The Bede Parry Case in a Nutshell

Since there is such a raft of material on the Web about the Bede Parry case (for an introduction and links, see my earlier posts here and here), I thought I would boil the concerns down into an easily readable form. At the end of this post is a link to my straight-line chronology of the affair, which puts all of the various sources together into a single timeline. (Make sure you download the latest version, updated and corrected with more information as of 10:28 a.m. on 1 November 2011.) By perusing that chronology, a reader should be able to see that the following account sums up the matter in a nutshell (the account assumes you are familiar with the facts in the chronology):

Father Parry told the Kansas City Star on June 23, 2011: "I told [Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori] at the time [I applied to her for reception into ECUSA] that there was an incident of sexual misconduct at Conception Abbey in '87. The Episcopal Church doesn't have a 'one strike and you're out' policy, so it didn't seem like I was any particular threat [emphasis added]. She said she'd have to check the canons, and she did."

But Father Parry had been suspended, and then barred from returning to his monastery, not just for that single offense (or "one strike"), but because it was repeated conduct (i.e., multiple strikes), after his Abbot had warned him and required he undergo psychological treatment for his propensities.

When he applied to be received as an Episcopal priest, however, Fr. Parry admits he told Bishop Jefferts Schori only about the single incident in 1987 which got him suspended, and not any of the earlier ones. He said, again to the reporter from the Star, "that he did not tell her about the incidents of abuse before 1987 at Conception Abbey." (Emphasis added; he also did not tell her about the earlier molestation incident at St. John's in Minnesota, which led to his warning and subsequent treatment.)

The Abbot of Conception Monastery, however, did speak to Bishop Jefferts Schori on at least one occasion while she was considering the priest for reception into the Episcopal Church. (The canonical procedure required that she check with his prior superior; and Abbot Polan says that he talked to her.) From the simple fact that neither the Diocese of Nevada nor Abbot Polan denies that there was any contact between them at the time, we may conclude that they spoke. And that makes all the difference.

There would be absolutely no reason for Abbot Polan to have withheld from Bishop Jefferts Schori all he knew about Father Parry: that because of his "proclivity to reoffend" (as found in a written evaluation in 2000 which resulted in his being rejected for membership in another monastery), he was not employable wherever there would be access to boys or young men -- such as in monasteries, or with church choirs.

This, then, is the nub of the matter: Fr. Parry now admits that he lied about his background to Bishop Jefferts Schori. She spoke to his former employer, and either must have learned about his lie then, or must have been so careless as to discount what she learned and/or read. But she went ahead and received him into her Diocese as a priest anyway, so that he could preach and continue assisting with the music and choir at All Saints, Las Vegas. So the simple question for the Presiding Bishop to answer is: Why?

And why, as Episcopalians on both sides of the aisle are asking, will she make no public response to these valid -- and genuine -- concerns? If one is maintaining impartiality, one does not presume that she is trying to hide anything. But the longer she maintains her silence on a crucial subject which only she can fully explain, the more it looks as though she is the one who is trying to hide something.







[UPDATE 11/03/2011: The new edition of Anglican Unsctripted (Week 16) is now published, having been delayed by the massive snowstorm that cut power to much of Connecticut, and in it, Kevin Kallsen interviews (toward the end) your Curmudgeon about the Parry affair. At the time of the interview, I was under the misimpression that the Diocese of Nevada had not obtained an updated psychological profile in 2003 on Fr. Parry, and my chronology above also stated as much. An alert reader kindly pointed out that in his July 6 statement, Bishop Edwards affirms that the Diocese did indeed conduct an "independent psychological evaluation" of Parry, but claims, with regard to the 2000 report on Fr. Parry done by the Catholic Church, that "[n]o such report was sent" to them. (How he can know this to be a fact he does not say.) I was able to correct the chronology, but not the Anglican TV interview, so I am publishing this correction here.]



Trick or treat!



I came across this at Wounded Bird (what better place?):

I've been pondering this whilst following the events outside St Paul's. There has been much criticism of the Occupy movement for not having 'clear goals' (on which see this great cartoon. That is immediately to try and force the rebellion to conform to the dominant discourse, to be co-opted into the patterns that pose no threat to the establishment. Specific claims will, I do not doubt, follow in due course. For now, however, it is enough for there to be the protest, the rebellion - the saying 'No' to manifest injustice, arrogance, ignorance and greed.
I really don't like making the kind of comparison I'm about to make, because it raises the object compared to grandiose heights. But the truth is, for about the first four centuries one of the complaints with the "Chrestians" was that they didn't have "clear goals." It took a several hundred years of hard work by a lot of good people for Christianity to "make sense," and even then, many think it "sold out" with Constantine's conversion. That's too simplistic, too, but then, this isn't a scholarly forum for debating Church history.

The point is, Christianity started as, and was seen as, rebellion. Why do you think all those early Christian martyrs were martyrs? And there were still, and still are, efforts to keep Christianity out of "the patterns that pose no threat to the establishment," even as the Church became the Establishment.

"What keeps you from giving now? Isn't the poor person there? Aren't your own warehouses full? Isn't the reward promised? The command is clear: the hungry person is dying now, the naked person is freezing now, the person in debt is beaten now-and you want to wait until tomorrow? "I'm not doing any harm," you say. "I just want to keep what I own, that's all." You own! You are like someone who sits down in a theater and keeps everyone else away, saying that what is there for everyone's use is your own. . . . If everyone took only what they needed and gave the rest to those in need, there would be no such thing as rich and poor. After all, didn't you come into life naked, and won't you return naked to the earth?

"The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry person; the coat hanging unused in your closet belongs to the person who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the person with no shoes; the money which you put in the bank belongs to the poor. You do wrong to everyone you could help, but fail to help."

Basil
4th Century

"The large rooms of which you are so proud are in fact your shame. They are big enough to hold crowds--and also big enough to shut out the voices of the poor....There is your sister or brother, naked, crying! And you stand confused over the choice of an attractive floor covering."

Ambrose
4th Century
And yes, Constantine did convert to Christianity in the early 4th century. History reeks with irony. And no, Occupy Wall Street is not a religious movement, although religion is responding rather poorly to it, at least in the case of St. Paul's Cathedral in London. The Occupy movement is, by and large, a pro-democracy movement. And that's where the historical comparison becomes very dodgy. Romans had reason to wonder about the Christians; what they advocated was radical because it was so new. But we really shouldn't have to work it all out this time. That we are puzzled about a demand for true democracy, that we are nonplussed by a display, world-wide, of true democracy, says something about us; something about what we should know, but apparently can no longer even recognize. I'm not sure the cartoon is right; I'm not sure it requires the fearful voice of the Powers that Be to distract us from what the Occupy movement is advocating.

We seem to have lost our way ourselves. Maybe, on this eve of All Saint's Day, one of the last Christian holidays we haven't completely commercialized (who connects Hallowe'en with All Hallow's Eve anymore?), that's what we should reflect on.

New Charges of Cover-up against Presiding Bishop

Disturbing new charges have surfaced about a cover-up concerning just how much Episcopal Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, when she was the diocesan of Nevada, knew about the past sexual abuses committed by Father Bede Parry, a former Catholic priest whom she canonically received into her diocese as a priest in 2004.

The allegations stem from telephone conversations and emails exchanged between Abbot Gregory Polan, the current ordinary of Conception Abbey in Missouri, where Father Parry was only a novice when his sexual abuses of young men originally came to light in the 1970s, and a certain Patrick J. Marker. Until recently, Mr. Marker had remained anonymous as another victim of sexual abuse, who had been molested by a different Catholic priest, while a student at a preparatory school operated by a different Catholic abbey in Minnesota (St. John's).

Bede Parry, before being ordained at Conception Abbey, had taken courses from 1979-1982 at the School of Theology also run by St. John's in Minnesota, and had admitted to his then Abbot in Missouri that he had engaged in sexual misconduct with a teen-aged student there. The Abbot required him to undergo "psychological treatment", but kept him on as a priest. Notwithstanding his treatment, Fr. Parry continued to molest young men in contact with him at the Abbey, and who had been enlisted to sing in its choir. It was during a summer camp for that choir in 1987 that Fr. Parry made the sexual advances which resulted in the current lawsuit on file in Missouri, and which the Circuit Court just ruled could proceed, over objections by the Abbey that the offenses alleged were outside the statute of limitations.

