Huh?

I'd neglected to check the St Mary of the Angels site for the past couple of weeks -- I can often expect to catch a blooper when I do. I went there this afternoon, and sure enough, I found these feasts:

• December 17 Ember Wednesday
• December 28 Ember Friday

Wait a moment. In 2014, December 28 is a Sunday (today, actually). But also, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia,

Ember days (corruption from Lat. Quatuor Tempora, four times) are the days at the beginning of the seasons ordered by the Church as days of fast and abstinence. They were definitely arranged and prescribed for the entire Church by Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085) for the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after 13 December (S. Lucia). . .

So you would never have ember days during Christmas. The Advent ember days for December 2014 would be December 17 (Wednesday), December 19 (Friday), and December 20 (Saturday). Who put December 28 on the St Mary's calendar as "Ember Friday", when it isn't even a Friday this year?

Either some ignorant yahoo is updating the parish calendar as a volunteer, or "Bishop" Williams is doing it himself. This is the third blooper in the months since his arrival: the "Exultation" of the Holy Cross, the "Conception of the Blessed", and now December 28, "Ember" Friday of some other year. If you were to ask me, Williams either updates the calendar when he may not be in a fit condition to do so, or he is not supervising its update because he's distracted.

This confirms my earlier hunch that he wouldn't be able (or in a condition) to name the seven sacraments without a crib sheet. But my prediction is he'll be out of there pretty soon no matter what.

Year End Reflections

This has been a longer journey than I would have expected -- and in fact, longer than most others connected with the case would have expected. I started this blog mainly to bear witness to an injustice. It's worth noting that another, completely independent blog, the Freedom for St Mary site, got started for the same reason. With the disappearance of nearly all other Anglo-Catholic current-events blogs, these two seem to be the only ones covering one of the most interesting developments remaining in that field.

This blog has been running since November 2012, a little over two years. As of today, it will probably pass 60,000 page views, somewhat less than 100 per day. This is significant, since I've sometimes gone weeks at a time without posting anything new, yet the number of visitors stays constant at between 50 and 100 per day. Over the past year, I've had indications that not only do supporters of Fr Kelley, the elected vestry, and the faithful parishioners read this blog, but the opponents do as well. In fact, my understanding is that a complaint about it was lodged through Roman Catholic channels in an apparent effort to get it stopped. (The Roman Catholic channels, reading some posts, reacted with "Gee, that's not so bad", as I understand it. Oh, well.)

One regular visitor here noted a while ago that if you google any major figure in the ACA -- Brian Marsh, Stephen Strawn, or John Vaughan, for instance -- posts here pop up among the top three or four links on the page. Same applies to "William H Lancaster attorney". The links here to the numerous news articles covering his departure from Seyfarth Shaw probably keep those articles among the top hits for his name on Google as well. This case has not been good for Mr Lancaster's career.

One reason I started this blog is that, in the summer of 2012, a good friend mentioned to me that if you did some digging, you could come up with surprising information on people like Strawn and Anthony Morello, which should be better known. Once I started looking, I agreed. I tried first to get David Virtue to publish a piece I wrote on Morello's scandal in Modesto, CA. When he ignored it, I decided to start this blog. (Virtue, of course, has no problem publishing scandal pieces on gay Episcopalians.)

The bottom line for me, after two years of this kind of research, is a more lasting lesson about schism. The "continuing Anglican" movement pretended to be somehow purer, less gay, less chickified, than the mainstream Anglican Communion. Minimal investigation of public records shows it is nothing of the sort: its leading figures, from the top down, conceal potentially explosive secrets. Most have been eased out of Roman Catholic or Episcopalian bodies, deposed outright, or deemed not to have basic qualifications for ordination. Not for nothing are the more conservative Roman Catholic elements, distressed to some degree over developments in the Vatican, refusing to consider anything like the "continuing Anglican" route.

Earlier this year I noted that the Standing Committee of the APA Diocese of Mid-America, one of the most significant bodies in that denomination, had refused to proceed with merger talks because of "grave concerns" about the present leadership of the ACA, "given past actions." I would assume that this blog played a part in making available the public record of past actions by the ACA's leadership.

If I were to venture any sort of prediction for 2015, I would guess that St Mary of the Angels's legal situation will be favorably resolved. In the wake of that, it's very hard for me to imagine that the ACA, up to now characterized as the largest and most respectable of the "continuing Anglican" denominations, will survive the year. Sincere clergy, vestry, and laity in the ACA need to take note and begin making serious contingency plans.

For 2015, Fr Kelley, his family, the elected vestry of St Mary's, and the other loyal parishioners continue in my prayers. I also pray that the dissident group will soften their hearts.

Motive

Still fleshing out a theory of the case, I'm thinking about the question of motive. Why would people want to seize the parish? This goes to another question someone posed a while ago -- assuming Fr Kelley is not guilty of financial or other personal misconduct (and so far, nothing like this has ever come to light), why were some people so unhappy with him?

