Diocesan leaders previously told me that priests had long been prohibited from financial involvement with parishioners. But it turns out that the policy was pretty vague — it read, according to the press release: “The relationship of members of the clergy with fellow clergy and with members of the laity must be of the highest moral and professional character.”
Stanton recently suspended Warnky from the ministry after financial regulators barred him from selling securities. The regulators acted because Warnky failed to pay a former parishioner, D.R. Marshall, $50,000 for stock fraud.
RayJennison.JPGDiocesan leaders are now weighing whether to also suspend the Rev. Raymond Jennison (right). He runs First Canterbury Securities, a northeast Dallas firm where Warnky worked, and is priest in charge of St. David’s Episcopal Church in Garland.
[quote]A clergyman who engages in business, and who rises from poverty to wealth, and from obscurity to a high position, avoid as you would the plague.[/quote]
[url=”http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf206.v.LII.html]Letter LII. To Nepotian[/url], 5. St. Jerome.
Is this unique to Texas? I’ve never heard of a priest getting involved with a parishioner as a financial consultant.
Nothing to do with Texas. Just with the 2 clerics involved.
I do think that with the rising trend from about the 1990’s on of “bi-vocational” and tent-making clergy there are and will be (and should be) a whole host of questions to ask about extra-parochial relationships between clergy and members of their congregation and community. Even when clear bad-acting isn’t involved (as apparently it was here). A situation where, for instance, the priest is also a real estate agent. Or a car salesman. Or a physician. Or an electrician. Or a school teacher. Any of these situations and more could easily give rise to situations where, absent misconduct, a “customer” might clearly have a legitimate dispute with a service provider, and where the service provider might have a legitimate differing perspective. And sometimes these differences might have significant financial or other ramifications–and sometimes these legitimate differences would appropriately end up in court for settlement.
Again, I think it is inevitable, as the Episcopal Church continues its decline, that more and more clergy are going to need to provide for their families with work beyond the boundaries of parish ministry. I’m glad for the beginnings of reflection here in Dallas, and I hope the church can do some more good thinking and best-practice sharing in the future . . . .
Bruce Robison
No. 1:
Well, Jerome says a lot in that letter, doesn’t he? You don’t comment on his statement, leaving your reader to suppose that you both endorse it and affirm it based on his authority.
But do you agree that, as he says, clergy should avoid, in their dress, both somber colors and bright ones? Do you know any that do that? Why would they? Simply ’cause Jerome says so?
Or that “A woman’s foot should seldom, if ever, cross the threshold of your home.” And “If in the course of your clerical duty you have to visit a widow or a virgin, never enter the house alone.” Uh huh.
Rather than worrying about clergy who thru their shrewdness and hard efforts manage to accumulate “wealth”–enough to provide for, say, a cottage in a Westminster-Canterbury retirement community rather than a bed in a godawful nursing home–I suggest that you worry more about clergy who are clueless about managing money. Being “spiritual” does not preclude being hard-nosed and practical about how to make money.
[b]David Hein[/b] demurs:
[quote]Being “spiritual†does not preclude being hard-nosed and practical about how to make money.[/quote]
Yes, I see my error now. Why should anyone listen to this Jerome character; what did [i]he[/i] know about the situation and problems of today? You’re right. Clergy should have the same right as any other businesspeople to make money, and lots of it! What better way to measure their effectiveness, than the tried-and-true business model? I mean, churches are run on that model, right? What else could “by their fruits ye shall know them” mean?
You’ve convinced me. I retract my earlier quotation, and substitute something more hard-nosed and practical.
[quote]Money, it’s a hit. Don’t give me that do goody-good bulls##t.[/quote]
[url=”http://www.pink-floyd-lyrics.com/html/money-dark-lyrics.html”]”Money”[/url]. Pink Floyd.
Thank you for setting me straight.
regards,
JPB
Many Continuing clergy and clergy in now ACNA-affiliated have to be bivocational because the parishes can’t afford full-time clergy. The question here would be not whether they worked to support themselves and were successful doing it but whether they took advantage of their positions as priests to further their businesses.
#7, yes, I agree. But what will or should count as “taking advantage?” Are we clear that we in the wider church share a common framework of assumptions and understandings? If your priest, say, takes a job as a real estate salesman, should he decline to assist in the sale or purchase of parishioners’ homes? Should parishioners be told “not to recommend him to their friends” because that would be a conflict of interest? And what if people in the community, knowing his priestly vocation, choose to hire him because “a priest will be more honest than the average salesman.” If there are other real estate sales people in the congregation, might they be troubled by this kind of competition? And then, what if someone who has been his customer is unhappy with his services? Might they accuse him of trading on his ministerial credentials?
–I don’t have an answer to this complex set of questions, but only to say that in the context of a rising number of bivocational clergy, the churches need to spend some time thinking about guidelines for appropriate and ethical conduct. There are of course areas where the lines are bright and obvious, and bad actors who swindle and defraud are easy to spot once their schemes are revealed. “Thou shalt not steal” is a straightforward ethical guideline. But there are gray areas as well, and these are places into which folks might innocently wander but then find themselves at risk.
Bruce Robison
#8, it is complicated. I think the priest would be wise to keep business at arm’s length with parishioners. Being both someone’s priest and his real estate agent would create all kinds of potential conflicts; the same if the priest is an investment adviser. This just seems unwise. My own rector is a banker. He is careful to keep his “day job” out of Vestry matters.