Patrick Marker, as a victim with ties to St. John's, where there were already a number of lawsuits pending on account of apparently widespread sexual abuse of minors there, became aware of the allegations concerning the molestations which Fr. Parry now admits he committed while at St. John's. As a result, Mr. Marker began investigating alleged abuses by the monks of Conception Abbey, and found credible charges concerning at least three of its members -- including Father Parry. He contacted Abbot Polan, as noted, and attempted to persuade him to approach the prior choristers and students at the Abbey who could still be found, in an effort to allow the ones who were willing to come forward to reach closure with regard to sexual abuses which they had suffered there so long ago.

After Abbot Polan, on his attorneys' advice, declined to try to make contact between the Abbey and other potential victims of its predator monks, Mr. Marker opened up a Website for the purpose of creating a point of contact for other victims of abuse at Conception Abbey. Frustrated by his inability to get anywhere with Abbot Polan, Mr. Marker put up a post on his Website last month which reproduced detailed contemporary notes of his conversations with the Abbot, both singly and in the presence of others, in order to document his efforts.

This post remained unnoticed in the world of ECUSA until earlier today, when VirtueOnline linked to it and reproduced it in its entirety. What should disturb Episcopalians in particular are the following extracts from Mr. Marker's contacts with Abbot Polan which concern the case of Father Parry and his subsequent reception into the Episcopal Church. Please note especially the remarks which Mr. Marker recorded the Abbot as having made last April 28 concerning Bishop Jefferts Schori's knowledge of Father Parry's prior sexual abuses before she agreed to receive him -- remarks made in the presence of two other priests taking part in the conversation:

July 19, 2011
Abbot Gregory Polan
Conception Abbey
[Address omitted]
Abbot Gregory,

Attached please find an exchange of emails with a subject line of “Being Proactive” that we exchanged in April and May of this year. The exchange begins with my email to you on Wednesday, April 27, 2011 wherein I reference to our telephone conversation of Monday, April 25, 2011, and ends on May 3, 2011 with an email relating your telephone conversation with Bishop Dan Edwards.

In addition to the emails we exchanged, below please find notes from four of our phone conversations.

*** During our first telephone conversation, on Monday, April 25, 2011, you shared the following information:

1) You heard something about Bede’s 1981 misconduct at St. John’s “at the time of the incident”.

2) You were aware of an incident involving Bede Parry with a member of the abbey’s choir in the summer of 1987.

3) Bede Parry was sent to New Mexico soon after the 1987 incident.

4) When Bede Parry tried to enter another monastery, he took psychological tests that showed a “proclivity toward sexual misconduct with minors.”

5) You called Parry’s boss at an ambulance company and a woman bishop with the Episcopal Church with the information.

6) You identified the woman bishop as Katharine Jefferts Schori.

7) You told Katharine Jefferts Schori not only about the allegations [plural] against Bede, but also of Bede’s attempt to join another monastery, the psychological testing and his “proclivity”.

8 ) That Katharine Jefferts Schori, despite your revelations, “allowed him to continue to work.”
. . .

*** During an April 28, 2011, telephone conversation you shared or confirmed (with Fr. Patrick Caveglia and Fr.Daniel Petsche in your office and all on speakerphone) the following information:

1) You agreed that Katherine Jefferts Schori had known about Bede’s “propensity to reoffend” for nine years.

2) Bede Parry is a sick man.

3) No one is monitoring Bede Parry.

. . .

6) Bede’s return to Conception Abbey would never be possible.

7) You will call the new Episcopal bishop in Nevada, Dan Edwards.

. . .

In our last conversation, you said that you had to trust your conscience. I find it hard to believe that your conscience is telling you to stonewall.

My conscience has led me toward numerous phone conversations and email exchanges with parents, choir members, former monks, and seminary students. I have learned a great deal about the history of misconduct at Conception Abbey.

I respectfully request that you make a public statement regarding misconduct by the members of your community. Those who offended must be held accountable — and publicly named. Those who protected the offenders must also be held accountable.

I know of at least twelve victims who would have benefitted from such accountability years ago. . . .

I also request that you end all speculation regarding your conversations with Katharine Jefferts Schori and Dan Edwards. They ignored your warnings and are rewriting history to serve their own agendas. Please do not fall victim to that trap.

The entire Conception Abbey community deserves the truth. The victims deserve no less.
Bishop Jefferts Schori, it is time for you to come out of your cocoon of silence on this topic, as well. The entire Episcopal Church (USA) deserves the truth as to why you regarded a Catholic priest with such a prior record -- known to you after being "warned" by his Abbot -- as morally fit for reception as a priest into your own Diocese.

Particularly, your Church deserves to know how you reconciled the version of the facts which Father Parry admits he gave you, which was incomplete and admitted only one prior offense in 1987, with the version you heard from his Abbot -- and then decided to receive him despite his lies to you.

More particularly, we need to have your own word on the record as to whether or not you received and read the psychological report on Father Parry which Abbot Polan had in his possession and which ended, as Abbot Polan apparently admitted he told you, with a conclusion to the effect that Bede Parry had a propensity to offend again. (This is the same report which the lawsuit filed by one of Fr. Parry's adolescent victims alleges was sent to you for your information, even though Bishop Edwards of Nevada now denies that it is in the files he has on Fr. Parry.)

More particularly still, given that Bishop Edwards claims that you gave instructions, following his reception, that Fr. Parry be kept from all contact with minors, we need to hear from you as to why his employers at All Saints Las Vegas stated in 2011 that they had never been aware of any such instructions.

Finally -- and not least of all, but far more serious -- one would like to know just what evidence you had before you in 2004 of Fr. Parry's moral and godly character (to quote Canon III.11 as then in effect [and continued unchanged today as Canon III.10.3 (a) (3)]), which was substantial enough and sufficient, in your view, to override all the testimony you then had to the contrary, so that he qualified for reception into your Diocese as one of your priests.

Failing your open, full and honest response on all these weighty matters, one waits to see whether you will self-report your offenses against the Canons in this case to your own Intake Officer, Bishop Matthews, for investigation by the same Disciplinary Board for Bishops whose report you are awaiting in the case against Bishop Lawrence of South Carolina. And the longer the period during which you refuse to speak openly to this matter, then perhaps the more might you subject yourself, mutatis mutandis, to charges that you have likewise "abandoned the communion of the Episcopal Church."






Adios, Mofo



I simply cannot resist, especially since the observation by Charles Pierce is so perfect:

Added Rick Perry Bonus: I was watching the Frontline documentary on the appalling case of Cameron Todd Willingham, whom Perry put to death for murder by arson based on trash science not far removed from bleeding people with leeches. Apparently, toward the end, Willingham believed his wife had sold him out and, while in the death chamber, he told her that he fucking hoped she'd rot in hell, or something to that effect. Confronted with the fact that the best scientific evidence exonerated Willingham of the crime, and that he'd rigged an investigation into the case by firing some people and installing his cronies, Perry says to a gaggle of reporters that Willingham was a "bad man" because, at the end, he directed at his wife "an obscenity-laced triad."

A triad.

Inches from actual English.
This is why we make fun of Aggies in Texas. They give us so much material to work with.

DIscordance

A thing that bemuses me about Communion without Baptism [CWOB] is that it is often favored by some who make the most fuss about the Baptismal Covenant. It is deeply ironic to me that some who advance the slogan "All the sacraments for all the baptized" don't seem to realize the implication of that slogan for CWOB. One of the reasons I do not favor CWOB is my strong support for the Baptismal Covenant and all it requires, including the promise to remain faithful in "the breaking of the bread." Yes, all the sacraments for all the baptized.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

freudig

hello, welcome fellow friends from around the world.

And Now for Something Different

Note: A friend recently forwarded to me the following travelogue and pictures. A brief search on the Internet shows that they have been around since at least 2005; I can find no challenge to their authenticity. Even if the signature at the end is not valid, the pictures of San Francisco in 1940, about 18 months before we joined World War II, are wonderful. Take a breather and enjoy them.





Dear Friend,


Arrived in Oakland a few hours ago and finally we're on our way to San Francisco.

We paid 25 cents at the Toll Plaza to enter this wonderful bridge that was opened four years ago. It took me awhile to get used to the traffic.


The Oakland Bay Bridge


The bridge has two decks. The top deck is for automobiles and the bottom deck for trucks and electric trains. You can see the tracks at left. The trains are run by the Key System and Southern Pacific. They can take you all over the East Bay to wonderful places like Neptune Beach in Alameda.


