From Margaret Thatcher’s last speech in the House of Commons on November 22, 1990:
Margaret Thatcher debunking socialism
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Bishop Jim Njegovan’s son charged with fraud
The Venerable Noah Njegovan, Executive Archdeacon of the Diocese of Brandon, has been charged with fraud for running up over $190,000 in personal expenses on a church credit card.
The spending occurred over a two and a half year period, an average of $76,000 per year in disappearing funds. This surely brings into question the diligence of the diocesan auditors and overall leadership; how can you not notice the evaporation of $76,000 per year?
Here is the article:
A priest — the son of a Brandon bishop — is accused of fraud based on an allegation that more than $190,000 in personal expenses were charged to a church credit card.
The accused appeared in court for the first time on Monday, but Father Shane Bengry said that members of the Anglican Diocese of Brandon had already been notified of the accusations.
“We wanted to be as transparent as possible to our congregations … we tried to keep people abreast of what was going on,” said Bengry, who is chairman of the communication committee for the diocese.
Noah James Bernard Njegovan, 30, is charged with fraud over $5,000.
He made his first appearance in Brandon court on Monday, and his next court date is set for May 9.
Njegovan is the son of Brandon Bishop Jim Njegovan.
Noah Njegovan was executive archdeacon and assistant to his father at the time of the alleged offence.
He worked out of the synod office on the 300-block of 13th Street.
Njegovan, an Anglican Church of Canada priest, has had his licence to officiate suspended pending the outcome of his court case. That means he presently can’t preside over church functions.
The allegations against him haven’t been proven in court.
Court documents allege that the Anglican Diocese of Brandon was defrauded when a business card was used for personal affairs between March 12, 2010, and Sept. 12, 2012.
Bengry said that a precise figure for the alleged fraud has yet to be calculated, but he said it’s clearly more than $190,000. Another estimate puts the total around $198,000.
The money represents funds gathered by diocese members through their parishes to keep the diocese running, Bengry said.
The Anglican Diocese of Brandon stretches along the length of Manitoba, along its western boundary and contains more than 50 congregations.
Losing that money has led the diocese to liquidate some of its assets to allow its work to continue.
“We’re not a wealthy diocese,” Bengry said.
An insurance claim has been filed for a significant portion of the loss, but “nowhere near” the full amount.
Bengry said that financial irregularities came to light during a regular, albeit delayed, audit performed after an employee resigned in August.
The employee left of his own choosing and wasn’t fired, Bengry said. He’d held his dual positions with the diocese for about three years.
It was only later, once the replacement employee completed the audit, that the financial irregularities were found and city police were notified in mid-January.
Noah Njegovan, who currently has a Rosenort address, was arrested in February and then released pending Monday’s court date.
Congregation members were initially notified of the financial irregularities on Dec. 2, Bengry said. A letter was read from the pulpit of each Anglican church within the diocese.
Members were later provided with an update on the investigation which included the dollar estimate for the fraud. They were also told of the charge against Noah Njegovan and that he was to appear in court.
Bengry said that Bishop Njegovan, due to his relationship with the accused, kept himself out of the matter.
Fraud allegations aren’t exclusive to the church, Bengry noted.
“This happens in all sorts of organizations … people do the best they can and yet people do fail for a variety of reasons,” he said.
However, in light of the allegations, the diocese has put new financial rules in place to prevent fraud.
For example, in this particular case it’s alleged that online transfers allowed the fraud to continue undetected.
Bengry said there are now strategies in place to better follow such transfers and allow the diocese executive to approve expenses.
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Another clergy-person bites the dust in the Diocese of New Westminster
The Rev. Gertrude (Trudy) Lebans has quit her position as rector of the Parish of St Laurence, Coquitlam; she is retiring. Rev. Trudy climbed the ecclesiastical ladder (or, depending on one’s perspective, slid down the episcopal snake) from the second most liberal diocese in Canada – Niagara – to the most liberal diocese – New Westminster – about eight years ago.
As is only right and proper for a model of liberalism, the Parish of St Laurence has a colourful Integrity logo, a quote from Solomon Ibn Gabirol (although the name is misspelt) and a promise of justice, peace and positive social change.
