Legal Strategies Are Confidential

I have no knowledge of what the ACA intends in its various legal actions against Fr Kelley and the elected vestry of St Mary of the Angels. Nor, for that matter, do I have any special knowledge of what Fr Kelley and the elected vestry intend, other than what they have deemed appropriate to discuss with friends and supporters. On the other hand, my wife is a retired attorney, so we've been able to watch developments with some understanding of how the game is played.

The ACA, as I've mentioned here, has brought several actions against Fr Kelley, basically alleging that he stole money from the parish. In one action, it alleged that Fr Kelley forged the senior warden's signature (as well as, presumably, the signature of a second authorized signer) on a check. This was quickly resolved when the senior warden testified that the signature was in fact his; the court found in Fr Kelley's favor, and that action is no longer pending.

A civil suit is still pending against Fr Kelley, alleging that he stole money from the parish. It's worth pointing out that, despite brave words from Anthony Morello in 2012, no criminal charges have emerged from these allegations. The reason is presumably that a criminal case must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to a unanimous jury, and if the ACA ever chose to bring its evidence before the district attorney, the DA would not have felt there was a case. A civil case, on the other hand, requires only a jury majority of nine out of twelve, based on the preponderance of evidence.

Even so, the ACA's case is going to be weak-to-nonexistent. As I've already said here, my first-hand experience of the parish's finances was that it was breaking even on authorized salaries and other expenditures. The parish was paying clergy and staff, paying heat and air conditioning, dealing with plumbing emergencies, buying candles and incense, and chasing away pests and termites, all proper and reasonable expenditures, all known to and approved by the vestry. There wasn't any surplus.

Quite simply, there was nothing there to steal. As interim treasurer in 2011, I saw no evidence that anyone was even trying. An accountant engaged to do an audit in early 2012 said the same thing. My current surmise, perhaps similar to the surmise at the Freedom for St Mary blog, is that the parish dissidents have been lying to the ACA and the attorneys about the real state of affairs. (That, of course, puts the best possible face on the actions of the ACA and its attorneys.)

In a puzzling strategy, though, the ACA brought a civil suit against Fr Kelley and then made a motion for summary judgment in its favor. My wife points out that a motion for summary judgment is normally a defense strategy -- in other words, the plaintiff brings the suit, the defense then asks the judge to rule that the plaintiff doesn't have a case. Here, though, the ACA asked the court to rule that its case was so strong that there shouldn't even be a trial.

Just recently, the court ruled the ACA's case wasn't that strong, there was going to have to be a trial. This is regarded as a defeat for the ACA. The feeling among Fr Kelley's friends and supporters is that the ACA simply has no evidence, which is why it wanted a summary judgment. Unfortunately, the rules for civil discovery in California make it impractical to move for discovery of the ACA's evidence until just before trial; at any earlier time, the plaintiff can simply say he doesn't have anything, and the defense's one shot at discovery is wasted. It's nevertheless hard not to surmise that the ACA simply has no evidence to support its case.

William Lancaster's record as an attorney is not good, with a well-publicized malpractice case against him that led to his leaving a prestige law firm. We'll have to see if handsome is continues to be as handsome does. The ACA, it seems to me, is doubling down on its future as well.

Who Is The Rt Rev John Vaughan? -- V

The Lakeview Ledger article has turned out to be a fascinating treasure trove -- there are lots of names in it, and whenever I google one, something new turns up. At the time the article was written, for instance, Vaughan was said to be "completing a year of Anglican studies with the Rev Richard Bowman, Episcopal priest in Apopka [FL]". The Rev Richard Bowman of Apopka, it turns out, is listed, along with some very liberal figures in The Episcopal Church, as a signer of the Religious Declaration on Sexual Morality, Justice and Healing. Among his fellow signers was Bishop of Pennsylvania Charles Bennison Jr, a major bête noire of conservative Anglicans, but there is no shortage of other liberal signers.

Just a part of this declaration reads as follows:

We are called today to see, hear and respond to the suffering caused by sexual abuse and violence against women and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons, the HIV pandemic, unsustainable population growth and over-consumption, and the commercial exploitation of sexuality.