The Yerba Buena Tunnel

We have just passed through the Yerba Buena Tunnel and can finally see San Francisco in the distance. Notice that the traffic has thinned out. Many of the cars got off the bridge at the island to go to the Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island . The fair opened last year and will close for good later in 1940. I'm going to try and go there. Right now we're heading for the Mark Hopkins Hotel on Nob Hill for cocktails. It's a great place to see San Francisco.


Top Of The Mark

Isn't this a great view of San Francisco ? We're at the lounge called the Top of the Mark. The Mark Hopkins Hotel is one of the city's great hotels. The Russ Building , by the bridge tower, is the biggest office building on the Pacific Coast . It's 31stories high. Near the Ferry Building is the Produce District made up of small beautiful, old brick buildings. You can go there early in the morning and watch the grocers come in to pick out all kinds of vegetables.


Chinatown

After leaving the Mark we walked down California to Grant Avenue . Here is San Francisco 's world famous Chinatown. There are wonderful shops and the best Chinese food anywhere... and so reasonable. You can get a large bowl of pork noodles for 35 cents. Do you see the Shriner’s Flags at the top of the picture? They are having a convention in San Francisco . There is a Shriner’s Hospitals for Crippled Children on Nineteenth Avenue . It provides treatment for many children ever year without charge. Every New Years Day the famous Shrine East West football game is held in Kezar Stadium.


Flower Stands on Powell

After leaving Chinatown we walked down to Powell Street . Around Geary Street there are wonderful flower stands. San Francisco is sure a different place.


The Cable Cars

We're at Powell and Market where the cable cars get turned around to go to Fisherman's Wharf. There is a great cafeteria just a few feet from the turntable. It's called Clinton 's and I hear the food is great! but we plan to have dinner at Fisherman's Wharf and that's where we are heading.


Fisherman's Wharf

We walked along the docks to look at hundreds of fishing boats. The one coming in here is a crab-fisher. They are all painted wonderful colors and the fishermen are all Italian. They are very friendly, and we watched them sitting on the docks mending their nets and singing.


Dinner at Fisherman's Wharf

Fisherman's Wharf has to be one of my favorite places in San Francisco . The men who do the fishing bring them back to the restaurants and outdoor stalls. People can pick out a crab and it's cooked right there for you to take home. One night we went to a great restaurant a man told me about. It's called San Remo 's, near Fisherman's Wharf. You can get a wonderful Italian dinner for $1.00 from soup to dessert. Another dollar gets a bottle of house wine. You go into the bar to pick it up. Our waiter was very friendly. I think he had been sampling the house wine.


Playland at the Beach

San Franciscans love the beach. The water is too cold to swim in but Playland at the Beach has everything else; a wonderful roller coaster, the Fun House, Shoot the Chutes, and great food. A favorite is Topsy's Roost for delicious fried chicken and dancing. If you're eating on the balcony you go down to the dance floor on a slide! My favorite was the Pie Shop... the best chicken and beef turnovers imaginable… fantastic crust and wonderful gravy. San Franciscans take them home for dinner.


The Golden Gate Bridge

We left Playland and drove through the Presidio to the Golden Gate Bridge . The Presidio is still an important Army Base and has been on active duty since Spain built a fort there in 1776.

The Golden Gate is my favorite bridge. We parked the car near the Toll Plaza and walked across the bridge for 25 cents. You can't walk on the Bay Bridge. Our trip to San Francisco is over too soon. I hate to say goodbye to this beautiful city. The people who live here are sure lucky.

Hope you enjoyed my letter and the photographs.
Say hello to everybody.

~ Henry Ford

The Paranoid Episcopal Church: Afraid to Covenant

The only thing remarkable about the reports from the latest meeting of ECUSA's Executive Council in Salt Lake City is that they managed to put out a narrative which discloses what they failed to accomplish: they do not represent the whole Episcopal Church (USA), but they act as if they do.

Thus, the Executive Council had called for submissions from each of the Church's supposed 110 Dioceses (actually, only 106 -- but then, who's counting?) regarding their positions on the proposed Anglican Covenant. The report which they published shows that they received responses from a grand total of just twenty-nine of its claimed 110 dioceses.

And even of that pitiful total, they have to reject all the Dioceses which voted in favor of the Covenant. The reason? "None of the dioceses who were reported in the press to have approved the covenant communicated this action to Executive Council." Oh, really? Perhaps these Dioceses recognized that the Executive Council would have taken their positive responses amiss, and so communicated them directly to the Anglican Communion Secretariat? At any rate, the Council -- predictably -- could not even be troubled to list these approving Dioceses, according to the "press reports" which they acknowledge reading.

And based on that resounding "response" from a little over 25% of its Dioceses, the Executive Council recommends to General Convention a Resolution that "The Episcopal Church [sic] is unable to adopt the AnglicanCovenant in its present form."

"The Episcopal Church"? Give me a break. The body which made this announcement is neither "Episcopal" ("bishop-led"), nor a Church. Instead, as can be seen from the conclusions of its "Executive Council" based on submissions by just over a quarter of the dioceses claiming to "belong" to this "Church", what we have is rule by the privileged few, or what Aristotle termed an oligarchy. It should be renamed "The Exclusive Church."

The defining characteristic of an oligarchy is that it rejects the views of the many as having any significance whatsoever. Indeed, it believes that the many, or what Aristotle calls the hoi polloi, are the equivalent of those who currently are "occupying" some parks in various cities across the land: they are unwashed, illiterate, wholly ignorant, and unworthy of serious attention.

Now the Executive Council of "the Exclusive Church" thinks that it, of course, is "Inclusive", and thus actually embraces the hoi polloi whom it in reality despises. The proof of this is that it can rely on the conclusion of a "Task Force" -- acting on the responses from just 29 dioceses -- to make its recommendation to the General Convention in 2012 that they vote to reject the Anglican Covenant.

Of course, this is no surprise; it is a typical "dog bites man" story. Rarely, however, is one given such clear documentation of the proof that those who govern "The Episcopal Church" could care less for what those believe who occupy its pews every Sunday.

A more honest Resolution would have stated:
Despite our best efforts, we have received responses from only 29 of 110 Dioceses. The Executive Council, therefore, recommends that General Convention redouble the efforts in this Church to give the proposed Covenant a full and fair consideration in each and every one of its Dioceses.
But welcome to "The Episcopal Church" -- which "welcomes" you, by the way -- but only if you are interested in placidly allowing them to continue as they always have, and do not rock their boat. This is a group so paranoid about their current disagreements with the rest of the Anglican Communion that they conclude that even the Introduction to the Covenant might obligate them to do things which they simply could not agree to do, under any circumstances:
Paragraph 1 of the Introduction speaks of the biblical treatment of the “communion in Jesus Christ.” It includes the “Communion of the life of the Church,” as the basis for the existence and “ordering of the Church.” A fair interpretation of this text is that our “Communion in Jesus Christ” coexists with our Communion as constituent members of the Anglican Communion. The implication may be that the continuation of our communion in Jesus Christ requires accession to the particular ordering of the church described in the draft Covenant . . .
No, we cannot let any crazy notion of a "communion in Jesus Christ" govern what it is to which we are committing ourselves if we were to sign this Covenant. Far better to retain our "autonomy", while mouthing platitudes about how we "respect" the Communion, and wish to remain "in dialogue" with it.

This is what your tithes are paying for: "The Episcopal Church" at work. Much like the famous old sign:




"We Make Things Go"


I am left watching this new debate and wondering "but what is 'violence' and what is 'intelligence'?" Which leads me to first wonder how much the decline in battlefield deaths is due to intelligence that avoids war, and how much is due to intelligence that repairs the wounded, so they aren't the dead. Which are two very different kinds of intelligence, indeed.

I have a vague memory of this discussion occurring earlier, with the Crimean War being a touchstone because it was the last big war prior to modern medicine. The death tolls were high, largely because so many died of their wounds. The death toll in Iraq has been low, comparatively, because so many soldiers don't die of their wounds. Head traumas alone, which would have guaranteed death in earlier wars (and which are only possible because of modern technology which can produce IED's), are now wounds, not fatalities. The number killed in wars has declined as much because of battlefield medical treatment as because we are "less violent." Perhaps. Inquiring minds, at least, would like to know.

