Category Archives: Diocese of Niagara

The Diocese of Niagara’s cathedral is running out of money

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There is a passage in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited where Charles is short of money and appeals to his father. This is his father’s reply:

“Well, I’m the worst person to come to for advice. I’ve never been ‘short’ as you so painfully call it. And yet what else could you say? Hard up? Penurious? Distressed? Embarrassed? Stony-broke?” (Snuffle.) “On the rocks? In Queer Street? Let us say you are in Queer Street and leave it at that.”

Let’s just say that the Diocese of Niagara is in Queer Street and leave it at that.

Except Peter Wall, the cathedral rector, has a vested interest in keeping the place and his job running a little longer.

It isn’t often I find myself in agreement with Wall, but one thing he said in the article below rings true: “God is not inside that building”. No indeed, he was driven out decades ago.

Wall’s solution to the steady exodus of Christians from the diocese is more innovation, in spite of the fact that innovation – a euphemism for excursions into radical heresy – is what drove the faithful out of the diocese in the first place.

Perhaps this is the real reason Bishop Michael Bird has quit. He wants to leave before all the money is gone.

In Hamilton, the Anglican Church is especially eager to capitalize on capitalist culture. It recently invested in a major renovation at Church of the Ascension, relocating the kitchen, offices and hall to the church proper, so it could sever or lease the rest of the 160-year-old Forest Avenue building. Ten blocks away, at Christ’s Church Cathedral on James North, plans for a new development are also under way.

“We can’t afford to maintain this place forever on the amount of money it’s costing us,” says the Very Rev. Peter Wall, the cathedral rector and dean of the Anglican Diocese of Niagara. “The only way we can do that is to do something that contributes to the sustainability of this place and allows us to have a greater impact on the community.”

Very Rev. Peter Wall, Cathedral Rector, Christ’s Church Cathedral

Since Wall arrived at the Cathedral in 1998, the number of Anglicans in the Hamilton area has declined more than 23 per cent. His church alone has lost about 50 families in the past 30 years.

Though Wall is mum on the details of the development, he says he’s committed to maintaining the integrity of the mid-19th century gothic cathedral — a soaring stone structure with heritage designation inside and out. Still, the church must innovate if it wants to survive.

“God is not inside that building,” he says. “We don’t have to tiptoe in and say, ‘where is he?’ and look under all the pews.

“That’s bad religion, that’s hocus-pocus, that’s nonsense. And that’s what killed the church.”

Candidates jostling for the bishop’s job in the Diocese of Niagara

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Since Michael Bird will resign in June this year, the diocese has to choose a new bishop.

The candidates are:

David Anderson
Susan Bell
David Burrows
Robert Fead
Robert Hurkmans
Stuart Pike
Martha Tatarnic

Are they all theologically liberal, you might be wondering?
Are there any Christians hiding amongst them?
Far be it from me to pass judgement but here are their answers to the question:

What is your view with regards to equal marriage and will you, as Niagara’s bishop, continue to authorize the current permissive pastoral practice in the lead up to General Synod 2019?

To save you time, their answers to the question of whether they will marry same-sex couples are:

David Anderson:    Yes
Susan Bell:               Yes
David Burrows:      Yes
Robert Fead:           Yes
Robert Hurkmans: Yes
Stuart Pike:              Yes
Martha Tatarnic:    Yes

If you had any doubts about the diocese’s dedication to diversity and inclusion, the conformity of these answers should settle them.

Interestingly, when St. Hilda’s congregation was ejected from its building and the diocese installed a Potemkin congregation to demonstrate to the courts how much it needed the place, Martha Tatarnic was the “priest in charge” – of the phony congregation; once firmly in diocesan clutches, the building was sold and demolished. Valuable experience for the new bishop’s job.

Diocese of Niagara performs another missional deconsecration

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Niagara This Week reports, in what appears to be an accidental confluence of stories, that Violet the cat, found frozen and comatose is on the road to recovery and the Diocese of Niagara’s St. George’s Church has also been found frozen and comatose but, unlike Violet, is beyond hope and has been put out of its misery. Or words to that effect.

