TRINITY WALL STREET COULD HAVE CHOSEN FORGIVENESS

#OWS #D17 Trial photo by Jefferson Siegel

Below is a portion of Occupied Bishop George Packard's sentencing statement at his trial yesterday on charges of trespassing and criminal mischief.

No, my great sadness today has nothing to do with the law, its fairness or even an economic system favoring the few at the expense of the many in these days. 

It has to do with how Trinity Church has chosen to hop back and forth between being the aggrieved and trespassed party on the one hand and the sympathetic ear and support for those who deserve a message of mercy and forgiveness on the other. There was nothing to be gained by going forward with these prosecutions. Rector James Cooper even appreciated "the healthy debate" about  his property. I guess that discussion has limits for him when his corporate  side and cash flow takes over.

Is this entity a corporation worried about fiduciary interest or a portion of the Body of Christ? Which are they? We have received our answer today by their insistence for this action. In a time when we hope our moral institutions will speak with clarity…this one didn’t.

Read it all at the link above to Bishop George's blog.

The New York Times gives the story short shrift with only brief coverage, but Episcopal News Service covers the story with more thoroughness.

A retired Episcopal bishop and a priest from the Episcopal Diocese of New York were among seven people convicted June 18 on charges of trespassing on property owned by Trinity Episcopal Church, Wall Street, during a Dec. 17 Occupy Wall Street demonstration and sentenced to four days of community service.

George Packard, former Episcopal bishop suffragan for armed services and federal ministries, and the Rev. Earl Kooperkamp, rector of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Harlem, had faced up to 90 days in prison on the most serious charge, Packard’s lawyer, Gideon Oliver, had previously told ENS.

An eighth defendant, Mark Adams, was convicted of trespassing and additional charges of attempted criminal mischief and attempted possession of burglar’s tools, reportedly for trying to use bolt-cutters to slice through the fence surrounding the property. He was sentenced to 45 days in prison on Rikers Island and taken from court in handcuffs, Oliver said in a telephone interview after the trial.
....

Packard said he was surprised, disappointed and saddened by the trial’s outcome. He spoke to ENS via cell phone while attending a post-trial conference about how to support Adams, who he said had “become the fall guy” for the Dec. 17 Occupy action. The prosecutor recommended a 30-day sentence, but Adams received 45 days, he said.

“The eight of us [defendants] feel sort of bonded in brotherhood,” he said. “We’re feeling like a member of the family has been torn out from among us.”

Trinity did not have to pursue the charges, but it opted to “protect fiduciary interests,” Packard told ENS. “It’s pretty sad. I mean, this is what our church has come to. You don’t have enough pledging units to sustain many places. So we depend on the cash flow of corporate investment. It’s a caricature of what the gospel is.”

Statement from Trinity Wall Street after the verdict was handed down:

Like many churches, Trinity has a long and active history in addressing social and economic inequities. While we are sympathetic to many of the OWS protestors' stated goals, we do not support the seizure of private property. Trinity urged the District Attorney's Office to offer non-criminal dispositions before trial and to request non-jail sentences for those defendants who chose to proceed to trial. All protestors received sentences of four days of community service, except for one defendant who was convicted of additional crimes and had several open cases unrelated to Duarte Square. We continue to support the basic principles underlying the Occupy movement, and will continue to welcome protestors, as we welcome all others in our community, to our facilities in the Wall Street neighborhood.

As I have said elsewhere, Trinity's choice was stark and not complicated...to be on the side of the angels or on the side of the greedy bankers and financiers who run our country. Surely the Occupiers represent a very small David taking taking on the Goliath of Wall Street, but they did it anyway.

In the beginning of the Occupy movement, I wondered what were the demands of the Occupiers, what conditions they wanted met, until I visited the group in New Orleans before they were removed from two public spaces. I talked to the people there and suddenly it clicked. The Occupy folks will not be boxed in by a set of conditions or demands. When I asked the people why they were there, each person had a different reason, but it all came down to the injustice embedded in our political system, which is controlled by the big money folks. We are the 99%.

And I'm sure many of the Occupiers would laugh at my calling them the angels, for they are a messy, sometimes loud, and sometimes unsightly bunch. I don't know but its the kind of situation in which you either get the Occupy movement or you don't. The light bulb comes on, or it doesn't.

Trinity's choice should have been easy, and they chose wrong.  TWS is a church, part of the Body of Christ. What about hospitality? What about forgiveness?

OCCUPY WALL STREET TRIAL

#OWS #D17 Trial photo by Jefferson Siegel

 The defendants were some of the dozens arrested last Dec. 17, a month after O.W.S.’s eviction from Zuccotti Park. Half of the 20 defendants in this particular group had already had their cases adjourned or charges dropped entirely.

