The Episcopal Church’s Executive Council has authorized its finance office to seek a $60 million line of credit to support the church’s operations. The loan will be secured by a mortgage on the church’s headquarters at 815 Second Avenue in New York, and by offering as collateral its unrestricted endowment funds.
The Oct 23-25 meeting in Salt Lake City of the church’s governing council between meetings of its General Convention also voted to cut its budget by 5 per cent next year in response to a $2.1 million shortfall in income.
A memorandum from the church’s Finance Office to the 38 council members stated that diocesan contributions to the national church were expected to be $700,000 below budget, while cuts in spending at the national church offices were expected to depress income also.
The presiding bishop defined ‘life†as a “renewed and continually renewing focus on mission†and ‘death’ for the church as “an appeal to old ways and to internal focus.â€
Tensions between the presiding bishop’s staff and the members of council over the church’s financial problems were aired publicly at the meeting. The $60 million loan is needed to repay a $46.1 million note payable by year’s end, which was used to fund a $10 million purchase of land in Texas for the site of the church’s archives, and $37 million in renovations to the Church Center building in New York.”
So the renovations are somehow part of the “life” and “renewed and continually renewing focus on mission†that she speaks of??? How is that?
Isn’t borrowing money to pay borrowed money an inevitable suicide?
Larry
#2- Not really but to borrow money over and above the amount needed to pay off borrowed money and therefore greatly increasing the amount of mont now borrowed secured by an asset that is aging and declining in value is.
Intercessor
Seems to me that the property could have been sold in better times (real estate values), the national offices moved to Omaha (cheaper, center of the country, etc). Now they will eventually default on loans down the road and the bank gets it all…..
Chris, not only renovations but 10 million for *archives* in Texas. Is there anything more internally focused and appealing to old ways than a museum?
Now they finally admit that they’re financially hurting! Hmmm…….I wonder why!
Well, it did not take this Presiding Bishop long to wreck the finances of The Episcopal Church. This is what happens, when we lose our focus.
Hebrews 3:1-6
[blockquote]1. Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest. 2. He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. 3. Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. 4. For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. 5. “Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,†bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. 6. But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory.[/blockquote]
First time I’ve heard “litigation” referred to as “church operations.”
“This is what happens, when we lose our focus.” I would disagree. TEC lost its focus long ago. However, it was still well-managed. Then, it started to apply affirmative-action policies to clerical promotion, and thought it could afford the inherent inefficiencies which would result, never looking forward to the day when a majority of its leaders would be incompetent due to the rise those same affirmative-action promotees into positions of near-absolute power, ie the Presiding Bishop, her minions, the HoB, the upper regions of the HoD, and the Executive Council.
And now, they’re seeing the disatrous results of those failed policies.
#9 A Senior Priest
While I understand what you are saying in terms of delayed process, I am not sure I agree in terms of physics.
It seems to me that what the Hebrews passage is saying is that if you remove the cornerstone, the house will come tumbling down – as we are seeing.
Hmmm. The Episcopal Church in the US has a public image of being mean-spirited and existing primarily to sue orthodox Episcopalians who want to remain in communion with the orthodox Anglicans in the rest of the world. The mental picture the typical American has these days of an Episcopalian is a grey-haired professor from a land grant university as rigid and joyless as any Puritan. Is there any wonder they are dropping in membership like a stone? Is there any wonder why anyone looking for life would have a hard time entering or remaining in such a place? Is there any wonder that so few think it good stewardship to give to encourage them in this? Those are rhetorical questions. Ones that are not include why the ABC would tie the Anglican institutions to this ship and whether there are lessons for the CoE in this.