As for these numbers:

_ Murder in European countries has steadily fallen from near 100 per 100,000 people in the 14th and 15th centuries to about 1 per 100,000 people now.

_ Murder within families. The U.S. rate of husbands being killed by their wives has dropped from 1.2 per 100,000 in 1976 to just 0.2. For wives killed by their husbands, the rate has slipped from 1.4 to 0.8 over the same time period.

_ Rape in the United States is down 80 percent since 1973. Lynchings, which used to occur at a rate of 150 a year, have disappeared.

_ Discrimination against blacks and gays is down, as is capital punishment, the spanking of children, and child abuse.
I'm not sure all discrimination counts as violence, but perhaps that's too much of a quibble. I do wonder what the murder rate is in America, Russia, Asia, Africa, Australia. Or are we going back to Europe as the pinnacle of humanity and the apex of education? As for murder within American marriages, I'd point out that divorce is now quite common, and it may be not that husbands and wives are better educated or simply smarter (Pinker's thesis), but that they get divorced before they get violent. Murder was probably once seen as the only way out of a bad marriage, in other words. I don't know that, of course; but bald statistic don't tell you anything; it's the interpretation that reaches the conclusion, and what is that interpretation based on? Pinker wants to see it as signs of rising intelligence; if I see it simply as a sign of changing social strictures (divorce is no longer taboo), which of us is right?

Yes, rape is down, and lynchings are down. But the latter were a public spectacle much more than a private crime (they were finally relegated to anonymity), and American society has never had the stomach for public violence that the English once did (one of Pinker's widely related examples is Pepys attending a public execution. To this day the British laugh at physical horrors that most Americans blanch at, and I don't mean that as a slight on the British. But only Englishmen could come up with the Black Knight in Monty Python's "Holy Grail" movie, and there is a greater tolerance in British culture for violence as humor than there is in American culture. We love our violence, but we don't like to laugh at it. We take it too seriously; it's a moral punishment. But that's another topic, for another time.). If rape is down, is it because we are smarter? I don't know; I don't see a connection between intelligence and the desire to rape someone. And while we don't engage in public executions, they are still a thriving business in many states in the Union. The violence of them (hanging, shooting, electrocution) has certainly diminished, but the desire for them has not. And is this because we are more intelligent? Or because we are becoming more moral?

And no, I don't think the two are joined at the hip.

I've made a purely personal observation that of the European countries with violence in their histories, the Scandinavian countries with their Viking heritage seem the most consistently peaceful today. Is this because of education, or because of Maslow's hierarchy of needs? One answer works as well as the other. If this is a jigsaw puzzle, the pieces seem to be identical: either fits. But is it a jigsaw? Is this cut out of a pre-determined mold, and it is simply up to us to assemble it correctly? Of that I'm not so sure.

The question, then, is: how do we measure violence? Battlefield deaths? But we can't measure that without measuring technology, especially medical technology. Maslow's hierarchy could answer just as well, if we decide that what keeps mankind alive is food, clothing, and shelter, and once those are assured there is less reason to go to war and seek new resources. That was the popular argument a few decades back, when the idea began that democracies never go to war against each other, and countries with trade relations have no reason to fight each other (an assumption that ignores history and even literature. Homer's warriors before the walls of Troy battle individually all day long, and find out they are practically family, that their grandfathers were great friends and when this war ends, if they are alive, they will re-establish the old ties.) Perhaps violence is down statistically, but is that because we are less violent, or because the non-warrior class now outnumbers the warrior class, and markets work better than military oppression? Rome survived on its military might first; it had virtually no market economy at all. It's social stability derived from patronage, and whenever that stability was threatened the soldiers turned on the Roman citizens or those they were supposed to protect, and no one thought it cruel and unfair. One reason NATO intervened in Libya was because Gadaffi was "attacking his own people." Are we more intelligent than Rome? Or simply operating under different standards because there are more of us on the planet, and a power like Rome's is now impossible?

If we measure violence by rapes, what about assaults and gun deaths, or violent deaths in general? Are those down, up, the same? Perhaps Pinker addresses this in his book, but even if he does, how do we know why this is, or what it means, or even if it means anything? I don't have an answer, I just have questions. This is a fantastically complex issue, and to rest it on matters like "IQ" (which Stephen Jay Gould, among others, has shown to be a chimera. Identify "intelligence" for me, and then tell me how you measure it the same way you can measure length or weight or height, or even velocity. The notion of comparing "IQ" levels is laughable. You might as well compare the length of unicorn horns over the centuries.) I have also known very intelligent people who were very compassionate; as well as very intelligent people with no compassion or concern for others at all. Intelligence is not inextricably linked to behavior, and can't be assumed to be the weight that tips the scales in favor of the outcome we'd all like to see.

There's also the simple fact that violence is the favored form of entertainment, at least in America. Now, of course, we're back to defining "violence". Is it the antics of the Three Stooges? My mother thought so, when I was young and watching them poke each other in the eye, or strike each other with hammers. Is it the violence of a slasher film or a horror movie? Is it the violence of an "action film," or the highly choreographed fights of the new "Three Musketeers" movie, or the Robert Downey, Jr. versions of Sherlock Holmes? The comic book violence of The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Iron Man? Dalton Trumbo remarked, in his preface to his book Johnny Got his Gun, that during the Vietnam War we read daily "body count" statistics in the newspapers, and instead of thinking of the pile of arms and legs and torsos that number represented, and throwing up at the horror of it, we reached for our coffee cups. Does anyone even pay attention to the violence in Iraq and Afghanistan anymore, or know why we continue it? War we can still always pay for, but people? Surely if we were more intelligent, Johnson's Great Society and RFK's compassion for the poor wouldn't have been erased from public discourse quite so rapidly.

And here, perhaps, I do the argument a disservice; but then, what is the argument? That according to numbers, we don't kill quite as many of our fellow humans as we used to? Well, perhaps not. But we certainly employ a great many people in endeavors directly related to violence, either real or imaginary; and we certainly have many industries devoted to the production of violence, again either real or imaginary. And we continue to do daily violence to the poor, the marginalized, the invisible, the oppressed, the neglected, the forgotten, the dispossessed, the ignored.

But to the extent we don't, is that because we are better educated, more intelligent? Or is it because we are more compassionate (and yes, education could increase that, too. Education is not merely the method by which intelligence is increased, although Mr. Pinker seems to think so.)?

I suppose it's all a matter of how narrowly, or broadly, you define "violence." Or maybe it's a question of how we define "intelligence." And also of how much "intelligence" is really worth in human history. I can guess Stephen Pinker's answer on that issue. I can also guess I would think him quite wrong.*


Concluding Unscientific Postscript:

One other point, which may or may not undermine the argument that violence is down because compassion is up (I'm not sure it is, I just think morality is as valid a cause for this perceived effect as intelligence is, and probably a more comprehensive answer. Anyway....): the focus on violence as an indicator of the "angels of our better nature" is an interesting one, since violence is always a personal problem, i.e., a problem of personal security. Violence is always about what is done to me and mine, not about what I can, or should, do for others.

Violence is bad, but it's worse when it's done against me. Nothing motivates a country like being attacked (violence against us); witness America's reaction to Pearl Harbor and 9/11. But who is poverty done against? It's always done against another, and it's easy to blame the victim for the problem. Even when we don't, what motivates a country to care for the helpless, the hungry, the marginalized and dispossessed? Apparently not intelligence, which should at least tell us their interests are our interests, their hunger and poverty will be ours if we are not more equitable. Yet is there a rise in compassion for the poor comparable to the alleged fall in violence? Has anybody thought to ask? And isn't it really a more important issue? Yes, violence is bad; but I would argue poverty is infinitely worse, especially since the measures of violence seem to be death and single acts (like rape). Poverty, unlike death, is actually lived through. But poverty requires an action on my part; violence requires a lack of action on my part.

Small wonder one seems more important than the other, more a reflection of our "better angels" than the other. It's a small thing, but the more I think about it, the more it bothers me. Are we really better off, as a species, because violence is down, because the physical threat against any one of us is arguably lower now than at any time in history? Is that really good news for the poor? Does this debate promise healing for the brokenhearted, preach deliverance for captives, mean recovery of sight for the blind? Because it seems to me that, until it does, it's just rearranging the first-class deck chairs on the Titanic.

"Borking." Again with the "Borking."

