A Few Answers And A Few Questions

Douglas Bess appears to have moved on to other things from Divided We Stand, which is a little sad, since he says he hasn't kept up with the continuing Anglican movement, and we'll never have a volume II of his history. Nevertheless, I got an answer to the key question I had after reading the book and doing my own investigation: Bess doesn't mention that Falk was deposed as an Episcopal priest in 1966 in his book -- was he ever aware of this? The answer is no. I recently had an e-mail exchange as well with a former ACC priest, who also says he was completely unaware of this. Both he and Bess, among others, say my blog was first to break the news.

That priest says there was an inner ACC clique in the late 1980s consisting of Louis Falk, Robin Connors, and Andrew Stahl. He believes this group was aware of Falk's history, but kept it well concealed. That Bess never heard of it is, I think, significant, since Bess's informants appear to include many anti-Falk people from the ACC and APA.

Next question, which I've mused about from time to time, but on which Bess can't shed light: James Mote, a prime mover in the St Louis movement, appears to have faded by the late 1980s. Before then, he appears to have deferred to Falk, who by the Deerfield Beach events of 1991 had gained a firm grip on things. Was Mote aware of Falk's history? Was he paying attention to Falk's moves? Why did he fade so quickly from the picture? I'm not sure what his involvement was in the Deerfield Beach controversies, and he appears to have stayed with the remnant of the ACC, not joining either the ACA or the APA. In fact, he seems basically to have retired around 1991 and moved to West Palm Beach. (He would have been close to 70.)

Can anyone shed light here?