At issue in this Convention today are constitutional and canonical decisions about how we shall chart our course as a Diocese for the next 25 years and beyond. We are preparing a future for our children and our grandchildren. As you know, by way of background, the chancellor to the Presiding Bishop, wrote my chancellor on Oct. 19, 2006, declaring that certain provisions in our diocesan Constitution and Canons were contrary to those of the Episcopal Church and needed to be changed, or else the Presiding Bishop would “have to consider what sort of action she must take in order to bring your diocese into compliance.” The following month, on Nov. 15, the Executive Council of the General Convention received a task force report identifying Fort Worth as a “problem diocese” that needed to be monitored. On June 14, 2007, this same Executive Council declared certain constitutional and canonical amendments in this Diocese to be “null and void.” Our Standing Committee and I replied by pointing out that such declarations exceeded the authority of the Executive Council, which is responsible for the program and budget of the General Convention, and that they had no legislative or judicial authority to make such a pronouncement. The Council’s declaration about the legitimate legislative process in this Diocese is, in fact, null and void.
And then just last week, the Presiding Bishop sent me an open letter, that she quickly posted on the internet, threatening disciplinary action against me if I did not prevent this Convention from acting on certain legislative proposals. I believe all of you have seen my reply. What you may not have seen is the Episcopal News Service story saying that if I did not heed her warning it would (and I quote) “force her to take action to bring the diocese and its leadership into line with the mandates of the national Church.” Now hold on there a minute. I don’t want to force her to do anything, but I must object to the claim that the Presiding Bishop has any canonical authority in this Diocese or any legitimate power over the leadership of this Diocese. She has no authority to bring Fort Worth into line with the mandates of a so-called “national Church.” There is no such thing as “the national Church.” We are a confederation of Dioceses, related to each other by our participation in General Convention. From the earliest days of the beginnings of the Episcopal Church in this country, including the formation of dioceses and eventually the creation of the General Convention itself, there has been a strong mistrust of centralized authority that is deeply rooted in our history as Episcopalians. We do not have an Archbishop in this Church, who has authority over other Bishops and their Dioceses. Instead, we have a Presiding Bishop, with very limited canonical responsibilities, mainly administrative in nature. We must object to the tendency in recent years in this Church to create some sort of central bureaucracy at the top that holds power and authority over the various Dioceses of this Church. We do not have a Curia that dictates policy and dogma in this Church. We do not have a Presiding Bishop with papal authority over us, nor do we believe in the infallibility of any Bishop or any council or, indeed, of any General Convention. If I may be so bold to speak on your behalf, dear friends: the leadership of this Diocese does not need to be brought into line with the mandates of some mythical “national Church.”
It’s interesting that there are no comments yet. Are folks here uncomfortable with the notion that “[t]here is no such thing as ‘the national Church,'” implying that each diocese is its own, independent denomination? Has +Iker gone too far even for ‘reasserters’?
Well, certainly I’m less uncomfortable with the idea of “the abstract reality of the ‘national church'” [source, Rowan Williams] than I am about the idea — apparently stated by Episcopal church leaders in the Virginia parish property trial — that there is no such thing as the Anglican Communion. ; > )
No. All Iker has done here is to throw leftist rhetoric back in leftist faces. We’ve been told over and over that we don’t want an Anglican pope. And Kate’s said again and again that she’s only the presiding bishop, she doesn’t have the power to force anyone to do anything. So Jack Iker’s just taking her up on her own words and those of the rest of the left.
[blockquote]We must object to the tendency in recent years in this Church to create some sort of central bureaucracy at the top that holds power and authority over the various Dioceses of this Church. We do not have a Curia that dictates policy and dogma in this Church. We do not have a Presiding Bishop with papal authority over us, nor do we believe in the infallibility of any Bishop or any council or, indeed, of any General Convention.[/blockquote]
Brilliantly done by Bp. Iker! He takes the revisionists own game & uses it against them. He is, of course, absolutely correct. There is no “national church” in the sense that Dio Ft Worth is any kind of subsidiary. (If there were such a thing, Kathy Schori could not have come back from Dar es Salaam saying she could not force her bishops to comply.) What there is is a national structure over a regional grouping of dioceses – and this structure has failed. As the +ABC acknowledged, the structure that matters is the diocesan one, not the provincial one.
