An Open Letter To Presiding Bishop Grundorf Of The APA

Bishop Grundorf, I notice belatedly that you very generously provided a Christmas message to the ACA Diocese of the West on their web site. This is particularly generous of you, since Presiding Bishop Marsh doesn't appear to have given an equivalent message to any ACA jurisdiction. I certainly hope Bishop Marsh continues in good health, and that he is not so preoccupied with other matters that he has been somehow less in a position to perform his own pastoral obligations.

However, as generous as this gesture is, I can't help remembering the old proverb, he who sups with the devil should have a long spoon. Under your name on your Christmas message, an ACA webmaster has added the notation, "The APA and ACA are affiliated with each other." I assume this refers to the intercommunion agreement between the ACA and the APA and the so far inconclusive discussions regarding merger between the denominations.

I assume I don't need to remind you that the Standing Committer of the APA Diocese of Mid-America (DMA) says it cannot proceed with merger talks with the ACA because of "grave concerns" about the present leadership of the ACA. I'm very sorry to say that, as a former parishioner at St Mary of the Angels Los Angeles, a parish which the ACA's present leadership insists is under its jurisdiction, the concerns of your DMA Standing Committee appear to be fully justified.

I would like to warn you about the consequences of giving ACA bishops any impression that they might be entitled to take any sort of action over an APA parish. I'm sure this is reflected in the APA-DMA Standing Committee's concerns. Every indication we have from the ACA House of Bishops' conduct is that it will not hesitate to take actions which clearly violate the denomination's canons, from resorting to lawsuits to removing entire vestries to naming individuals to non-existent offices like "Vicar General" and then giving them unspecified but apparently unlimited authority to act on their behalf.

Let me suggest to you a potential set of actions that ACA bishops have already made not once, but twice, which have been endorsed by the full ACA House of Bishops, and which could very credibly happen again:.

• An APA parish, let's call it St Ipsydipsy in Daisy Grove, Kansas, has a small group of dissidents.
• The APA Bishop of Mid-America carefully reviews the controversy and supports St Ipsydipsy's current Rector, doing as much as he can to reconcile the parties.
• The Kansas dissidents still aren't satisfied, and indeed are angry with their APA bishop.
• They decide an ACA bishop will give them a more sympathetic hearing, and in fact they contact the ACA Bishop of the Missouri Valley. He listens to their grievances and decides to rectify an obvious injustice.
• The dissidents work with the ACA bishop, hire an attorney, find a judge who isn't giving the matter full attention, and arrive at St Ipsydipsy parish on a holiday weekend armed with a court order to seize the parish.
• The ACA bishop announces that since the denominations are more or less about to merge, he has just as much authority over St Ipsydipsy as any APA bishop, appoints a new vestry in violation of canons, excommunicates large numbers of APA parishioners, appoints a new priest-in-charge, and puts the whole thing under a "Vicar General" who has unspecified duties and authority.
• The ACA House of Bishops unanimously endorses this action.
• Years of litigation ensue, which depletes the resources of both the ACA and APA and eventually destroys both denominations.

At least one ACA diocesan bishop has engaged in this pattern of activity, not once, but twice, with the full support of the ACA House of Bishops. It's worth reminding you that this ACA bishop, despite a ruling from the ACA's chancellors that the TAC Patrimony of the Primate was a separate jurisdiction from any ACA diocese, nevertheless interfered with a Patrimony parish, while that jurisdiction was still in existence, and over the objections of that jurisdiction's bishop.

You simply have no assurance that, should an ACA bishop decide, as one already has, to ignore jurisdiction boundaries and seize an APA parish, Bishop Marsh or the ACA House of Bishops would resolve the matter in the interest of justice.

Bishop Grundorf, I caution you that your willingness to create any sort of appearance that the ACA and APA are somehow not separate jurisdictions is going to have unanticipated and disastrous consequences.