SPEAKER_01 0:09

Welcome to the Episcopalian. Today we're exploring a topic that most people in the Episcopal Church don't think about until they suddenly have to deal with it. And that is the process of clergy transitions and how authority is exercised between bishops, vestries, and parishes. My guest today is Pastor Jacob Dell, author of an article entitled Debunking Myths and Avoiding Episcopal Overreach, Conducting Clergy Searches According to the Canons. Jake, thank you for joining me. Is there anything that you want to add in terms of a bio before we dive in?

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Well, I mean, sure, I am currently pastoring a congregational church in Woodbury, Connecticut. One of the what they call ancient standing order churches of Connecticut goes all the way back to the year 1670. Uh, current meeting house we worship in is from 1818. And it's just one of those beautiful New England churches that you see all over the place, which sadly are not in great condition uh in terms of the viability of many of the congregations. Just like in the Episcopal Church, these are old churches with old congregations. Um, a lot of them, although by no means all, are liberal and progressive. And uh mine happened to be fairly conservative. It is it is part of the United Church of Christ, which is funny because I went from the Episcopal Church to the United Church of Christ. And in the Episcopal Church, we always used to joke that the UCC was Unitarians considering Christ. Um, but I I'm a I my sense is that the Episcopalians have caught up with the with the UCC. Um, and and that's been my that's certainly been my impression. Um so yeah, I pastored, uh I was pastor of a priest in charge of two churches in the Episcopal Church and the Episcopal Diocese of New York, Holy Trinity and Inwood, which we used to call upstate Manhattan at the northern tip of the island, right near the cloisters. And then I pastored a small church in Millbrook, New York called St. Peter's, Lithgow. And so I had uh close to 10 years under my belt in pastoral ministry in the Episcopal Church. And uh before that I worked for the National Church Office, 815 2nd Avenue, um, in the communications and marketing department, and um, you know, left the Episcopal Church in 2024 because I had I guess we'll get into that a bit in the podcast. And I've gotten into it in other podcasts about, you know, sort of the the wall that I think a lot of conservatives have hit, particularly conservative Christian uh clergy.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Absolutely. Yeah, so pastor currently in a congregational church, but a lot of experience as an Episcopal priest prior to changing denominations. So lest anyone be confused about that.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

About it.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

What prompted, yeah, what prompted you to write this article? Was it a specific situation that you observed or brought up?

