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?