[Magdalen] Bishop Cook

[James Oppenheimer-Crawford]

The search and discernment processes are clearly works in progress.

I noted, some time ago, that one individual in the course of retirement was
considering some kind of horse farming or ranching, and it  sort of
dramatized to me how large a sum of money he obviously has to play with.
It took me a while to think of how much a disconnect it can be for a person
with such wealth to be placed in charge of a diocese. I know that when I
had dealings with this individual, he was very careful to make sure that
there no chance whatsoever that I would ever have any opportunity to view
or critique anything he might have to base his decisions on, nor could I
ever see any of his own writings.  In short, I was completely at his mercy
but had absolutely no recourse to question his decision.  I don't have a
solution for this, but I certainly have always felt that he made a
short-sighted decision based on his own limited view. The facts are that he
had extremely little actual pastoral experience, and he appears to have
made a decision based on a very narrow view of what the priesthood might be.

The process is good at stopping those who are wounded in definable ways,
and allows sociopaths simply because there is no real way to stop them.
This is the way it is, and nobody has a clue what to do about the fact that
good people are raped by the process, and turned away, while others who
might be very harmful are simply good enough at covering their tracks to be
undetected.

A couple of months after I was told I have no vocation to the priesthood, I
happened to encounter Mr. Sisk at my parish and he just smiled blandly at
me (I hope it was not a smirk, but with him it's hard to tell) and
murmured, "I hope all is well."  I didn't know how to comment to this
person, so I just mumbled, "fine, fine," and walked away, forever. I had,
after all, invested a huge amount of my own fortunes, to say nothing of
those of my parish, and then bared my soul to a long line of people who
thought they knew what the flock they were doing, and in the end, I got a
boilerplate letter from this jerk with no explanation whatsoever, and a
note that it is not his policy to explain himself.  Of course. The one per
cent does not explain itself, nor do those who aspire to the one per cent.

When the Canon for Ministry came for a conference, plainly embarrassed by
the whole matter, it developed, from the answers we got, that the bishop
simply did not have an accurate picture (some areas, his discernment [his
word] was diametrically opposite of the truth). Moreover, it was plain
that, right or wrong, it is what it is. God forbid that we might actually
get some reconsideration or that anyone at that level might admit they
might have been wrong.

Yeah, we need to work on the discernment process -- and in more ways than
just identifying addiction (not to say that that is not also important,
certainly).

James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
*“If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better
for people coming behind you, and you don’t do it, you're wasting your time
on this Earth.”  -- *Roberto Clemente

On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 10:33 AM, Grace Cangialosi <gracecan at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Yes, this was posted on FB a few days ago, and I think it's excellent.
> Also, if you haven't seen it yet, Bishop Sutton's letter of yesterday to
> his clergy is outstanding and very personal. You can find it on the Diocese
> of Maryland website.
>
> On January 14, 2015, at 9:41 AM, ME Michaud <michaudme at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Her church, actually. And well done!
> -M
>
> On Wednesday, January 14, 2015, Dorothy Collman <dac7792 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Yesterday our rector posted on facebook a link to a pastoral letter from
> a
> > rector in Maryland to members of his church:
> > <http://gracebrunswick.org/pastoral-letter.html>
> > - - -
> > Dorothy Collman
> > Home: DottieAnne at aol.com <javascript:;>
> > List: dac7792 at gmail.com <javascript:;>
> >
> >
>