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Yes, well, I mean, it was in part observing my friends go through the process. It was also the fact that I was 10 almost 10 years into ordained uh priestly ministry, uh, not counting the time as a deacon, but you know, the the 10 years into it and still not a rector. And this goes back all the way to discussions I had uh in seminary or even before I went into seminary. I remember uh a priest telling me, yeah, the bishops are not, they're they're really waging war on rectors. And I said, Well, what do you mean by that? And he said, Well, they're using the priest in charge uh canon to clip the clip the power of the of the rectors. And and that always something I remembered. I mean, I probably had that conversation probably back in 2005, 2006. So, and then I saw it play out. Sure enough, you know, in the Diocese of Connecticut, for instance, they have reversed course since then, but for a long time under, excuse me, Bishop Douglas, uh, no one apparently was allowed to be called, no vestry was allowed to be called, was allowed to call a rector. Every priest had to be appointed priest in charge by the bishop. And uh, and then, you know, over the course of a three-year trial period, uh, at the end of it, potentially they could be called as rector. And I think I suppose they were, I suppose that was a sort of managerial attempt to streamline the process. But if you look at the canons, it's totally non-canon uncanonical. It deprives vestries of their right to elect rectors. And I'm not so sure about state, Connecticut state law, but in a in New York state, where I did look into the religious corporation law, the the rector wardens and vestrymen are the parish corporation, right? So for a for a congregation, for an episcopal congregation to operate indefinitely without a rector is to operate in violation of that statute. Uh, and yet the last church I was called to, St. Peter's in Lithgow, had for six hadn't had a rector in 60 years. And so usually what that meant, they just had a string of priests in charge. Uh, usually when you see a situation like that, it's because it's a mission or a supported parish. Um, and and but this was not a mission. This was a parish that had been admitted to convention. It sent its delegates to convention. So a six, you know, a number of bishops from uh DC to Cisque to uh, I forget who it was, Grind immediately before him, I guess going back to Paul Moore's days, um, had just not bothered to enforce the canons and and say, you're either going to be a mission, in which case I will appoint your priest, or you're gonna be a parish and you're gonna elect a rector and you're gonna give that priest the rights of a rector, which include tenure. And the bishops have just not done that because it's to their advantage.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Right. I can't even tell you my reaction to that is I'm just astounded. Um because yeah, it's my understanding that when you have you're in a transition period between rectors that the bishop appoints an interim rector or a priest in charge. And the bishop has a little bit more of a maybe an oversight role during a transition period because he wants to kind of check in with the with the parish, make sure everything's going okay. But um, that sounds like it's definitely um an overreach of episcopal authority, and it's uh uh completely against what my understanding of the canons.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Well, it was so the you asked the question, why did I write the article? And I'll I will come to that and answer it. In the previous case, in the case of uh St. Peter's in in Lithgow, it wasn't so much episcopal overreach. It was the it was the it was the bishop simply allowing the vestry to have its way uh with and get away with having the status of a parish without the res, you know, without the due without following due canonical and legal form of calling a rector. Um and that was because the the vestry liked to string its priests. I mean, it's like it's uh we'll keep you on a year-to-year contract here. We'll keep you on a, you know, uh it they didn't want a rector, right? Because a rector, again, is someone with real, not only spiritual, but legal authority. So it cuts both ways. Sometimes vestries overreach and other times bishops overreach. Now, where I think bishops are overreaching now is with this priest in charge process, particularly as you saw in the Diocese of Connecticut, where we're just going to, you know, tell vestries that they can't elect a rector uh and that they must accept the appointment for a three-year period, and maybe then they can elect the rector. That's certainly overreach. Um, and in the case that I'm thinking of in particular, and I won't, I won't name names, but I was involved in a search process where the bishop aborted the process. Uh, she basically said that I could not apply, or I had sorry, I had already applied, I was already well along the path to an offer. Uh the the negotiations broke down over salary, and then when a couple months went by and the vestry search committee contacted me again about basically saying, we think we can come up with the money, the bishop at that point said uh sent a very formal letter to me and to my bishop, and basically saying that I was not welcome in the diocese, right? And and and uh and that the process was over. And that's just a if you look at the canons of the Episcopal Church governing searches, bishops have no right to do that. They have no authority to do that. The the the canons of the Episcopal Church, a black and white reading of them, a straight letter reading of them, not how they've been, not how it's been done, not we've always done it this way, but the way the words in English read say that vestries elect uh their rectors. And then the bishop has 60 days to comment on it. And then the and then the and then the vestry can confirm the election or not. There's no veto power. There's no you can only select or elect a priest from a in a pre-approved list. And I don't think