Faith communities must therefore be truth-seeking, courageous and just. We call for:

• Theological reflection that integrates the wisdom of excluded, often silenced peoples, and insights about sexuality from medicine, social science, the arts and humanities.
• Full inclusion of women and LGBT persons in congregational life, including their ordination and marriage equality.
• Sexuality counseling and education throughout the lifespan from trained religious leaders.
• Support for those who challenge sexual oppression and who work for justice within their congregations and denominations.

Bowman's name also appears on a web page featuring "Pro Gay Pastors, Churches, & Chaplains." He appears at various times as a spokesman in the largely conservative Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida for pro-gay issues in TEC.

This is the guy who tutored Vaughan for a year in "Anglican studies" in connection with his ordination as an Episcopal priest? I certainly don't mean to imply that signing a statement says anything about one's personal conduct, but these "Anglican studies" must certainly have covered Cranmer, Laud, Andrewes, Pusey, and Keble less than Spong, Moore, Boyd, and Harris.

So let's recap. Vaughan left the Roman Catholic priesthood due to some number of unspecified reservations about doctrine. (There are Catholic priests, of course, who would ask how he got into seminary in the fist place.) Once he left the priesthood, though while still a nominal Catholic, he appears to have disregarded other key teachings about marriage and the family. Then he discovered Episcopalianism, and his systematic introduction to that denomination appears to have been the standard product of the 1990s -- and he was, by his account in 1996, happy about it, just one big, happy, extended, non-traditional family.

Yet by 2005, it appears that Vaughan had discovered the virtues of the 1928 BCP, the error involved in ordaining women, and quite possibly had discovered his own reservations at the consecration of Gene Robinson. Indeed, as of October 14, 2012, Vaughan was presumably part of the ACA House of Bishops when it unanimously endorsed the following statement:

Our Creator made us male and female, with the result that the physical union in marriage is a reality. Male and female really unite in a way that is impossible for members of the same sex, and that union is open to the possibility of procreation in a way that no “same-sex union” could possibly be.

So we know he had reservations about Catholic doctrine, and disregarded it as it suited him. Maybe he had reservations about the standard Episcopalian doctrine of the 1990s, too -- we don't know. Now he's a bishop in the theologically [sorta-kinda] conservative ACA. Does he have reservations about any of that? Did he sign the 2012 statement on gay marriage with any reservations?

I think the answer is it doesn't matter, at least not to his colleagues in the ACA House of Bishops. It's more important that he's utterly reliable. Let's recall one more time that David Moyer, a man who, despite his flaws, comes across as someone with integrity, was purged from that same House of Bishops at precisely the same time Vaughan was elevated to it. Moyer, with backbone, was unreliable. Vaughan, with secrets, is at least reliable.

Who Is The Rt Rev John Vaughan? -- IV

If you check the Lakeville Ledger piece, you'll see a picture of Fr Vaughan as of 1996, a newly ordained Episcopal deacon posing beneath a stained glass window, wearing a Roman collar, doing his very best imitation of Bing Crosby in Going My Way.

All that's missing is the straw hat! But by then, of course, Vaughan had left the Catholic priesthood, and despite the collar, he was no more a Catholic priest than Bing Crosby.

Other details given in the story are puzzling in light of the record. It says, for instance, that Vaughan's wife, Rebecca, had been "an Episcopalian for 15 years". However, the obituary for her first husband says he was a Presbyterian. Her second husband, Louis Ira Fein, may have come from a Jewish family. Her fourth husband, Amr Darwish, has a Muslim name. If Rebecca was or is Episcopalian, she appears to be an Episcopalian of a certain sort.

The Ledger piece reflects a certain optimism and desire to get ahead on Fr Vaughan's part. Praising the rector and the permanent deacon there, he is reported to have said "the three of them work as a team." He's described in the piece as a transitional deacon and curate; it looks like there was some expectation at the time that he would go on staff there as an assistant.