Joe Nocera, alas, has fallen into the trap of assuming the conservative founding grudge story is true:
The Bork fight, in some ways, was the beginning of the end of civil discourse in politics. For years afterward, conservatives seethed at the “systematic demonization” of Bork, recalls Clint Bolick, a longtime conservative legal activist. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution coined the angry verb “to bork,” which meant to destroy a nominee by whatever means necessary. When Republicans borked the Democratic House Speaker Jim Wright less than two years later, there wasn’t a trace of remorse, not after what the Democrats had done to Bork. The anger between Democrats and Republicans, the unwillingness to work together, the profound mistrust — the line from Bork to today’s ugly politics is a straight one.
The argument rests on two premises, both fundamentally false. The first is that Bork's rejection by the Senate marked an escalation of the political warfare over the judiciary. The seconds, as Nocera writes, is that "[n]or was Bork himself an extremist. He was a strongly opinionated, somewhat pugnacious, deeply conservative judge," and that, under the pre-existing mores of the Senate, he was entitled to confirmation. Both premises are so demonstrably false as to draw into question Nocera's competence.

First, the rejection of Bork's nomination took place 17 years after the far more dramatic effort on the part of the House Republicans to impeach sitting Justice a William O. Douglas over his off the bench writings (an article on folk music, and a book, Points of Rebellion, urging reform as the best means to avert social crisis, and another article, inoffensive in itself, but published in a risqué magazine), his votes in favor of free speech, and his personal life--Douglas was married to a much younger woman, and had been married three earlier times. (The source linked here--from Wikipedia--is unfortunately the best of a bad lot of online sources about WOD, and, if anything, is far too charitable to then-Rep. Gerald Ford's leadership of this attempt, which most accounts acknowledge was a political effort to break the liberal bloc of the Court). As my old law professor Henry Monaghan--a Bork supporter who testified on his behalf--acknowledged in a 1988 article in the Harvard Law Review "all the relevant historical and textual sources support the Senate's power when and if it sees fit to assert its vision of the public good against that of the President." By contrast, a federal judge is to be impeached only for "high crimes and misdemeanors," a problem Ford elided by redefining the constitutional text to mean nothing; as he said on the House floor, "[t]he only honest answer is that an impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers to be at a given moment in history."

To say that the Bork rejection began the hostilities is, to put it mildly, facetious.

As to whether or not Bork was entitled to a seat on the Court, Monaghan's article is clear that the Senate had plenary power to reject him; as to the question whether it correctly deemed him to be too extreme, let me quote an older post:
Bork was rejected--to my mind quite rightly--because of his philosophy. Not because he was conservative--William H. Rehnquist had just been elevated to Chief Justice, after all--but because his conservatism led him to discard whole sections of the Constitution based on his personal ideological committments.

So, for example, Judge Bork contended that the Ninth Amendment, reading that the "enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people" could not be a source of rights which were enforceable, and that only those explicitly enumerated in the text could be. He described its meaning in The Tempting of America, as indeterminate as an "ink blot", and claimed that the judiciary should simply ignore the Amendment, which would give [no] effect to the intention of the Framers. As Bork himself said, "the only recourse for a judge is to refrain from inventing meanings and ignore the provision, as was the practice until recently." (“Interpretation of the Constitution,” 1984 Justice Lester W. Roth Lecture, University of So. California, October 25, 1984).

However, the Framers had originally not included a Bill of Rights because, as recounted in The Federalist Papers, the enumeration of rights might be used as a means to claim that those not named did not exist. Federalist No. 84. Madison addressed this issue in explaining his addition of the text that became the Ninth Amendment:

It has been objected also against a bill of rights, that, by enumerating particular exceptions to the grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not placed in that enumeration; and it might follow by implication, that those rights which were not singled out, were intended to be assigned into the hands of the General Government, and were consequently insecure. This is one of the most plausible arguments I have ever heard against the admission of a bill of rights into this system; but, I conceive, that it may be guarded against. I have attempted it, as gentlemen may see by turning to the last clause of the fourth resolution." (3 Annals of America at 354-363).

So the text of the Constitution, and Bork's own claimed ultimate goal of interpretation--effecting the actual original intent of the framers--both demonstrably preclude his reading of the Ninth Amendment out of the Constitution. nevertheless, for his own policy-based reasons, Bork argues for such a reading-out. As an equation, if T means text, for Bork T=0, absent any reference to original intent, structure, or any other ground.

Similarly, with the First Amendment, Bork argued that the scope of speech protected by the First Amendment should be limited to purely political speech, despite the text of the Amendment which carries no such limitation, providing only that "Congress shall make no law ....abridging the freedom of speech." (Bork's article, "Neutral Principles and Some First Amendment Problems" is published at 47 Indiana L.J. 1 (1971)). Again, Bork's resort to the intention of the Framers over the text was unconvincing to the say the least. Because of the lateness of the addition to the Bill of Rights to the Constitution, there are very limited legislative history materials to use in interpreting the text, but neither Madison's notes, nor those of the other members of the Constitutional Convention support Bork's reading of the Amendment. Nor does the early practice; the Supreme Court in Permoli v. First Municipality, City of New Orleans, 44 U.S. 589 (1844) and United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875) twice held that the effect of the First Amendment was to completely disable Congress in dealing with regulation of speech and religion. (For more detail, see my First Amendment, First Principles at pp. 20-23).

Bork also described the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as enacting a "principle of unsurpassed ugliness" in forcing white operators of public accommodation to serve African Americans. "Civil Rights—A Challenge," The New Republic, August 31, 1963. The emotive language used by Bork was deemed by many on the left to justify Senator Kennedy's assertion that segregation at lunch counters would be a feature of "Robert Bork's America." All of these issues, and Bork's role in the "Saturday Night Massacre" in which he was the third occupant of the office of Attorney General because he alone was willing to back then-President Nixon's position on executive privilege, cost him support. Bork's 1987 claim that he construed the law and the Constitution in each of these areas and did not argue his personal beliefs is belied by his use of emotive language and in many areas his subsequent insistence that his views are not merely constitutionally imperative but morally so. See Slouching Toward Gomorrah (1996) and his contributions to A Country I Do Not Recognize: The Legal Assault On American Values (2005).

I point all of these out because the notion that Robert Bork fell because of his conservatism distorts the history in a manner that suggests that mere political disagreement is enough to torpedo a judicial nomination. In fact, Judge Bork's interpretations of the Constitution were not merely substantively "out of the mainstream"; they were not supported by the very values that he claimed mandated them, and they would erase centuries of constitutional law in favor of a broad power to the Government over what Americans thought and did in their private lives, in the name of morality.
I stand by that analysis; I think the Senate did its job in 1987, and that Nocera failed to do his this week

The Curse of St. Custard's


So, according to a new biography, Steve Jobs told President Obama:

"Until the teachers' unions were broken, there was almost no hope for education reform." Jobs proposed allowing principals to hire and fire teachers based on merit, that schools stay open until 6 p.m. and that they be open 11 months a year.
I won't comment on the teacher's unions issue, as there aren't any in Texas (right to work state), so I have no experience with them. Suffice to say, on that subject, that not all school districts are created that equally. Hold on to that proposition, it will play into this analysis in a moment.

Matt Yglesias thinks longer school days are fine idea, which only tells me Matt Yglesias knows nothing about school days now. It is true the most practical problem is costs, but the other problem is: who said school is over at 3 p.m.?

My information is anecdotal on this point, but where I live, elementary schools start the day at 7:30, which means teachers are there at least an hour before (some teachers, some staff). Granted, the day ends, for the students, at 2:30. But the teachers don't chase the students out of the parking lot. And if you are going to mandate school keep students in class until 6 p.m., you're asking teachers to work a 12 hour day plus grade papers, prepare for classes, deal with parent/student issues, etc., on a day when they probably will get a one hour break and lunch with the students (which is not a break at all). In other words, you not only need to raise their pay, you need to bring in a swing shift for the afternoon work. That, or work your teachers into burnout in very short order.

