In San Joaquin, Episcopal Church 'alive and well'
Episcopal News Service. January 4, 2008 [010408-01]
Pat McCaughan
The Rev. Martin Risard has planted five churches during 50 years of ministry and on January 6—Epiphany Sunday—the 82-year-old priest will begin a sixth, in a Sonora senior citizen center, even though "I've never done this without a bishop," he says.
From Sonora to Bakersfield, from Stockton to Fresno, a growing number of remaining Episcopalians—those who opposed a December vote to realign the Central California Valley Diocese of San Joaquin with the Argentina-based Anglican Province of the Southern Cone—are meeting in homes, community centers and other churches, excited to be "moving on" to evangelism, mission and Gospel good news.
Fed up with years of rancor over the ordination of women and gays, they say healing is emerging after initial grief and loss over the split. So are new congregations. "They are preparing to reconstitute the diocese; it's heartwarming because it's been a long haul for them," said the Rev. Canon Robert Moore, appointed by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori as a pastoral presence in the interim.
Also affirming, Moore said, is observing a flood of "support for them (which) has come from all over the world and being able to watch the church rise up and to say, 'You do not have to do this alone, we will do whatever we have to do to help you move forward.' "
The Presiding Bishop's canon, the Rev. Dr. Charles Robertson, agrees: "We want to reassure all continuing Episcopalians in San Joaquin that we will continue to be there for them as the larger Church."
Moore will be among those offering support and encouragement at a January 26 gathering in Hanford planned for continuing Episcopalians. Also present there will be House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson, and representatives of Remain Episcopal, a group dedicated to reconstituting the diocese and advancing the Episcopal Church's ongoing ministries in the region.
Anderson commended the faithful laity and clergy for their "sheer grace and hopeful courage to reframe and reconstruct the diocese and to listen to what God is calling them to do at this time in our history.
"The Episcopal Church at large has a unique opportunity to encourage and support these faithful Episcopalians," said Anderson, who keynoted a 2007 mission conference in San Joaquin.
It will be the "first gathering of the faithful" since the San Joaquin convention's December 8 vote to split and "an opportunity to tell people in the diocese who do want to stay in the Episcopal Church what are the next steps," said Nancy Key of Remain Episcopal and one of the group's founders. "It will answer their questions from a pastoral and legal standpoint because they're hungry for information."
Those scheduled to address the January 26 gathering also include Remain Episcopal President Cindy Smith, and Michael Glass, an attorney active with the group.
'In exile': back to basic mission work
In Atwater, some 60 miles west of Sonora, the people of St. Nicholas' Mission will meet January 6 for the first time at a local community center, says the Rev. Fred Risard, the congregation's vicar and the son of the Rev. Martin Risard.
The congregation has adopted the name "St. Nicholas-in-exile" because former Bishop John-David Schofield "fired me on Christmas Day and locked me out of the church the next day," Fred Risard said. About 25 members and friends of St. Nicholas also assembled for Sunday services on December 30 at a venue not far from the church site.
He and others within the diocese say closing the mission is Schofield's way of intimidating clergy and congregations who opposed the vote to affiliate with Bishop Gregory Venables, primate of the Southern Cone, which has about 22,000 members and encompasses the South American nations of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay.
Attempts to reach Schofield for comment were unsuccessful. Despite the vote to leave, he has said he intends to retain diocesan property and has said dissenting congregations could retain individual church property "as long as they don't owe the diocese money." During a December 23 pastoral visit, he told the Atwater congregation he was concerned about the congregation's dwindling membership and financial resources, assertions Fred Risard and others dispute.
"Clergy are being fired and the church's property taken over by the bishop," Fred Risard said, adding that Schofield had also seized church records. "My congregation and I don't recognize the bishop's actions at convention," he said. "We just don't think it's legal, so we've been locked out of the building. Now we're a congregation in exile, and we're not the only one."
Meanwhile, by allowing Schofield time to reconsider his decision, the canonical procedures followed by churchwide leaders are affording Schofield the "due process" that he is concurrently denying to Fred Risard and other clergy, Risard said.
The Presiding Bishop wrote to Schofield prior to the convention, urging him to amend his path. If Schofield is considered to have abandoned the communion of the Episcopal Church, he would have two months to recant his position.
If Schofield fails to do so, the matter would be referred to the full House of Bishops. Other steps would follow, including the Presiding Bishop declaring the episcopate of the diocese vacant, and those remaining in the Episcopal Church would be gathered to elect a replacement Standing Committee.
Similar measures would apply to the Dioceses of Fort Worth and Pittsburgh, which have also begun the process to change their constitution and canons to remove the name of the Episcopal Church. At the same time, "our goal is for Episcopalians to remain the Episcopal Church, or if they have left, to come back to this Church that has always valued its tradition of comprehensiveness," said Robertson, the Presiding Bishop's canon.
