As the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts prepares to close on the sale of the Bement Camp and Conference Center near Worcester this week, a group of camp alumni has called on the state attorney general to investigate the handling of funds held in trust by the diocese.

In a statement Tuesday, the diocese said it was both “surprised and disappointed” by the development and said the funds entrusted in its care have been handled properly.

“All diocesan funds, including those to support the Bement Camp and Conference Center, are invested, managed and expended in compliance with the directions of the donor, if any, church canons and applicable Mass. and federal laws,” Steven Abdow, administration and finance officer, wrote to the [Daily Hampshire] Gazette on behalf of the diocese.

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A $15 million rebuilding effort lies ahead for the Washington National Cathedral, and questions remain about whether that amount is sufficient, said Andrew Hullinger, the cathedral’s senior director of finance and administration.

Extensive earthquake damage to the stone cathedral on Aug. 23 includes fallen hand-carved angel and cherub carvings and stone chunks, cracks, crevasses and fissures, Hullinger said at a forum at All Saints Church in Chevy Chase, Md. A $2 million stabilization program made it possible to reopen the cathedral Nov. 12 for the consecration of the Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde as the ninth Bishop of Washington.

“The earthquake shook with such force and such violence it just blew these stones apart,” Hullinger said, adding that he does not want to imagine the damage if the brief quake had lasted longer.

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The Council of General Synod (CoGS) has approved a balanced 2012 budget for the national church of $12.698 million.

At its Nov. 18-20 meeting here, a balanced budget was also forecast for 2013 with “no further staffing cuts” before 2016.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that declining revenues coupled with cost-push inflation could mean that General Synod will once again face a deficit budget in 2014. This deficit could balloon to $1 million by 2016, according to a report submitted to CoGS by the church’s Financial Management Committee (FMC).

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The 2010 office and working costs of bishops in the Church of England… [were] published… [this week]. Figures for individual bishops were first published, for the year 2000, in December 2001. Bishops’ office and working costs were previously published as a total figure.

Bishops’ office and working costs for the year ended 31 December 2010 are published on the Church of England website .

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Eight years of property litigation involving the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh has ended, but most parishes that broke from the Episcopal Church still face negotiations over their buildings.

After the Pennsylvania Supreme Court last week denied an appeal from the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh, which had argued that it owned the property, the Anglican decided diocese it will not appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, spokesman David Trautman said.

“This whole string of litigation is ended, is done,” he said.

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Financial turmoil in global markets continues to play havoc with the value of the U.S. dollar, but technology continues to make the transfer of donor dollars to missionaries quicker and easier.

American missionary income in China has dropped 25 percent in recent years because of the dollar’s decline against the Chinese yuan, said a missionary leader who requested anonymity. “In 24 years of missionary ministry, I have never seen things as tough as they are now.”

“It’s a complaint we hear almost every day,” says Bill Bray of Christian Aid Mission, which supports indigenous missionaries in 122 nations. “They need more money because of the exchange rate.”

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The first morning of Council brought three distinctive yet interwoven narratives from the Presiding Bishop, the President of the House of Deputies and the Chief Operating Officer. Each made important statements about how the work of Executive Council relates to the larger narratives of the life of the Church. There were moments of conflict as values held passionately by the three speakers were openly expressed. There were admonitions to find Jesus among the poor, to honor the hard work and witness of the whole people of the Church in all orders, to express how we carry out God’s mission in the shaping of a budget.

The experience of conflict in church meetings where budgetary discussions and vision are mixed together often make us wary of even trying to connect the dots, of weaving a whole story from the threads. Rich insights by committed leadership, accompanied by a common commitment to hear one another out, resulted in the beginnings of new stronger cloth.

In 2009, General Convention closed with a strong emphasis on mission, mission, mission. . . . God is calling the church to meet Jesus in the marginalized ”“ the poor, the lonely, the suffering, the lost. Weave, weave, weave . . . Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori in her opening remarks challenged Council to regard budgets as moral documents. The 76th General Convention’s adoption of the Five Marks of Mission of the Anglican Communion as mission priorities are the threads that are woven through all the parts of The Episcopal Church’s budget.