Don't even get me started on what pedagogical nonsense this is. By this argument, my community college students should be in class 12 hours a day, too, instead of the 2-4 hours they probably average now. What is the point of keeping students in a classroom for most of their waking hours? They will learn by osmosis, by exposure to books and chalkboards and teachers? Only people who've never taught in a public high school could imagine that more time is better time, or that a a 12 hour day would be as easy for teachers as the 12 hour day a lawyer or doctor might put in (and are we going to pay our teachers as much as we pay lawyers and doctors? I think not, hem hem.*). Teaching is, in no small part, baby-sitting. I don't say this to slight teachers, I say it because it is the truth. Young children through high school students, individually, tend to have far more energy than the average adult (especially the average middle-aged adult, who has experience that is very valuable in the classroom). That energy is multiplied almost geometrically (at least absolutely arithmetically) when you combine 20-30 such persons in one room, and then have school buildings full of them for 12 hours a day. The effort to control them, contain them, educate them, and be responsible for their physical and emotional safety, is a tremendous burden, and Steve Jobs (and Yglesias) want to increase that to half-again what it is now, and extend the teacher's working day after school finally ends, well into the wee hours of the next day?

Is anybody thinking of the children? Or of the teachers, for that matter?

As for the 11 months a year idea, good luck with that. Texas moved the start of school back into early August, a move done by the state Legislature, not any one school principal. The howls of indignation and outrage at disrupted vacation plans, not to mention from vacation providers who saw their season ending far too soon, brought that experiment to an end after one year. There have been discussions about going to a year-round school calendar since I was in elementary school (at least), and we've come no closer to it know than we were then. For better or worse, the 9 month school year is so deeply engrained in American culture you might as well try to get rid of Mom and apple pie first. I'm not opposed to year-round school; in fact, I'd champion it. But I've tried to change culture before, on a very local level, and I have the bruises to show for it. I may think the change is a good idea, but I won't soon try again to even seek to implement such a change.

As for the 12 hour+ work day, I can only say: if you want to drive even more teachers out of teaching, be my guest: implement a 12 hour day, even if you can get the tax revenues to pay for it. But I suspect it will be about as popular with parents as the 11 month school year. The most influential families today, on a local if not a national level, have children in many extra-curricular activities that keep them out of school but also away from home for several hours past 6 p.m. already. Tell those parents all those activities are going to end and their little darlings are going to be in a classroom for 12+ hours a day, and see what happens. Let's just say I won't be in the room when the unfortunate soul announces that plan to the wrong group of parents.

Contrary to what Matt Yglesias says, "The problem a mayor or school chancellor seeking to implement this idea would have is" not "a budget problem." The problem would be long before that, with simply trying to get parents to accept it. You know, we've really got to learn to start taking people into account in these public policy discussions. Steve Jobs may have been able to control the last details of every Apple store on the planet, but his reach ended right about there. Funny how people like Matt Yglesias don't get that, either.



*nigel molesworth, very posh.

Conflicts Galore on the Kangaroo Court


In a series of five posts earlier this month (links to the first, second, third, fourth and fifth), I have examined the patent procedural irregularities and bias which attend the deliberations of the Disciplinary Board for Bishops as it looks into vague and vacuous claims that Bishop Mark Lawrence of the Diocese of South Carolina has "abandoned the Episcopal Church" -- by refusing to go along with the latter's theological and canonical excursions into a metaphysical Wonderland. In particular, we saw first how the Board's original "Church Attorney", and then its Chair and one other member, were hopelessly conflicted by the public stances they had taken earlier on issues which are in total disagreement with -- indeed, are the exact opposite of -- the stances of Bishop Lawrence and his Diocese on those issues.

This is not a recipe for impartiality, or for cool and calm judgments at the highest level. Like the Queen of Hearts in Alice's Wonderland, the people who are sitting in judgment on Mark Lawrence have already announced their predilections well beforehand. That they have not yet voluntarily recused themselves from these proceedings is a scandal. Indeed: their failure to do so is what allows the resulting proceedings to be dubbed, in the provincial vernacular, "a kangaroo court." (A tip o' the Rumpolean bowler to Robin G. Jordan of Anglicans Ablaze for finding the wonderful image with which to illustrate this post.)

In this post, I want to lay out for all to see the conflicts (in addition to those I have already made manifest) which should disqualify still other members of the Board from proceeding any further in examining the claims made against Bishop Lawrence. Let us start with his colleagues -- the bishops who sit on the Board besides its President, the Rt. Rev. Dorsey Henderson.

The Rt. Rev. Ian Douglas, Bishop of Connecticut, is presuming to judge whether, by leading his Diocese to remove its accession to the Canons of General Convention, Bishop Lawrence has thereby "abandoned" communion with ECUSA. Bishop Douglas should accuse himself of that charge, because he now leads a Diocese which has never acceded to the Canons of General Convention, but only to the Church's Constitution.

The Rt. Rev. Herman Hollerith, Bishop of the Diocese of Southern Virginia, should be brought before the Board before they take up the case of Bishop Lawrence. In the proud and autonomous tradition of his parent Diocese of Virginia, which (like South Carolina) was one of the founding Dioceses of the Church, the Constitution of Bishop Hollerith's Diocese contains no accession clause of any kind whatsoever -- either to ECUSA's Constitution or to its Canons.

The Rt. Rev. M. Thomas Shaw, Bishop of Massachusetts, interpreted Resolution C056 ("Liturgies for Blessings") adopted by General Convention in 2009 to allow him to authorize clergy in his Diocese to perform same-sex marriages, and indeed performed such a ceremony himself. These acts violated not just the Canons on Marriage, but also the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer. According to Bishop Shaw, he and his suffragan bishops are the final authority on what the Canons mean in their Diocese. So why is not Bishop Lawrence just as final an authority on the meaning of the Canons in his Diocese, as well?

Indeed, Bishop Shaw's very words to his own Diocese now ring spectacularly hollow, as applied to Bishop Lawrence (emphasis added):
Your bishops understand this to mean for us here in the Diocese of Massachusetts that the clergy of this diocese may, at their discretion, solemnize marriages for all eligible couples, beginning Advent I. . . .

We have not arrived at this place in our common life easily or quickly. We have not done it alone. This decision comes after a long process of listening, prayer and discernment leading up to and continuing after General Convention’s action this past summer. Our Diocesan Convention recently adopted a resolution of its own expressing its collective hope for the very determination that your bishops have made. Even so, we know that not all are of one mind and that some in good faith will disagree with this decision. Our Anglican tradition makes space for this disagreement and calls us to respect and engage one another in our differences. It is through that tension that we find God’s ultimate will.
All of the other Bishops on the Disciplinary Review Board are just as disqualified as the above three individual Bishops. The reason for their disqualification is that the vote to enact the new Title IV Canons passed the House of Bishops at Anaheim in 2009 (see page 227 of the previous link) without any recorded votes of dissent by any of the bishops currently on the Board. Unless they can show that they opposed the new Title IV, or at the minimum abstained from its adoption, they are hopelessly prejudiced against the stand now being taken by Bishop Lawrence and his Diocese. The latter claim in unison that the adoption of Title IV was not in accord with ECUSA's Constitution; but the former demonstrated by their votes at GC 2009 that they already disagreed with him -- even before the charges against him were brought to their attention.

In fact, this entire procedure under the "Abandonment Canon" points up just what is the abuse of that Canon by ECUSA's current leadership -- including, it must now be said, Bishop Dorsey Henderson. We have the case of a Bishop of an Episcopal Diocese who rejects the addition of new Canons for the Church, on the ground of their unconstitutionality. But if that very fact of opposition, for constitutional reasons, can be allowed to constitute grounds for deposition due to "abandonment" of the Church, then what is to become of any good-faith opposition to the passage of Church canons? If the Church now makes any such opposition deposable, then the only bishops who will remain with it will be the spineless toadies who never object to its canonical excesses under a leadership bent on arrogating ever more power to itself.

And what of the lay and clergy members of the Disciplinary Board? These, it must be remembered, were all appointed by House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson, just as all of the Bishop members were appointed by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. (Such are the truly "democratic" processes of the Episcopal Church (USA).) Exactly as in the case of the Bishop members, those whom Ms. Anderson appointed, such as the Rev. Canon Angela Shepherd, and who served as Deputies to the General Convention in 2009, need to step down if they voted for the new Title IV. (Canon Shepherd was in the deputation from Maryland, which was chaired by the Rev. Canon Mary Glasspool, soon to be elected suffragan bishop of Los Angeles.)

Member Christopher Hayes is disqualified as well. He serves as the Chancellor for the Diocese of California, which under his guidance and support recently enacted its own disciplinary canons (see Canon XV) to give effect in that Diocese to the new Title IV. How can he judge someone from a diocese which refused to do the very thing he advised his Diocese to do? Other Board members who served as deputies to their own Diocese's annual convention, such as Ms. Josephine Powell, and the Rev. Canon Jésus Reyes, are disqualified if they recently voted to amend their diocesan Canons to bring them into conformity with the new Title IV.