vestries understand this. They don't read the canons, and frankly, you've got transition ministers who are bullies, uh, if not the actual bishop sometimes, who will tell wardens and vestries, well, you can't do this, you can't do it this way. And I don't know what's happened to churchmanship, and that's what the article was about. There used to be an idea of churchmanship. There are three, you know, there are there are three orders in the Episcopal Church, the Episcopal Order, which has its own house, and then the the the order of uh presbyters and and uh laypeople who form the house, you know, the house of deputies. Three orders. And what you're seeing happen here is that the one order, the episcopal order, has kind of sucked in the other two. Uh, and that's just completely what that is not what Episcopalianism in this country, Protestant Episcopalianism, was ever supposed to be. Um, it was when when the Episcopal Church was reorganizing after the Revolutionary War, actually right down the street from me right now in Woodbury, St. Paul's Episcopal Church is where Samuel Seabury was elected. So the very first bishop of the Episcopal Church was elected down the street from me. And when the Episcopal Church was reorganized, you know, particularly in something like Congregationalist Connecticut, they were appalled that they were thinking about bringing bishops to America. We had just fought a revolution to get rid of kings and bishops. And so the canons of the Episcopal Church were written in such a way that we would avoid the dread curse of prelacy, meaning we wouldn't have Roman bishops, you know, the Pope's henchmen running around and telling churches what to do, that vestries would be powerful, and that presbyters, priests would be powerful, and that together they would check each other. And what we've seen happen in the last half century is the collapse of that and bishops taking on a prolatical, prelatical role. And I don't know whether it has to go, whether it goes back to the trappings of the Oxford movement and sort of this uh desire to be Catholic without going to Rome, whether that played into it or not. But but vestries in have really forgotten what their canonical rights are and what their role is, and churchmanship has been lost.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Amen to that. I have a that's a great segue into talking about what the canons actually say. So one of the things I appreciated about your article is that you start with the actual canons rather than assumptions, like you said, about best practices or how things should work. Um I think at one point, you know, you wrote in the article that the like you said, the vestry elects the rector. That sounds straightforward, but I suspect many or most Episcopalians, especially people, unfortunately, like you said, people in governance aren't reading their bylaws, they're not reading the canons, they don't realize that. Right. Can you explain what that actually means in Anglican polity? That the vestry elects the rector.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Well, so the the main differen the the spiritual role is primarily the same between a priest in charge and a rector. The person is a is the pastor of the church. And you'll often see in letters of agreement for priests in charge that there will be an article in that letter of agreement that says the priest in charge shall have all the rights and emoluments, et cetera, et cetera, of a rector except for tenure. So if you look at the canons, what does that mean? Well, the rector is the has plenary authority to determine the worship of the church, according to the Book of Common Prayer, right? So if the rector wants to use right one or right two, that is what is done. There's no need for the vestry uh to chime in or give its opinion. It's unwelcome. The rector has, or the priest in charge has full plenary authority to pick the hymns, to determine how the church worships, to set the orientation of the altar, if you will, you know, all of that. Within the rules, within the within the book of common prayer and whatever directives the bishop has authorized. So if the bishop says that the revised common lectionary is not authorized, then you can't use it, right? Uh but if, you know, but so within the rules that are set by the prayer book and the bishop, the the priest in charge or the rector has that authority and acts as the pastor of the church. The the main difference between the priest in charge, therefore, and the rector is is who he answers to. Uh the priest in charge is appointed by the bishop and serves at the pleasure of the bishop. And I think parishes and vestries don't need to don't really understand that. The priest in charge is the bishop's man or woman, right? And uh and and and whereas the rector is his own man. You know, the rector has tenure. You cannot fire a rector. It takes two uh of three parties to remove a rector. Either the rector, in theory, can't even resign without the acceptance of that resignation. So a bishop can't fire a rector, a vestry can't fire a rector. But, you know, a bishop a vestry and a bishop together can usually figure out a way to remove a rector canonically, uh, usually for what we would now call a Title IV process, a disciplinary process. But that tenure factor is meant to protect the rights of the presbyterate, of the, of the, of the priest, of the priestly order in the Episcopal Church, which means you can make liturgical and pastoral and homiletical decisions that might be unpopular and not lose your job. That's the theory. So uh that's I think again, something that's been lost, uh, but that is the primary difference between, say, a priest in charge and a rector.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. It's my understanding too that a rector holds um holds an office that's similar to like the president of a corporation, in additional, in addition to being the the head of the congregation in all of the spiritual matters and liturgical matters, but also uh legally.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