Rev. Trudy believes that the Resurrection, rather than being anything as crass as an event, let alone historical or, perish the thought, physical, is really a process, an unfolding, a wafting as we ride the wings of the spirit.
Another clarifying point for us is that resurrection is not an event so much as a process, an unfolding experience in which we become more secure riding the wings of the spirit…… Happy Resurrection!
After the struggle, after the doubts and fear that things will never be all right, comes the promise. And we will hear the music and we will feel the wind on our cheeks and one more time we will rise in freedom and joy.
I wish Rev. Trudy all the best on her escape from both the Diocese of Niagara and New Westminster: no wonder she hears music and feels wind on her cheeks.
Incidentally, there is nothing that trivialises an event of cosmic significance quite so effectively as preceding it with “Happy”. Even though they prove my point, I have accommodated to “Happy Easter” and “Happy Christmas; but never, “Happy Resurrection”. “Happy Armageddon” has a pleasant ring to it, though.
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R.I.P. Margaret Thatcher
I left the UK in the dark days of Harold Wilson’s tenure as Prime Minister: the era when the country was run – more accurately ruined – by trade unions. During my early years in Canada, it was with considerable relish that I followed Thatcher’s battle with the thuggish UK unions.
As Mark Steyn notes:
That’s to say, she understood that the biggest threat to any viable future for Britain was a unionized public sector that had awarded itself a lifestyle it wasn’t willing to earn. So she picked a fight with it, and made sure she won. In the pre-Thatcher era, union leaders were household names, mainly because they were responsible for everything your household lacked. Britain’s system of government was summed up in the unlovely phrase “beer and sandwiches at Number Ten” — which meant union grandees showing up at Downing Street to discuss what it would take to persuade them not to go on strike, and being plied with the aforementioned refreshments by a prime minister reduced to the proprietor of a seedy pub, with the Cabinet as his barmaids.
Living through the Harold Wilson years provided me more than sufficient empirical evidence that Socialism doesn’t work. It is a lazy form of Communism, lacking Communism’s demonic fervour but immersed in the same blinkered utopianism: Communism for dilettantes. Ironically, in Canada, socialism is now the official religion of the Anglican Church; it is enthusiastically embraced by witless Anglican clergy willing to try anything to avoid the embarrassment of reciting Creeds in which they no longer believe.
As expected, the left, ever caring, tolerant and inclusive, is indulging in an orgy of rejoicing:
MP George Galloway led the way with a crass tweet…. ‘Tramp the dirt down.’…… ‘May she burn in the hellfires.’….
Colchester Labour councillor Tina Bourne posted a photo of a bottle of Bollinger on Twitter with the accompanying message: ‘Chin chin everyone.’…..
A Facebook campaign has been launched to take Judy Garland song ‘Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead’ to number one following Margaret Thatcher’s death.
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Desmond Tutu given $1.6m for being spiritual
More exactly, he was awarded the Templeton Prize for “affirming life’s spiritual dimension”.
Last year the Dalai Lama won it. Someone should tell Richard Dawkins that there is big money to be made in “affirming life’s spiritual dimension”.
From here:
Archbishop Desmond Tutu has won the £1.1m ($1.6m) Templeton Prize for “affirming life’s spiritual dimension”.
Organisers said he was awarded the 2013 prize for his lifelong work advancing spiritual principles such as love and forgiveness that have helped to liberate people around the world.
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Anglican-Lutheran Joint Assembly to meet in Ottawa
The Anglican Church of Canada and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada are now holding joint synods; not unlike a conjoining of the RMS Titanic and MV Doña Paz.
Predictably, the conflab will eschew transcendent trivialities like the saving of souls in favour of “affordable housing and responsible resource extraction”.
From here:
April 04, 2013 – More than 800 Anglicans, Lutherans, and partners will gather at the Ottawa Convention Centre July 3 to 7, 2013, for a historic joint national meeting.
Inspired by the theme “Together for the love of the world,” members of the Anglican Church of Canada and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada will gather for worship and decision-making on areas of shared work, including mission and development.