This in turn goes to a question that comes up frequently in various forms when you watch as many true crime shows on TV as I do. A husband kills his wife. Why? He didn't want to divorce her. This may satisfy a homicide detective or a jury, but we're still left with the question of why he went to so much trouble to kill his wife, cover up the crime, and then risk detection, prison, or even the needle -- wouldn't it simply have been easier and less expensive just to divorce her? We'll probably never get a good answer to that kind of question. It probably goes to the nature, and indeed the mystery, of evil.

I've mentioned in passing the 2006 resignation of Fr Kelley's predecessor as rector, Fr Greg Wilcox, because this was a highly divisive issue for the parish before the current troubles. This was before my time, but several longer-term parishioners filled me in on the circumstances. Fr Wilcox had what one such informant characterized to me as a "meltdown", in which he bought into a cult-like get-rich-quick scheme, one of the tinhorn movements derived from est. This was a sad situation, although to then-bishop Stewart, it wasn't that difficult: est wasn't Christian, and he ordered Wilcox to drop it. The parish had a harder time working this out, and there were apparently several highly contentious meetings, even though it appeared that Wilcox had essentially abandoned his duties.

I think this was hard because. as I've seen mentioned now and then, St Mary of the Angels was less an Anglican parish than an exclusive social club. The weaker Fr Wilcox was, the better for the in-group in the parish. Exactly who was on which side of the Wilcox controversy I can't say, but I would simply think that those whose interest was less in religion than in social standing would prefer a rector who was distracted.

In 2007, the vestry hired Fr Kelley as Wilcox's successor. From the standpoint of a conscientious vestry in an Anglo-Catholic parish, this was an excellent choice. Fr Kelley had been to a real seminary, had been ordained an Episcopal priest and had had a career in that denomination, and at the time he was hired, was teaching Christian history at the distinguished Hillsdale College. He had good continuing relations with several conservative Episcopal bishops. He was not, in other words, a Stephen Strawn or a Brian Marsh.

He also had a strong character and a strong sense of integrity. In my own experience, I've found that some people simply have a great deal of difficulty even being around people with a strong sense of integrity. I think this is one explanation for why some people in the traditional parish in-group (and others who were new but wannabes) found Kelley so upsetting. He intended to focus the parish on real Anglo-Catholicism, rather than what the Episcopal priest who conducted my confirmation class in that denomination characterized as the motive to say you're somehow catholic without paying the dues you need to pay actually to be Catholic. He didn't come to St Mary's intending to take it into the Ordinariate, which was just a glimmer in Pope Benedict's eye at the time, but when the opportunity arose, he felt it was the parish's best option. A minority in the parish strongly disagreed and appear to have enlisted the support of other parties in the ACA to stop the process.

This is my best guess as to motive. We're left with the true-crime question: if you don't like the rector, why not do what almost everyone else does, go to the church down the street, on the other side of town, in the other denomination? Why burn yourself out fighting this petty little battle? I can only say it goes to the mystery of evil.

Conscience Issues

In light of the new information on the in-group behind the hidden agenda to seize the parish, I went back to the timeline at the Freedom for St Mary blog. By February of 2011, the bishops of the ACA, relying on the opinion of their chancellors, had already determined that the ACA and the Patrimony of the Primate were two separate jurisdictions.

In addition, according to the timeline, Louis Falk testified in a deposition

At a subsequent meeting in Tucson, Arizona, held on April 26, 2011 each and every ACA Bishop both agreed to, and signed, a Solemn Agreement which established the guarantee of the jurisdictional independence and integrity of the Patrimony in the United States. This established an “amicable agreement” for the coming separation, whereby the Bishops choosing to remain in the ACA, who did not intend to accept Pope Benedict’s gracious offer, pledged not to interfere with those Bishops, Clergy and Parishes choosing to proceed to join the Roman Catholic Church, and vice versa.

We know that by late 2011, Stephen Strawn had had informal contacts with Patrick Omeirs, by Omeirs's own statements to me. In itself, this is a violation of the April pledge. Omeirs strongly implied that others among the dissident group were involved in those contacts. We simply don't know how far back in 2011 (or even into 2010) those contacts extended. However, it's hard not to think that Brian Marsh was also aware of those contacts.

The timeline reflects that as of January 2011, the then-parish treasurer had stopped making tax withholding payments to the IRS, and the then-clerk of the vestry had failed to file the parish's revised bylaws reflecting the vote to enter the Patrimony with the California Corporation Commission. Both the then-clerk and the then-treasurer were on the fringes of the hidden agenda and were probably being manipulated by the in-group. It's hard to think that Strawn was not at least being kept abreast of these steps, if he was in contact with the dissident group later in the year.