So that's correct, and certainly, and again, the only law that I'm familiar with is the New York State religious corporation law. So different states may have different uh statutes, but certainly in New York, the parish corporation was the rector, wardens, and vestryman of such and such a church, which again was why it was highly irregular for my previous church to go for 60 years without a rector.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

Absolutely. It seems like that's just cutting off a parish at the knees in terms of of their essential functionality.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Right.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Um, if they can't elect a rector.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

Well no one, yeah, it it yes, exactly. Well, so if a bishop is as in the case that prompted me to write the article, the bishop interfered in the election of me as a rector. The search committee was unanimous in its recommendation of me. The vestry was was was negotiating salary with me. Um, but you know, the election was never held. And then the bishop interrupted the process and forbid it from taking place, which was, again, a violation of that vestry's rights as certainly and certainly a violation of my rights as a priest. Now, one of the other things that, you know, you might maybe have this, uh you want to come to this separately, but one of the other things that came up in the article was this idea of letters to missery. Uh, I don't know if you want to talk about that, because that plays into this as well.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

That is a big problem. Let's go ahead and talk about it. Sure. Because that is an issue.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

So, you know, in in in according to the canons, priests are attached to a diocese, right? And that's actually one big difference between uh the polity now in my congregational church and versus the Episcopal Church. I was, you know, once you become a member of clergy in the Episcopal Church, you cease to be a member of a local parish. You are a member of the diocese of the order of pres, you know, of the ordained order, of the order of priests. My wife and I, when I was called to my current church, this congregational church, actually, according to the bylaws, had to become members of the church. So, you know, we are members of this church now, uh, this local congregation. Um, so the idea that the priest is attached to the diocese goes way back. That's kind of an ancient canonical principle. With the expectation that you would have, again, talking about tenure with rectors, you were ordained a priest in a diocese, really with the expectation of a lifetime tenure, right? A lifetime tenure in that diocese. Uh perhaps serving as a you know, typical career path might be something like a curacy. Uh, and then you'd be called to a rector. Um, then you might be called to another rector rectorship, but but really uh I remember one old priest in the diocese of New York in my last parish just saying, it was like a marriage. You were called for life. You know, you were you you you became the rector and you were expected to stay until you died, you know. And so, and that was the thinking. And, you know, so even back in the day, you know, the same with the bishops, you know, it was you you didn't leave one episcopate to go to another episcopate. I I there was a case in New York a few years ago where a bishop, I think, from a Midwestern diocese became the rector of uh St. Bart's on Park Avenue. And that, you know, that that's a kind of sort of canonical. It's not, I can't think of how that violates the canon, but it certainly goes against the spirit of of you know the the Episcopal Church. Uh so the um idea of a priest being attached to the diocese was was was very sort of uh and one of the anchor principles of Episcopalianism. But there were certainly uh occasions, particularly as we were a expanding missionary church um going west uh in the 19th century where they needed clergy, and so they would call men from back east if they could get them to come. And so there needed to be a process for removing a priest from one diocese to another. And so there's this idea of you know, you're ordained a priest for the entire church, but uh the bishop would give you a letter uh saying you were you know in good standing, there was nothing wrong with you, and uh the bishop wherever you were going would accept it. It was that was called the letter demissary from the Latin being sent. Uh this is not an opportunity to go through the ordination process again. This is not you being reordained. This is not you going through commission on ministry and discernment, right? I mean, you're a priest. And so the canons say that the receiving bishop shall accept the letters to misery, not may accept, not you know, has 60 days to raise an objection. It's shall accept. And where I have heard people, particularly bishops or transition ministers, what I've heard them say is particularly after this article was published, and I pointed out that you know, if a parish in another diocese called me and the bishop didn't like me, tough, you know, tough. And I had bishops tell me, I had candidates to the ordinary tell me, oh, well, we which just wouldn't accept the letter demissary. Well, again, that's not canonical. There there is a provision in the canon, and as sometimes happens when these transitions take place, that something comes up that wasn't previously known, some dark skeleton comes to life. Uh, I can think of a few examples where men, you know, one fellow in particular ran for bishop and an affair was discovered. I think that's happened more than once. You know, and if he hadn't run for bishop, he probably would have never been discovered. But the process of running for bishop on, you know, shed light onto that. And so I think, yes, of course, in the process of going from one diocese to another, it it it there's an opportunity there for things to come to light. And the canons allow for that. I mean, if there's if you know, if if there is something that would, you know, speak against a priest's faith and morals, um, then sure, the the the letter demissary need not be accepted. But at that point, it's probably bad enough that the letter demissary would be rescinded anyway. Uh, and and and and because the the letter demissary is basically saying this is a priest of good standing. There's no re there's nothing, you know. So there's so that process I think is another area of abuse. Uh, and I think I see where. What where that so what will happen a lot of times is that search committees or vestries will be given a list of and you'll hear you'll hear transition officers talk about this. You know, you can have a guided search or a or a directed search, I think it's called, or you can do your own search. And the directed search is the bishop gives you a pre-approved pre-approved list and you can pick one and you know he'll appoint the you know the priest as priest in charge, and then if you like each other, you can call the person as rector. I actually have no problem with that if that's how people both all parties agree. You know, if all parties agree that this is okay and we want to do it this way because we don't have the bandwidth, you know, to actually organize a search committee and do a national search or whatever. I have no problem with that. What what the problem is is that becomes the norm, or the problem is that is used as a way to um erode the rights of the three orders of the church or the two in this case.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