 Eight stood ready to go to trial on Monday morning. Charges for most of those who entered the lot included trespassing and criminal mischief.
....

t the end of the second day of testimony, retired Episcopal Bishop George Packard — who was the first to climb a ladder and enter LentSpace on Dec. 17 — stood outside the court building with his fellow defendants.

“I just felt like Occupy Wall Street needed a new home and we should place our bodies in a location of justice,” Packard said of his motivation for entering the fenced-off square.
Defense lawyer Gideon Oliver said Trinity has had chances to drop the case against his client Packard, but refused to do so.

“Packard had a good-faith belief, based on Trinity’s past practices and his relationship with Rector James Cooper, that Trinity would exercise forbearance. Trinity had multiple opportunities to back off these prosecutions,” Oliver said.

Defense lawyer Stolar offered a more faith-based outlook.

“The Bible and prayer say, ‘Forgive us our trespasses.’ That’s what Trinity should be doing.”

The trial resumes tomorrow. 

O God of justice and mercy: We ask you to bless this court of justice, the defendants, their defense attorneys, the leaders of Trinity Church, Trinity's attorneys, and the judge, and give to all who participate the spirit of wisdom and understanding, that they may discern the truth, and impartially administer the law; We ask that the hearts of the leaders of Trinity be open to the spirit of forgiveness; through your Son our Savior Jesus Christ.

Photo and link from Bp George Packard's Facebook page.

UPDATE:

Eight Occupy Wall Street members were convicted on Monday of criminal trespass for breaking into a fenced-in private lot last December during a protest.

The protesters scaled an eight-foot fence, ignoring signs that warned against trespassing, and entered a plaza known as Duarte Square that is owned by historic Trinity Church, one of lower Manhattan's largest land-owners.

The one-week trial in Manhattan Criminal Court pitted the church, once a strong ally of the movement, against Occupy supporters, who pressured church leaders not to cooperate with the prosecution.

....

In the trial before Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Matthew Sciarrino, one defendant, Mark Adams, was also convicted of trying to slice through the fence's locks with bolt-cutters

Sciarrino sentenced him (Mark Adams) to 45 days, more than the 30 days that prosecutors had been seeking; he did not offer an explanation.

The other seven defendants received four days of community service.

Trinity could have dropped the charges.  What about forgiveness?

H/T to Jim Naughton at The Lead.

OCCUPY AND BLOGGER'S BLOCK

The two iconic churches, Trinity Church Wall Street in New York, pictured to the left, and St Paul's Cathedral in The City of London, pictured below, have been much on my mind for the past several days.  The famous churches are coincidentally(?) located in the financial districts of the two great cities.  What I've thought of is the face-off between the churches and the Occupy groups in both cities. After a period of time, the authorities in the churches decided that the Occupiers had to go, and the groups were forcibly removed.  The right choice for the churches, to come down on the side of the 99%, seemed stark and obvious to me, but both chose to move against the Occupiers.  These are churches, for heaven's sake, the Body of Christ.

Occupied Bishop George Packard, a retired bishop in the Episcopal Church, gets it.  He joined the Occupiers and has been arrested twice in connection with Occupy protests.

Giles Fraser, former Canon Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral, gets it, too.  He resigned his position when the authorities in the church decided to remove Occupy London protestors by force from the grounds around the cathedral.  He now serves as priest-in-charge at St Mary's Newington, a parish in one of the poorer neighborhoods in South London.

The Occupy movement is by no means finished.  Just because the groups are not occupying parks and squares in their tents or marching in protests every day does not mean that they have disappeared.  Disdain for the elite and their absorption in prospering themselves and their near total disregard for the common good will not go away.

Now that this post is written, perhaps I'll be able to move on to other subjects besides the 'Story of the Day'...not that there's anything wrong with the stories, because if I didn't like them, I would not post them.   


Photo of Trinity from Wikipedia.
Photo of St Paul's from Cathedral & History.

UPDATE: An Occupy.com Profile: Bishop Packard

'THE PEOPLE'S BISHOP'

From Chris Hedges at OpEdNews:

Retired Episcopal Bishop George Packard was arrested in Vietnam Veterans Memorial Plaza in New York City on Tuesday night as he participated in the May 1 Occupy demonstrations. He and 15 other military veterans were taken into custody after they linked arms to hold the plaza against a police attempt to clear it. There were protesters behind them who, perhaps because of confusion, perhaps because of miscommunication or perhaps they were unwilling to risk arrest, melted into the urban landscape. But those in the thin line from Veterans for Peace, of which the bishop is a member, stood their ground. They were handcuffed, herded into a paddy wagon and taken to jail.