While the ordeal has been "personally devastating," Fred Risard said that, if anything, the split has boosted attendance, drawing worshippers from such nearby communities as Los Banos, Merced, and Turlock, and even a few from as far away as San Francisco who come twice monthly to offer spiritual support.
Risard added that the pastoral presence of Moore -- who is married to Bishop Suffragan Bavi Edna "Nedi" Rivera of the Seattle-based Diocese of Olympia, whose father Bishop Victor Rivera was Schofield's predecessor -- has helped healing begin.
"It's been a tremendous help and inspiration to know we can have true leaders that know how to be pastoral and to lead," said Risard, who spent January 3 seeking a worship space for his now-growing congregation. "Now, we're back to basic mission work. We want to build a new church and it's actually fun," he said.
Flood of support for 'moving forward'
Support for emerging congregations has also come in tangible ways, such as the "ecclesiastical care package" sent to Remain Episcopal's Bakersfield group, a "mission waiting to happen," says Remain Episcopal President Cindy Smith.
The group, which began meeting in a local public library in April, expanded to a house church and is now scouting a more permanent space in a neighboring church.
A Christmas Eve Eucharist emerged from the group's weekly evening prayer meetings and occasional Evensong services, she said. That Eucharist was aided by St. Luke's Church in Long Beach, which offered altar, lectern and pulpit frontals, processional cross and candles, Gospel book, albs, and chasuble, stole and cope, as well as financial assistance, she said.
The Rev. Dr. Tim Vivian, an Episcopal priest who is assistant professor of religious studies at Cal- State University at Bakersfield, is canonically resident in the Los Angeles diocese but was refused a license to officiate in Bakersfield.
Feeling a bit like "the first century Christians" Vivian has agreed to lead the congregation in "building community from the ground up." Their exilic experience has given them a heart for mission, he said. They are already involved in prison ministry, and participate in a local soup kitchen and Heifer Project International.
"We're very excited, we're moving on and reaching out will be a big part of our identity," he said, adding that he hoped eventually when the group forms a congregation it will consider naming itself for slain civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Similarly, other remaining congregations report increased attendance following the vote to leave. Of the diocese's 47 congregations, 42 approved the split; clergy approved it 70-12 and the laity voted 103-10 for realignment. At the Parish of Holy Family in Fresno, attendance has nearly doubled, said parishioner George Wade.
"We're packing the house on Sundays," he said. "They're even sitting in the crying room, but they're not crying anymore." He expressed concern for mission congregations that need to know they have the support of the larger church.
Beryl Simkins is another Episcopalian-in-exile who said she found much-needed support at St. Anne's Church in Stockton. Simkins, a former vestry member at St. Francis Church in Turlock, said she left in August after Schofield placed a priest there who had been deposed in the Diocese of Western New York. She has since attended a regular Tuesday evening prayer service and has begun to organize "St. Francis-in-exile with a lot of support from Father Mark Hall of St. Anne's."
With Hall's assistance, the group organized a Christmas Eve service at a local Methodist church, and arranged for a priest from the Diocese of California to officiate. Hall encouraged his parishioners to pledge money for ongoing support to St. Francis-in-exile, and the Methodist church has offered continued use of their sanctuary or other space, Simkins said.
"We plan to start with a local Eucharist one day a month, to be followed by fellowship, bible study, and we want to start acolyte training and group activities for kids," she said. "We also want to begin a faith commitment as a group, like feeding the hungry in Turlock. It's a small beginning, but we have high hopes and a real desire to move beyond what has occurred and begin anew."
Remain Episcopal's Nancy Key said she has adopted as her mantra an affirmation from House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson: "Seize the vacuum.
"We're in a vacuum space, with no bishop. Our ecclesiastical authority is unclear at best. Our own bishop has gone south. We know the Presiding Bishop is trying to allow him due process, but there's no precedent for any of this so when people ask me if they can start a new mission, I just say yes."
Moore said emerging congregations need basic help, such as prayerbooks and hymnals, and financial assistance as well as companionship and prayer. "They need physical, hands-on evidence they are not in this all by themselves, that there are people outside San Joaquin, and outside California who support them. What I want for them to know is that the presiding bishop of the church and all kinds of people involved in this church are praying and pulling for them."
Lori Brown says she found her way to the group now pastored by Vivian after moving to Bakersfield two years ago. "I tried several churches here and the anti-gay and anti-women's ordination message was appalling," she recalled. "Basically, the message was, "if you're a white straight male, you go to the front of the line. Anybody else, we don't want you in the door. I thought, 'You're kidding me, this can't be happening.' I thought we'd landed on nowhere land," but the new church has brought joy and community," she said.
Ordained to the priesthood in 1957, the Rev. Martin Risard says providing joy and community for continuing Episcopalians via planting a sixth church in Sonora now "just feels like the right thing to do." Dubbed St. Mary's in-the-Mountains, it conveys a message he's already advertising in the local papers: "We have a lot to look forward to. The Episcopal Church is alive and well."