What we have here morally is several major issues: it appears that Strawn, at the very least, swore falsely in the April 2011 Tucson meeting and had no intent of leaving St Mary of the Angels alone. The then-treasurer was basically stealing from the IRS -- the Catholic Catechism makes it clear that non-payment of taxes is a sin. She was also bearing false witness, in the sense that she was setting up an appearance of financial impropriety on Fr Kelley's part. The then-clerk was leaving something undone, a clear sin covered in both Anglican and Catholic general confessions. If Strawn was aware of, encouraging, or endorsing these actions, his sin was basically using his prestige as a bishop to encourage others to sin-- as would be Marsh's.

It appears that both the then-treasurer and the then-clerk eventually found themselves unable to continue with this agenda, which is understandable and reflects well on them. If struggles with their conscience were involved, that would only be natural. However, Marsh and Strawn appear to have had no such difficulty with conscience.

This is troubling to see.

Here's The Frammis -- II

I was watching one of my favorite true-crime TV genres last night, a show where a detective solves an old, tough cold murder case. He gave some insights into how to do it: you develop a theory of the case, and you let new facts take you where they lead you. The new information on the lawsuit against Church Mutual Insurance by the Bush vestry and the et als has given me some additional leads to consider.

I said yesterday that this case is full of hidden agendas. Chatting with my wife last night, I revised this interpretation: these agendas are what I might call "group hidden agendas", which for the time being do not rise to the level of criminal conspiracies, and may never do so, although on the other hand, they might. It's plain that there are still many facts we don't have, which we may never get, or may not get for years. But I'm still looking, and so, it would seem, is the Armchair Detective.

As a shorthand for "group hidden agenda so far falling short of criminal conspiracy", I'm going to bring back the term "frammis" that I used in an earlier post on my theory of the case. This term was used by the US noir crime novelist Jim Thompson to mean an elaborate scheme of deception, or con, perpetrated by two or more people. That's the sense in which I use it here.

The extra information I've gained from the Bush vestry v Church Mutual Insurance lawsuit is that the et als among the parishioner plaintiffs, Patrick Omeirs, Langley Brandt, and Marilyn Bush, are the in-group, simply because they appear to have pledged personal assets toward the legal expenses involved in the April-May 2012 seizure of the parish. This, however, leads to a puzzling question: why is Mrs Bush in this group? Omeirs and Brandt are long-term parishioners, among the angriest of the angry "continuers". But Mrs Bush joined the parish only in early 2011 after, by her account, 40 years of not going to church. In other words, she would be something of an Anglican Rip Van Winkle, waking up to find she'd missed the controversies over prayer books, women's ordination, lady bishops, John Spong, Gene Robinson, Anglicanorum coetibus, the whole history. What would bring her to St Mary of the Angels, and why would she care? And why would she suddenly care enough to pledge money to lawyers over this stuff? Interesting question.

The knowledge of who the in-group is, though, clarifies some of the political dynamics in the parish from 2011-2012. I think I can now say there were three broad factions in the parish during that period. The largest, a majority (though probably not enough to constitute the supermajorities that did variously vote to join the Ordinariate and leave the ACA) simply thought Anglicanorum coetibus was a good deal and sincerely wanted to become a Catholic parish. This group, on balance, admired Fr Kelley's strength of character and erudition and saw no reason to replace him. A second group was basically a clique of younger parishioners surrounding Andrew Bartus, who had only graduated from Nashotah House in 2010 and had back channel connections with the group of former Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth clergy that had the inside track in the US Ordinariate. That clique supported his ambitions. The third group was the long-term angries led by Brandt and Omeirs, which Bush joined, unknown to the parish at large.

The two smaller factions had in part competing agendas. The long-term angries did not want to go into the Ordinariate, for whatever reason. Only Omeirs among this group had a divorce and remarriage that might have been an obstacle to becoming Catholic; the others in this group may simply have been anti-Catholic but sorta-kinda Anglo-Catholic; it's still hard to fathom their full motivation. The clique around Bartus wanted to become Catholic, and some did separately become Catholic with Bartus after he left the parish. However, Bartus's agenda was to bypass Fr Kelley, using his Diocese of Fort Worth connections in the US Ordinariate, knock Fr Kelley out of the running for Rector, and place himself in that position once the parish went into the Ordinariate. The Bartus clique and the long-term angries, though together never a parish majority, shared one short-term goal: get rid of Fr Kelley.

What of the odd man out among the et al group, non-parishioner but diocesan official Anthony Morello? I think Morello was the link to Stephen Strawn and the other ACA bishops. This in turn brings us to the question of how the frammis got its start. We know that a major subtask of the frammis was to create the impression of financial misconduct on Fr Kelley's part, in the beginning by stopping quarterly payments to the IRS for salary withholding from parish employees beginning with the January 2011 payment, although the money was in the bank to do this (this could, of course, rise to the level of criminal conduct if all the facts led in this direction once they came to light). I think it's important that the IRS payments stopped beginning with the payment for the final quarter of 2010, soon after the parish entered the Patrimony of the Primate.

