COLORADO: Parish plans Holy Week, Sunday services on Colorado College campus
Episcopal News Service. March 30, 2007 [033007-02]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
Members of Grace and St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Colorado Springs met in an auditorium at Colorado College on the evening of March 28 to discuss how they will continue as a community following the announcement that former members of their vestry had voted to affiliate with a Nigerian bishop.
The vestry of Grace Church and St. Stephen's, the largest Episcopal parish in Colorado, voted the morning of March 26 to leave the Episcopal Church and affiliate with the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), which claims to be "a missionary effort" of the Anglican Church of Nigeria, according to its website.
A news release from the vestry linked its decision to the recent actions of the House of Bishops, and said that a 40-day process of discernment is planned "for the congregation to fully understand the ramifications of this decision."
Colorado Bishop Robert O'Neill removed the vestry and all other officers of the parish the same day the vote occurred. O'Neill said in a statement that removing the vestry members and officers gave him the ability to pastorally care for those parish members who remain within the Episcopal Church, and to protect the parish's assets "in light of the serious allegations pending against [former rector the Rev. Donald] Armstrong concerning potential long-term and significant financial defalcations."
The Colorado Spring Gazette newspaper posted the March 27 letter that O'Neill sent to parish members, explaining why he had removed the vestry and outlining the presentment charges against Armstrong.
The allegations include theft from Grace of $392,409.93 in "unauthorized payments for educational and personal expenses for Father Armstrong's family," according to the letter.
Also listed in the letter are allegations of
- "tax fraud involving $548,097.27 in non-salary income and benefits" not reported to the federal Internal Revenue Service and the Colorado Department of Revenue;
- "unlawful extension and receipt" of loans to Armstrong totaling $122,479.16;
- "improper use" of $136,354.78 in clergy discretionary funds;
- "the unauthorized encumbrance and alienation of the parish's real property" and
- "the failure to maintain proper books of accounts by causing Grace Church to record false or fraudulent entries in its books and records."
More than 100 people gathered for the March 28 meeting on Colorado College campus, including former and current lay leadership, and members of the parish's staff, according to a news release from the Diocese of Colorado. O'Neill addressed the group. Those gathered included clergy and staff members of Grace and St. Stephen's who will remain with the parish and the Episcopal Church, including the Rev. Michael O'Donnell, associate rector; the Rev. Sally Zeigler, deacon; the Rev. Leroy Soper, retired rector; and music director Deke Ploifka.
The news release said that a parish committee was appointed to continue the parish's worship, ministry and community life. The parish will hold Palm Sunday services at Shove Chapel on the Colorado College campus, which is near Grace and St. Stephen's buildings. The parish will worship at Shove Chapel until such time as it is restored to its property, the news release said.
O'Donnell and Zeigler will assume pastoral responsibility for the parish temporarily, the news release said, while the lay leadership works with O'Neill to find a priest-in-charge for the parish.
"The more than 100 people who gathered last night are full of hope for the future," Tim Fuller, a Colorado College professor who chairs of the Parish Committee, said in the news release. "There was considerable unity of purpose and resolve to retain the parish, and to go forward."
In making its March 26 decision, the then-members of the vestry apparently consulted its rector, the Rev. Donald Armstrong, whom O'Neill inhibited in January as part of an investigation into allegations of misappropriated church money. The vestry's March 26 news release called the investigation of Armstrong "intolerable."
Armstrong has been with Grace and St. Stephen's for 19 years. The parish has about 2,500 members who pledged approximately $1.4 million in 2005.
Armstrong has been an outspoken opponent of some of the actions taken -- or not taken -- by the Episcopal Church. He is listed on the website of the Anglican Communion Institute as its executive director and one of its "collegial theologians." The organization has been critical of the Episcopal Church and Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, and her predecessor Frank Griswold.
A March 26 letter to the parish from the vestry said that the lay leaders had reinstated Armstrong as the parish's rector as of that day and, "so as not to disrupt the Easter season," scheduled a meeting for April 14 to discuss its decision.
Armstrong told the Gazette newspaper that he plans to address the diocese's charges at the April 14 meeting. He said an independent audit will help him make his case to parishioners.
He told the paper that the accusations stem from questions about his personal spending habits that he can explain, but was not asked to. He told the paper, for example, that his children received scholarships from the church. He said he was accused of not reporting his church-furnished home on his taxes, but maintains that he has tax returns that prove otherwise.