The ballots are in and the brave Anglican faithful of Grace & St Stephens in Colorado Springs have voted to sever ties with the nassssty Episcopal “church” and follow the voice of their conscience and the Holy Spirit into aligning with CANA and the Church of Nigeria.
More or less. Mostly less.
A majority of voting members at Grace Church and St. Stephens Parish in Colorado Springs have declared their willingness to break away from the Episcopal Church to join a conservative Anglican network more in line with their beliefs, according to spokesman Alan Crippen.
The vote, tallied Saturday, showed 93 percent of 370 voting members approved of the plan to leave the Episcopal Church, Crippen said. It capped an ongoing period of uncertainty that began March 26 when parish rector, The Rev. Don Armstrong, and a majority of the church’s governing board, declared they were each individually leaving the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Colorado.
So says the article by Jean Torkelson, who adds, generously,
Because the schismatic act was so unusual, the breakaway parish leaders said they would set up a vote to determine what parishioners wanted to do.
What is missing from the story is both how the (remaining, presumably dissenting) parishioners went through a 40 Days of Indoctrination Discernment from CANA, describing how the Episcopal “church” was heretical and dying and Not Very Nice. Also missing was what those numbers represent.
According to a report in the Colorado Springs Gazette, there were 370 votes cast and 342, or 93%, were in favor of the parish leaving the Episcopal Church and joining CANA. The tally was 348 to 22 about authorizing the vestry to fight to retain control of the $17 million dollar plant.
Wow! A huge majority. But a huge majority of what?
Before the break-up, the parish reported a membership of 1500-2000 communicants. The breakaway parish claims 600 to 800 of these, while the Diocese claims that 200 to 400 members of the original parish now worship in the borrowed space down the street.
So of the original reported membership (which reporting by the pastor and vestry is regulated by canon law and is the basis for voting representation in the diocesan convention), taking 1,500 as a lower bound, 22.8% voted to secede. Even if we take the vestry’s claim of lower bound of 600 dissenters (which represents less than half of the previously reported communicants), that’s still a bare 58%.
The vote was supposedly open to all members in good standing. The folks who continued to align to the diocese had previously (and, to my mind, mistakenly) declared they would not participate in the vote. And that question of who could actually vote was not insignificant.
The leadership of the Episcopal parish contends that the rules established by the breakaway parish make the outcome of the vote a foregone conclusion. The rules establised for the vote require that members of the Episcopal parish must re-register as members of the CANA congregation, contribute to the new congregation and attend its worship. Members of the Episcopal congregation voiced concern that the use of the rolls, or even the possibility of signed ballots, might be used in court in validate the breakaway parish’s claim.
Information posted by the CANA parish about the vote published in their newsletter and posted on their website was unclear as to the eligibility of Episcopalians who might have attempted to vote, except to say that some cases would be handled individually. The question of a necessary quorum is also not addressed in the newsletter.
Despite that, the pro-CANA/Armstrong forces declared it a major victory.
[Parish spokesman Alan] Crippen said he believed the “no” votes on both ballot questions came from Grace Church members loyal to the diocese and to Bishop Rob O’Neill, even though the Episcopal loyalists had said all along that they would refuse to legitimize Armstrong’s cause by participating in the vote.
Crippen said the will of the voting majority was indisputable, “and showed clearly a very strong mandate to affirm the vestry decision of March 26 (to leave the Episcopal Church).”
The diocese, on the other hand, considers the vote illegitimate, as parishes are formed by the diocesan convention and the bishop, as petitioned by members of the parish, and those parishes cannot simply choose to walk off with their name and property intact.
As the diocesan loyalists continue to meet under another roof, civil proceedings regarding the parish property proceed, and ecclesiastical proceedings against Rev. Armstrong for financial malfeasance (separate from the whole “I’m a member of CANA, not the Episcopal Church” charges that could be levied) continue.