Bishops demand to know litigation costs: CEN 3.28.08 p 7. March 31, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Mission Societies/Religious Orders, Property Litigation.trackback
Two retired American bishops have called upon the national church in New York to disclose the amount of money the Episcopal Church is spending on litigation with breakaway congregations.
The call for financial accountability from retired Bishops Williams Wantland of Eau Claire, Wisconsin and Bishop Maurice Benitez of Texas comes amidst tightening finances for the Episcopal Church, which has also announced it would no longer pay the stipends of overseas missionaries.
On March 7, the Episcopal Church’s mission personnel officer announced that missionaries sponsored by the national church would no longer receive stipends or reimbursement for travel expenses.
Lay missionaries would now receive the same pension benefits as ordained missionaries. However, this rise in costs plus increased health and conference fees coupled with a “reduction in our overall budget of 5 percent in 2008 due to budget constraints” had forced the church to cut off missionary stipends.
The cuts will take immediate effect for new missionaries, while those on current assignment will see the change when their “Letters of Understanding” are renewed.
The suspension of the stipendiary missionary programme follows a Feb 29 open letter from the two retired bishops seeking an accounting for the estimated several million dollars spent on litigation by the national church offices. The two bishops wrote their latest request was their third attempt to get an answer.
The first answer the bishops received, they said, was that the money spent on lawyers to fight the church’s property battles was “a secret.” A second request elicited the response that “no funds for litigation have come from either the Pension Fund or Trust Funds. However, [the national church] refused to disclose the amounts being expended on litigation.”
In their Feb 29 letter, the bishops stated the national church had no legal right to withhold financial information. Saying “it’s a secret” was “not acceptable. If there is nothing wrong with these expenditures, then why do you refuse to reveal the amount?” Bishops Wantland and Benitez asked.
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[...] By George Conger for CEN [...]
Sadly, (1) the national church will not care whether overseas missionaries get paid, because they don’t have a global mission mindset, and (2) they will never provide the kind of financial accountability expected, because the issue of accountability is foreign and even offensive to a non-gospel-centered person or institution.
I have started an online petition to join voices with these good bishops:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/episcopal-lawsuits-costs/
[...] George Conger reports that calls for TEC to be financially accountable continue to fall on deaf ears. In a third attempt, two retired TEC bishops wrote an open letter, February 29th, calling for full public disclosure of the amount and source of money spent on litigating departing parishes. TEC reportedly cut funding to missionaries recently. [...]