The Rev. Fred Risard, vicar of St. Nicholas’ Church, Atwater, Calif., has written to Bishop John-David Schofield of San Joaquin, informing him that the congregation has retained legal counsel, and asking for clarification regarding a planned visitation on Dec. 23.
“If you do decide to come, please let us know in advance your purpose and your status as a bishop of The Episcopal Church,” Fr. Risard wrote. “Will you be coming as our Episcopal Bishop, having repented of your actions at diocesan convention, seeking forgiveness and reconciliation? Or will you be coming to worship as a visiting foreign bishop seeking to reconcile with your former congregation and vicar, and, following the Mass, to join us as we take groceries and coats to the poor?”
In an interview with a reporter for The Living Church, Fr. Risard said he is concerned that Bishop Schofield was planning to relieve him of his responsibilities as vicar at St. Nicholas. Fr. Risard said he wants to remain a priest of The Episcopal Church. He abstained from the votes to leave The Episcopal Church and from the one to affiliate with the Southern Cone on Dec. 8 during diocesan convention.
St. Nicholas’s is a mission, I believe. Their 2006 ASA was 45 and membership was 65, which is a marked improvement from years past.
I’m going to be curious to see whether Bishop Schofield lets them leave. He indicated that he would for parishes, which are presumably self-supporting. But what his stand on missions will be, only he knows.
Were I him, I’d let them go. But I’d force them to declare themselves in unambiguous terms and I would seek repayment for any outstanding debts. I’m not even sure I’d press too hard on the debts, but I’d ask about them. If they decline to repay, I’d publicly forgive the debts. I’m assuming 815 is promising to loan any dissident churches whatever they need. Debt forgiveness gets 815 out of the picture.
First off, it is the Christian thing to do. Lawsuits have nothing to do with the church.
Secondly, it’s the shrewd move. Doing so puts the diocese on the higher ground. When the Episcopal Church sues San Joaquin, all the national church’s dealings with the diocese will be examined, as well as the diocese’s dealings with the individual churches within it. If you can show that you have acted compassionately and generously with any alleged aggrieved party, it goes a long way with judges and juries.
He forgot to cc: Oprah, President Bush, the Pope, and some other people I think.
A good career move for the Martyr of Merced who may get a job offer from a gay-friendly diocese. Rude letter, though.
Tom Rightmyer in Asheville, NC
St. Nicholas needs to move immediately to declare itself self-supporting, if they want the freedom to make independent decisions. For Fr. Risard, this might mean taking a part-time job as he accepts a reduced income from his orphaned parish. Ecclesial independence from the bishop who appointed him as the vicar of his mission must also include financial indepence from the diocese which has switched provinces.
I don’t find the letter rude, but intentionally cold. It reminds me of how bad customers act when you ask them about invoices which are overdue.
Where I find the letter deficient is in its patent illogic. Risard refers to Schofield as a bishop in several contexts, and grants that Schofield is a bishop either in ecusa or in Southern Cone. But he is not sure which in paragraph one, yet Risard acknowleges historical facts concerning Schofield’s new canonical status in paragraph 3.
The whole letter would be more cogent if Risard simply said that the mission isn’t affiliated with Southern Cone or Schofield’s episcopate. Katherine Schori would do Risard a huge favor here by appointment of an interim bishop for the notional ecusa entity replacing DoSJ, otherwise the first paragraph’s reference to a “Bishop’s Committee” would be an oxymoron. The whole letter is a brave overreach, in which Risard is trying to precipitate some action on 815’s part to preserve the Merced mission’s continuing status within ecusa.
Conversely, with this letter Risard and the mission have certainly burnt their bridges wrt Schofield and DoSJ.
I especially loved the “holier than thou” bit about taking groceries and coats to the poor. Well, since he’s now bragged about it, I guess he has his reward already. Too bad.
I like mousestalker’s approach, but still must say this:
Fr. Risard, we each have to pay a price for following our consciences, don’t we? In a half-twisted application of vaunted Anglican order that sees the Diocese as the fundamental ecclesiastical unit, and the Bishop its pastor — and the Archbishop of Canterbury has recently reinforced this — the ECUSA to which you pledge allegiance above your bishop insists on standing on canon. These same canons are being used across the country to coerce people on the opposite side to abandon either their conscience or their property.
If I have to leave my property behind to be free of my local reappriasing bishop, then it’s only fair — perhaps I dare say “just” — that you must do likewise to be free of your reasserting bishop. Tough break, believe me, I know.
Obviously I am not neutral – but the revisionists always come across as real jerks in print. I really do not think our sides people come across as mean spirited.
Obviously I am not neutral – but the revisionists always come across as real jerks in print. I really do not think our sides people come across as mean spirited.
Mean-spirited? Sometimes. Pompous, self-important, self-serving, power-hungry, fake – most times.
