Category Archives: Diocese of Niagara

The Diocese of Niagara will keep asking me for money

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Obviously the previous fundraising effort cunningly disguised as a $400,000 lawsuit was not enough. I just received this email from the Diocese of Niagara:

THANKS! and….. please help if you can!‏

A couple of days ago when we asked to “send a kid to camp” we had a wonderful reponse.  Not only did people register children, but we were offered money to help children who needed financial assistance. There are many generous people in the Anglican community and we are very thankful.  There is still room in the camp if you have a child or know of a child who wants to go to this terrific camp…….

We need $1175.00.  We’re hoping that one or more persons can help us with this.  If you can help fund these children in any way, please either contact Canterbury Hills or if you prefer, the Diocesan Treasurer – Jody Beck.  In advance thank you so much for your generosity!

How should I respond to such a heartfelt plea?

Dear  Diocese,

I would love to “send a kid to camp”. Unfortunately, due to circumstances created by someone you know quite well, all my spare cash – and much that isn’t spare – is finding its way into the hands of lawyers.

Jody Beck, if you happen to see this, could you spare a few hundred thousand? In advance thank you so much for your generosity!

Diocese of Niagara allows entropy to have its way with St. Hilda’s

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When St. Hilda’s congregation left the Diocese of Niagara in 2008, bishops Spence and Bird sent the congregation a letter saying, among other things: “be assured that we are prepared to keep the doors of this beautiful church open and will offer every support and pastoral care to those who choose to stay.”

Five years later, not only are the doors not open, but the church has been barricaded with concrete blocks large enough to serve as tank traps.

Yesterday morning after a friend passed the building, she phoned me to let me know that there were three police cars in the driveway along with another car containing someone bearing a strong resemblance to Dean Peter Wall. I suspect that either someone had broken in and was squatting – in which case the diocese would have nothing to complain of since it is so keen on Occupy – or there had been an act of vandalism.

The back door does have some new decoration:

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I can’t decide whether the symbol represents something satanic or is a new diocesan emblem.

In other parts of the property weeds have taken over what used to be attractive gardens:

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It’s just as well the church sign is still announcing who is responsible for the empty, disintegrating, graffiti besmirched shell:

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Here are the inviting concrete blocks in all their inclusive splendour:

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Diocese of Niagara: the significance of the Cross according to the Koran

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One can always count on the Niagara Anglican’s Michael Burslem for a spot of bracing balderdash.

This month he informs us that God is not “appeased” by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, that the atonement for the sins of mankind was really quite unnecessary.

Because God just wants a mush of mercy, love and, you guessed it, equality. Because the Koran says so. So does John Lennon.

From here (page 6):

However, God didn’t need appeasement. God allowed the religious sacrificial system, but really wanted them to be merciful, love justice and to walk humbly with God.

[….]

The cross is not an appeasement, but an example of how we all should live. It’s tremendously costly, but God is, as the Koran says, the Lord, the Beneficent, the Merciful. God loves all humanity equally. We need to respond to that love by treating each other as God would treat us, with mercy, justice and humility.

That God loves us, not that we’ll go to heaven when we die, is the Good News we all desperately desire and long for. We need to listen to it, and to proclaim it

I nearly forgot: heaven is irrelevant because God still loves us when we are six feet under being eaten by worms.

I have to admire the Diocese of Niagara’s chutzpah

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A short while after I was served with a statement of claim demanding $400,000 for damaging the bishop’s reputation, I received a letter from him inviting me to contribute to his diocesan fundraiser. It begins with a nice photo of the bishop:

Begging Letter

On the assumption that I will no longer be able to afford my own stamp, it even comes with a pre-paid envelope.

Diocese of Niagara: gospels not historical

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It would appear that for the last 2000 years the gospels have suffered from the misunderstanding that they actually happened. Now at last, thanks to Spong, Borg et al – and a diocesan vision of distributive justice – the truth has come to light: Jesus’ teachings are mystical proclamations of faith completely uncontaminated by historical reality.

From the Niagara Anglican (page 11):

Jesus and his teachings have finally come back to light after being buried under layers of misinterpretation of the gospels as historical fact, rather than as “proclamations of faith” as their Jewish writers intended.

The transformation of Lent

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This is what Lent used to be:

The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer—through prayer, penance, repentance, almsgiving, and self-denial. Its institutional purpose is heightened in the annual commemoration of Holy Week, marking the death and resurrection of Jesus, which recalls the events of the Passion of Christ on Good Friday, which then culminates in the celebration on Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

During Lent, many of the faithful commit to fasting or giving up certain types of luxuries as a form of penitence.

Now, it can be anything from a windmill tilting extravaganza of combating anthropogenic global warming to the Diocese of Niagara’s invitation to have another shot at building a collectivist utopia :

Diocese of Niagara - Lent–

Diocese of Niagara: 2013 budgetary woes

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bird-speakIn September 2012 there was some fanfare when St. Luke’s Palermo broke ground for a new church-community centre amalgam.  The mayor and Halton regional chairman were there, along with various and sundry clergy; the bishop spoke and the project’s financial partner, the CEO of Diversicare, pronounced his secular blessing on the enterprise. The plan was:

to build a retirement residence (in partnership with FRAM/Diversicare) on land to the west of the church.

