Although it may not be noticed, the seeds of the recent saga actually precedes the tenure of the Rev. David Moyer as rector of the parish. Certainly the parish has not been without some drama during its history although certainly not of the current variety. Formed in the latter half of the nineteenth century as part of the “Oxford Movement” seeking a revival of Catholic belief and praxis within Anglicanism, wary eyes were likely cast upon the movement in general and the parish in particular amid suspicions of “popery.” However, once it became apparent that many Anglo-Catholics had no intention of leading a march to Rome, both high and low church parties settled down and pretended the other side did not exist. This gentlemen’s agreement was largely maintained until the Episcopal Church began drifting (as with many other mainline churches) in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
It was these events that set the whole thing in motion. At this point I was not yet a member or even aware of the parish and so I am relying upon whatever fragmentary sources are available from that period as well as anecdotes supplied by conversations with members of the parish at the time. The rector at the time was Fr. George Rutler who has since moved on to Rome and some notoriety as a TV personality on EWTN. The curate was the Rev. Paul Hewett who now is now Bishop of the Diocese of the Holy Cross – a “continuing church” jurisdiction.
The ordination of women was causing sharp division in the Episcopal Church at the time yet it was not necessarily the make or break issue for many conservatives. There were, of course, high church Episcopalians who saw this as placing Anglicanism out of the one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. There were “low churchmen” who opposed it for biblical reasons. Of course, those on the left saw it as a “human rights” issue. But for many in the Episcopal Church, they viewed the ministry of Word and Sacrament as neither a sign of God’s order nor as limited by Scripture or Tradition but rather as a purely functional matter. Hence, if a woman could preach and the congregation wanted her, who cares? Perhaps it never occurred to them that God might care but for them ministry was not something ordained by God but a purely corporate contractural matter between congregation and minister.
Those who opposed this novelty now had a choice to make. As odd as it seems now, there was a point when the movement to begin the “continuing church” greatly concerned the Episcopal Church’s leadership and gained much attention in the press. One who was actively involved in the early stages of this process was Fr. Rutler. After the initial conference at St. Louis that issued the “Affirmation of St. Louis, Fr. Rutler announced from the pulpit that the Church of the Good Shepherd was a member of the newly forming church body that would become the Anglcian Catholic Church. No consultation, no parish vote, and no decision of the vestry needed. If you didn’t like it you could leave or he and his staff would leave. It was an ultimatum.
Needless to say, such a decision was not received well by all members of the parish. Even some who thought it was time to get out were put off by the sheer affrontery of declaring such a move without any offical vote of the parish. The details depend on what members of the parish (of those around at the time) you ask. I have found the mere mention of Fr. Rutler (as currently with Fr. Moyer) resulted in a sharp division along party lines: his supporters saw him as prophetic in his understanding of where this all would lead; his detractors pictured him as an articulate demagouge who would have led the parish to ruin. Fr. Rutler was someone who you were either for or against and there did not seem to be any middle ground.
The details at this point become muddy – again along partly lines – but the net result was that Frs. Rutler and Hewett did resign from the parish. Eventually, as mentioned, Fr. Rutler went to Rome while Fr. Hewett joined a continuing church body. The entire debacle of the “continuing church” is a story unto itself. For those interested, I recently came across an excellent book on the subject by Douglas Bess titled Divided We Stand: A History of the Continuing Anglican Movement
After Fr. Rutler’s tenure as rector, the parish turned to Fr. Andrew Meade. As with Fr. Rutler, this is all second hand anecdotes from parish members but from everything I have gathered he was very much loved by all in the parish and healed many of the wounds that had erupted from the previous controversies. His tenure seemed to be far more concerned with pastoral issues within the parish than the larger controversies in the Episcopal Church. Given the situation, this certainly was the prudent thing to do and in no way implies Fr. Meade was not concerned with the big picture for Anglicanism. Rather, he had a crisis facing the parish and had to deal with it to bring the parish together and from all accounts he succeeded.
Fr. Meade’s tenure was followed by that of Fr. Jeffrey N. Steenson who was serving as Curate at nearby All Saints (Wynnewood, PA). It appears from some accounts that Fr. Steenson began dealing again with some of the controversies of the larger church and one account (that of Fr. Moyer) mentions him not permitting diocesan bishops to the parish because of their participation in the episcopal consecration of Barbara Harris. But it does not seem as though he was as confrontational as Fr. Moyer and, in any case, his tenure as rector was rather short by comparsion. Fr. Steenson accepted a call as rector of St. Andrew’s Church in Grand Prarie, Texas, was chosen bishop co-adjutor of the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande and less than a year later rose to Bishop of the same diocese. He resigned at the end of 2007 and was received into the Catholic Church under the special provision for Anglcian priests to continue their ministry in the Roman Church. In February 2012, he became the first head of the Ordinariate in the United States for Anglican congregations wishing to enter the Catholic Church.
The reason for bringing up this earlier period is to point that even among very traditionalist parishes, there can be bitter divisions under the surface level. Just because there is a general theological agreement on many points is no guarantee that everyone will be on the same page when it comes to dramatic changes. There were those in the parish who wanted to fight the apostasy of the Episcopal Church by leaving for some other Anglican group; there were those who wanted to fight the apostasy of the Episcopal Church by going to Rome; there were those who wanted to fight the apostasy of the Episcopal Church by fighting within the Episcopal Church to take it back; and there were also those who didn’t care what happened in the rest of the Episcopal Church so long as it was not happening in our parish. So long as you emphasize fighting the apostasy of the Episcopal Church without dwelling on the final destination, you can give the appearance of a far greater unity than actually exists and marginalize the remainder.
This is why transparency is important when such decisions are being made. So long as everyone is on the same page for the fight but have no idea what is intended afterward, those placed in leadership might think this gives them freedom to dispense of resources as they see fit without informing others of their strategy or intent. Under such circumstances, freedom can quickly devolve into license and divisions ensue when the plans go awry. It does not have to be this way. Other traditionalist parishes have fought the Episcopal Church and, even if they lost, they left the Episcopal Church united and began elsewhere anew. As will be explained in later posts, this scenario was impossible given actions taken during the battles with the diocese and the parish was already divided by the time the end came.
The problem is quite simple: Under extreme circumstances, extreme solutions begin to sound reasonable. Even worse, when the leadership huddles together without communicating with others, a bunker mentality soon ensues that begins to question even the motives of onetime allies. This is exacerbated by alligning with movements that can only be seen as marginal and further by closing down lines of communication both with those who could help and with those whom you are supposed to represent. At this point a bubble forms and you know longer receive any input from outside an increasingly smaller circle. I have some confidence that if some of the moves that took place (and some that may have come to light since the split) had been more widely known, many would have responded with soemthing akin to “Are you nuts?!?” and a semblance of realism, not to mention sanity, might have been restored.
Finally, I might add that there also seemed to be a certainty among some in the leadership that the perceived rightness of their cause assured them of success in their “earthly” solutions. Rather than making a stand on principle and facing the consequences come what may, there was a reliance upon legal and poltical maneuverings with little thought to the outcome being anything but victorious. Frankly, I never thought the battle with the dicocese was a “sure thing” and nothing in subsequent court decisions gave me any further confidence it would go our way. When things didn’t go our way, there seemed to be both shock and panic and the leadership collapsed in on itself even further. All of this will come later but this gives, I hope, some food for thought on what happened.