This didn't happen. As I reported last year, according to both St Paul's Winter Haven and the Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida, he served as an interim priest there for only a short time. The only other reference I have to that period is a wedding there at which he officiated in 1998. Indeed, the tone of the replies I got to my inquiries last year verged on the defensive: well, yeah, he was a priest here, but not for very long. What happened?

The only other assignment Vaughan had in The Episcopal Church, according to the Diocese of Central Florida, was as vicar of a failing mission, St Joseph's Orlando. We don't know when he started there, but by several accounts, he left in 2005. We now know that as of early January 2006, he'd sold his interest in a house to Rebecca, presumably by now his ex-wife. According to the ACA, "In 2005 he began his service in the Anglican Church in America at St. Patrick's Church in Port St. John, Florida[.]"

In other words, his service in The Episcopal Church, by TEC's account marginal, ended at roughly the time of his divorce. The index of priests on the Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida's web site no longer carries any reference to John Vaughan. There's still a great deal we don't know.

Who Is The Rt Rev John Vaughan? -- III

I don't mean to be the Grinch who stole Christmas here, but Vaughan, while he'd left the Catholic priesthood, still considered himself a Catholic. According to the Lakeland Ledger piece, he "attended St Joseph's Catholic Church" in Lakeland after he and his new wife moved there.

For a Catholic to marry a divorced person whose spouse is still living is, of course, problematic. One Catholic explanation goes as follows:

[I]f your spouse was previously married and has not received an Decree of Invalidity from a Tribunal, there is a problem. In such circumstances, you may not partake of the sacraments, including the reception of Holy Communion. We respect all marriages, even those which have ended in a civil divorce. Every prior marriage must be examined, since each is presumed to be valid with a lasting and lifelong commitment. Until it is shown otherwise through the ministry of the Tribunal, no person is free to enter into another marriage without the appearance or occasion of serious sin.

It seems highly unlikely that Vaughan and his wife applied to have her previous marriages declared invalid, since the process normally takes at least two years, and one would assume that it could take at least that long or longer if two marriages were involved. But they married within eighteen months of meeting. In addition, tribunals do in fact examine the circumstances of prior marriages carefully, and the decrees are by no means a sure thing. One might expect the process to be riskier if two marriages were involved.

This must be another of the several unspecified reservations Vaughan had about Catholic doctrine while he was in seminary and in the priesthood. Er, where did the reservations stop? After he became an Episcopalian, which many former Catholics do following divorces and remarriages, we might think his wife's marital history would be less of a problem, although simply as a matter of good judgment, I would still question marrying a two-time divorcee -- I married late in life, I dated some of those ladies myself, and I can tell you, they have issues. That's why they got two divorces. The Catholic Church here is looking out for its faithful.

The question also arises: what is Vaughan's actual view of marriage -- indeed, what is his view of the sacraments? Holy orders are a sacrament as well, equivalent in the Catholic Church to marriage. Did Vaughan take his orders seriously? Well, he had reservations. By his account, he had them all along. The priesthood got him to the US, of course. It got him to the Archdiocese of Miami, an anything-goes sort of place by all accounts. Was Vaughan using holy orders for his own purposes, quitting the priesthood as soon as it suited him to do so?

By the same token, it's interesting that in the minimal information Brian Marsh provided at Vaughan's consecration, the ACA saw fit to mention, "He is a resident of Titusville, Florida and has one son." This of course is a tacit way of saying that Vaughan, by the time of his consecration, was divorced, although the marriage had been blessed with issue. And that, too, is a tacit way of reassuring anyone who might be uncertain about it that Vaughan is not, no way, can't happen, that bugbear of conservative Anglicans, a gay bishop.

Florida real estate records show that the house at 3295 Timucua Circle, Hunters Creek, FL 32837 was sold by John Vaughan on January 6, 2006, to Rebecca Vaughan, and sold again on September 22, 2006 by Rebecca Vaughan to Rebecca Vaughan and Amr Darwish. Rebecca Vaughan had had a career since 1980 as a speech therapist; Amr Darwish is a physical therapist whose business is located at that address. They were presumably colleagues prior to their marriage. The former Mrs Vaughan now styles herself Becky Vaughan-Darwish.