For example, if +Iker is deposed & run out of Ft Worth, would the “National Church” take over? NO! The ecclesial authority becomes the standing committee of Ft Worth! The National Church has no authority whatsoever to intervene! And the Standing Committee could then hire Bp. Iker as interim bishop until THEY decided to call for a new diocesan – which might be never. What could the “national church” do? Nothing.
Has Ft Worth ever been denied seat & voice at GC for not paying its fair share to the National Church? No. Has Bp. Iker ever been brought to heel for not ordaining women? Has any diocese ever been censured for breaking the canons prior to 2003? No. The fact is the revisionists are ticked because Iker’s right. The “national church” is a group of autonomous dioceses – and just as the “autonomy within Communion” idea does not work if all members are not first committed to the Faith Catholic, neither does the “national church.”
D.C., to answer your question, no. We are not bothered by Bishop Iker’s honest and factual statements.
She cannot stop you from doing SSB blessings but she can tell you what to do and take your property in the name of unity. This is insanity.
The bishop, as usual, is spot on.
I don’t *think* that anyone here is uncomfortable with what the bishop has said, D.C. For myself, I’ve got a lot of stuff going on Sundays, so Titusonenine has to wait until close to the end of the day.
There is no “national church.”
There is a Domestic and Foreign Mission Society which holds a General Convention every 3 years, but no, there is no “national church.”
DC, I would say that the laws and canons of TEC apply only to those dioceses that submit themselves to such authority. Thus, when a diocese such as Pennsylvania has a bishop run amok, the administrative arm of TEC can discipline him. When a diocese such as Forth Worth decides to leave TEC, its authority no longer extends to the diocese. +Iker may as well be put under discipline by the Rotary Club or Boy Scouts.
After DioFW leaves TEC, there will still be an entity on TEC’s books called “Diocese of Forth Worth,” but it will have no membership, no property, nothing. Of course, TEC will be free to begin recruiting the vast legions of those it imagines are predisposed to its “new thing” to repopulate the diocese. I don’t see +Iker filing suit.
So there’s never been an Episcopal Church after all, huh? Then we’ve been going to a lot of time and expense for no reason. For example:
• Fort Worth didn’t need to go to the trouble of seeking consent of General Convention to become a diocese in the first place. And it needn’t have included a provision in its constitution, unqualifiedly acceding to TEC’s constitution and canons.
• Fort Worth shouldn’t have bothered seeking anyone else’s consent to ordain +Iker as bishop, once their diocesan convention elected him. And the diocese’s various bishops and standing committees needn’t have bothered consenting to the election of any other diocese’s bishop.
• Fort Worth’s clergy — including +Iker — should have refused to profess those portions of their ordination vows that refer to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Episcopal Church.
They went to all that trouble for nothing, it seems. I’m sure others will come up with additional examples.
(Someone needs to explain to +Iker & Co. the doctrine of estoppel. I’m sure TEC’s lawyers will do so. And maybe a Texas judge will do so as well.)
I’ve heard of “Bush Derangement Syndrome” (or BDS). I think there’s an “Iker Derangement Syndrome” as well. Just the mention of the man’s name is enough to send many reappraisers into frothy-mouthed conniptions.
It’s not as severe as all that, Chris, we are only dealing with Derangement Cyndrome, an isolated case! I would say that Bishop Iker has made an excellent case for remaining faithful to an identified faith which precedes the Church of the General Convention. Now if someone, ordained or lay, would just explain that concept to DC. I suggest +Iker and the laity and clergy of the Diocese of Fort Worth.
Actually D.C. is 100% correct (as you all already know.) If there is no “national church” then why does +Iker need to leave it? If he’s under no authority, why did he ask for APO? Why is he thankful for other Provinces (which would, by extension, also not exists) offering their support/protection? May be it’s the devil confusing him 😉
Will Bishop iker recieve a mythical checks from the “Church Pension Fund” of the national church? He has his 33 years credited service to that mythical entity.
Ft Worth is ammending it’s Constitution to disaffiliate with the national untion, not “asking perminssion” to leave. Hellooooo?
As I work with estoppel regularly, I would think that estoppel would be firmly on the side of Ft Worth, as they engaged in this realtionship with the union only to find that the union had nothing to do with Catholic Christianity. Seems a clear cut case of the national union having no intintention of following Catholic doctrine in the Anglican style and thus Ft Worth are the victims. Judgement, easily, Ft. Worth.
