a background check, including a check of references.

Bishop Dan Edwards, the current Bishop of Nevada, says that a review of Bede Parry's file shows that Bishop Jefferts Schori placed a restriction on his ability to work with children -- which shows that she had been made aware of his tendency to prey upon young males. But an interview with his most recent employers at All Saints in Las Vegas disclosed that they had been unaware of any such restrictions.

There is also no showing made in the records disclosed thus far that Father Parry ever fully confessed to his offenses with Bishop Jefferts Schori. At the time she received him in 2004, it does not appear that he had apologized, or been required to apologize, to his previous victims, or to acknowledge his injuries to them in any way. Amazingly, Bishop Jefferts Schori appears to have allowed him to wipe his slate clean and proceed to function as a priest in her Diocese without further concern or ado.

Given the stringent standards adopted by both the Diocese and the national Church, and given Bishop Jefferts Schori's specific participation in their promulgation, she has quite a bit of explaining to do. Hindsight does not equal foresight, and the Church needs to hear why, in light of all that she learned from Abbot Polan about Bede Parry's prior misconduct, and his proclivity to repeat it, she did not follow her own pastoral direction, and "take very clear steps together to do the screening necessary to ensure that our children encounter God’s love among us, and that we do all in our power to protect them from the distorted perceptions of love offered by predators."

Litigation - the Diocese of Connecticut

[N.B.: The post below will become my index page for current and future posts dealing with litigation involving parishes in the Diocese of Connecticut, as part of my "Litigation and the Episcopal Church (USA)" page. In attempt to provide comprehensive coverage of all such litigation, I plan future pages for ongoing litigation in the Dioceses of Ohio and Nebraska, in addition to all the ones which are already featured at the link. Because the recent developments in Connecticut might be of interest, I am publishing this as a current blog post. Be sure to watch the latest edition of Anglican Unscripted for more reporting on the latest Connecticut developments, as well.]

As it did in so many other instances, trouble in the Diocese of Connecticut began with the support given by its diocesan, the Rt. Rev. Andrew D. Smith, for the election and consecration of V. Gene Robinson as the Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003. The forces of dissent coalesced around a group of six Connecticut clergy: the Rev. Mark Hansen of St. John's, Bristol; the Rev. Ronald Gauss, of Bishop Seabury Church, Groton; the Rev. Allyn Benedict of Christ Church, Watertown; the Rev. Donald Helmandollar of Trinity Church, Bristol; the Rev. Gilbert Wilkes, of Christ & the Epiphany Church, East Haven; and the Rev. Christopher Leighton, of St. Paul's Church, in Darien. These came to be known in Episcopal and Anglican news stories as "the Connecticut Six."

They first stopped forwarding their parish assessments to the Diocese, and asked to be released from their ordination vows of obedience to Bishop Smith. He refused, and proposed to place them under the alternative oversight of a conservative bishop for two years. But they demanded more permanent arrangements, including the right to have their parishes and the alternative bishop choose their successors. Again Bishop Smith refused. After an unsuccessful attempt to mediate the standstill, and with the consent of his Standing Committee, Bishop Smith in August 2005 inhibited the Rev. Mark Hansen on the pretext he had taken an unauthorized sabbatical. He sent in a diocesan task force to seize the premises of St. John's, change the locks, and oust the dissidents. Eventually he installed a new vestry, as the former congregation became "St. John's in Exile."

In September 2005, the six parishes, their vestries, and five of the six priests filed a lawsuit against Bishop Smith in the federal District Court of Connecticut. They named the Diocese and ECUSA's Presiding Bishop, Frank Griswold, as co-defendants, along with Connecticut's Attorney General, and claimed that the defendants had conspired to deprive them of their civil rights. The lawsuit also claimed that the State of Connecticut, through its statutes, gave unconstitutional preferences to the Episcopal Church (USA). The filing of the lawsuit caused the Archbishop of Canterbury to withdraw his earlier reference of the dispute to the Panel of Reference which he had created following Bishop Robinson's consecration to mediate ensuing disputes between bishops and their clergy.

