From YBYHAMK@ip3gate.usa.comMon Feb 26 11:22:17 1996 Date: Sat, 24 Feb 1996 16:59:36 -0500 From: YBYHAMK@ip3gate.usa.com To: LCREW@andromeda.rutgers.edu Subject: Part 4 THE TRIAL OF BISHOP WALTER RIGHTER A FACT SHEET Presented by Integrity, Inc. What did the bishops mean when they "disassociate[d]" themselves from Bishop Spong's ordination of Williams to the priesthood? Did it refer only to the media maelstrom which surrounded the December ordination? The answer may be yes since there was no "disassociation" from the ordination of Williams to the diaconate. [There was no publicity surrounding Williams' ordination to the diaconate in June 1989.] Whatever disassociation meant, it clearly was far less than the "censure" that Bishop Benitez had called for. The final act of the "punish Spong" drama was dramatic, but only because of Bishop Spong's oratorical skills. On September 18, 1990, during a meeting of the House of Bishops in Washington, DC, Bishop Wantland submitted a motion for the bishops to "affirm and support" the February 20 statement by the Presiding Bishop and his Council of Advice. There was impassioned debate, and in the end, the vote was 80 in favor, 76 against. Bishop Spong abstained and several bishops absented themselves from the floor when the vote was called. Of the seven bishops present in October who had been on the Council of Advice in February, only one voted to affirm their earlier statement. The Presiding Bishop also voted not to affirm. Following the vote, Bishop Spong was given an opportunity to speak. He condemned the hypocrisy of the many bishops who ordain non-celibate gays and lesbians but who keep such actions secret. Allen L. Bartlett, Jr. (pending) On October 9, 1993, the Bishop of Pennsylvania, the Rt. Rev. Allen L. Bartlett, Jr., ordained to the diaconate the Rev. James B. Robertson, an openly gay non-celibate man. On November 12, 1994, he ordained the Rev. David John Morris to the diaconate. Morris is also an openly gay non-celibate man. Charges against Bishop Bartlett, alleging a violation of his ordination vows, were filed with the Presiding Bishop in 1995 by two priests and several laypersons in the Diocese of Pennsylvania. The Presiding Bishop declined to convene a panel of bishops to consider the charges pending the outcome of the Righter trial. 6. Why did the accusers choose Walter Righter? A. The accusers have contradicted themselves so the real reason for selecting Bishop Righter is open to conjecture. Accuser Explanation No. 1 In his January 27, 1995 letter to the Presiding Bishop, Bishop Wantland said: We have chosen to make this Presentment against Bishop Righter because his action is the least recent such ordination within the current five-year statute of limitation. Bishop Wantland's statement, however, is untrue. The Rev. Elizabeth Carl, an openly non-celibate lesbian, was ordained a deacon in June 1990, three months prior to the Rev. Barry Stopfel's ordination in September 1990 and well within the statute of limitations described by Bishop Wantland. There were also other ordinations of non-celibate lesbians and gay men during the first nine months of 1990. The accusers passed over at least five bishops in selecting Bishop Righter. One can assume (but see below) the accusers knew about the Carl ordination. Bishop Haines was threatened with censure at the July 1991 meeting of the House of Bishops because of his ordination of Ms. Carl to the priesthood. All the bishops knew that she had first been ordained to the diaconate -- a requirement in the Episcopal Church -- and the date and ordaining bishop are in The Episcopal Clerical Directory which all the bishops have. Accuser Explanation No. 2 Apparently acknowledging that what Bishop Wantland had written to the Presiding Bishop was inaccurate, another of the ten accusers, the Rt. Rev. Stephen Jecko, Bishop of Florida, attempted in a February 8, 1996 post on Quest, the Anglican network, to explain why Haines was overlooked: The fact is that Bishop Righter was the "next in line" following the statement by the House of Bishops in September 1990. That "Statement of the Presiding Bishop and His Council of Advice" - originally written in February of '90 - was adopted in toto by the House of Bishops on September 18. TWELVE DAYS LATER, September 30, Bishop Righter carried out the ordination for which he is on trial. This act was a clear repudiation of the Statement which the House as a whole had just adopted. Haines carried out his ordination before this very clear and forthright statement. (emphasis in original) Bishop Jecko's efforts to cover up for Bishop Wantland have dug the hole deeper for the accusers. As his statement concedes, the Haines ordination of Carl to the