Next question?
DC, even if you are completely correct, if 80-90% of clergy and laity are voting to leave it would seem pure spite to try and take their church buildings away from them.
What does the Episcopal church gain by fighting this battle and winning? Money? Power? Influence? Pride?
What does it lose in the fallout from the battle? Reputation? Members?
Why does the Episcopal church exist? What is it trying to do in the world by coming together as an organization of churches? What is its mission statement? Does fighting this battle help that mission, or does it destroy that mission?
Personally, I think its going to destroy itself with all of these lawsuits.
[blockquote]What does the Episcopal church gain by fighting this battle and winning? Money? Power? Influence? Pride? [/blockquote]
TEC doesn’t “gain” anything any more than an army that burns crops, poisons wells and slaughters livestock gains. What it does, as I’ve said numerous times here, is deny resources to its mortal enemy: orthodox Anglicanism. The recent report in the Washington Times on KJS’s refusal to let +Lee negotiate away property to any parish wishing to affiliate with an AC body verifies this.
TEC is at war with orthodox Anglicanism, simply put. Leave, and the troops pursue. Stay, and you’ll be marginalized.
Brian from T19,
That’s is why we don’t say we are “leaving the Episcopal church” in our formal documents. Our diocese is considering terminating its voluntary membership in the General Convention of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Episcopal Church. Should these changes pass their second readings, we won’t be attending GenCon’s any more or participating the disciplinary structures laid out for members in that federation of dioceses.
And Plainsparson, the Church Pension Fund is a corporate entity. It is not “the Episcopal church.” You are comparing apples and oranges if you claim the existence of that New York-chartered corporation proves the existence of the so-called “national church.” (It has become quite clear, btw, that the trustees of that corporation will almost certainly freeze Bishop Iker’s pension and impose other financial penalties against him should we withdraw from GenCon. The remainder of our senior priests will suffer the same fate, no doubt. May they be blessed for their sacrifice. But the good news is that the Network’s new retirement plan will prove comparable in value for all but our most senior men in the long run. God is good! )
“Actually D.C. is 100% correct (as you all already know.)”
Uh, yeah. Right. Back in the real world…
If there is a “National Church”, does Congress choose the PB? Does he/she answer to the President?
While D.C. and Brian may enjoy being deliberately obtuse, or just plain stupid, we are pleased that a bishop is standing up against the notion that the confederation of dioceses, which is TEC/ECUSA/PECUSA, can become a stronger union simply by fiat from a bureaucratic center without obtaining the consent of all the members. Schori’s ecclesiastical powergrab is like Alexander Hamilton saying “Who needs a Constitutional Convention? The Articles of Confederation can be turned into my form of government with just a single signature.”
D.C. There are a couple of definitions of “Diocese of Fort Worth” that we are dealing with. One is the geographic boundries of a group of people in union with the General Convention. The second is the name of a non-profit agency that is currently in union with the General Convention and is coterminus with the first meaning. The diocese(1) is a creature of the DFMS (aka PECUSA, ECUSA, TEC). The diocese(2) is a creature of the state of Texas. Diocese(1) and diocese(2) are the same so long as diocese(2) maintains accession to the Consitituion and Canons of DFMS, PECUSA,ECUSA, TEC. When that is no longer applicable, diocese(2) continues as a non-profit corporation and diocese(1) still exists, but without a bishop, money, or a standing committee. TEC is free to form a new standing committee, to start a new diocesan convention, and to elect/appoint a new bishop. However, it may be easier/cheaper/more practical to roll the counties back into the dioceses of Dallas and NW Texas.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
#17, good analogy. TEC gives new meaning to the “church militant.” TEC is like a mighty army, parleying with her still unconquered neighbors in the global Communion while “dealing with” the kulaks in her own sovereign territory.
TEC is at war with orthodox Anglicanism, simply put. Leave, and the troops pursue. Stay, and you’ll be marginalized.
Leave if you want. Just don’t steal. A simple request that reasserters never seem to get in their “we want it all” attitude. It seems fiighting for Christ has no actual sacrifice.