Absolutely. Um you going back to the letters demissory issue, I feel like if if my recollection is correct, that there's only I mean you have to be a priest in good standing in the Episcopal Church, which means I think there's three things that are foundational to that, maybe it's it's you know, and that outside of that, if there's any personal animus um from either bishop that really they cannot they cannot um rescind that or not accept it or refuse to issue letters.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

That well, that I yeah, I think you're well, you're right. That's what the canons say. And if there is a true issue with the priest, there's that's what Title IV is. That's what the discipline, the disciplinary process is for. What I think is happening is we're not getting to the point where letters demissary are being issued and then being refused. The sort of you know, old boy and girl network, and I remember I remember when I was working on staff at 815 attending uh a conference of the, what was it called? The conference of diocesan executives, which was the uh the the canons to the ordinary. And you know, like all things Episcopalian, you go to the conference and then you end up at the hotel bar, you know, uh after the day's done, and you trade stories. And I remember one canon to the ordinary describing the dead cats. And I said, What do you what are the dead cats? And he said, Well, those are the priests nobody wants, right? And so, you know, part of what they do at these conferences is trade dead cats, right? You know, or or or they flag the dead cats, right? You know, you well, take this dead cat for your dead cat kind of thing. But the idea is that they're already, you know, you've got this network of bishops and transition officers and canons to the ordinary that are work that are that are having that are in conversation. So you never get to the point where you know a letter demissary is issued and then rejected because the transition officers have already talked to each other and said, well, don't even bother with that one. Mm-hmm. Right. And then, you know, and and then and and and this is where a parish is just totally in the dark because they're not even going to ever know the name of that person. And unless they're very sophisticated and have a lot of money and they can really afford to do a national search or hire a consultant to do it, or have a network that they want, or they have somebody really in mind. And and this was the case for me with this church that I'm thinking of where the bishop intervened. This was a 1928 prayer book parish, right? One of the last. And, you know, they had a very narrow definition of the kind of priest they were looking for. And I fit it. And uh and and this was a this is a real tragedy because they weren't, you know, that parish, like so many, will probably, you know, linger on, and last I heard will probably close at some point. So, you know, this is having the if if the intent if the desired effect is really to force conservatives what's left of them in the Episcopal Church, or what's left of something like the 1928 prayer book, The Witness to That Tradition, if the if the intended perp effect uh purpose here is to really drive that out, it's having the intended effect.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

Yeah. Well, that kind of brings me to my next question or topic, which is um the bishop's role. We we've hit on it a little bit, but um you did note that the bishop may refuse to consent to the election in the article. And so that's different from directing the search. Right. And so what what do you think the theological logic is behind that structure, or why is that distinction important?

SPEAKER_00 26:45

So I my recollection is that the national canons do not allow the bishop to refuse consent. It's not a consent process, it's more of an advice process. It's I I'm gonna give you the my the my honest opinion about this person. Um now I have so I have read diocesan canons that have a more spelled-out procedure. And one in particular I'm thinking of says that the bishop may object, but then it goes back to the vestry to come back with a unanimous override, right? So I mean the vestry can still even override that objection. That's not a national canon. That was a local canon in one diocese that I'm thinking of in particular. And I'm not even sure that that would stand because, you know, just as the parish bylaws accede to the diocesan canons and the diocesan canons accede to the national canons, the national canons should be, you know, the that's there's a idea of supremacy, right? So the national canons should be supreme. And my recollection is that the canons do not, you know, um give the bishop any kind of plenary authority to to to uh to veto a vestry election. Um so I think what you're getting at or what you're asking is what's the actual role then in the search process for a bishop to play? And I think that that the role is to advise. And if you go back to the, if you think back to the idea that, you know, originally before there was all this moving around, that each diocese was really kind of its own closed system, there was a limited pool of priests. Um, and you know there wasn't, you know, in order the number of priests eligible or in you know in transition at any minute at any point was relatively small. And so um, you know, I think there is a the idea the bishops really knew their priests, right? So if you've got an Anglo-Catholic parish and Jake Dell is known as a low church Protestant evangelical, that the bishop might say, well, you know, he's a good preacher, but he probably doesn't look too good in a chasable. And you know, you could say that to the parish, and they would they would say, Okay, thanks for letting us know. Do you know anybody who can, you know, can do is would be more suited for us? And bishop could say yes. So I, you know, I think that's that that's the advisory role. I mean, that's when the system is working right, that's what it's supposed to do, is try to match the right priest with the right parish.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