diaconate occurred four months after this "very clear and forthright statement" was originally released by the Presiding Bishop and his Council of Advice. While on September 18, on motion by Bishop Wantland, the House of Bishops "affirm[ed] and support[ed]," by a close vote of 80 to 76, the February 20 statement by the Presiding Bishop and his Council of Advice, of the seven bishops present in October who had been on the Council of Advice in February, only one voted to affirm it. The Presiding Bishop also voted not to affirm. How did the statement become "very clear and forthright" in September if it had not been in February? Bishop Jecko, who was not a bishop in 1990, also is somewhat confused about what he alleges to be a "very clear and forthright statement" in opposition to ordination of lesbians and gays. It was never clear to anyone exactly what "disassociation" meant in the context of the statement. It seemed to suggest that the bishops who signed the statement "distanced" themselves from the ordination of an openly non-celibate gay man in December 1989, but they did not "disapprove" it, nor "condemn" it, nor did they "censure" Bishop Spong for having performed the ordination. And were they disassociating themselves from the ordination or from the publicity surrounding it? Bishop William Frey, then Dean of the conservative Trinity School for Ministry near Pittsburgh and one of the 66 additional bishops who consented to the presentment, told reporters shortly after the vote in 1990 what he thought about this allegedly "very clear and forthright statement." "Some have said this is a gun pointed at the head of Spong," Frey said. "But it's really a water pistol." Apparently Bishop Jecko did not consult with his friend. Two days after the disassociation vote, the House of Bishops unanimously adopted a Pastoral Statement on Homosexuality conceding that it is "not of a single mind in [its] understanding of the demands of Holy Scripture, of faithful obedience to tradition, or informed awareness of the actual lives and choices faced by homosexual men and women." Accuser Explanation No. 3 Perhaps even stranger than Bishop Jecko's explanation for why the September 1990 ordination took precedence over the June 1990 ordination is what the accusers' chief spokesman, Bishop William Stanton, said in an Internet post on October 19, 1995: In answer to your query re: Elizabeth Carl. No one on the group of presenters knew or talked about this ordination. The only reason for making the Presentment against Bishop Righter was simply that his action, which gained widespread publicity across the country as you may recall, was the only one known to all of us. This is completely disingenuous. The proposed censure of both Righter and Haines at the 1991 General Convention received widespread coverage in the church press as well as national media attention. While Stanton was not a bishop in 1991, five of the ten accusers were. Indeed, Bishop Wantland spoke in favor of censure. It is simply not credible that from 1991 to 1995 there was no corporate memory of Elizabeth Carl's ordination. Moreover, where was the "widespread publicity across the country" with respect to Stopfel's ordination to the diaconate? A NEXIS search reveals coverage of the September 1990 ordination in only The Bergen Record, a local paper for northeastern New Jersey where the ordination occurred. The ordination was apparently never covered by a wire service release. Stopfel's ordination to the priesthood in September 1991 did attract media coverage, but that ordination was performed by Bishop Spong. Even that ordination did not attract as much attention as Elizabeth Carl's ordination to the priesthood in 1991, which was opposed by the Presiding Bishop because of the timing -- it came immediately before General Convention. The 1991 Carl ordination received much wider media coverage, including national television. A Guess About the Real Reason The accusers have not been able to give a coherent answer so the question remains unanswered. Why Bishop Righter? Are the accusers lying unartfully or did they simply fail to give careful thought to which bishop would be the target? Bishop Righter and Dr. Louie Crew, Integrity's founder, have expressed the opinion that the accusers chose a retired bishop as an easier target than a sitting bishop. Others have suggested the plausible rationale that selecting Bishop Righter provided an indirect means of attacking Bishop Spong. However, there is no clear evidence to support either view. The level of ineptitude demonstrated by the accusers on this issue would seem to give greatest credence to the notion that they simply erred in their choice because they had given it little or no thought.