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Also in his remarks, [Bishop Stacy] Sauls spoke about how in September when he came to work at the Episcopal Church Center in New York he found a “demoralized staff” that was fearful, overly regulated, distrustful and that felt their creativity was stifled. He said he has begun to refer to the staff as “missionaries” in keeping with the church’s corporate identity as the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society “because it suggests something about the reason for our being.”

“I want them grounded, not in a place, but in an endeavor and that endeavor is to participate in the mission of God and to lead others to participate in the mission of God,” he said.

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Saying it must reverse a trend of annual deficits and restructure to meet the changing needs of theological education, the Church Divinity School of the Pacific’s board of trustees agreed Oct. 14 to increase and broaden enrollment, increase annual giving and reduce its 11-member faculty.

The seminary has run annual operating deficits for several years. The current fiscal year the deficit is $1.4 million on a $4 million budget. The budget includes the cost of being a member of the Graduate Theological Union, of which CDSP is a founding member.

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Episcopal Partnership for Global Mission (EPGM) has announced that it will officially disband as a mission networking organization serving the Episcopal Church, according to an Oct. 15 news release.

The decision to disband was made at EPGM’s annual meeting, held at the Everyone Everywhere 2011 conference in Estes Park, Colorado, and approved by consensus of the attending membership organizations, the release said.

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Tithing to mainline Protestant churches as a percentage of income is at its lowest level in at least 41 years, according to a new report, and churches are keeping a greater share of those donations for their own needs.

Parishioners gave about 2.38 percent of their income to their church, according to “The State of Church Giving through 2009,” a new report being released Friday (Oct. 14) by Empty Tomb inc., a Christian research agency in Champaign, Ill.

Just over 2 percent of income went toward congregational finances, such as operating costs and building expenses. Only 0.34 percent of parishioner income went to what Empty Tomb calls “benevolences,” such as charities and seminary training beyond the four walls of the church.

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Like their secular counterparts, many clergy who devoted their attention to less temporal matters than financial planning now find themselves amid shrinking church budgets and a poor economy being forced to work beyond traditional retirement ages.

It is an especially critical issue in smaller churches that still do not set aside money for clergy retirement. In a 2008 study of Church of Christ clergy in Texas, just a quarter of respondents said they had plans to fully retire.

But it is also a burden for larger, mainline Protestant denominations. As memberships shrink and many older clergy find it financially untenable to retire, even fewer younger clergy are able to find work.

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Bishop Jefferts Schori says this new Anglican group is encroaching on her church’s jurisdiction, and she has authorized dozens of lawsuits “to protect the assets of the Episcopal Church for the mission of the Episcopal Church.” The Episcopal Church has dedicated $22 million to legal actions against departing clergy, congregations and dioceses, according to Allan Haley, a canon lawyer who has represented a diocese in one such case.

Now the Episcopal Church has upped the ante: It has declared that if congregations break away and buy their sanctuaries, they must disaffiliate from any group that professes to be Anglican.

Rather than agree to this demand to disaffiliate from Anglicanism, Pittsburgh’s All Saints Episcopal Anglican Church last month walked away from the building it had inhabited since 1928. The congregation called the Episcopal Church’s demand “mean-spirited” and an attempt to deny “the freedom of religious affiliation.”

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A lawsuit filed by creditors against several members of Crystal Cathedral founder Robert H. Schuller’s family alleges that the older Schuller and his family members used their power and position to give themselves generous salaries, housing allowances and other benefits while the church struggled financially over the last nine years.

In addition, the complaint filed Friday states that Crystal Cathedral Ministries borrowed more than $10 million between 2002 and 2009 from endowment funds, which were meant to pay for specific items such as maintenance of the Walk of Faith memorial stones on the campus. The money was then used for regular church expenses and salaries, the lawsuit alleges.

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A letter from the Cathedral Vestry begins as follows:

For several years the Cathedral has been having difficulty meeting the expenses of our beautiful buildings. Declining membership and an inability to attract new members and pledges in sufficient numbers has added to the financial uncertainty.

The Cathedral has been on the verge of closing several times over the last five years as it has used up its reserves. During that period, several committees and working groups from the Cathedral and Diocese have looked at options and ideas for bringing in additional funds. The Cathedral has also reduced expenses dramatically in an effort to balance its budget.

