[Magdalen] Mass e-mails, was Test

[sally.davies at gmail.com]

It sounds a lot like the horror that ran through "white" parishes in South
Africa, back in the day when a certain Bishop Desmond Tutu of Johannesburg
was appointed Archbishop of Cape Town.

Stories did the round about his family making a fire in the middle of the
floor at Bishopscourt, a la traditional African hut.

It affected him not one whit but I think there must have been strain on the
younger family members.

When our very popular priest Rob was transferred to a school chaplain job
at the end of 2012, a few people tried to start the story that this was
some kind of anti-St John's conspiracy by the Bishop. It didn't go far
because there were too many level headed people, because Rob himself nailed
it by making it clear that he knew this was God's calling for him, and by
our wonderful assistant priest Angela (now about to retire herself) who
held things together with tremendous grace during the inter-regnum.

Sally D
On Thu, 09 Apr 2015 at 6:23 PM Jay Weigel <jay.weigel at gmail.com> wrote:

> Gee, Jim, that sounds an awful lot like some of the President's opponents,
> doesn't it?
>
> On Thursday, April 9, 2015, Jim Guthrie <jguthrie at pipeline.com> wrote:
>
> > From: Roger Stokes
> >
> >  I would have thought it was against the bishop's interests to wreck a
> >> parish. In any case didn't you say that the diocese pried to foust
> somebody
> >> on you and then the Search Committee called the diocese on it?
> >>
> >
> > You'd think.
> >
> > Shortly after Bishop +Walker (and African-American) became Bishop of the
> > Diocese of Long Island, the drumbeat amongst some of the mostly White
> > parishes started -- that he was out to wreck them.  This pretty much
> > continued throughout his tenure. Included in the Mantra was that having
> an
> > African American Bishop meant it was hard to bring in new members, so it
> > was the Bishop's fault that parishes were losing ASA and pledges. Ugly
> > stuff.
> >
> > It should also be noted that three priests of the diocese left upon
> > +Walker's election (including one who publicly said he couldn't stay
> with a
> > "radical" AA Bishop (his eventually ended up having to merge with one
> > nearby). One parish left TEC (and seemed disappointed when in effect,
> > Bishop +Walker didn't contest it and took the high road). Another parish
> > simply ceased any association with the diocese at all.
> >
> > Having ceased getting around, ceased vestry participation and thus
> > participation in activities of the Diocese, I lost track shortly before
> > Bishop +Provenzano's election, and since moved away.
> >
> > But I'd bet that some of these parish "leaders" have found new persons to
> > blame for the actuarial reality of an aging congregation without influxes
> > of new people.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Jim Guthrie
> >
> >
>