Christopher
While D.C. and Brian may enjoy being deliberately obtuse, or just plain stupid, we are pleased that a bishop is standing up against the notion that the confederation of dioceses, which is TEC/ECUSA/PECUSA, can become a stronger union simply by fiat from a bureaucratic center without obtaining the consent of all the members. Schori’s ecclesiastical powergrab is like Alexander Hamilton saying “Who needs a Constitutional Convention? The Articles of Confederation can be turned into my form of government with just a single signature.â€
And what is +Iker doing? BTW, TEC has followed all of the agreed upon procedures for moving forward. +Iker had his vote. He failed. The orthodox failed. No organization runs on 100% agreement. +Iker voted on ++Katharine too. But now he’ll take all his marbles and go home because we let (actually voted by a majority) a liberal girl in the clubhouse? Sad.
So, Brian, all this is because of a “liberal girl” running the show?
You really are as “stupid” and “deranged” as previous posters suggested. I suppose it’s too much to expect a logical and thoughtful response from reappraisers anymore.
Canons do not allow the PB to force the diocese of Ft Worth to stay in the TEc. Rather, when (not if) the DoFW passes the second reading of the removal of the accession clause, canon law forces the the TEc to [i]expel[/i] the DoFW because this is requisite for membership in the club.
What a grand and glorious speech. (I recommend everyone to go to Anglican TV and see and hear it. It starts at about 18:25.) The enemies of the light only grumble and hiss through their teeth when confronted with the truth plainly spoken. He began with scripture, then discussed scripture, then ended graciously citing scripture, the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians.
It would be theft if TEC had actually paid for a single piece of property or building in the Diocese. But, it did not. The assertion that TEC “owns” any property aside from their office building in NYC and the General Seminary is ridiculous.
As I understand it Amendment A states that Article I of the Diocesan Constitution will be DELETED whereas it currently states:
“no action of General Convention which is contrary to Holy Scripture and the Apostolic Teaching of the Church shall be of any force or effect in this Diocese.â€
This means GC can pass anything and the diocese will enforce GC’s actions.(Not likely to pass)
Amendment B would stipulate that ALL church property now held in corporate title by the Diocese of Fort Worth would become the property of TEC.(Not likely to pass)
It seems to me that Fort Worth can withdraw since they have title and no ‘national church’ actually exists. The whole ‘Denis Canon’ charade is a farce. Who in their right mind thinks one group can simply vote to own someone else’s property? Besides there is evidence that the second reading of the “Denis Canon” was never properly voted into the constitution of ECUSA.
With TEC it’s all about the money.
God help those pitiful souls in leadership of TEC.
Another thought:
Imagine you work for 25 years and have those years credited to your pension fund. You choose to leave the job. The folks you work for keep your retirement fund. I think the FEDS with take issue with that. I suspect that TEC would have to make the case that Iker commited criminal acts in order to divest him.
How does one “steal” something one has paid for, Brian? Can I gain title to your house just by declaring myself its owner?
Will anyone dispute the following?
1 – There is no canonical authority in TEC higher than General Convention, which the HoB and the PB have been at pains to insist for some time.
2 – Each diocese of TEC is an independent corporation, both legally and spiritually.
3 – Participation in the General Convention by each diocese, and thus a sharing in the various programs, benefits (the Pension Fund, etc.), committees, etc. is purely voluntary and can be withdrawn.
4 – TEC by its canons declares itself to be a constituent member of the Anglican Communion. Since a majority of the Anglican Communion have declared that they are in broken or impaired communion with TEC, this fact is now in doubt, and places a burden on the individual diocese to choose where its loyalty lies.
5 – Thus if by ‘national church’ one means an entity that carries any authority beyond voluntary submission to General Convention and the officers it creates (the Executive Council, the Presiding Bishop, etc.) and programs it creates (committess, Pension Fund, etc.), then there is no “national church,” since there is no actual hierarchical authority greater than the individual bishop in his diocese. There is no archiepiscopal or metropolitical authority in TEC, like it or not.
Which of these statements is wrong? That’s not a rhetorical question. I’d really like to know.
Observing [#30], I’ve said for some time that property ought to go where it can best be used for bringing people to God.