The parish treasurer who apparently facilitated this subtask by not writing checks to the IRS was a member of the Bartus clique, but she was clearly furthering the ends both of Bartus and the hard-core angries. (She left the parish in the summer of 2011, separately became Catholic herself, and has since become an active, sincere, and devout member of a local parish. We will never know what she may have said to her confessor.)

Fr Kelley and the vestry briefly made me interim treasurer of the parish following her departure. It was plain that, by early summer 2011, almost no bills had been paid, and the parish van was close to being repossessed. It's difficult to know if the previous treasurer was facilitating a plan to create an impression of financial misconduct, or if struggles with her conscience had left her unable to function in that position. All I can say is that by September 2011, many bills were long overdue, while ample funds were available to cover them.

How much did Anthony Morello know about any of this? But that's a different way of asking how much Stephen Strawn knew, and when he knew it. "Before you do anything like this, you have to plan it," says my wife. We know that the ACA bishops were deeply concerned about Hepworth's formation of the Patrimony of the Primate at the end of 2010. This led to the ACA Chancellors' letter of February 5, 2011. While we know for certain that Stephen Strawn attempted a formal meeting with the core group of angries in January 2012, a discussion I had with Patrick Omeirs in December 2011 indicates that there had been informal contacts between that group and Strawn prior to that date. A key question would be how far back those contacts extended, and whether Strawn was in any way aware of plans to create the impression of financial irregularity by ceasing payment of IRS and other obligations beginning in early 2011.

Train Wreck

An online dictionary defines "train wreck" as

train wreck n. a disaster or failure, especially one that is unstoppable or unavoidable. . .

to which a commenter adds,

To “a disaster or failure” I would add, “especially one that, though foreseen, is difficult or impossible to avert.”

I believe this stems from the image of two trains on one track that are coming toward each other and inevitably will collide, and they can neither get out of each other's way nor stop in time to avoid a collision. I think that those observing the St Mary of the Angels legal developments are beginning to conclude that this is developing into a slow-motion catastrophe for the ACA and some individuals, and at this point, there's no way for the ACA to avoid it. Take a seat, we're about to see a train wreck.

In my chat with informed parties Sunday afternoon, I posed the inevitable question: is there any chance of raising with the ACA and the Bush group the possibility, even now, of coming to some sort of Christian reconciliation -- say, the ACA and the dissidents turn the property over to the elected vestry, and the elected vestry forgives some part of monetary damages in return? My interlocutors nodded sympathetically, appreciating my good feelings -- but they patiently explained that things have gone way past that, proposals to that effect had been made long ago, but had been angrily dismissed by Bush and the ACA.

My retired-attorney wife says that, in a traditional big law firm, things are at the point where a partner goes to a newly hired associate, straight out of Harvard Law, and says, "OK, Schmidlap, here's the Rector, Wardens, and Vestry case file. Give me a memo on what the damages are and how you think we should pursue them." The result is a 20-page report. (This would, of course, apply to deep-pocket plaintiffs and respondents and might not be done in this specific case by the elected vestry's attorneys.)

However, it appears from my chat Sunday that some thought is being given to this stage of the proceedings. While no specifics were mentioned, I am going to speculate on the direction that I think the question of damages might take. Again, I'm not an attorney, and beyond that, there is a great deal that we don't know, including the state of the parish building and what financial transactions have taken place. This case has been full of back channel dealing, hidden agendas, secrets, and prevarications, and a knowledgeable attorney with a more complete understanding of the circumstances might pursue a different strategy. That said, damages might result because

• Every action taken by Anthony Morello and the Bush vestry, as well as inhibition and deposition of Fr Kelley, was ordered, supervised, or endorsed by bishops of the ACA, often in the written record by unanimous votes of the ACA House of Bishops.
• By closing the parish, excommunicating numerous members, and threatening to call police if numerous parishioners even entered the property, the ACA essentially stopped the functioning of the parish, causing it to forego pledge, gift, and bequest income, as well as income from hall rental.
• The ACA and the Bush faction maliciously interfered with numerous employment contracts, as well as contracts for hall rental.
• The ACA and the Bush faction will be responsible for damage or missing property from the parish building.
• The elected vestry might also pursue the Bush vestry and the ACA for its own attorneys' fees, if these aren't awarded to it by the judge in the case.
• In addition to damage to the parish's property, finances, and ability to conduct business, the ACA also defamed Fr Kelley by deposing him when, by its own admission, it did not have jurisdiction to do so. Information has now also emerged that Anthony Morello, who conducted Fr Kelley's trial, appears to have had a financial interest in its outcome, since he had pledged personal assets to pay the attorneys advising the ACA in seizing the parish.