Several key events will highlight the churches’ commitment to God’s mission in the world. Anglicans and Lutherans will be invited to make statements on two priority social justice issues: affordable housing and responsible resource extraction. On July 6, Anglican and Lutheran youth from Ottawa are to lead people at the assembly to Parliament Hill where they will participate in an act of public witness and worship.
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Bishop Michael Ingham announces his retirement
Read it all here:
Bishop Michael Ingham announced today he will be retiring from his position on August 31st, 2013.
“The Diocese of New Westminster has been at the forefront of positive change in the Church for decades” he said. “From the ordination of women, to support for indigenous peoples, to the dignity of gay and lesbian Christians, to inter-faith dialogue – it has been a privilege to serve a Diocese living and growing at some of the leading edges of the Anglican Church of Canada.”
The “positive change in the Church” remark is something of a mystery. Michael Ingham, by being the first Anglican bishop to authorise same-sex blessings, was instrumental in the rupturing of the Anglican Communion, a change about as positive as a magnitude 7 earthquake.
In his letter of resignation, he notes:
In my almost twenty years in episcopal orders I – together with many others in this Diocese – have borne witness in the Anglican Church of Canada to important principles central to the Christian Gospel. Our witness of faith frequently encountered strong religious opposition. Strangely, the secular world has been more supportive.
To congratulate oneself on actions which were opposed by the majority of Anglicans and applauded by most secularists seems an odd boast for a retiring Anglican bishop; isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?
To affirm his standing in Vanity Fair, Michael Ingham has been awarded an honorary degree:
Michael Ingham, Bishop of the Diocese of New Westminster, is the first Bishop in the worldwide Anglican Communion to authorize the blessing of same-sex unions. The degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, will be conferred on The Right Reverend Ingham on Friday, June 14 at the 2:30 pm ceremony.
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Justin Welby thinks the church must disagree gracefully
From here:
The Church of England must show it can manage disagreement “gracefully” over issues such as women bishops and gay marriage, the Archbishop of Canterbury has warned.
The Most Reverend Justin Welby said the Church faced a “challenge” to show the rest of society that its members can hold different views but still remain “gracefully and deeply committed to each other”.
“We need to understand reconciliation within the Church as the transformation of destructive conflict, not unanimity,” he said.
“It doesn’t mean we all agree, it is that we find ways of disagreeing, perhaps very passionately but loving each other deeply at the same time, gracefully and deeply committed to each other.
That is all very well for those who are adherents of the same faith and, thus, members of the same church. It is not the case for the division created by liberals who reinterpret the Bible to question the physical resurrection of Jesus, his virgin birth, his atoning sacrifice on the cross and, of course, the accommodation of homosexual activity as something that can be blessed by the church.
Such liberals have established a new – or reanimated an old pagan – religion, one which they call “Christian” to deceive the unwary, but which, with its eco-babble, pre-eschatological utopia aspirations and sexual obsessions, has more in common with the Marxist-Leninist branch of a fertility cult than it does with orthodox Christianity.
With such, there is no disagreeing “gracefully.”
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A ray of hope for the Church of England
Most people think it is out of touch with society. There is nothing that drives people out of a church quite as effectively as a striving to be in touch with society.
From here:
More than two-thirds (69%) of the population believe that the Church of England is out of touch with society and half (54%) believe that it does a bad job of providing moral leadership. Almost half disagree with its stance on same-sex marriage.
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I feel a rare moment of sympathy for atheist bloggers
In Bangladesh, at least, where fanatical Islamists are demanding the arrest of atheist bloggers.
A belief system that can sustain itself only by forcibly silencing all opposition is necessarily false. Islamists are not the first to try this, of course, nor will they be the last; it’s just as well that, in the long run, it never works.
From here:
Tens of thousands of Islamic activists prayed on the streets of the Bangladeshi capital today during a rally calling for the introduction of blaspemy laws and the restoration of a caretaker government.
Members of the Islami Andolan Bangladesh are demanding the arrest of ‘atheist bloggers who insulted Islam’ and to pass laws punishing those who ‘insulted Islam in the parliament’.
They have announced plans to ‘lay siege’ to the office of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on April 25 if their demands are not met.