St. George’s, which has 225 years of history behind it, has been deemed unsustainable by diocesan viability enforcers and has been deconsecrated. Bishop Michael Bird was on hand to point out to the “aging membership” that the occasion, although “sombre”, was also a cause for “celebration” because the church, although now as dead as a doornail, had had a long innings. I expect that was a great comfort.

From here:

NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE — With heavy hearts but cherished memories, the congregation that worshipped at a church in former village of Homer came together for the final time on Sunday.

St. George’s Anglican Church, which has a history dating back more than 225 years, held its final service. As with so many other small congregations, a dwindling and aging membership forced what for many was a painful decision to disestablish and return the deconsecrated church building to common usage.

The service was presided over by Diocese of Niagara Bishop Michael Bird, who acknowledged the sombre mood in the room but said this was also a time to celebrate a congregation with a long life. He implored everyone to think of how long it has been a home, a sanctuary and a place to come to know God, a place that has served as a backdrop to countless baptisms and weddings.

“Just imagine all the prayers that have been offered here, both spoken and silent,” he said.

Rev. Dorothy Hewlett, who also serves at Christ Church at Lakeshore and McNab roads, said the decision to close was a long time coming and was the right one to make.

Diocese of Niagara: where are the bodies buried?

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Under the cathedral parking lot, apparently.

They were buried in the 19th century and have lain there unmolested ever since. The diocese plans to dig them up to rescue them, as Dean Peter Wall put it, from “asphalt hell.” It has nothing to do with the revenue the diocese will collect from the multimillion dollar condos planned for the land. Nothing at all.

From here:

Nineteenth century records stored in a McMaster University library may bring the Niagara Anglican diocese much closer to identify the remains of hundreds of people buried under Hamilton’s Christ’s Church Cathedral parking lot.

“The church has actually kept very, very detailed records of who was interred in the cemetery like that,” said Myron Groover, a librarian of archives and rare books at McMaster. “And those records all still exist, and in fact, are preserved in multiple copies.”

The bodies, Groover says, were buried from 1832 to 1853. And if the diocese gets its way, the remains be exhumed and identified — all in order to make way for a multi-million dollar condo project.

On Wednesday, the Very Rev. Peter Wall told city councillors the Niagara Anglican diocese would like to identify and remove the bodies, now buried in “asphalt hell,” beneath the parking lot of the James Street North church.

Diocese of Niagara surviving by selling land to developers

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About 35 years ago, someone discovered that the foundations of the Diocese of Niagara’s Christ Church Cathedral were crumbling. Now, of course, the Christian foundation of the entire diocese has crumbled, leaving the building standing in apparent defiance of the spiritual ruin in which it finds itself.

The reason the physical building has survived is, in part, thanks to a friend of mine, now deceased, who owned a construction company which specialised in pumping a certain type of grout into rickety structures to reinforce them. The company was called Groundation; my friend had a particular liking for the hymn “How Firm a Foundation” and was always tickled when we sang it.

The diocese contracted Groundation to fix the cathedral’s foundations. Many years later, after the diocese sued St. Hilda’s, our building was demolished and the cathedral was still standing, I used to joke with my friend that he had done too good a job.

The church, like the rest of life, is replete with irony. Thirty years after propping up the tottering cathedral, the Diocese of Niagara has realised that, like many other Anglican dioceses, it no longer has the money to maintain its buildings. It is selling cathedral land, piecemeal, to raise cash: the rear parking lot will be the first to go.

From here:

Christ’s Church Cathedral on James Street North wants to partner with a developer on a multimillion-dollar plan for residential, community and commercial space in its back parking lot.

Aside from the cathedral and All Saints, the Anglican diocese is exploring partnerships with developers in Niagara, Guelph and Halton, says Rev. Bill Mous, a director with the diocese.

If you don’t believe in the Resurrection, you are not a Christian

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So says Rev Dr Gavin Ashenden; and he is right:

A former chaplain to the Queen has said that the quarter of Christians who say they do not believe in the Resurrection “cannot be Christians”.

The Rev Dr Gavin Ashenden said in a letter to the Times that a survey which found that one in four self-proclaimed Christians do not believe in Jesus’s Resurrection “made the mistake of confusing British culture with Christianity”.

He said: “Those people who neither believe in the Resurrection nor go anywhere near a church cannot be ‘Christians’.