The marriage to John Vaughan was just one of four. What does that say about Rebecca's view of marriage? What does that say about the marriage overall? What does that say about Vaughan's view of marriage as a sacrament? If it seems possible that he used the sacrament of holy orders for his own purposes, could he have used the sacrament of marriage for the same, perhaps as a beard of respectability?

I ask this as a Catholic, of course, where that marriage seems to have involved serious sin. But even as a sorta-kinda Episcopal or Anglican priest, people would be going to Vaughan for marriage counseling. What kind of counseling would he be equipped to provide?

I note, too, that Vaughan's ACA home parish now calls itself St Patrick's Anglican Catholic Church. Catholic indeed.

Who Is The Rt Rev John Vaughan? -- II

Although the ACA has maintained strict radio silence about the biographical information on its two most recent bishops, it did in fact release the following about John Vaughan last year, when he was consecrated suffragan bishop of the Diocese of the Eastern US:

In 1985 Bp. Vaughan was ordained to the [Roman Catholic] priesthood at St. Michael's Church Upper Glanmire County Cork Ireland. Shortly after Ordination he left Ireland and relocated to the United States to serve the people of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Miami Florida and the Episcopal Diocese of Florida. In 2005 he began his service in the Anglican Church in America at St. Patrick's Church in Port St. John, Florida until being appointed Vicar General of the Diocese of the Eastern United States in 2011. He is a resident of Titusville, Florida and has one son.

As I observed a year ago, this thumbnail is sketchy and notable for its omissions. I've recently had reason to go back and check Bishop Vaughan's biography in greater detail, and I will add some additional material to the record in this and subsequent posts.

Pope Francis is recently reported to have acknowledged, at least informally, that there is in fact a gay mafia in the Roman Catholic Church:

[In} the Curia, there are also holy people, really, there are holy people. But there also is a stream of corruption, there is that as well, it is true... The "gay lobby" is mentioned, and it is true, it is there... We need to see what we can do...

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami is frequently mentioned as a center for gay mafia activity in the US. This is often suggested as a reason for the premature removal of Archbishop John C. Favalora prior to his mandatory retirement at age 75. Although he was installed as Archbishop of Miami in 1994, discussions of the scandals in the Miami Archdiocese indicate that the problems there had existed for decades prior to his arrival.

Priests speak, too, about the culture of "sex-driven favoritism" at St. John Vianney College Seminary—a kind of gay Hogwarts with palm trees, located out in the flat suburban wastes of southwest Dade County. . . . One seminarian who dropped out in disgust in the 1980s recalls a miserable year being bullied by gay faculty, and the rector, Robert Lynch, fawning over his favorite seminarian: an attractive upper-classman named Steven O'Hala.

It's worth pointing out that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami was also the place where the "Father Oprah" scandal took place, wherein Alberto Cutie, a Catholic priest well-known for his media appearances, was forced to leave the Catholic priesthood after publication of pictures in which he was shown kissing Ruhama Buni Canellis at a public beach. (He later married Ms Buni Canellis and became an Episcopal priest.)

There is no record of what John Vaughan's activities may or may not have been in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami during the time he was a priest there. According to this article in the Lakeland, FL Ledger, Vaughan had disagreed with Catholic doctrine while in seminary, and after transferring to the Miami archdiocese in 1985, by 1990 reached a decision that he could not continue as a Catholic priest. The "doctrines" with which he disagreed, according to the article, included, but apparently were not limited to, the requirement of priestly celibacy. (Priestly celibacy, however, is a "discipline", not a "doctrine"; Vaughan, who has a Master's degree in theology, was presumably aware of this.)

However, although Vaughan disagreed with not fully specified Catholic doctrines, he had not met anyone whom he might have considered marriage material before he left the Catholic priesthood. This would change.

According to the Florida Department of Health, John Vaughan married Rebecca Susan Fein in Miami on 22 June 1991. The Lakeland Ledger story indicates that Rebecca Fein's parents are Leslie and Ellen Spoor of Winter Haven, FL. According to the Florida Department of Health, Rebecca Susan Spoor married Beatty Scott Blanton III on 31 August 1974. According to the Florida Department of Health, Rebecca Susan Blanton had another marriage, to Louis Ira Fein, on 15 October 1983. A third marriage for Rebecca Susan Spoor is listed for 22 June 1991, which is presumably the marriage of Rebecca Susan Fein to John Vaughan, her third.

