As Best I Can See, There Are Two Possible Explanations

for the fact that the St Mary's web site says "Bishop" Williams starts August 31, while the Trinity Pro-Cathedral web site has no notice he's leaving there. (Trinity Anglican does have a Facebook page, but the only news there is for a memorial service in 2013.)

1. As I speculated in my last post, for whatever reason, although Williams is making the move, Trinity Anglican isn't announcing it. The departure of a rector is important news for any parish, so this is hard to imagine. Nevertheless, the possibilities could include:
   • The parish hasn't yet been told he's leaving (hard to believe)
   • The parish doesn't have anyone who is able to update the web page (also hard to believe; the web page does have updates from this summer)
   • The vestry sees no reason to announce it (verges on the credible for this bunch)
   • The parish is so broke it can't bring in a supply priest and is just going to stop holding services (slightly more credible, but only slightly)
   • Williams is persona non grata there, and the less said about his leaving, the better (but in that case, they'd be eager to announce any sort of replacement).
   None of these makes me go "Aaaahh, that's it!" except possibly that the vestry might not see any reason to let anyone know about anything important.
2. The alternative is that Williams isn't in fact making the move, or at least not permanently. He may or may not turn up at St Mary's on August 31 to celebrate his "first" mass as announced. However, he will be there only sorta-kinda, maybe just that once, with ongoing supply priests filling in for him, while he stays in Rochester.

I'm leaning toward explanation 2. A big factor that leads me there is timing: Williams had been episcopal visitor since August 2013, a year ago, but had made no move out here, even though St Mary of the Angels has got to be the pot of gold for the whole ACA -- a guaranteed income of $250,000 per year has got to be equal to the total for any number of other parishes in the ACA. It'll pay for lots of ecumenical cruises to the Mediterranean for Marsh and his cronies. So why the delay?

The California Court of Appeals ruled against Mrs Bush and the ACA in late July. I don't think this is what they were expecting -- on the contrary, they were expecting that the elected vestry would lose its case, and the control of the parish would be wrapped up so that Williams could come out in September and begin looting the place in earnest. Now his legal ability to do that is still in question -- the poster at the parish is completely correct, within some number of months, the parish could very likely change hands, and the elected vestry would be coming after him and Marsh for money they were never authorized to collect. This would also argue against Williams commuting between the two parishes, since he'd be liable for the huge unauthorized travel expenses as well.

My guess is they're still in denial about that, but hedging their bets, keeping things sorta-kinda, and keeping both Mrs Bush and Trinity Anglican in the dark. We'll have to see more clearly come August 31.