Without a full knowledge of all actions and consequent damages, it's not possible to come up with any sort of final measurement. I do know that the elected vestry will have a fiduciary duty to pursue all appropriate damages. A preliminary quantified estimate might be along these lines:

• Annual pledge and offering income for two years: $156,000
• Employee salary and expense payments under contract for two years: $250,000
• Hall rental income under contract for two years: $10,000
• Unspecified damages to building and missing assets.
• Unknown financial issues.
• Costs of evicting ACA and Bush occupants, possible forensic audit, and engaging private security subsequent to eviction.

Because the ACA and the Bush vestry interfered with contracts and the written record gives clear suggestion of malice, punitive damages would apply. The estimate above leaves aside any action Fr Kelley might take for defamation, although quantifiable damages to him might include the amount of income he will have foregone between 2012 and a reasonable retirement date, since he is probably no longer employable as a priest due to the ACA's action -- plus the cost of medical care and counseling for him and his family as a result of the ACA's campaign of character assassination and harassment.

This is a complex case, and the strategies for collecting damages would be extensive and diverse. Some pockets would be deeper than others, but it would probably be necessary to pursue all the individuals and entities here:

• The estate of Anthony Morello
• The ACA Diocese of the West as a corporation
• Other officers of the ACA Diocese of the West as individuals
• Brian Marsh, Stephen Strawn and Owen Williams individually as episcopal visitors to the ACA-DOW
• Owen Williams individually as "pastor" of the parish while under ACA control
• Frederick Rivers individually as "Rector" of the parish while under ACA control, as well as in his role as Vicar General DOW
• The Anglican Church in America as a corporation
• Each member of the ACA House of Bishops as individuals
• The members of the Bush vestry as individuals

Some people and entities might be covered by insurance, although others probably would not be, the specific coverages will vary with each policy, and the amounts might well be subject to caps. The ACA's insurers might fight any claim by the ACA bishops on the basis that they were acting outside the scope of their authority -- all of this will depend on the individual policies. There are probably few individuals outside the insurers who could come anywhere close to paying the damages in question. Nevertheless, all would need to defend themselves and hire attorneys, and they would be subject to the anxieties and emotional effects resulting from long-term litigation. The consequences for most of the people involved here are potentially catastrophic.

A no-brainer consequence for the ACA and the Diocese of the West would be the seizure of pretty much every tangible asset, minimal as these might be -- but they would include all bank accounts and income streams. The ACA and several of its dioceses would probably just cease operation. If I were the APA, I would figure this into any consideration of merger.

And it's probably too late to avert these consequences. That's why it's called a train wreck. This will be disturbing to watch.

The Standing Issue

Based on what I've been told by informed individuals, the elected vestry's attorneys appear to have filed a motion for summary judgment in the retrial of the Rector, Wardens, and Vestry case on December 5. The motion is based on the question of the ACA's standing (as well as, possibly, the question of the Bush vestry's standing). In effect, the claim is that the ACA has no interest in the case, since St Mary of the Angels was not a part of the ACA in April 2012. The evidence for this would probably be along these lines:

• St Mary of the Angels parish voted, in a valid election, to enter the Patrimony of the Primate in January 2011. This election has never been challenged by any party.
• On February 5, 2011 the ACA Chancellors (that is, the lawyers for each ACA diocese) issued a letter stating

  According to our canons, those Bishops, clergy and parishes who leave for another jurisdiction, such as a Roman Catholic Ordinariate or the so-called Patrimony of the Primate, have, at this time abandoned the communion of this church and the ACA.

  With deep regret, the ACA declares that they are no longer a part of the ACA, nor do they have authority of jurisdiction in any ACA diocese or parish, and ordinations and other ecclesiastical actions performed by them are null and void effective as of January 1, 2011.

  It should be stated clearly that there is no provision in the Constitution and Canons of the Anglican Church in America for an entity such as the Patrimony of the Primate. The Patrimony of the Primate is not part of the ACA.

• The ACA canons allow parishes to leave the ACA with their property. "Abandoning communion" in the chancellors' letter is s fancy way of saying they've left the ACA.
• On January 10, 2012, the ACA House of Bishops issued a letter reiterating that parishes that had joined the Patrimony of the Primate had left the ACA, and required any parish not wishing to enter the US Ordinariate and wishing to rejoin the ACA to reapply.
• St Mary of the Angels, however, did not apply to rejoin the ACA, and subsequent to the January letter, voted an additional time to join the US Ordinariate by a required supermajority. This election was never challenged by any party.
• The ACA never acted to seize any other former parish that had joined the Patrimony, whether it had elected to join the Ordinariate or not.
• Nevertheless the ACA acted uniquely to seize St Mary of the Angels in April 2012, notwithstanding it had repeatedly claimed the parish was outside its jurisdiction.
• The ACA designated a new vestry in April 2012, removing members in violation of California corporation law and designating new members who were not eligible to serve on the vestry according to the parish bylaws. This ACA-designated vestry has no standing in the case.
• Once again, the parish voted by required supermajority in August 2012 to leave the ACA.