The story, though, doesn't end here.

Do I See A Pattern Here?

The Rt Rev James Hiles is just the most recent example of what I think is a distressing pattern in the ACA, even more so than in "continuing Anglicanism" generally -- jurisdiction hopping among the highest leadership in order to escape from either formal deposition in The Episcopal Church (the case with Louis Falk and James Hiles) or what appears to be less formal edging-out, which appears to be the situation with the late Anthony Morello and the Rt Rev John Vaughan. (Morello's rapid promotion in the ACA, from newcomer assistant priest in 2010 to vicar general in 2012, suggests he would almost certainly have become a bishop if he'd lived a year longer.)

It's worth noting that Hiles had never expressed objection, at least in any sort of record, to the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, the ordination of women, or the election of the first woman suffragan in his own Episcopal diocese, over the two-decade period when these developments took place before TEC threw him out. This apparently more mainstream position might have made him a good candidate for the ACNA after 2007, and we can only speculate why he either did not choose to take his parish into the ACNA during the jurisdiction-shopping he must have done then, or why the ACNA may not have found him suitable.

Stephen Strawn and Brian Marsh were never ordained in The Episcopal Church, unlike those above -- Strawn attended an unaccredited seminary, while Marsh, despite becoming a postulant and then a candidate for holy orders in the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, for whatever reason was apparently not deemed suitable for eventual ordination there. As I said earlier this week, the fact that we know absolutely nothing of the Rt Rev Owen Rhys Williams is a matter for serious concern.

I'll next be addressing further information on the Rt Rev John Vaughan.

My wife and I pray daily for the people of the Anglican Church in America.

Who Is The Rt Rev James Randall Hiles?

I didn't originally intend to post on this subject, but I wandered into it yesterday, and the more I looked, the more I saw. Hiles was consecrated a suffragan bishop in the ACA Diocese of the Northeast on April 27, 2013. There are two things I gathered from the photo below:

One is that it appears to have been quite a do, with even the assistant principal from South Africa, the Rt Rev Michael Gill, on the scene. The other is that Bishop Hiles, seated at the center among the smarmy smiles around him, appears to be quite elderly. Checking, I found that he was ordained to the Episcopal priesthood in 1958. If we make the optimistic assumption that he was 25 at the time of his ordination, this would give a birth year of 1933, and that would make him 80 in 2013. If his ordination was later -- as it frequently is for Episcopal priests -- this would of course make him older.

The mandatory retirement age for an Episcopal bishop is 72. A Roman Catholic bishop must submit his resignation at age 75, although the Pope may delay mandatory retirement in individual cases. Hiles's age suggests several things. First, Presiding Bishop Marsh, a dilettante part-timer, does not want threats to his position, so he allows only bishops who can't credibly challenge him, something we'll eventually get to in the case of John Vaughan. An octogenarian can hardly aspire to higher office. Second, Hiles's rise to the episcopacy, especially in light of his age, is largely honorary, although I suspect it's also a quid pro quo.

There's the question of Hiles's sudden arrival in the Anglican Church in America at all. Yesterday I noted a Virtue Online story that had him and his breakaway parish in the Anglican Mission in America as of 2007. In the years after 2007, the AMIA grew steadily more erratic in its affiliations, essentially disintegrating by 2011. ACA Diocese of the Northeast newsletters place Hiles as a "special guest" at the 2011 diocesan synod; by March 2012, St Paul's Anglican Brockton was listed as an “associated Anglican parish”. In other words, Hiles had left a sinking ship and hopped jurisdictions -- no doubt, I would guess, shopping around among more than one; the ACA finally offered him the best deal. St Paul's Brockton sorta-kinda joins the ACA in 2012; a year later, Hiles, in an unrelated move, becomes a bishop.