Sure. Well, this is um my goodness, this is really interesting. And I just don't I I think that what you're talking about is that the diocesan canons accede to the national canons, and that there's this idea, there's a political philosophy called subsidiarity, right? Which is that um if things need to be taken care of at the kind of lowest, most local level possible. And in my understanding, all of the canons in the Episcopal Church really give that power back to the parishes, to the laity. And and and so it's really shocking um to hear that there are certain maybe policies or customs in certain um bishops diocese that are that are going against that, essentially.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

Yeah, it's kind of managerialism, right? And so you have the canons, but as you say, who wants to read those? And so if somebody comes along who's called a, you know, they used to call them deployment officers, but you know, transition officer now, and says, Oh, well, here's the handbook of best practices, right? And you know, and it's in an easy PowerPoint presentation, then that's what you're gonna follow. And who wants to rock the boat, right? If you're a warden or a vestrian who reads the canons, uh you're like, okay, well, okay, I don't see any harm in going along with these best practices. And I would say probably in a lot of cases, it works just fine. You know, I mean the the pool of candidates is acceptable to the congregation and to the search committee and to the vestry, and it's a happy arrangement. But where when it when it falls down or how it falls down is I think in is where the abuse can start to creep in. And over time, if you just let a vestry get used to being told what the best practices are by a quote-unquote professional in transition, uh, if you in other words, if you let the church be managed by the church managers, then you really lose the biblical uh and theological aspect of what you're called to do. You're you're called to be a member of Christ's body. And you've talked about this on the podcast. You're you're you're called to exercise that it's the priesthood of all believers, you're called to exercise that through taking your proper role in the deliberations and councils of the church. And we've ordered that in such a way that bishops do one thing, priests do another, and laity and vestaries do another. And if we just if we all just and you see this with bishops too, you know, with the ordination process, everything gets offloaded to this to the commissions on ministry, right? It's no, bishop, it's your job to raise up the next generation of uh preachers and priests in your diocese, right? I mean, that's it's it it's it's you're you're the one, you have the spiritual authority. We've given that to you, not a not a you know, committee or commission.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

So well, that makes me want to ask you a little bit about uh the theology behind all of that and taking it just kind of stepping back from from the canons because essentially we're Christians and all of this has to accede to the gospel. And so what in your opinion, what is the theological purpose of the episcopal authority? Is it guarding our doctrine, um, making sure we have unity amo across our parishes? Uh, you know, what it how do you see episcopal authority?

SPEAKER_00 33:30

I I think it was my understanding of it was that it was to guard the faith and unity of the church. Um meaning that they were really responsible for who gets ordained, right? And you know, that that is probably the heaviest spiritual responsibility that any bishop has. But for that pro for that, but that but for that authority to be basically subsumed by a process, so that you know, candidates are passed along from vestry to commission to standing committee, and then should they show up at an ordination ceremony, and the bishop really may or may not want to ordain or not know this person, that's that's they've they've ceded their spiritual authority there. So I think that's part of one reason why the unit, you know, if you if you don't guard the uh church there, you're gonna eventually lose the the unity of the church a generation later. Um, and so I think yes, that's why we have bishops is to guard the the doctrine and discipline and the unity of the church. And I, you know, uh in my more cynical moments, I have despaired of the fact that you know the bishops had one job, you know, guard the the the faith and the unity of the church, and they haven't done it. Um the church is not united. Um, and I would say it's lost in many examples, it's faith.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

Yeah. Yeah. What you've described here today on the podcast is absolutely um not doing those things, right? We're not guarding the doctrine, we're not um guarding the unity across the parishes. It's not just about pastoral oversight and being the shepherd to the shepherds. It is that this that they've more become institutional managers and guarding the institution. That's what it sounds like you've described here. And it seems like when that oversight becomes too centralized, then the health of the local congregation really suffers.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

I think that's right. I mean, and it's not it's not centralized in one person, which is what you would think the episcopacy was all about. It's centralized in a process. I mean, the can the canons are actually set up for the most part very well. You have a bishop with quasi-monarchical powers, but held in check by a standing committee. You have a rector who, with again, quasi well, the word literally means ruler, right? So with monarchical powers in the parish, but held in check by the vestry and the bishop, right? You're not gonna introduce a strange form of worship that doesn't conform to the Book of Common Prayer. Of course, that broke down too, right? So, you know, you had clergy doing whatever they wanted.