“As with so many things, the key is in the definition of terms. Discovering the evidence for the Resurrection having taken place to be wholly compelling is one of the things that makes you a Christian; ergo, if you haven’t, you are not.”

Of course, sophisticated clergy in the West would usually not be so crass as to straightforwardly deny the Resurrection. Instead, they cast doubt on the meaning of the word.

Here is a master of the technique, Rev Peter Wall, Dean of the Diocese of Niagara, putting his seminary training into practice in 2009. First he applies it to the Virgin Birth:

And then the Resurrection:

So Peter Wall doesn’t know what the Virgin Birth means and doesn’t know what the Resurrection is, but after “struggling”, against all reason claims he believes both.

Diocese of Niagara parish offers Islamic prayer to Allah

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In the wake of the Quebec mosque shooting, St. Simon’s in Oakville decided to support Muslims by praying to Allah during its monthly labyrinth walk. The labyrinth walk is normally reserved for trendy events like Gaia inspired eco-worship, so this is a new exploration of the boundaries of voguish virtue-signalling, a further lurch into fatuity.

The sad thing is, I remember the time, a few decades ago, when St. Simon’s was orthodox and evangelical.

From here:

When we all heard of a shooting at the Quebec Islamic Cultural Centre in Quebec City during evening prayers in late January, faith communities across Canada were shocked. At St. Simon’s Oakville, Rector Darcey Lazerte tried to comfort his parish community with a sermon focusing on understanding and taking action to support the Muslim congregations. It only seemed fit to dedicate our monthly labyrinth walk to peace in support of the Muslim community.

An invitation to Al Falah Islamic Centre was quickly offered, and through Dr. Majid Kazi’s effort, eight members of the mosque joined our walk. Together with five members of the parish, two people from Greening Sacred Spaces Halton and several regular walkers, our February labyrinth walk became a spiritual support group. As part of the meditations, we used a Muslim prayer for peace by Muhammad al-Jazri. It was completed during the siege of Damascus, December 1389. (See sidebar.)The debriefing at the end of the walk was a testament to the strength of the Muslim brothers and sisters in their pursuit of peace and greater understanding of the foundation of their faith.

We are hopeful that this new fellowship will lead to other shared opportunities.

This was the prayer:

O Allah, unite our hearts and set aright our mutual affairs, guide us in the path of peace.
Liberate us from darkness by Your light, save us from enormities whether open or hidden.
Bless us in our ears, eyes, hearts, spouses, and children.
Turn to us; truly you are Oft-Returning,  Most Merciful.
Make us grateful for Your bounty and full of praise for it, so that we may continue to receive it and complete Your blessings upon us.

I’m not sure what “enormities” the congregation of St. Simon’s need to be liberated from, but perhaps one is the enormous folly of reciting an Islamic prayer in a Christian church.

Anglicans against anti-sodomy laws

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The latest from the Diocese of Niagara:

Anglicans for Decriminalization (AfD) is a group of Anglicans from across the Global Anglican Communion (GAC) which supports the decriminalization of private, consensual, adult samegender intimacy.

AfD was formed after the Primates of the GAC issued the first-ever unequivocal call for decriminalization on January 15, 2016. However, this revolutionary message was overshadowed by other events in the Communion, such as debates about same-gender marriages and the ordination of gay clergy/bishops.

Members of AfD, therefore, hope to first remind our more than 80 million GAC members that the lives of same-gender loving people across the world continue to be destroyed by British colonially imposed antisodomy laws, which initially reflected the teachings of the Church of England. Armed with this information we expect that right-thinking Anglicans will petition governments to repeal these laws.

Here is the stalwart bunch who are enthusiastically pursuing their vocation to smite anti-sodomy laws wherever they find them. In all fairness to them, I suppose it is pretty tricky to fulfil the great commission, to spread the Gospel message to every corner of the world, to make disciples of all nations without concentrating on anal sex just a little.

Diocese of Niagara deconsecrates another church

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This time it is the turn of St. James in Merritton, St Catharines.

From here:

“This church building has been a home, a refuge and a place filled with great joy in the midst of countless celebrations,” said Bishop Michael Bird during the final service at St. James Merritton (St Catharines). “It has also been for us a sanctuary in the face of so many difficult and painful moments and tragedies.”