#8 I wouldn’t make overall generalities on that subject. Anytime one gets to the front of an argument, some listener is bound to take exception on a personal basis to their argument. Humans just aren’t built to be dispassionate on important issues. So the only hope of escaping accusations of meanness would be:
Bene qui latuit, bene vixit.
[i]One who lives well, lives unnoticed.[/i]
(Ovidius, Tristia)
#8 , with #9 being a good example of what I’m referring to.
Its time for the bishop to permit the ‘chaff’ to separate itself from the ‘wheat.’
Did anyone else note the irony of the church welcoming ALL but an orthodox bishop? Inclusivity, sadly, always seems to be a code word for “No Traditionalists.”
Adam12- you didn’t read the letter closely. They didn’t exclude Schofield personally, just +Schofield as the diocesan of an non ecusa diocese.
Why on Earth would one repent of remaining faithful to the Gospel? Bizarre.
If Fr. Risard wants to stay with TEC, I say let him go and let Kate Schori pay for his mission.
Can someone explain to me how people with as much education and intelligence as Episcopal priests, need to hire lawyers to tell them what just happened at their diocesan convention? BabyBlue–if you are reading T19 today: “don’t need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows”–at least I don’t.
Another possible action for +J-D would be to write a very friendly letter to +Beisner — who recently [url=http://www.dncweb.org/San%20Joaquin.pdf]wrote[/url], “We will also continue, in concert with other neighboring dioceses and under the direction of our Presiding Bishop, to offer support to all our sisters and brothers in San Joaquin who wish to continue to live as Anglican Christians within the Episcopal Church” — authorizing him to make a pastoral episcopal visit in place of +J-D under the terms of the laughably inadequate TEC DEPO, and making sure that a financial statement detailing DioSJ’s support of the mission accompanies without comment the cc of the letter sent to Risard…
Perhaps this best response to a clearly self-promotional letter (see the numerous “cc”s and the alerting of the media) is a silence which seeks to avoid further embarrassment to the vicar and to all who respond to his unworthy missive.
So: can we get on with our individual repentances before we celebrate the birth of our Savior?
#18 should read: Perhaps THE best response…
Sorry.
I live in Merced and until about 4 months ago lived in Atwater a few blocks from St. Nicholas. I had no idea that they were such a liberal parish. I was (erroneously) under the impression that it was a parish in line with the diocese (conservative). If they are a mission parish they certainly are well off. They have, at least from the outside, a really nice looking church. Clearly they are not suffering from material want (unlike my own mission parish which is so poor we can not afford to pay attention).
A couple of thoughts.
First, Risard says in the article that he refuses to be cowed by +JDS and that he thinks the convention act was wrong. If so, why did he abstain from the vote? On the principle that it was out of order, perhaps? Still, his abstention looks a lot like cowardice. He should have stood and been numbered with the revisionists. Perhaps he’s regretting that now.
Secondly, it’s a mission, so canonically speaking (at least by ECUSA canons – I don’t know about Southern Cone), the Bishop is the Rector. Schofield would be entirely within his right to fire Risard, dismiss the Bishop’s Committee, and fire the lawyer (let Risard and the members retain him privately if they wish, but not in the name of the mission). That might not be a wise choice, but it would normally be within his rights. The problem is the mission no longer recognizes the authority of the Bishop, just as he no longer recognizes the authority of 815.
The ball is in Schofield’s court. The question is whether or not he shows up on Sunday, and if he does is it vested and prepared to preside (a congregation cannot refuse their bishop his right to preside and preach, normally). And if so what does the congregation do in response. We could see a reversal of the Acokeek incident.
My guess is he will not go, and consult with his chancellor on what to do with this meddlesome priest. Will he choose to be gracious with them or hold to his stated position that missions cannot leave the diocese? He may work out an agreement to make Atwater a parish on the quick, but technically that requires convention approval. Again the problem is neither side respects the other’s authority, so there can be no immediate resolution. This could end up in court much sooner than anyone would predict, and be very nasty. I don’t know what +Schofield will do. I do know he’s not the kind of person to back down from a fight if he believes he is right.
+Schori has given +JDS two months to repent, but that is a month and a half too late for Atwater.
One last thought is on the concept of “differentiation” that Kendall recently spoke of in Colorado. And that is that reappraisers seem particularly good at this. By contacting the press and advertising their position, Risard is differentiating himself from the diocese. In my own diocese St. John’s, Petaluma withdrew from TEC (I believe for the Southern Cone). Shortly thereafter Incarnation, Santa Rosa, a nearby reappraising parish advertised in the region’s newspaper that TEC and Incarnation stood apart from St. John’s bigotry, blah blah, homophobia, blah blah, stupid literalism, etc… Good examples of differentiation, that we reasserters should take note of.