Alas, it seems that the financial arrangements with Diversicare have fallen through, leaving the diocese to foot the bill.

St. Luke’s, Palermo support – there are a lot of numbers that pertain to Palermo. The joint proposal with Versa Care [I am relatively certain that this should say Diversicare] is no longer financially viable, St. Luke’s will continue with the project without partnership and the Diocese is assisting financially to complete the Parish Centre.

A few other budgetary highlights:

There has been a 60% reduction in staff at the Synod Office since Bishop Bird was elected….

If some churches don’t have the money to pay the DM&M then how can the Diocese spend when they won’t be getting all they budget for?

If incomes increase so will the DM&M and how can we manage this with an aging congregation and declining attendance?

Parishes are delving into line of credits and investments, it’s a cascading affect that maybe we can’t afford to do

And my favourite – mainly because it is prime Anglican bafflegab:

We need to balance scarcity with abundance.

The Diocese of Niagara has an altar dedicated to HIV/AIDS

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Apparently there are only two such altars in Canada, one in Montreal “in the heart of the gay village” and the other in Hamilton. While I don’t think Hamilton’s residents regard their home as a “gay village”, Christ’s Church Cathedral is undoubtedly a gay cathedral in the heart of a gay diocese – and proud to be so. An interesting inference in this article is the tacit acknowledgement that HIV/AIDS is predominantly a gay disease, in spite of decades of liberal propaganda to convince us that it isn’t.

When will the lady priests get their own altar dedicated to vaginas?

From here (page 2):

It is noteworthy that this Cathedral continues to bear witness to the hundreds of lives lost from AIDS in this community. Its special altar dedicated to HIV/AIDS is, to my knowledge, one of only two that exist in Canada. The other, called the Chapel of Hope, is at the Catholic Church of St. Pierre L’Apotre Montreal in the heart of the gay village.

Within North America, there are two more Chapels in San Francisco and New York, and both are housed within Anglican churches. Think of it, New York, San Francisco, Montreal and Hamilton.

Praising Krishna in the Diocese of Niagara

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“My Sweet Lord” by George Harrison was –

written in praise of the Hindu god Krishna, while at the same time serving as a call to abandon religious sectarianism, through its deliberate blending of Christian “hallelujah”s with chants of “Hare Krishna” and Vedic prayer.

Here is St. Simon’s Anglican Church Oakville, a Diocese of Niagara parish, in the throes of Krishna adoration one Sunday morning:

Professor of church history says ANiC really is Anglican

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Something that sticks in the craw of the Anglican Church of Canada’s leadership is what the “A” stands for in “ANiC”. Thus, a group of Diocese of Niagara clergy complained when a local paper, the Burlington Post, referred to a new ANiC church building as “Anglican”.

Canon Alan Hayes, a professor of church history at Wycliffe, has defended ANiC’s claim to be Anglican in the Diocese of Niagara’s paper.

I had a chat over coffee with Alan Hayes a few years back; he was an affable fellow who lamented the diminishment of diversity within the ACoC after the departure of the ANiC parishes. While I’m keen to be able to call the church I belong to Christian, I’m not too concerned about whether it is generally recognised as being Anglican or not. Nevertheless, since it causes the opposition such consternation, I will continue to insist that it is, in fact, Anglican.

I don’t think he was fired for consorting with the enemy.

From here (page3):

I’m still digesting the letter you reprinted from some senior Burlington clergy to the Burlington Post differentiating ACC Anglicans from ANC Anglicans.

I hope that this doesn’t start a pattern where ELCIC Lutherans will write in to distinguish themselves from Missouri Synod Lutherans, PAOC Pentecostals from Four-Square Pentecostals, BCOQ Baptists from Fellowship Baptists, CCC Congregationalists from unaffiliated Congregationalists, Free Methodists from Wesleyan Methodists, Roman Catholics from Old Catholics, MCC Mennonites from Old Order Mennonites, OCA Orthodox from ethnic Orthodox, PCC Presbyterians from RPCNA Presbyterians, CRC Reformed from RCA Reformed —the permutations are almost endless.

Come on, Burlington Post! Pay attention to our schisms! Can it have escaped you how important they are?

But, wait. Is it such good strategy for Christians to stomp into the public forum shouting at the top of their lungs, “WE’RE not the same as THEM!”? Have we thought what this sounds like to the world?

Or, more scripturally, can we find spiritual health in rushing to draw lines of separation between ourselves and “the other”? Jesus used the parable of the righteous pharisee to answer that one, and Paul taught that we’re all one in Christ Jesus.

They say that one reason the early Church grew so explosively was that outsiders looked in with awe and said, “See how the Christians love each other!” Now we’re prompting the public to declare, “See how the Christians really, really don’t get along!”

How’s that working for us?

Canon Alan L. Hayes, Oakville