THE BEDE PARRY STORY IS NOT DEAD

Jim Naughton at The Lead once again addresses the matter of Bede Parry being admitted to the priesthood by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori when she was bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Nevada.

A story has been making the rounds in the last few days that purports to demonstrate that Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori knew that the Bede Parry, a former Roman Catholic monk, had sexually abused minors and was likely to do so again when she received him as a priest into the Episcopal Church while she was serving as the Bishop of Nevada.

I'm sorry to have to address the matter again, but groups who are generally considered not to be especially friendly to the Episcopal Church are referencing the matter, not necessarily unfairly, with links to Patrick Marker's post at Conception Abbey Abuse. Thus, those of us who who care deeply about sexual abuse and the Episcopal Church must also pay attention.

Jim says further:

In Crisis Communications 101 (a course that exists entirely in my head) one is taught rules for governing the release of bad news: tell it yourself, tell it all, and tell it quickly. These rules apply with special force to organizations whose moral credibility is their stock in trade. I don’t know that the presiding bishop has bad news to deliver, but either way, she would be well advised to put the facts of the Parry case before us. (MY emphasis)

Jim is exactly right. The opportunity for the Presiding Bishop to tell the story quickly is past and gone, but the two remaining bits of advice still apply. The time is now. We need to hear from Bishop Katharine in her own words. What we do not need is more passing the buck for commentary to the present bishop of the Diocese of Nevada, Dan Edwards, who was not the bishop who admitted Bede Parry to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church.

Two of my earlier posts on the Bede Parry matter are here and here.

FROM LESLEY TO JIM

Please read Lesley's post titled Moratorium Schmoratorium. The post is short, so I won't give you a quote, but the title should be enough to intrigue you.

And then, read Jim Naughton's post at the Daily Episcopalian on the process of choosing a bishop in the Episcopal Diocese of Washington DC as compared with....

Last week, while the Church of England was dealing with embarrassing revelations about how badly the Archbishops of Canterbury and York had behaved while selecting the current Bishop of Southwark, I was observing the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D. C. as it prepared to choose the successor of Bishop John Bryson Chane, who retires in November.

The process that I witnessed was so different than the one described by the late Dean Colin Slee in his now-famous memo, that it seems almost unfair to draw comparisons. In filling the vacancy in Southwark, the English method of appointing bishops was clearly at its worst. Or so one hopes. A story of subterfuge leavened with a dash of Python-like absurdity, it featured a media leak meant to scuttle two candidacies, clumsy attempts to blame the leak on an innocent party, an investigation into the leak whose findings have been kept secret, and a delicious moment in which the Archbishop of York lobbied for votes while leading a group outing to the toilet. Little wonder that members of the Crown Nominating Committee were reduced to tears during the proceedings.

There's more.

The process in DC sounds similar to ours in the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana, when Morris Thompson was elected bishop about a year ago.