The federal District Judge dismissed the civil rights lawsuit in August 2006, after ruling that the federal courts lacked jurisdiction over the plaintiffs' claims. The dismissal was without prejudice, which left the plaintiffs free to pursue their remedies in State court. Meanwhile, nineteen lay leaders and priests from the Diocese had brought charges against Bishop Smith for his misuse of the Abandonment Canon, originally intended to provide an expedited process to remove (depose) clergy who had left the Episcopal Church for another denomination, in order to deal with disobedient clergy in his own Diocese. They were later supported by thirteen bishops from the Anglican Communion Network. The Church's Title IV Review Committee released a written decision in April 2007 finding that Bishop Smith had not violated any canons except possibly one, but that that violation was not "intentional."

After the decision in April 2007 clearing him of charges, Bishop Smith moved to depose four of the five remaining clergy who had opposed him -- all except the Rev. Leighton of St. Paul's in Darien, one of the largest parishes in the Diocese. Fr. Ronald Gauss and his vestry of Bishop Seabury parish in Groton refused to vacate their premises.  In 2008, the Diocese and its bishop filed suit against the Rev. Gauss and his vestry  in a local court, alleging a breach of the purported Dennis Canon trust imposed unilaterally on the property. On March 15, 2010, that court issued an opinion granting the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment, and awarding them possession of the church and its bank accounts. Fr. Gauss and his vestry appealed, and the case was transferred to the Connecticut Supreme Court. The latter Court issued its final decisions in the case in September 2011, in opinions which are linked and discussed in the first post below. It affirmed the ruling of the trial court, but on different grounds, which explicitly upheld the Diocese's claim to the real and personal property based on the 1979 Dennis Canon.

Most recently came word that St. Paul's was the site of an ACNA ordination ceremony on October 30, 2011, where one priest and two deacons were ordained by the Rt. Rev. William Murdoch, bishop of the Anglican Diocese of New England. The ceremony took place at the invitation of the Rev. Leighton, who gave notice of it to Connecticut's current Episcopal Bishop, the Rt. Rev. Ian Douglas. Amazingly, the latter granted his permission, and said it was given as a gesture of "episcopal hospitality."

Nevertheless, a recent news item from Darien recounts that St. Paul's is the plaintiff in a new lawsuit against the Diocese of Connecticut and ECUSA, seeking a declaratory judgment that it owns its property free and clear of any trust interest in favor of the Episcopal Church (USA) or the Diocese. Bishop Douglas had sent the parish a letter asserting the primacy of the Church's Dennis Canon, and this lawsuit will test the validity of that claim. The wrinkle is that, unlike all of the previous Connecticut cases, including the latest one discussed in the link below, St. Paul's has not voted to leave the Diocese or the Episcopal Church (USA). The Dennis Canon, by its own terms, has no application "so long as the particular Parish, Mission or Congregation remains a part of, and subject to, this Church and its Constitution and Canons."

There is thus presented for the Connecticut courts an interesting paradox which should penetrate to the heart of the flaws in the Dennis Canon. If the Canon says the trust "shall in no way limit the power and authority of the Parish . . . otherwise existing over [its] property" while it remains in ECUSA, then how does that constitute a "legally cognizable" trust at law (to use the words of Justice Blackmun's obiter dictum in Jones v. Wolf)? Trusts that spring into existence for the first time on a future contingency have long been disfavored in the law -- they are called "shifting uses." They were invalid at common law until the Statute of Uses, which enabled them only if the land was presently conveyed to a trustee, such as "to X, in trust for A and his heirs, but if B returns from Rome, then in trust to B and his heirs." A conveyance directly "to A and his heirs, but if B returns from Rome, then to X, in trust for B and his heirs" was invalid, and gave A a fee simple outright.

The Dennis Canon, however, involves no conveyance to a present trustee. Its declaration of a "shifting use" on the happening of a contingent event would be invalid if tried by anyone at common law. The novel question thus presented by St. Paul's lawsuit is: how can the Connecticut Supreme Court grant to the Diocese and to the Episcopal Church (USA) a special privilege to do what no one else has ever been allowed to do at law -- to create a shifting use that comes into being without there being any conveyance to an existing trustee?

Future posts linked at this page will address how the Connecticut courts proceed with this question.

Connecticut Supreme Court Enforces Dennis Canon

Christ Church Savannah, Bishop Seabury File for Review in Supreme Court

Supreme Court to Consider Church Property Petitions This Thursday

Supreme Court Denies Review of Church Property Cases