I've been told that the judge in the new trial has asked for written arguments on this motion by January 9, 2015 and will hear oral arguments on January 16. It seems to me that these facts are extremely persuasive, and in fact both Judge Jones in May-June 2012 and the California appeals court recognized that they were extremely persuasive as well. The ACA's position has consistently been only that a court can't consider them, a view that has been rejected at the appeals level twice. It appears that separately, the Church Mutual Insurance Company has also determined that the Bush vestry has no standing in its case.

It may be that this matter will be resolved more quickly than might be expected.

The Other Lawsuit Again

Last September, I discovered another lawsuit relating to St Mary's: the alternate-universe vestry of Mrs Bush and the squatters, with some significant et als, are suing the Church Mutual Insurance Company. At the time, I could only conclude that they want money. It turns out that yes, they do. Yesterday afternoon I had a very productive chat with individuals knowledgeable about the legal issues surrounding the parish.

I was especially puzzled that Carolyn Morello, Anthony Morello's widow, was among the et als suing Church Mutual. I wondered if there might be some death benefit they felt she was entitled to following Morello's sudden demise early in 2013, but that wouldn't explain the presence of Langley Brandt among the et als, since Mrs Brandt, while a prominent member of the dissident faction, is not on the squatter vestry.

My informants made things plain: the et als have pledged personal assets to pay their legal bills. However, they believe Church Mutual should pay those bills instead. It's that simple. Thus the lawsuit. The et als, Langley Brandt, Marilyn Bush, Patrick Omeirs, and Carolyn Morello, are an odd lot: Mmes Bush and Brandt are in fact well off (although their pledges to the parish did not reflect that when I was briefly treasurer), so the legal bills would probably not affect their lifeatyles directly, although they would certainly deplete their estates.

Patrick Omeirs, on the other hand, is a sometime actor who once appeared in an episode of Dynasty, and he is not in that league. Anthony Morello lived in a mobile home. That either would pledge personal assets to pay substantial legal bills is much more puzzling. My informants, however, say that Carolyn Morello appears among the plaintiffs because Morello's estate (consisting mainly of a mobile home), which passed to her, is encumbered by legal bills.

Church Mutual has presumably refused to pay these bills, thus the lawsuit. My informants, who are familiar with the insurance policy, say that in any case, the policy covers only legal expenses, such as filing fees or court reporters, and not lawyers' fees. In addition, there is a fairly low cap on this amount. (My wife, a retired attorney, has estimated that the squatters could have been responsible for half a million dollars or more in their own attorneys' fees, but this would not be covered under the Church Mutual policy.) My informants, shaking their heads, say that the cost of filing the suit against Church Mutual would exceed the amount the squatters could expect to gain if they won.

Church Mutual presumably refused to pay any amount in the first place based on a position that the Bush-ACA appointed vestry is neither the policyholder nor the insured, which is the elected vestry. They are now fighting the lawsuit on the basis that the Bush-ACA group does not have standing to sue. We will hear more about the standing issue in tomorrow's post. However, the fact that the Bush group filed suit at all suggests they are expecting to have their attorneys' bills reimbursed as well, however unrealistic this may be.

This information confirms my current theory of the case: Morello, Bush, Brandt, Omeirs, and the ACA expected a quick, trouble-free resolution and seizure of the parish beginning with the temporary restraining order in May 2012. My wife is of the opinion that Morello, Bush, Brandt, and Omeirs pledged personal assets to pay Lancaster and Anastasia because if they encumbered parish property, this would complicate a sale, which they expected to take place quickly following an easy seizure. Morello and Bush, however, later found that the elected vestry had itself pledged parish assets to pay their own attorneys (which they were entitled, and indeed obligated, to do) and went ballistic once they heard about it -- this was one more unexpected complication in their scheme.

Plainly by the summer of 2013, the ACA and the alternate-universe vestry had recognized that things weren't going as they'd expected and fell back on a clear Plan B, which was to try to get Church Mutual to clean up their mess. But even by late 2012, Strawn and Marsh were trying to distance themselves from the plan, putting Morello in full charge -- he had skin in the game, after all. Given his state of health, this probably killed him.

Further Paper Trail

Someone connected with the upcoming retrial of the Rector, Wardens, and Vestry case tells me

on Saturday, February 5, 2011, the ACA officially pronounced that the Patrimony of the Primate was OUTSIDE the ACA's Constitution. It is an Australian entity, not an American one.

As a result, the announcement from the ACA House of Bishops dated January 10, 2012 that the Patrimony of the Primate has "ceased its operations" is meaningless, since the ACA had already declared that it had nothing to do with the Patrimony. As an Australian entity, it was under either the TAC or the ACCA, not the ACA in any case. This is further support for the elected vestry's contention that, once the parish had voted to join the Patrimony in early 2011 and placed itself under the direct authority of John Hepworth, and later David Moyer, it had left the ACA, and that by its own repeated statements, the ACA recognized this.

