[Magdalen] Please pray for Ascension, Chicago - annual mtg tomorrow

[Joseph Cirou]

Any hints on how  the affected musicians have taken these turns of events?

Joe

-----Original Message-----
>From: Scott Knitter <scottknitter at gmail.com>
>Sent: Jan 24, 2015 3:33 PM
>To: "Magdalen at herberthouse.org" <Magdalen at herberthouse.org>
>Subject: [Magdalen] Please pray for Ascension, Chicago - annual mtg tomorrow
>
>We'll have our annual meeting tomorrow at 10 a.m. (which means we'll
>only have about half an hour, really) to vote for vestry members and a
>warden. But right now we've got a lot of angry parishioners as the
>result of the rector's firing of the parish administrator and the
>longtime organist and choirmaster. I've just read notes summarizing
>various non-vestry-member parishioners' comments to the vestry from
>last Wednesday evening's meeting. There are accusations of
>misrepresentation/lying on the rector's part, a systematic reduction
>of the Catholic nature of our liturgy and music, a corporate-style
>layoff giving a cold and disrespectful ending to the long tenures of
>our topnotch musicians, and more.
>
>A vestry member who is an attorney drafted a resolution (which I
>gather did not survive a vote of the vestry; not sure if it will be
>moved at the annual meeting) distancing the vestry from the rector's
>actions based on his not having worked with the vestry to make these
>decisions, and she quoted several passages from canon law that she
>believes were violated.
>
>My position: I don't like the way these changes were done (a kick in
>the head to those who have worked so well for so long) but I do
>understand the need for a new rector to be able to make staff changes,
>and he waited a year to do so. The parish administrator job in
>particular needs to be done by a non-parishioner who can be held
>accountable and let go if necessary. The parishioner who has been in
>the job has, fortunately, done very well and with integrity, but he
>should have figured his time in the job was limited as there was a new
>rector.
>
>I also don't like the way our search and this layoff processes have
>been gamed from the background by the bishop and his staff. I'm still
>a bit gobsmacked at the blatant manipulation of the search committee
>(which didn't work) in the form of a vestry/search committee "retreat"
>that served as a bully pulpit to a captive audience for the interim
>rector to make his pitch for the vestry to set aside the search
>committee's recommendation and hire him. The first diocesan liaison to
>the search committee botched her assignment to game us at the
>beginning (by lying to us that there were very few applications so why
>not consider hiring the interim...we saw through that and demanded and
>got a different liaison).
>
>The politics behind all this are of course not surprising but are no
>less a pile of crap for being standard operating procedure.
>
>So I get why changes would be made; the way they are being made is a
>dog's breakfast; and I feel rather sick about all this right now. I
>don't want to leave and don't expect to. But I feel a bit distant from
>the rector right now and wonder if things will play out in a way I
>feel I can defend and sign up for as a supporter.
>
>I don't look forward to the annual meeting at all, but of course I
>need to be there to cast my votes on whatever comes up for a vote.
>Lord, have mercy and guide us, heal us, and reunite us.
>
>-- 
>Scott R. Knitter
>Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois USA