[Magdalen] Down-hearted

[Grace Cangialosi]

Oh, Marion, this just breaks my heart! It seems everywhere I turn I see/hear of folks being badly treated and sadly wounded by the church. How did we get to this place?

> On Aug 17, 2015, at 5:09 PM, Marion Thompson <marionwhitevale at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> That is right, Grace.  Our numbers and money at this time are not adequate to pay a full-time priest and 'they' wouldn't let us form a search committee when our last priest left for BC in February.  At that time we were deemed to be Unsustainable.  We loved the interim we had for five months, a warm pastoral man who viewed his time with us as an enriching learning opportunity.    The bishop paid us a couple of visits and outlined a rather grim future for us, essentially become a mission of one of the uptown churches or die/close. Thanks to the sterling work of the Food Bank, now 'under new management', we are now called Strategic.  We were told that this new man would start a maximum two-year appointment at the beginning of July and be heavily subsidized by the Diocese. ( Our interim, alas, to his regret and ours was cut out of the game.)  As the bishop's man, he has made very clear that his job is to bring the wardens and the congregations up to the same point of thinking as the bishop now is, and he is to get us ready for a Yes/No vote sooner rather than later.  He's talking months.
> 
> If we live that long, I am NOT looking forward to Holy Week on his watch!  I can see continuing with the Food Bank, but it may come that I might as well patronize one of the two Anglican churches a stone's throw from my home, heck, maybe even the RC church virtually across the street.  I'd certainly save an awful lot of gas.  Sure the bishop can lift my lay reader's licence, but I have my pride and that might just be the price I would pay.  My previous dealings with them have prepared me for such a move on their part and it would be their loss.
> 
> Marion, a pilgrim
> 
>> On 8/17/2015 3:23 PM, Grace Cangialosi wrote:
>> I'm puzzled at the phrase that your new priest was "issued by the bishop." Don't you all get to call your own priests? Or are you a mission?
>> 
>> I guess if he's the bishop's man, so to speak, there's little you can do...is that right?
>> 
>>> On Aug 17, 2015, at 8:02 AM, Marion Thompson <marionwhitevale at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Our new priest, who was issued to us by the Diocese, is  a real problem.  Early word that he would have no trouble with our Anglo-Catholic liturgy has proved true -- he simply ignores it.  All is chaos as he insists on imposing his will and ways on us, and has so from the very first Sunday.  He spends the liturgy of the word down at the rector's desk not even reverencing the altar with us when we enter.  "We are people of the Word."  He has moved the lectern into the middle of the crossing (such as it is in our small place) and has moved the candles that used to flank it up behind the altar.  It is now a hazard for the thurifer censing the congregation and a general clog in the flow of traffic.  Yesterday being the Festival of the Blessed Virgin Mary, he pointed out to me (yesterday's preacher) that the icon had been placed in its place on the side altar.  I then said , Yes and when censing the altar he would  stop at the halfway point and come down to cense the icon then go back up.  'I'm not comfortable censing an icon', he said. Nor did he.  He doesn't use the paten.  Furthermore, there is no warmth or intimacy when he  giving out the sacrament.  He could just be throwing a piece of orange peel over his shoulder, having already moved on to the next person with eyes fixed on some distant point.    Our poor altar party and servers are in total disarray  because he has changed everything and comes to the service with a new list of what he wants done, which is totally at odds with what they have learned over the last weeks, months or years.  Speed is all.  And he speaks too quickly, leading the Creed (from the chancel facing the altar) at breakneck speed.
>>> 
>>> A total control freak, he wants us to become a totally BAS church. blecch.  He informed me some weeks ago he wanted my PoP to be based on one of the templates therein and sent me what he wanted.  I eventually complied -- but he STILL rewrote them totally.  So yesterday I did what I would always do for the Feast of the BVM, not necessarily longer , but with some soul and caring.  He has already insisted that the rota of readings I prepare be moved from the RCL (which he has dismissed as American) to a peculiarly Canadian one which follows the stories of the Old Testament, rather than themes. That's what he likes to preach on.  Dry as dust exegesis and, as someone said recently, nothing to take home with them.
>>> 
>>> Personally, I think that the agenda is that he is to prepare us for absorption by one of the other more Protestant churches to the north, retaining only our excellent Food Bank which serves this depressed end of town.   He had his own Prayer Book church which closed and was merged with another church  in Toronto, so he has experience in this sort of exercise which is the flavour of the month in this diocese.  Rid us of our papish ways so that we will fit better.  So I delivered a rock 'em sock 'em Assumption homily that must have curdled his blood.
>>> 
>>> Written in rebellious dejection.
>>> 
>>> Marion, a pilgrim
> 
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