Overseas Bishops Meet in Mexico City
Diocesan Press Service. October 12, 1974 [74279]
Isabel Baumgartner
MEXICO CITY, D. F., Mexico -- The Episcopal Church's 20 overseas bishops, meeting here October 10 - 12 in an over-air-conditioned conference room, generated their own warm group climate by exhibiting a willingness to put aside individual differences in the light of all they held in common.
The group's chairman, Bishop Melchor Saucedo of Western Mexico, and his fellow executive committee members Bishops Edward Haynsworth of Nicaragua/El Salvador and Edward Turner of the Virgin Islands, led the meeting in a relaxed style. Feelings as well as facts were shared at a variety of depths as the hours went by.
This way of doing this part of the Church's business makes news because it depicts a turn-about-face.
Much of the guarded politeness that used to characterize annual pre-House of Bishops gatherings stemmed from the need for each overseas bishop to compete with the others for his work's sustenance : budget dollars from the Church at large. Each used to approach U.S. national decision makers individually, pleading his own cause as persuasively as he could.
Only two years ago they agreed, with some misgivings, to try a new way of dealing with dollars: to share back-home financial facts fully with one another and decide jointly how to divide among themselves the total amount budgeted annually by the U.S. Church for mission overseas.
Now the new machinery appears to have shifted into high gear. Unified accounting systems applicable to all twelve or so currencies have been developed by the Church's assistant treasurer, Matt Costigan of New York, and the group finds his presence as well as his paperwork essential to the success of the new plan.
In areas as distant as Liberia, Taiwan, and the Philippines, as well as in more than a dozen Latin American dioceses, the 20 bishops work within immensely varied economic, political, and cultural situations. They speak an aggregate of some 14 languages or dialects.
They agreed, only a few years ago, to work toward self-support and eventual autonomy in all 20 dioceses, some soon, others later on.
If, the bishops said then, the Church at large could supply sizeable sums of money, over and above budget support, these monies invested locally could serve two valuable purposes: stimulate local economy, and provide continuing income to move a diocese toward financial independence.
A development fund for overseas, authorized last year by the House of Bishops, began with a $100,000 United Thank Offering grant. St. James' parish in New York and the Dioceses of Bethlehem, Central Gulf Coast, Michigan, and Tennessee added $32,700. Last month the UTO granted $50,000 more.
The overseas bishops agreed that a small portion of the fund could be used by a diocese needing professional help in determining what investments or church property arrangements would enable self-support according to a specific timetable. Haiti, Liberia, the three Mexico dioceses, and the Northern Philippines have had such feasibility studies done. After the executive committee approves these plans, the whole group will authorize at its February 1975 meeting development fund grants as requested -- trusting enough dollars will be available to meet the timetables these dioceses have set for themselves.
Other paths toward self-support in many of the 20 dioceses: increased use of self-supporting clergy, plans for making diocesan institutions self-sufficient, and the closing of marginal congregations where a lack of "spiritual health" evidences little potential.
A $50,000 grant was authorized for Nicaragua, whose plan was developed without need for professional aid. A UTO grant of $50,000 for Nicaragua, together with this meeting's action, will also this diocese to decrease by $5,000 its 1975 need for budget aid from the general Church.
Because all 20 dioceses face inflation, they could not stick to their 1973 agreement not to increase 1975 budget askings over 1974. They decided at this meeting on an equitable distribution among themselves of the $2,878,168 expected to be available next year, with only two dioceses receiving an increase in excess of 10 per cent. The two -- the Southern Philippines and Honduras -- were made exceptions because of recent natural disasters they have suffered. The Philippines area is also in the throes of severe political upheaval.
The bishops heard a concise explanation of the Church Pension Fund by retired Bishop Frank Burrill of Chicago, and discussed with him and Fund president Robert A. Robinson several ways accumulated pension premiums could continue to protect clergy families after an overseas diocese becomes autonomous.
The bishops heard Oscar Carr, Jr., of New York, the Church's executive for development, project how the Church as a whole can move from "static" to "dynamic " budget-making and broaden the base of churchwide giving.
"The question, 'What can we afford?' is stifling," Carr said, "and contravenes our whole ministry and mission. " He asked his hearers to spell out " real, live, concrete mission opportunities " in their countries, as a grass-roots challenge to fellow Episcopalians. "We're generous philanthropists to all kinds of causes," he said, "but the Church just isn't getting its share."
The new Partners in Mission thrust emanating from the 1973 Anglican Consultative Council meeting has already produced seven Anglican consultations around the world to which representatives of the U.S. Episcopal Church have been invited. Bishops George Browne of Liberia and Lani Hanchett of Hawaii praised the climate and productiveness of those they have attended, Bishop Browne in Africa and Bishop Hanchett in Korea and Japan. "After a little while," Bishop Hanchett said, "we put away the old 'shopping list' mentality, and then some new directions for real mission began to emerge."
The reshaping of companion diocese relationship styles and the prospect of realignment of South American and African dioceses with Anglican provinces in those places completed the group's agenda.
Proof of the value of their time together was acted out when the overseas bishops agreed their February meeting needs to be five days long.