The parish, in short, was not part of the ACA when the ACA tried to seize it in April and May 2012. In addition, the ACA had no jurisdiction to inhibit or depose Fr Kelley, and Marsh and Strawn knew this. This could have interesting implications should Fr Kelley pursue any question of defamation against them, although I simply don't know his intentions in this matter.

Lancaster and Anastasia were able to get around this and other problems in the first trial by arguing that these were ecclesiastical matters in which the court couldn't involve itself. (I don't believe the elected vestry's attorneys were aware of the February 5, 2011 action at that time, although they were aware of the January 10, 2012 announcement, as well as Strawn's e-mail to Morello acknowledging that the ACA did not have authority to remove or appoint vestry members. Judge Linfield felt he could not consider these items at the time.)

The appeals court's decision sending the matter back to trial based on neutral principles of law means that both the February 5, 2011 and January 10, 2012 declarations will become part of the evidence before the court.

Remittitur

On December 3, the California Court of Appeal issued a remittitur in the Rector, Wardens, and Vestry case, sending it back to the trial court for determination on neutral principles of law. (My creaky Latin says remittitur means "it is sent back". In California, this is the equivalent of a mandate in federal court.)

This is yet another piece of bad news for the dissidents and the ACA. It's fairly plain that Lancaster and Anastasia were never prepared to argue the case based on neutral principles of law, since the facts are all on the elected vestry's side. After January 2012, the ACA never had jurisdiction to inhibit or depose Fr Kelley, remove or appoint vestry members, or seize the parish building, since it had dissolved the Patrimony of the Primate, and the parish membership voted several times by required supermajorities to leave the ACA. (It never had legal or canonical authority to remove or appoint vestry at all.)

The problem for the ACA and the Bush "vestry" is that they have a tiger by the tail. I think it's a safe bet that whenever the elected vestry gains physical access to the building, it will immediately be plain that assets have been removed, and it will be a problematic issue ever to locate or recover them. Access to financial records will pose similar problems. The informed speculation by the Armchair Detective on the Freedom for St Mary site suggests a criminal conspiracy is not out of the question.

While it would normally be a prudent move for the dissidents and the ACA to begin looking toward a settlement, I don't think this can happen, because it's simply too late for them to put things back before anyone can ask the wrong sorts of questions. A settlement would be negotiated on the assumption that parish resources, less legal fees and ordinary expenses, have been conserved. I frankly don't think that's what's been done.

If I were Bishop Grundorf of the APA, I'd be slow-walking negotiations with the ACA over merger. Give it another year and Marsh and Strawn will be out of the picture, and a good many ACA parishes will simply go over to the APA of their own accord.

Here's How I Think The Calendar Got Updated

I can imagine a series of events roughly like the following;

• Someone notices that John Bruce mentions that the calendar hasn't been updated
• Either that person is Mrs Bush herself, or that person tells Mrs Bush about it
• The issue seems to be that there's some feast that's important to Catholics, but should also be important to Anglo-Catholics (whatever it is), and if John Bruce mentioned it, maybe they should look into it
• Mrs Bush gets on the horn to whomever updates the parish calendar, something about a conception or something needs to be on the calendar for December 8 because it's supposed to be important, and we don't have it
• Person Who Updates The Calendar (PWUTC) listens, decides Mrs Bush is ticked again, figures something needs to be done about December 8
• PWUTC's performance has been a disappointment up to now, job or volunteer position might be on the line, but PWUTC makes best effort, googles something like "Catholic December 8"
• Discovers something like "Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary" -- probably never heard of it
• Decides a good short version would be Conception of the Blessed, enters it into calendar app
• Mrs Bush happy
• PWUTC heaves sigh of relief.

I don't know if this is simple ignorance, or if it's possibly liquid-fueled. I would hate to think that PWUTC was an ordained priest in the Anglican Church in America.

John Bruce Gets Results!

Following my observation Monday that the St Mary's calendar hadn't been updated, someone has in fact updated it: December 8 is now The Conception of the Blessed [sic]! It must have been updated by the same guy who put in the Exultation of the Holy Cross a couple months ago. (Hint: if the app won't let you add all the words, why not just call it "Immaculate Conception"?)

Either this is Williams, who, if this is he, appears to be an ignorant yahoo, or a new volunteer yahoo -- the former ignorant yahoo who couldn't spell, as far as I know, left the parish in a huff last year. Someone should maybe clue in Mrs Bush, or Williams (if he's not the yahoo here), that some yahoo is updating the parish calendar.

John Bruce gets results!

Would A Merged ACA and APA Stay In The TAC?