That veterans were arrested simply for their presence in a place dedicated to the memory of those who served in the military is an outrage about which few seem to take note or care.  Shame on you, Mayor Bloomberg, for your directions for general heavy-handed treatment of the Occupiers, but double shame on you for dishonoring the veterans by removing them by force from their plaza.  Yes, the buck stops with you.

Hedges on George Packard:

 Packard's moral and intellectual courage stands in stark contrast with the timidity of nearly all clergy and congregants in all of our major religious institutions. Religious leaders, in churches, synagogues and mosques, at best voice pious and empty platitudes about justice or carry out nominal acts of charity aimed at those bearing the weight of resistance in the streets. And Packard's arrests serve as a reminder of the price that we -- especially those who claim to be informed by the message of the Christian Gospel -- must be willing to pay to defy the destruction visited on us all by the corporate state. He is one of the few clergy members who dare to bear a genuine Christian witness in an age that cries out in anguish for moral guidance.

Sigh....  Too true.

And read George's horrifying descriptions of his service in Vietnam.

Vietnam is now the forgotten war, lost in the mists of recent history from which we took no good lessons.

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Photo from George's album on Facebook.

HE HAD A RIGHT TO BE THERE

Occupied Bishop George Packard was arrested again.

I said to Brook on that long march from Union Square to Veterans’ Plaza, “It would be a relief to be arrested just to sit down.” We’re not that out-of-shape; it was the stop and go, creep along, that the NYPD made us do to keep order that wore us out. Truth be told, the crowd—though hefty at fifty thousand strong—was docile. 
....


Despite the fatigue the traverse past Trinity Church brought a wave of continuous and universal disdain. Sad, really, because that parish/corporation—true to the Gospel--could have brought an moment of magnanimity to the Occupy Movement by granting refuge on their vacant Duarte property back on December 17th. What had been an esoteric argument over using church property wasn’t wasted on this endless parade of protesters. They got it.

Very sad, indeed.

So, we wended our way down past the infamous bull on lower Broadway with a surprising left turn toward Water Street. My legs were yearning for the benches around Bowling Green but sometimes the inscrutability of places like Trinity can only be matched by the likes of my young friends of Occupy. Where we were going? Enroute we all received this text message: “New Occupation Assembly at Veterans’ Plaza.”

....

Once there, you can’t help but think of the young men with whom you served. In those days I was an Army platoon leader.

....

I’m probably at the end of God’s list of coincidental places from which to be arrested: church property on December 17th and now the Memorial for my fallen brothers and sisters on May 1st....and so I ignored the police instructions to leave the park.

Thus George was arrested again, although he had every right to rest and remember in Veterans Plaza.  What to say of a system in which a veteran is not permitted quiet time at a veterans memorial?  Read the entire poignant post.

"TWITTER ON"

There’s a little “Occupy” in all of us just waiting to come out and you don’t have to be on the streets to feel it in your gut. Individuals in all cultures now pause—the Church included—when top-down edicts and closed discussions are passed off as normal. The current demand to stop Episcopal Church Council members from tweeting during meetings is an example. OWS is committed to horizontal and radically open discussion. It is “radical” because allowing more and more persons into the conversation revolutionizes what the democratic experience looks like...and is. Indeed, the EC debate engages the consequences of an Information Age but the scent of unfairness when access is denied comes from a far deeper place. Occupy!

From Bishop George Packard on Facebook. A longer version may be found at +George's blog, Occupied Bishop.

What I said on Facebook:

As I see it, transparency is always in order. I don't tweet myself, but I say let them tweet.

"Therefore whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed from the housetops."

...sooner or later. Why not sooner?

'AN EMERGING CHURCH'

From George Packard at Occupied Bishop:

I had another interview with Thom Hartmann....

All to say--as I mention during the interview--that when I was on top of that ladder at the Duarte property and about to take that plunge into trespassing things all got very clear. Our dear Church is being re-formed whether we like it or not. It is just exciting!

Blase Bonpane, Director of the Office of the America & Retired Episcopal Bishop George Packard join Thom Hartmann....

BISHOP GEORGE PACKARD - OVER THE FENCE

From Mother Jones:

After Bishop Packard tumbled over the fence, he climbed onto a wooden bench and waved for the crowd to follow. Other priests mounted the ladder while the the crowd yanked up the base of the fence to make a large opening. Someone cut the lock on a gate, and dozens of people streamed inside, talking, dancing to rap music from a boom box, and urging the rest of the crowd to join them. But the party couldn't last. The police, taken off guard at first, came pouring through the gate with flex cuffs and arrested everyone who didn't flee, including Packard. I personally witnessed about a half dozen arrests in progress, but the final tally will probably be higher.

God bless Bishop Packard! What a mensch!

Mass arrests of Occupiers.



Pray for those who were arrested. Pray for the police.

Thanks to Ann Fontaine at Facebook.