For All the Saints, who from their labors rest

Earlier this month, the Church celebrated All Saints Day. That week I returned to the suburban parish where my parents had worshipped for nearly 50 years, and where their ashes are immured in its columbarium. Few people at that parish remember me, though I was raised and confirmed there. But in my life, I have tried to honor my parents' upbringing and that parish by serving as senior warden of a struggling inner-city parish, a board member of one of the diocesan charities, and for 10 years as a columnist for the diocesan newspaper. A bit over a year ago, a Marine honor guard assisted as we placed my father’s ashes next to my mother’s, the final act of remembering the man who had made the sacristy credence table for the communion elements and who had given in my mother’s memory the garden of grace and reflection, honoring the woman who had chaired two of that parish’s spring fairs. In that year, another former servant of that suburban parish passed on: the Rev. Wm K Gros. He had been the parish's frst curate in the 1960s. After that he served a number of parishes in both city and suburbs, retiring to serve as a hospital chaplain near the University of Illinois hospitals on the near west side of Chicago. Unmarried, he literally devoted his life to the church, and in the highest compliment any believer can pay to a priest, inspired one child of his first parish to the ordained ministry. Last spring, I attended Bill’s funeral at the Church of the Atonement in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood. There I was reminded of something my father had said a number of years before. You see, I have not been on board with many of the decisions of the national church, and one such decision particularly rankled me at that time. The retired bishop of downstate Quincy, IL, who in his earlier service to the church had been the rector of the parish I attended in college, had just been deposed without a trial. But my father, who had lived though war and depression had told me: David, the church will not get any better if you leave. The national church has once again set its sails against scripture, and has seen a third of its members leave because of it. But may those words direct the Holy Spirit’s flow in the hearts of those who bear in their hearts the memory of the saints, like Bill and my parents, who from their labors rest. And may the saints who remain continue to minister to the sick, the friendless and the needy no matter how the winds of popular culture blow.

The Selection of a Successor

The recent rejection of gay marriage in Maine and the candidacy of the out-and-partnered Rev. Bonnie Perry as Episcopal bishop of Minnesota may hearten traditionalists in the Church (and in society in general), but I would caution against reading too much into these events. While gay marriage has gained no traction anywhere in the country (going 0-31 in every state where the issue has been put to a vote of its citizens: and pro-gay activists cannot say that it is a regional phenomenon, confined to the red states or the Bible belt), gay candidates for bishop are playing in a different arena. Episcopal dioceses elect bishops at conventions, and voting at those conventions is divided into clergy and lay persons. The process of selecting candidates for bishop has gone from ridiculous to absurd: in Minnesota, three clergy (including Ms. Perry) put their own names forward for consideration, and two more were "nominated by petition" (that is by supporters after seeing the slate of self-selected candidates). Gone evidently are the days of having a committee of clergy and laity who know their diocese comb the country for a prospect who has proved faithful in his life and teaching. But once the slate is in place, the convention votes by rank, and a candidate has to achieve a majority of both the clergy and laity voting. In Minnesota, there were almost an equal number of clergy as lay delegates, with the upshot being that 51% of the clergy can veto an overwhelming majority of laypersons who support a different candidate. (Of course, it works the other way, too.) But the difference is that a bishop ministers not only to the clergy in his diocese, he confirms new members, counsels candidates for the ministry and mediates disputes between a parish minister and his flock. Can a diocese function when only the clergy support a bishop? Fortunately in Minnesota, the clergy followed the laity. The winning candidate, the Rev. Brian Prior, showed early strength in the lay votes, and by the 3d ballot, he had a majority in that rank. Though he was second in the clergy votes through three ballots, the clergy heeded the will of the laity and after narrowly losing a majority on the 4th ballot (by 2 votes), on the 5th, he had a 58% majority (against two other candidates). The Bible is not too strong on democratic principles as determining the identity of a successor (see Acts 1: 23-26; II Kings 2:9-12). Yet, for 200+ years, the Episcopal Church has survived with this makeshift system. May the election of the 9th Bishop of Minnesota stand as a beacon of hope for those in the church who may long for more rigor in the selection of our leaders, yet remain wary of a system where power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.