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New Zealand’s largest insurer of churches and heritage buildings announced yesterday that it would stop offering earthquake coverage throughout the country.

The British-owned Ansvar Insurance suffered $700 million worth of losses in the Christchurch earthquakes, including losses on the Anglican and Catholic cathedrals and the Christchurch Arts Centre.

It is the first insurer to stop offering earthquake coverage nationally since the disasters, which are expected to cost insurers more than $15 billion.

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The Church of England has today published its latest information about parish income and expenditure and trends in ministry numbers in Church Statistics 2009/10. The attendance statistics included were published in February 2011.

This year’s financial statistics show that the 2008 credit crunch began to affect church income in 2009, though not in terms of parish giving nor as hard as many charities.

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From Phil Ashey–

I’d like to share with you a letter from the Bishop and Diocesan Council of The Episcopal Church’s (TEC) Diocese of the Rio Grande. But first, a little background so that you can appreciate the letter in all its fullness.

This time two years ago, approximately 80% of the parishioners of St. Mark’s on-the-Mesa (TEC) left the parish and formed Christ the King Anglican, Albuquerque, NM (Anglican Church in North America). When those parishioners left the parish, the Diocese of the Rio Grande, and the Episcopal Church, they left everything. They left the property, building, endowments, bank accounts – even paperclips and pencils. They did so in good conscience, with generosity, and with love for those who in good conscience could not leave The Episcopal Church. Based on their reading of scripture, these parishioners did not want to fight over buildings and property in civil courts. Instead, they walked away and began a new life together as Anglican followers of Jesus Christ at Christ the King Anglican Church. Not only did the new parish draw former Episcopalians, but also Christians from other denominations who wanted to worship and serve at Christ the King Anglican.

Fast forward two years to August 31, 2011 (about three weeks ago). The congregation’s rector, the Rev. Roger Weber, former priest at St. Mark’s, received this letter from TEC Bishop Michael Vono of the Diocese of the Rio Grande…

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During the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell took a dim view of Rose Castle, the Bishop of Carlisle’s palace in Cumbria. One of the occupants had been rash enough to fire a cannon as he passed by, and so he burnt it. But thanks to the efforts of Georgian and Victorian divines, it recovered from the disaster and entered the 21st century as one of the most precious jewels of the Church Commissioners’ portfolio. But the Puritans are back. Despite a report two years ago by the then Bishop of Carlisle, stating that Rose Castle admirably fulfilled its purpose as a “see house”, it is now seen as surplus to requirements. Cavaliers fear its sale will be considered at a meeting this month.

We all know that the Church Commissioners have a chequered record where property is concerned….

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To read between the lines here: the Treasurer of the Church, like all of the staff at 815, works for the Presiding Bishop, not for the Executive Council. When she tells him to “find money for litigation”, his job is not to ask “Where?”, but rather: “How much do you need?” And in exchange for such due obedience, she protects him from all incursions into his territory by the likes of the Executive Council — who only imagine that they run the show when General Convention is not in session.

No, this is the Presiding Bishop’s show — lock, stock, and barrel. If the Church needs money to fund her agenda, then it will jolly well have to supply it, without any interference from the Executive Council. The Church is extraordinarily wealthy, with over $140 million in unrestricted securities and investments, the gifts of innumerable donors over the centuries. And in recent years it has not been shy about borrowing against the endowment to provide it with working capital for the Presiding Bishop’s ongoing litigation agenda.

Thus it should now come as no surprise to learn that, in a face-off between the Committee’s alternatives and those explored by the Treasurer and his investment manager, the latter prevailed. The headquarters building did not have to be mortgaged; the Treasurer simply ponied up more of the endowment as collateral for two new lines of credit.

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Almighty God, whose loving hand hath given us all that we possess: Grant us grace that we may honour thee with our substance, and, remembering the account which we must one day give, may be faithful stewards of thy bounty; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–BCP

The aftermath of drought and the global financial crisis has led to a proposed rationalisation of church institutions and management across the three Anglican dioceses of Canberra and Goulburn, Bathurst and Riverina.