I wish the conversation had gone something like this:
+Iker, +Duncan, etc.: Katharine, we love you guys, but our consciences just won’t permit us to continue working and communing in the same church with you. So we’re resigning our positions in TEC. We’re starting a missionary branch of the Church of [Nigeria | Kenya | Southern Cone]. We will leave empty-handed unless you agree to something else. But we’d like to talk to you, as colleagues, about how best to use the property to bring people to God. We think we’re likely to be in a good position to do that, and so we’d like TEC to consider letting us take some of it with us.
+Katharine, David Booth Beers, etc.: We wish you well, and we are happy to work on a sensible allocation of property (which isn’t ours in the first place), one that will help all of us carry out The Mission we’ve been assigned.
D.C., your above scenario was attepted, actually before 2003, when many bishops knew how bad things were getting. It was rejected by Griswold. Any plan of reasonableness has been decimated by Schori.
The left has itself and only itself to blame.
Dr Rathernot – Bingo, you’ve nailed it.
#32 – see Diocese of Virginia. You also omitted the gales of laughter between the +Iker and KJS paragraphs.
I am heartened by the sentiment expressed in DC’s comment: “property ought to go where it can best be used for bringing people to God.” Thanks.
But as others have pointed out, the new sheriff in town does not share your/our point of view and will have none of it. She would rather have church turned into restaurants rather than house of worships going to the “bad guys.”
IRNS [#31], I’d dispute several of your propositions:
Different people will have different mental models of the relationship between TEC and its dioceses. (The question is, how coherent are those mental models with the evidence?) Here’s mine — which I think was pretty universally shared until it became convenient for the secessionists to claim otherwise: For secular purposes, some dioceses have corporations attached to them. Those corporations are like wholly-owned and controlled subsidiaries of a division of the parent company. They’re much the same as Delco Electronics, a GM subsidiary, used to be for General Motors’ then-unincorporated Delphi auto parts division. In our case:
• TEC is analogous to GM;
• the Diocese of (say) Fort Worth is analogous to Delphi Automotive Division, which back in the day had no legal existence except as a convenient name for a part of GM [I could be wrong on the facts, but the point is still the same]; and
• the diocese’s non-profit corporation is analogous to Delco Electronics, viz., it has no meaningful existence outside the TEC umbrella.
(Please, no jokes about TEC being a gargantuan, dinosaur-like corporation on a downhill slide; time will tell whether that’s right, so you get no points for making such an obvious jibe.)
Only in the sense that individuals can quit at any time. To continue the analogy: Employees of GM’s old Delphi Automotive Systems could have quit at any time, even en masse. Delphi Automotive Systems as a whole, however, couldn’t have quit GM without approval from GM, because it didn’t even exist apart from GM. Likewise, no diocese can quit TEC without TEC’s approval because since the adoption of TEC’s constitution (in 1789?), no diocese even exists apart from TEC. It’s certainly convenient now for +Iker et al. to claim otherwise, but I don’t think their prior actions are consistent with that newly-espoused view.
Even if the second sentence were true, it’d be of zero relevance. I’ve analyzed this question at considerably greater length in this blog posting.
See my response to point 3.
Robroy [#35], I wish the conversation about property had started differently. The liberal side doesn’t have snowy-white skirts. But from having followed the festivities for quite a few years, it appears to me that the church’s scripturalists are the ones who started the mess, at least that part of the mess that relates to property. They launched increasingly-bitter attacks against ‘the national Church,’ they demonized their opponents, and and they made plans to unilaterally separate and take their property with them. (See, e.g., the infamous Chapman Memo.)
When one side unilaterally starts to take what it wants by way of property, an entirely proper response — arguably the only proper response — is to go after them, hard, so that they’ll indisputably get the message that they can’t just do whatever the [expletive] they feel like. (See the Wikipedia article on the Tit for Tat strategy: “an agent using this strategy will initially cooperate, then respond in kind to an opponent’s previous action. If the opponent previously was cooperative, the agent is cooperative. If not, the agent is not.”)
I think +Katharine, and +Frank before her, have shown remarkable forbearance. If the secessionists would confess error in the way they’ve approached the property issue, it wouldn’t surprise me if TEC would say that all was forgiven, and let’s talk about how to divide the property so as best to serve the mission of bringing people to God.