The Rev. Marjorie Menaul, the rector of St. Paul's in Bloomsburg, and a member of the Board from Central Pennsylvania, should be very careful of how she proceeds in this matter, along with Bishop Catherine Waynick of the Diocese of Indianapolis. The two of them served on the Court for the Trial of a Bishop in the case which resulted in a sentence of deposition (subsequently overturned on appeal) for the Rt. Rev. Charles E. Bennison, Jr. In the course of that proceeding, the Court requested that the Diocese of Los Angeles supply it with copies of letters in its files and stemming from the time that Bishop Bennison served as a priest at a parish in Upland there, working with his brother, a (now) confessed child molester. In its final order, the Court wrote this about its requests to the Diocese (pp. 14-15 of the Order, with emphases added):
Additionally, the Respondent argues that the Sentence should be modified because the Diocese of Los Angeles refused to produce its files regarding John Bennison. The parties, a representative of the Presiding Bishop, and the Court each asked the Diocese to produce those records. Unfortunately, the Diocese refused all of those requests and the Court had no ability to obtain those documents. . . . In this case, however, no party to this action refused to produce the documents in question. Rather, the Diocese of Los Angeles, a wholly autonomous entity which is not a party to these proceedings, chose not to produce the documents notwithstanding entreaties from the Court.
Thus, Bishop Waynick and the Rev. Menaul both acknowledged in their order that the Diocese of Los Angeles was "autonomous", and neither the Court for the Trial of a Bishop, nor the Presiding Bishop herself, could order it to produce its records. No presentment was ever brought against Bishop J. Jon Bruno for refusing to comply in that matter -- but these Board members are considering whether a similar refusal to comply here would constitute "abandonment" on the part of Bishop Lawrence? Having already ruled that way in the Bennison case, why have these two members not insisted that the Board has to drop all further consideration of the charges against the Bishop of a similarly autonomous Diocese, for acting autonomously?

Under the provisions of the current Title IV, it will be the duty of the Board's newly appointed Church Attorney, Mr. Jack W. "J.B." Burtch, Jr. to challenge all the members of the Board who are disqualified because their "impartiality may reasonably be questioned" (Canon IV.19.14[b], discussed and quoted in the updates to this previous post). However, the drafters of the new Title IV do not appear to have envisioned such a massive host of conflicts which would disqualify nearly every member of the Board under that standard. Why do I say that? Take a look at paragraph (c) of Canon IV.19.14 just cited, and see how it provides for the handling of any charges of disqualification which Mr. Burtch may bring against the Board's members:
(c) Any member of any Panel provided for in this Title who has not disqualified himself or herself as provided in this section may be subject to challenge by the Church Attorney . . . . The challenge shall be investigated by the remaining members of the Panel who shall determine whether the challenged member of the Panel should be disqualified and replaced according to the procedures of this Title for filling vacancies.
Let us see now . . . In this post and the one previous to it on this topic, I have set forth the basis for why it would not be reasonable to think that seventeen of the Board's eighteen sitting members could act impartially in the matter of Bishop Lawrence. Who is left to judge the rest? It may all come down to the member from Puerto Rico, Mr. Victor Feliberty-Ruberte. But wait! I just remembered that the Diocese of Puerto Rico does not have an accession clause in its Constitution, either! So, sorry, Mr. Feliberty-Ruberte: unless you can explain why your Diocese can get away with it while you believe that South Carolina should not, then you, too, could not reasonably be expected to be impartial in this matter.

As I said earlier: the entire kangaroo court should resign en masse -- and Bishop Jefferts Schori and President Bonnie Anderson, because of their continued behind-the-scenes involvement via the Executive Council which they head, should disqualify themselves from naming the people who can sit impartially in judgment on this matter. In sum: there is no one currently involved with the governance of the Episcopal Church (USA) who is impartial enough to judge Bishop Lawrence, or to appoint his judges. All charges should be dismissed without further delay. The longer this kangaroo court drags things out, the more apparent will it be that its procedures have been rigged from the outset.












Never start your day with the news....



NPR tells me first thing this morning that the war in Libya was not cheap; or maybe it was:

"First of all, it dramatically lowers the cost to the American people. We spent just over a billion dollars, which is dramatically less than we have in recent military interventions," he said. "And also we see a great deal of legitimacy for our actions when we work internationally with other partners and allies."
It's certainly dramatically less than we're willing to pay for anything else. Anybody hear, say, a Paul Ryan complaining about "borrowed money" being spent on military ventures? Or does that only apply to domestic spending?

LOWE: I come from a very middle-class family and under President Obama, I get $5,500 per year to pay for school, which doesn’t come close to covering all of the funding, but it helps ease the burden. Under your plan, you cut it by 15 percent. I was just curious why you would cut a grant that goes directly to the middle- and lower-class people that need it the most.

RYAN: ‘Cause Pell Grants have become unsustainable. It’s all borrowed money…Look, I worked three jobs to pay off my student loans after college. I didn’t get grants, I got loans, and we need to have a system of viable student loans to be able to do this.
So, "I had to suffer, and so should you," combined with "We can't afford to spend money on people!" Which is certainly the theme being sounded, because the other major problem this country faces is too many hungry people:

SESSIONS: No program in our government has surged out of control more dramatically than food stamps. And nothing is being done about it. [...] Multimillion dollar lottery winners are getting food stamps because the money is considered to be an asset not an income. One of the fast and furious gun buyers –

HOST: But hold on, for ever lottery winner that has food stamps, there’s probably a lot more people who really need them who have them, right?

SESSIONS: Well look, do you think there are four times as many people who need food stamps today as in 2001. That answers itself. [...] We cannot do this. We do not have the money. Congress doesn’t understand that we can’t afford to double the program every three years.
Given the current unemployment situation I'd say yes, there probably are four times as many people who need food stamps today as in 2001. But again, no complaint about the cool billion just spent in Libya to destroy that country in order to remove Gadaffi from power. Of course, blowing stuff up can be profitable: right, Sen. Graham?

One of the problems I have with “leading from behind” is that when a day like this comes, we don’t have the infrastructure in place that we could have. I’m glad it ended the way it did. It took longer than it should have. If we could have kept American air power in the fight it would have been over quicker. Sixty-thousand Libyans have been wounded, 3,000 maimed, 25,000 killed. Let’s get in on the ground. There is a lot of money to be made in the future in Libya. Lot of oil to be produced. Let’s get on the ground and help the Libyan people establish a democracy and a functioning economy based on free market principles.
So maybe all that money spent in Libya was just an investment for...I dunno, Halliburton?

There is a cost for all of this, as NPR pointed out this morning:

With the nation's student-loan debt climbing toward $1 trillion, it's taking many young people longer than ever to pay off their loans. Two-thirds of college students now graduate with debt, owing an average of $24,000. But some borrow far more and find this debt influencing major life decisions long after graduation.
So "we" cannot do this, but "they" can. And who is "we" and "they", again?

Judge Chupp Sets $100,000 Bond for Ft. Worth Appeal

Today, after months and months of fruitless negotiations between the opposing sides, Judge Chupp of the 141st District Court in Tarrant County, Texas used his sword to cut through the Gordian knot (h/t: Reader and commenter DDR). At issue was the appropriate amount of bond to fix to guard the plaintiffs (the Potemkin Diocese of Ft. Worth) against any loss or damage to the property of Bishop Jack L. Iker's Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, pending the current appeal to the Texas Supreme Court. The Iker Diocese has posted a good summary of how things went at the hearing:
There is progress to report today in the matter of the supersedeas bond* designed to protect property in the Diocese while the judgment against us is on appeal. After five months of negotiation without reaching agreement on the terms of the bond, attorneys returned to the 141st district court, where the Hon. John Chupp heard arguments and signed an order for a supersedeas bond and certain other injunctions and directives.

In advance of the hearing this morning, lawyers representing each side filed a motion and a new proposed order. The attorneys representing Episcopal Church interests also brought the judge three exhibits and a thick binder of material re-copied from previously-filed documents. As before, their request was for a bond of nearly $1 million.

The existing judgment in the case, if carried out, would give all assets to the local TEC parties. Therefore none of the property can be sold or mortgaged by the diocesan Corporation. Pressing the attorneys for TEC and referring to the Diocese and Corporation, Judge Chupp asked, “What assets do they have [to use for a bond]? ... I'm serious.”