But wait a moment. Isn't Hiles some kind of a hero to the "continuing Anglican" movement? Isn't it some kind of feather in the ACA's cap to have the guy at all? All those other smarmy bishops in the picture certainly suggest that's the case. I mean, Pope Emeritus Benedict might be an octogenarian as well, but wouldn't it be a feather in the ACA's cap to make him a suffragan, too?

Let's look at Hiles's case. As of 1995, Hiles, an Episcopal priest, had two posts: one was Rector of St Paul's Episcopal Church, a full-fledged parish in Brockton, MA, and one as Vicar of the Church of Our Saviour, a mission church in Milton, MA. A parish has a vestry that calls a rector with the assent of a bishop; a parish is financially self-supporting. A mission runs a deficit, receives financial support from the diocese, and has a vicar who is appointed directly by the bishop -- the bishop directly controls the mission's finances as well.

According to the court case I cited yesterday, Hiles's problem arose when, in 1990, a parishioner bequeathed approximately $2 million to the Church of Our Saviour. The Episcopal diocese and Hiles disagreed as to which entity was entitled to the bequest -- the church or the diocese. From the facts as outlined in the case, since the bequest was to the mission, the bishop had a definite case for a claim on that money, since he controlled the mission's finances. Hiles somehow thought the money should go to St Paul's Episcopal Brockton, a different entity.

One thing that strikes me is that this dispute had nothing to do with any developments in The Episcopal Church regarding prayer books or women priests. It was an argument over money, and it could as easily have happened over exactly the same issues in 1795 or 1895. The bishop had a strong argument, and beyond that, the bishop was the boss, especially over Hiles in his capacity as vicar. The record shows the bishop was angry indeed with Hiles (as quite possibly I would have been in the same circumstances), to the extent that he came as close as a bishop might to cussing Hiles out, and threw a pen at him in the bargain.

At no point in this dispute did Hiles ever say, "Well, Bishop, not only are you trying to steal our rightful bequest, but you're using the 1979 Book of Common Prayer! And not only that, but you are tolerating a suffragan of the female persuasion!!" Indeed, since this dispute took place in 1995, we may assume that Fr Hiles had been saying mass from the 1979 BCP without complaint for over 15 years. Hiles's dispute had nothing visibly connected with any liberal-conservative church divide -- unlike, for instance, the dispute between David Moyer and his bishop, Charles Bennison Jr. Moyer had a credible reason to join a "continuing Anglican" denomination; Hiles did not, except as a way to avoid disgrace and keep getting a paycheck.

Next, let's look at the charges on which Hiles was then inhibited and deposed, an alleged adulterous relationship with a parishioner. It's sad on one hand that The Episcopal Church does not appear to be consistent in how it enforces ethical standards in matters like these. On the other hand, the Massachusetts Supreme Court eventually ruled in 2002 that The Episcopal Church was entirely within its rights to enforce the standards it did enforce in Hiles's case -- Hiles was inhibited and deposed following an ecclesiastical trial, for an adulterous affair with a parishioner. In the court's view, that trial and any subsequent canonical appeals were all Hiles was entitled to. Hiles knew this when he became a priest.

Hiles's legal and public position at the time and since has been that the allegations of the affair, while untrue to start with, were the result of the dispute over money. At no point did the 1979 BCP or women priests and bishops enter into this dispute -- the whole discussion was over (a) money, and (b) sex -- and beyond that, one gets the sense that if The Episcopal Church had worked out a settlement that allowed Hiles to keep his well-paid, prestigious job as a rector in that denomination, he would have been perfectly happy.

How on earth does any of this make him some kind of hero to "continuing Anglicanism"? When you think about it, David Moyer had a dispute with Episcopal Bishop Bennison involving Bennison's broken promise to allow conservative parishes to be supervised by a sympathetic bishop. Bennison was much more clearly in the wrong. Moyer's dispute had no side issues involving money or sex. Yet Moyer is more or less in disgrace in the "continuing Anglican" movement, even though he actually did good work as a bishop once he went to the ACA, yet the ACA simply purged him as a bishop in 2012. In 2013, though, it made Hiles a bishop at age 80, with duties that strongly reek of sinecure.

Why are all those bishops smiling?