How we do that as individuals in well-meaning parishes that still believe the Babylonians aren’t coming, that is what I’m not clear on.
If Fred Risard does leave, I think he’ll be one of a very few at St Nicholas’ Mission to leave. I could be wrong, but I believe they’re on somewhat shaky ground.
Dream on, Alta Californian [#21]. SNM is first and foremost a TEC mission, and only secondarily a mission of the DSJ. Schofield isn’t bishop of DSJ anymore. He quit. He no longer has any standing at SNM, nor anywhere else in the diocese, except perhaps as a visiting bishop of a not-in-communion foreign church. In particular, Schofield has no authority to fire Risard nor to dismiss the Bishop’s Committee. If he and his followers exercise control over a nickel of DSJ money, for example by cutting off funding for SNM, they should be held to account in the courts — not just the civil courts, but possibly the criminal courts as well.
Just something to ponder…
What if the deacon, the rest of the mission, excepting the Bishop’s Committee, were all surprised by this attempt usurp the Diocesan rector’s authority? And, what if Fred Risard is just a nutter living out a delusional fantasy and demanding his Andy Warhol “fifteen minutesâ€. I mean, cc: Most Reverend Dr. Rowan Williams? Copying the ABC, now really?
What if the Bishop’s Committee that Risard says is not “prepared to meet with†the rector of the mission, hasn’t been brought into the awareness of their lack of preparation? What if Risard has simply snapped and is taking advice from invisible friends along with the help of some very real long distance phone conversations just to keep the crust knocked off?
Just something to ponder…
#24 — If the mission was founded and is funded by DioSJ’s corporate persona, then I should think that the directors of the corporation would have a say in the use of the funds, and that the bylaws of the corporation would specify what the mission’s relationship to the ecclesial diocese (now affiliated with the Southern Cone) is. TEC has no relationship whatever with the corporation, unless specified in the corporate bylaws.
TEC has no diocese in Central California at this point; it is open to missionary work, with the approval of the HoB. Perhaps DioSJ would be willing to sell the facilities of St. Nicholas’ to the Domestic & Foreign Missions Society at a fair market price, if the bulk of the congregation agrees with Risard and if 815 asks politely…
#26-What if metaphorically speaking #24 is posing the same threat as the big bad wolf to the third little pig (who as you have elucidated – metaphorically speaking again – his house is made of bricks)? If he huffs and puffs hard enough such as:
[blockquote] If he and his followers exercise control over a nickel of DSJ money, for example by cutting off funding for SNM, they should be held to account in the courts — not just the civil courts, but possibly the criminal courts as well. [/blockquote]
do you suppose little pig will give up and let him in?
Not by the hair of his chinny-chin-chin…
Shrill invective from the revisionistas nor edicts from 815 do not make canon law or alter civil property law. What does canon law say and not say? You can find it all on line. Cite chapter and verse not spin phrases and mantras. Who owns the deed to the mission?
I truly hope Bishop Schofield takes the high road here. As Jesus said, it’s no glory to God if we behave the same way as the heathen. If the DSJ takes a financial loss to uphold the Gospel, so much the better. That’s differentiation that might receive some notice.
D.C., you illustrate my point. Is Schofield still the bishop of San Joaquin or not? He believes he is. You and Risard (and very soon 815) believe he is not. If he is, then he has the authority to fire the lot of them, and make any monetary decisions a bishop could normally make. If he is not, then he does not. I was saying that under normal circumstances in TEC, he would have the right. Now, +JDS doesn’t think he is in TEC, but he also may not think St. Nicholas, as a mission, is either. And with no one recognizing anyone else’s authority who is to say?
You know darn well this will ultimately end up in court. And I do not have your crystal ball for determining what those courts will decide. You are a lawyer, and you may be right that 815 will prevail. I simply don’t share your confidence, either way. I’ve never predicted easy triumph for San Joaquin, or any reasserter cause. And I don’t argue that now. But I will argue, at least until the final court ruling, that reappraiser conceit that 815 will prevail is, I think, premature.
The interesting fact that is uncontestable at this point is that the Standing Committee of the DoSJ, as its governing corporate board, has not chosen to use its legal right to access its own property and relieve this mission of its access to that property. That is a good thing, ecclesiastically, as it allows matters to die down rather than stir them up.
Risard’s letter’s tone is certainly contrary to trying to get matters decided in a mutually generous fashion.
This diocesan forebearance of course contrasts distinctly with how similar situations have transpired in Florida, or even in certain parishes in Connecticut.
Apparently Schofield had told Risard a while before this that because of the dwindling numbers, a non-fulltimer would need to take over. Risard apparently had been informed of this, but some who came in from RemainEpiscopal are claiming that Risard was fired there in front of his congregation – Schofield says he was only explaining what was going to happen, which was already known by at least Risard beforehand.
[i] Slightly edited. [/i]