After hearing from each side and noting that the 14-page proposed order submitted to him today “is a lot thicker than the one was back in May,” the judge returned to the original three-page document presented on May 19, 2011, which he said had been “sitting in my drawer since then.” He announced that he already had struck out a paragraph requesting “additional security” for the TEC parties and had entered a figure of $5 million as a benchmark of “fair market rental value” of a select dozen churches in the Diocese – a value presented in May by the TEC attorneys. Lead diocesan attorney Shelby Sharpe explained that no rent ever is paid by churches for use of property owned by the Corporation. Nevertheless, said the judge, the property “does have some value.”

Judge Chupp then set the bond at two percent of $5 million, or $100,000, to be paid by Nov. 20, 2011. In addition to the cash amount, the order requires each of the 48 parishes and missions involved in the judgment to present a “monthly summary of the sources, amounts and payees of any and all expenditures ...”

Bishop Iker wishes to thank the members of our legal team for their continued service. He also thanks all those who have prayed for an equitable resolution to this question. He added, “It is a shame that this money will not be used for ministry by either group, but only sit in a bank account for months or years.”

The terms of today's order will be in effect as long as our appeal is pending before the Texas courts.
___________________
*A supersedeas bond is a deposit made during an appeal process when the case involves property and the party making the appeal wishes to delay full payment until the process concludes.

The text of the Order which Judge Chupp signed today may be seen at this link. There is also an account of the earlier impasse at the hearing last May 19 on the Diocese's legal news page, below the account of today's hearing.

Of economics and morality

Chris Hayes is surprised that Martin Luther King, Jr. was not revered in his own lifetime:

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Which is a little funny (and no slight against Mr. Hayes, we all have the same historic myopia. The world was a simpler place before we were born, and the attitudes we learned were the ones everybody had before it all got complicated....), since earlier in the show Mr. Hayes cited King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail." To many Americans, including those journalists in the NBC archives, Dr. King in his lifetime was a criminal and a troublemaker. "I have a dream" was quickly eclipsed by the anti-war sermon at Riverside Church; and almost no one supported King's efforts, after the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act and decisions like Loving v. Virginia (which removed "miscegenation" from our vocabulary, in 1967), to go after issues of economic justice. King was in Atlanta in his last days supporting a sanitation worker's strike. One of Mr. Hayes' guests, a young black man born long after Dr. King was dead and safely canonized, opined that Dr. King, had he not been killed, would have moved into the position of "elder statesman" before the '70's began; a revered figure, but irrelevant. One does wonder what effect a living Dr. King might have had on the public discussion of economics and economic justice in the '70's and '80's. Clearly what might have been the changed course of that conversation is almost unimaginable, especially to the generation who grew up thinking Dr. King was universally revered in his lifetime, and his most important speech was about a "dream."

This, in fact, actually captures the situation of Dr. King's efforts during his lifetime quite well:

The critics of the civil rights movement in America said much the same thing. Yet pre-eminent oral historian Studs Terkel, for his epic book RACE, interviewed dozens of African Americans for this seminal work, and suggested this ragtag element was one of the underpinning strengths of the civil rights movements. In fact, as one protester said, it really wasn't about 'blackness' or being allowed to sit in the bus or use the same toilets, it was about poverty and about class. " They play off one race against the other. That white kid on the picket line got the same problems as that black kid who don't have a job. He's on strike because his wages aren't what they supposed to be," said Union steel worker, Joseph Robinson.

And says Little Dovie Thurman, heavily involved in the civil rights struggle: "At first I couldn't understand why they hated Dr King so much. Then I began to see he wasn't just working with poor black and white. He was talking at unionizing, and against the war, all kinds of issues. That gave him a force of power that they didn't want him to have. They had to get him. He know that black power, white power, wasn't going to work. As long as he (King) was saying, "Let the black eat at the counter, let them go to the washroom," that was fine. But that didn't get at IT."

Little Dovie realised, as Martin Luther King did, that the struggle and the civil rights movement wasn't just about race, but rather a far bigger issue of understanding power and class distinction.
We forget that, just as we forget that morality and economics have been joined at the hip since economics was first identified as a subject for public discourse. The original impetus of economic theory was not to scientifically examine systems of exchange for insights into their function, as if they were natural forces like weather or tides; the original impetus was moral. Economic theory grew out of moral theory, and the idea that a just society should order its public affairs along lines that create a moral society. Utilitarianism, the philosophical underpinning of all economic theory, was originally intended to create a moral society by establishing a public morality that provided the greatest social utility to the greatest portion of society possible. Of course, if that didn't extend to everyone in society, it was either because no system was perfect ("Sucks to be you") or because the poor and the suffering deserved their fate, a proper consequence of their immorality. "Morality" often applies to thee and not me, especially when it is considered as a public concern. How I conduct my private affairs is less important than how the public is controlled and coordinated, whether the control is "incentives" or the control is imperatives. You can hear this in the advice Andrew Mellon gave Herbert Hoover when Mellon was Secretary of the Treasury: "liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate… it will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up from less competent people." You can hear it in what Herman Cain said at the most recent GOP debate:

Herman Cain recently criticized the Occupy Wall Street protesters, saying, "Don't blame Wall Street. Don't blame the big banks. If you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself."

At Tuesday night's CNN debate, Cain stood by his comments -- to loud cheers from the audience.

"I still stand by my statement," he said.
And the GOP crowd that night went wild with approval; nothing we like more than blaming someone else for their moral failings. After all, economics is really about morality; the worthy are rich, the sinners are poor. It's not really a new attitude, either: "Teacher, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" The Gospels either record or reflexively assume that beggars and whores and the lame and blind are being punished for their sins, or their family's sins, and deserve the impoverished state they live in. One of the greatest scandals of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, one of the proofs that he could not be a holy (unscathed, pure) man, was that he didn't revile the poor and rebuke the lame, and treat them as people who should learn to live a more moral life.

Economics has just come along to give us a more acceptable basis for our hardness of heart. The poor are poor because they have failed in the marketplace, and the failure is their own fault. The market is fair, just, and rewards the pure in heart. These are still the standards which guide our public discourse. The critics of "Occupy Wall Street" almost all do so from a position of moral superiority, a position proven by their elevated financial (and so social) status. Martin Luther King spoke eloquently from a jail cell. Martin Luther King spoke so eloquently from the pulpit of Riverside Church even the Washington Post turned on him. Dr. King spoke eloquently, and the people who refuted him and rejected his message spoke eloquently from positions of power and privilege and economic comfort, sure that they deserved to be there, just as sanitation workers deserved no more pay than would cost those privileged persons as little as possible. The people with moral superiority, the people with the white churches that had the social and economic power (the journalists ask Dr. King how many white people attend his church; they don't ask if white people would be welcome there, which is a different matter altogether), sneered at Dr. King's efforts, and so prompted his famous letter:

When I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama, a few years ago, I felt we would be supported by the white church felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would be among our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leader era; an too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained-glass windows.

In spite of my shattered dreams, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through which our just grievances could reach the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed.

I have heard numerous southern religious leaders admonish their worshipers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers declare: "Follow this decree because integration is morally right and because the Negro is your brother." In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say: "Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern." And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, unBiblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular.
There it is. 1963. Birmingham. "Racial and economic injustice." Dr. King didn't pick up the latter after he'd solved the problems of the former. They were never separated; and they still aren't.

In fact, the greatest injustice is thinking that economics has anything to do with morality. It is how we continue to justify the market as a strong green god, sullen, untamed, intractable. And how we continue to justify the "punishment" the "market" metes out on those who "deserve" it. After all, one doesn't come between the god and the object of the god's wrath; not if you don't want some of that wrath on you. But if our god truly was God, and all men and women our brothers and sisters; or if at least we recognized that the market is a human construct and not a "god" at all, and we are all in this together...ah, what then?


Tedious historical footnote:

This is the photograph, made into a billboard, that Dr. King was questioned about in those clips Chris Hayes assembled. I remember it from my childhood:



The scene is the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee, established in 1932 by a student of Reinhold Niebuhr's. It was a "communist training school" because it was teaching about race relations and was a center for training civil rights activists. As you can tell from the tenor of the questions of Dr. King, it's pretty clear this is a subversive place: blacks and whites, men and women, are sitting together as equals.