Curious, I e-mailed a former ACA DOW priest, who left the DOW/ACA with the Patrimony of the Primate but who had been in the diocese since Robin Connor was rector of St Mark's Portland, if he knew anything about Owen Rhys Williams. He replied, "I have never heard of the man." It's worth pointing out I've sent an e-mail to another former ACA/DOW priest, with the diocese since the early 1990s, but haven't had a reply.
Williams is also Rector/Dean of Trinity Anglican Pro-Cathedral in Rochester, NH. However, there is no bio of Williams on that web site, nor on the web site of the ACA Diocese of the Northeast. And this is simply all we know about him -- repeated efforts in Google turn up only the announcement of his consecration as suffragan, parroted on the usual "continuing Anglican" cheerleader sites. Period.
Normally, bishops have a photo and bio on their diocesan web sites -- in fact, respectable rectors have such things on parish web sites. For example, the web site of the ACNA Diocese of New England, which would be their equivalent of the ACA DONE, carries this full page, with photo, of its current bishop. On that page, we learn, among many other things, that "Fr. Bill holds a B.S. from the University of New Hampshire and a Master of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell College. He has read for Holy Orders in the Diocese of Massachusetts and was ordained to the priesthood in May 1986."
Shouldn't communicants in the ACA feel entitled to equivalent information on one of their bishops? Where, in fact, did Bp Williams do his undergraduate work? Where did he receive his priestly formation? What was his ecclesiastical career prior to his rectorship at Trinity Anglican? I would say that not to provide this information to communicants and the public at large verges on a sin of omission, and by sin I mean a sin.
By the way, a Google search on The Rev James Randall Hiles, also recently consecrated a DONE suffragan, quickly turns up Hiles v Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, which covers some salacious material indeed:
[T]he Right Reverend M. Thomas Shaw, III, Bishop of the [Episcopal] Diocese of Massachusetts (Shaw), summoned Hiles to his office, accused him of being stubborn, a bully, and a liar, and struck him with a "missile" (i.e., a pen) [Note 5]. Shaw threatened to remove Hiles from his position as vicar of the Church of Our Saviour. Hiles, apparently, was unyielding [Note 6]. The complaint continues with an account of additional events. Hiles, a married man, met the defendant Hastie (then unmarried) in the late 1960's. Hastie had accepted Hiles's invitation to perform certain work for the Church of Our Saviour. Her subsequent romantic advances to Hiles, it is alleged, were rejected.The Episcopal Church did in fact inhibit and depose Hiles, and most of his parish left TEC with him, although not for the ACA. The link indicates St Paul's Anglican had been with the Anglican Mission in America and the Province of Rwanda since 1999 -- apparently this has changed since the 2007 link, so Hiles must be a fairly recent arrival in the ACA, quickly promoted. As with so many other things connected with St Mary of the Angels, the ACA, and various individuals in this tangled story, we seem to be looking at just the tip of an iceberg.Shortly prior to March 27, 1996, Hastie wrote a letter to the defendant Shaw accusing Hiles of having had an adulterous relationship with her that continued from the Spring of 1970 until the Fall of 1975, and stating that on December 4, 1975, she terminated a pregnancy, aborting the fetus fathered by Hiles. The complaint alleges that Hastie's letter "was the culmination of several prior contacts between her and employees of the Diocese in which these employees and agents urged her to write the letter. Defendants Shaw and the Diocese knew or reasonably should have known that the allegations contained in the letter were . . . false.["]
These are people with secrets.