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood? This is a purely theoretical question, because I'm not sure how long any of those entities will last -- the TAC is probably now circling the drain, and my impression is that Brian Marsh has always operated independently of Prakash. Gill periodically comes to the US on junkets (so would I if I lived in a backwater), but I doubt if his counsel has much weight here. Without the ACA, the TAC is a dead letter.

Nevertheless, we get vague reports that some unspecified sort of progress is being made toward merging the ACA and the APA. Recall that the ACA and the APA originated as two sides of a schism within the Anglican Catholic Church, the principal "Continuing Anglican" entity that emerged from the 1977 Congress of St Louis. As I discussed in the posts linked yesterday, some members of the ACC became distressed at Louis Falk's willingness to work through bishops of questionable reputation. The proximate cause of the split was an attempt in 1991 to put Falk on trial and depose him. The trial didn't quite come off, and Falk with his faction withdrew from the ACC to form the ACA. The anti-Falk group in the ACC became the APA, although this group subsequently splintered as well.

I've already speculated that, since the cause of the ACA-APA split was basically Louis Falk, a merger won't take place until Falk is permanently out of the picture -- although "retired", he clearly has worked behind the scenes, and I suspect there's a story waiting to be told of what his role was in the reversal of the TAC over the Portsmouth Petition and Anglicanorum coetibus. (This is why they used to cut the heads off deposed monarchs, after all.)

So would the APA faction in a merged denomination countenance any participation in the TAC, also a creature of Falk? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

St Mary's Parish Calendar

I've already noted that the St Mary's web site had a brief flurry of activity around the time of Owen Williams's arrival as its pastor-bishop (but not rector). But the most recent calendar update continues to be the October 8 feast of St Bridget of Sweden. Hmm -- just yesterday, we had the first Sunday in Advent; a week from today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, to Catholics a holy day of obligation and the sort of thing a putatively Anglo-Catholic parish might wish to celebrate. But the parish calendar is silent.

What's with Williams? Is he turning out to be a disappointment?

Is Anything At All Happening In The "Worldwide Traditional Anglican Communion"?

The most recent event of any sort in the TAC was the purge of John Hepworth as its Primate in 2012. Since this took place in South Africa (without Hepworth's presence), we may assume that Bishop of Pretoria and Southern Africa Michael Gill was a major figure behind the move. That year, the College of Bishops designated Samuel Prakash, Metropolitan of the basically nonexistent Anglican Church of India, as the TAC's "Acting Primate". Michael Gill continues as Secretary of the College of Bishops. There appear to have been no changes in the TAC since 2012, and it's hard not to conclude that Gill is the actual man behind the curtain, at least as far as the TAC outside the US is concerned.

Not that there's a great deal to that. My estimate of the TAC's size outside the US, based on published sources, web research into parish and diocesan web sites, and firsthand reportage from occasional correspondents, is that total membership worldwide, in tiny franchises in Canada, South Africa, Australia, and the UK, decimated by departures to Roman Catholic Ordinariates, can't be much more than 1000. (I will welcome credible information to the contrary from Bishop Gill.)

In a series of posts beginning here, I reviewed the origin of the TAC in 1990-91, as basically a maneuver by Louis Falk to withdraw a faction favorable to him from the Anglican Catholic Church and form the Anglican Church in America under the "worldwide" TAC. As far as I can tell, the TAC has never been anything but an illusion of smoke and mirrors. Its Wikipedia entry still gives an estimate, "from the TAC itself", of 400,000, which in my view is beyond wild exaggeration.

I've heard from potentially biased sources on the APA side of Falk-related controversies that Falk was eventually eased out as Primate of the TAC for reasons that may have been connected with the circumstances surrounding his deposition as an Episcopal priest. Although Falk continued to meddle behind the scenes well after his "retirement", the public relations coup that brought the TAC its 15 minutes of fame came from Falk's successor, John Hepworth.

The 2007 Portsmouth Petition to the Vatican for incorporation of the ACA into the Catholic Church created a stir in the Anglo-Catholic community, and it was widely believed that this was the impetus for Anglicanorum coetibus in 2009. However, information that's gradually come to light makes it plain that the apostolic constitution was the result of an initiative from US Episcopalians, including Jeffrey Steenson, to then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 1993. The document that became Anglicanorum coetibus appears to have been drafted by Steenson during this period and essentially sat in Ratzinger's desk until he could issue it as pontiff -- the timing couldn't have been better for Hepworth and the TAC, but it was utterly misleading.

And in any case, Anglicanorum coetibus wasn't what the TAC bishops had in mind. As soon as they could, they purged the few who sincerely supported it, and then they purged Hepworth, whose own expectations of being re-ordained as a Catholic appear to have been utterly unrealistic.

The other thing that's notable, though, is the non-reaction of Anglo-Catholic bloggers to this story overall. The whole institution of the Anglo-Catholic blog appears to have receded into silence with the apparent decline of the TAC -- which was never anything but a PR ploy in any case.