The proposal was supported yesterday after a day-long debate by the synod of Canberra and Goulburn, meeting in Goulburn. Synods of Bathurst and Riverina are still to meet, but as they are the major beneficiaries of the proposed changes, there seems little likelihood they will oppose them.

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In preparation for the 77th General Convention of the Episcopal Church in July 2012, the year-long budget preparation process for funding the mission and ministry of the Episcopal Church has begun, according to a press release from the church’s Office of Public Affairs.

The Executive Council Aug. 25 announced a new approach to solicit input broadly from across the church on what the church’s funding priorities ought to be and what the program section of the draft budget.

“Changing and challenging financial realities at the churchwide level and for dioceses and congregations demand that a reassessment be done,” the release said.

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Experts say the parsonage allowance was originally included as a way to minimize taxes on clergy members, whose compensation was often meager. It still is widely used for that purpose, church officials said, although the IRS doesn’t track usage of the benefit.

“For most of them the housing allowance is modest because their compensation is modest,” says Daniel Gary, an attorney with the United Methodist Church in Nashville.

Similarly, D. August Boto, general counsel of the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, says for leaders of the organization’s 46,000 churches “the housing allowance is critically important for making ends meet””it is not a luxury.”

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Guernsey’s Anglican Dean has said he is worried about the impact of an ongoing review into church funding.

The island’s Parochial Ecclesiastical Rates Review Committee (PERRC) expects to report on the issue this year.

It will recommend whether the parish churches and rectory buildings should continue to be funded by ratepayers.

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A group of economists is launching a charity with a simple but radical plan: Give money to very poor people, and let them spend it however they want.

The recipients live in rural Kenya, typically in mud huts with dirt floors. They make about $1 a day.

The charity is called GiveDirectly. It’s the outgrowth of relatively new technology, and a very old economic idea.

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The Anglican Church’s Sydney diocese faces another year of belt tightening and cuts to community services after its investment arm warned of a ”substantial reduction” in its annual payout.

Two years after it lost $160 million because of a high-risk gearing strategy, the investment arm of the country’s largest Anglican diocese has blamed a 71 per cent fall in earnings – to $3.2 million for the year to December – on a ”subdued performance” by the Australian sharemarket. The result would have been worse if not for a $4.5 million rise in the value of its investment in St Andrew’s House.

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When Hubbard died in 1986, his leadership role was taken over by a less flamboyant figure, David Miscavige, who had been a Scientologist since the age of 8. He followed the founder’s plans, especially his “celebrity strategy,” conceived in 1955. Hubbard’s initial hopes were to lure admired people like Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso and Edward R. Murrow into his church. But this ambition shrank, by Miscavige’s time, to recruiting show business personalities. The big catches here were John Travolta and Cruise, on whom Miscavige danced continual attendance, in a tactic the church called “admiration bombing.” A glitzy Celebrity Centre was built for any new catches, and less-known figures proved useful. Nancy Cartright, the voice of Bart Simpson, gave the church $10 million in just one of her years of devout service.

[Janet] Reitman, a contributing editor at Rolling Stone who spent five years trying to pierce the walls Scientologists put up against outsiders, gives us the most complete picture of Scientology so far. She seems, now, uncertain of its future. But its continued existence, given its weird aspects, is its main claim to religion’s power. It is something of a miracle.

The Catholic Church offers a very different picture, but one where money is even more important. Jason Berry, the reporter who broke several of the priest abuse scandals of recent times, finds the same pattern of deception, denial and subterfuge in the church’s handling of money as in its treatment of pedophiles. The Vatican comes to its high-handed way with money in an understandable fashion. In the Middle Ages, all authority was male and monarchical, so the pope became a king. His multiple realms had all the appurtenances of a medieval monarch ”” armies, prisons, spies, torturers, legal courts in papal service. The money flowed in from many sources ”” as conquest, as tribute from subordinate princes (secular and religious) or from the crops on farm lands held by the pope, who was not accountable to anyone for use of these funds. When normal sources did not satisfy papal ambition, clerical underlings invented new kinds of revenue ”” like the granting of time off in Purgatory for cash contributions during life (“indul­gences” for sale).

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