The building was deconsecrated—returned to common use—at a special afternoon service on Sunday, January 22.

Ironically, it was nine years ago today that diocesan officials marched into St. Hilda’s, and shortly after into Good Shepherd in St. Catharines, to demand the building keys because they wanted to use the churches to continue diocesan services after their congregations had voted to join the Southern Cone and later ANiC.

When the buildings were finally in the hands of the Diocese of Niagara, Bishop Michael Bird noted:

”I am very pleased with this outcome,” said Bishop Michael Bird.  “It affirms that these churches belong to all the generations that built them up and not just a particular group of individuals.”

Of the churches that “belong to all the generations that built them up”, Good Shepherd in St. Catharine’s now stands empty, cold and desolate and St. Hilda’s, in 2013, was torn down:

In 2017, the lot still stands empty:

As a fitting finale to the comedic irony, the Diocese of Niagara, having also acquired St. Hilda’s rectory, sold it to Daniel Freedman, owner of, so I am told, the largest sex toy company in Canada, PinkCherry Sex Toys. You may not want to click on that link.

A new era of Christianity dawns in the Diocese of Niagara

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The diocesan rag (page 6) lays before the Niagara faithful the path of progress and enlightenment.

Original sin is out, as is propitiatory sacrifice and substitutionary atonement – what is there to atone for, after all? Gone is the Fall, the uniqueness of Christ and, it seems, theism itself. What is left, you might be wondering – evolution.

Change, of course, is difficult so for those feeling a little queasy about tossing out every major tenet of our belief system, the authors of this recipe for interfaith advancement, Rev Wayne Fraser and ACoC Partnership in Mission Officer, Dr Eleanor Johnson, offer the comfort of Missa Gaia. If that doesn’t do it for you, try listening to John Lennon’s Imagine: its emetic properties will induce the inevitable and help quell the waves of theological nausea.

The concept of Original Sin is the key to obsolete beliefs including propitiatory sacrifice and substitutionary atonement.

Likewise, to blame afflicted people for their personal torments is presumptuous in the extreme. God did not create us evil and prone to diseases as punishment for our fallen state.

Humanity is not fallen. Original Sin is not a concept even mentioned in the Bible. Original Blessing, its opposite, is, yet we allow ourselves to be “guilted” about Jesus dying for our sins. Instead, we see the Bible’s claim that God created the human race, all other species, our habitats and “saw that they were very good.”

The God we worship and serve is not an old man living above the clouds. We can call ourselves “a-theists,” people who do not worship a human-like, a human-made God. Many who have left church have done so because of the traditional image of God. Non-theism for most of us still attending church is uncharted territory, a new theological creation. Who or what do we worship?

We must start with a humble reading of the New Testament, with the brilliant hope, peace, joy and love put before us by Jesus. We experience God as an evolving Ground of Being, and the key word is evolution. Here’s where the most radical concept comes in: God is Love, is giving and receiving. God plunges into the breakdown of humanity’s connection to creation as Love in our loving.

We seek the wisdom and faith to explore our human understandings of God, for kindred spirits of other world religions and for this fragile earth, our island home. We see the destruction of the ecosystems and the mass extinctions of fellow creatures as crimes against God and all creation. We believe in caring for all species of creatures and their habitats. We welcome interfaith peace and inclusive justice for all.

A new era of Christianity is here and now but many are afraid to acknowledge it. It is here in our ecumenical and interfaith worship. We must give up our fantasy that Christianity is superior to other religions.

People of all faiths have in common an evolving experience of the Divine. True worship does not care a whit for the forms of our rituals. God gives no one the right to be militant. Jesus commands us to love God, our neighbours and ourselves. Change is difficult, in anything we do. It seems especially challenging in matters of faith.

We must, however, change or atrophy. Instead of condoning all the fears, threats and guilt induced in the past, let us rejoice in the complexity, beauty and mystery of all creation. All people come from God, we are imitators of Emmanuel and we are co-workers with the Holy Spirit.

For the beauty of the Earth,
sing oh sing today.
Of the sky and of our birth,
sing oh sing today.
Nature human and divine,
all around us lies.
Lord of all, to thee we raise
grateful hymns of praise.

—Paul Winter, Missa Gaia