SPEAKER_01 36:30

Um, so maybe so a little, if you have a minute, just some practical advice for people in governance on vestries. Um, if someone believes that the process, if they're in a search process and they believe that process is drifting away from what the canons describe, what do you recommend they do?

SPEAKER_00 36:58

This is hard. And I this article has taken on a life of its own. I mean, I wrote it when I was still a priest in the Episcopal Church with no intention of leaving. I uh, you know, and and and it's I'm actually it it it I'm sad to have left. I never wanted to leave, right? And and so um, but the article has taken on a life of its own, and I get calls, emails from priests or search committees in you know, years later, years after this article. Um, and I think the advice I tend to give is is after I listen to where the person or the committee's at, just as tailored to the situation as I I can make it. Pastorally speaking, if you're a priest in charge and you like your parish and they like you and the bishop is is leaving you alone, fine. I mean, you know, you're you're you're doing the Lord's work. Um and it's you know so that you know that that that's that's that's a bit of advice I recently gave to someone. Um search committees, vestries, uh I would say, you know, what are the leverage points here? First of all, understand your terms. If the transition officer comes and says, you know, you can do a guided or a directed search, understand you're giving up a lot of rights there. Uh you can always claw them back, you're not giving them up irrevocably. Um and but understand what that means. Understand that if you have a priest in charge, you may be paying that person. You may think that that is your priest, and it is, but understand who who he or she belongs to. That that person serves at the pleasure of the bishop. And that's worth thinking about when you unwhen when you when you understand that. So it's worth maybe having that conversation with the search committee, with the vestry, with the candidate. Are you okay being a priest in charge? Do you want to be rector? You know, what is why why are you settling for this? Or or is this, do you see yourself as an interim? Or you know, how how what is this? And then I think, you know, straight out, straightforward conversation with the transition officer or even the bishop, you know, explain to us why we can't do what the canons say. Right. In my own case, I think it was, you know again, I think there is a hostility to certainly 1928 prayer book parishes are a dinosaur at this point, you know, fossils, not even. I can think of two or three. Anyone who's sort of, you know, against women's ordination, anyone who is doesn't want gay marriage or doesn't want LGBT or doesn't want the rainbow flag, right? I mean, these are where these are the pain points. So if you're a relatively conservative church still, and I know there are many, um, and you don't want that, this is where you're going to be getting the resistance. Because if you manage to find a conservative priest uh who isn't canonically resident in your diocese, um this is where you know the this is where the the process will be applied against you. So my advice at that point would be to this is gonna sound aggressive, but I would say vet the vestry should hire a lawyer and have counsel present during the the the hiring process, that have have a have an outside third-party legal person engaged in this. That's another thing that's important to understand. The bishop has a chancellor, right? That is not the parish's lawyer, that is not the clergy's lawyer, that is the bishop's lawyer. So if the bishop can have a lawyer, and I remember being in a meeting with the bishop once, and the chancellor was sitting right behind him. And I was glad I had my lawyer there that day, too. Yeah. Even though it was like, well, why are you bringing a lawyer? Because you have a lawyer, bishop. And I think, I think, I think bishop, I think, you know, Matthew 18 aside, if the bishop's gonna have a lawyer, then the vestry ought to have a lawyer. And maybe even the candidate for rector ought to have a lawyer. Um because you don't, you know, I'm sure the CEO of uh General Motors negotiates uh, is it marrying Mara Barbara now? I'm sure she negotiated her pay package, her salary agreement with an attorney. So get used to that idea, but that costs money, and a lot of these churches are struggling, don't have the don't have the war chest to do that. And so that's when things like directed searches look appealing. Right.

SPEAKER_01 41:41

Well, it's good advice. And I I Pastor Dale, I really appreciate you bringing clarity to this topic. I think it takes a lot of courage to write about that. And um, I think that this topic often operates in the background of church life. You know, understanding how authority and responsibility are meant to function is important for governance. It's important for good churchmanship and for the spiritual health of all of our congregations. So thank you very much for your time today. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 42:18

Well, you're welcome. I was glad to do it.