D.C. I’m not convinced. In places where such negotiations were taking place (like Virginia and El Paso) the PB and Beers rode in with guns blazing. +Schori supposedly admitted in testimony that she broke up the negotiations in Virginia. And I’ve been told she threatened to sue +Steenson for negotiating with St. Clement’s in El Paso. Now the separatists didn’t resign and begin from an outside position, but neither has +Schori shown all that much interest in negotiation. Your vision of peaceful negotiations is beautiful, but regrettably I think it’s a fantasy.
We’ve been told for years not to refer to the Episcopal Church Center (i.e. 815) as the “National Church”. We’ve endured arguments that TEC is not hierarchical beyond the diocesan level (I’ve heard many a liberal friend groan when the press refers to the “Episcopal hierarchy”, and we’ve all heard people scream in discussions of the proposed Anglican Covenant “Oh no, we’re not a hierarchy like Rome!”). Now the PB says we are a national church because it is politically expedient to do so. She won’t say that when discussing “local option” or the right of a diocese to choose whoever the heck they want for bishop. Mind you, I firmly believe if the reasserters were in charge, no one on that side would be arguing that GC is voluntary and that any parish or diocese can depart for another province. I do think that is a difficult argument. In cases like the Falls Church and Truro, which existed before there was a Diocese of Virginia, there is a case to be made. In a Diocese like South Carolina which existed before TEC formed, there is a case to be made. But such a newly created Diocese like Fort Worth is going to have a tougher time justifying this position, given its founding history.
To widen a controversial current analogy, the Southern States argued that since they voluntarily joined the Union in ratifying the Constitution, they had the right to voluntarily leave it. There was a certain logic to that, but there was and is no Constitutional mechanism for secession. The North argued it was thus not a right, this in spite of the fact that the New England states had threatened to secede a few decades earlier (though whether they were serious is debatable). As then I think the question will be decided on the battlefield, this time the battlefield of the courts. All bets are off when an entire diocese is involved. I suspect it will go all the way to the Supreme Court. I think we all know that the SCOTUS won’t want to touch it with a ten foot pole. Ultimately, I don’ t think anyone can accurately predict what the outcome of all of this will be.
D.C.: What is it that you are smoking? I may need some of that to get through this blog.
Come on DC to have “estoppel” enforced you have to have “clean hands” – TEC has anything but ( a Texas jury will not like hearing they fellow Texans tales of woe at the hands of leftwing Yankees- NY and progressives generally are disfavored here) However, the deeds into the corporation are probably the better postion for Ft Worth – they have been on file for over 20 years – TEC has had constructive notice and done nothing about it. Fort Worth is making its run – better to have a chance at a future than no future at all. Even if they lose they can always re-start from scratch. I look forward to the expose on 60 minutes about a Church diocese with hardly a soul in it. Very bad PR. With TEC’s litigation strategy I am always reminded of the Sunday School poem with the hands/fingers – “Here is the Church, here is the steeple, open it up and see all the people”. I guess +KJS did not learn that one as a child – but I think she must have been real good at Monopoly.
I love how Brian keeps trying to use the shake the dust/sacrifice for Christ arguement for getting reasserters to do a walk and leave his side with all the property. Brian – the reasserters are orthodox/traditionalists but they are (actually were) Episcopalians – they lack the self destructive tendancies of other denominational conservatives.
[i]they lack the self destructive tendancies of other denominational conservatives.[/i]
I’m a reasserter and I’m not even convinced of that.
D.C., that is nonsense. There have been many, many instances where the congregation has made earnest efforts to bargain in good faith and have been told to take a hike which they have and then had sold to others (the most notorious case is in Denver, where the church is now The Church Nightclub, where partiers rave on its website about getting “nasty” in a church). This is much more common than the fight for the property. The only cases where churches and dioceses have negotiated in good faith is in conservative dioceses. (And Harold Lewis sued Bp Duncan in such a circumstance.) One of the lawyers representing one of the California, stated that to the best of his knowledge, none of the churches that the TEC has sued for and evicted the occupants have gone on to become a viable parish. So why do they persist? Because, they are afraid (rightly so) that their house of cards will come tumbling down.
To keep up with the “that’s nonsense.” I really like the church in Connecticut where they voted to leave the property and the diocese [i]still sued.[/i] Those that voluntary leave the property ask for several weeks to obtain closure, are told they have four days to vacate the property. This is the norm. I thanked you for your statement, but I am having doubts of your sincerity.
Perhaps Alta but at least it is less pronounced.