Tag Archives: Bishop Michael Bird

Kathleen Wynne guest speaker at synod

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Ontario’s premier, Kathleen Wynne was a guest speaker at the Ecclesiastical Province of Ontario’s recent synod.

Other than the fact that the Anglican Church of Canada has reimagined itself into a political lobbying organisation – albeit an impotent and penniless specimen – I’m not sure why she was there. Perhaps it was to garner advice from the real experts on how further to spice up her controversial sex education propaganda.

She claimed to have a good time:

Bishop Michael Bird chatted with her about poverty. It’s understandable: the ACoC has fallen on hard times of late:

Bishop Michael Bird spent over $1 million suing ANiC parishes

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I had not seen the cost to the Diocese of Niagara of its litigation until this article about Bird appeared in the Anglican Journal. I imagine the diocese views it as money well spent since the sale and demolishing of St. Hilda’s church and rectory alone netted them $2.6 million; and who cares about 1 Corinthians 6:1 when what really counts is at stake?

“Just prior to my becoming bishop, three parishes voted to walk away from the diocese of Niagara,” Bird said in an interview with the Anglican Journal. “There was a subsequent fourth one some months after…that.” What he needed to do, he said, was to draw “a good group of people around the episcopal office.”

Protracted and sometimes rancorous legal battles over the ownership of properties followed. The costs of these battles—which Bird said ran upwards of $1 million—were compounded by the recession of 2008, which drove the diocese into serious financial difficulties.

Diocese of Niagara developing 8 story condo building in cathedral parking lot

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The synod of the Diocese of Niagara has granted approval for the development which, in spite of bearing a passing resemblance to soviet era flats, will by no means be low cost housing. Here is a conceptual rendering:

270Hughson-1170x658

The plans are here with more details on the buildings here.

Ironically, at the same time the diocese is ploughing millions of dollars into its headquarters, the diocesan image is looking a trifle tattered in Guelph, where residents are planning a demonstration over the sale of St. Matthias for – you guessed it, millions of dollars.

GUELPH — Two community groups are planning a peaceful rally outside St. George’s Anglican Church Sunday to request a meeting with Bishop Michael Bird of the Anglican Diocese of Niagara about the tentative sale of St. Matthias Church property to HIP Developments.

Linda Davis, of the McElderry Community and Friends Group, said the group has made “repeated requests” to speak with Bird about the sale of the property, where HIP intends to build a six-storey, 81-unit student-geared residence called Solstice 3.

[…..]

Davis said she believes it comes down to money for the diocese.

“They’ve tied their futures to that plan and they’re not willing to deviate from it regardless of what we say,” she said.

The bishop has defended the sale on the basis that:

our Diocese is in the business of nurturing and building spiritual communities in the Anglican tradition, not in the business of urban planning.

The cathedral development looks suspiciously like urban planning to me.

Selling cathedral land to developers to build apartments appears to be a trend. Here is the Diocese of Ottawa’s cathedral and diocesan offices sandwiching a large apartment block; the dwarfed cathedral is just visible. It seems to be a fitting metaphor for western Anglicanism: the church used to be surrounded by the secular, now the secular has been invited to dwell and flourish within the church:

Bishop Michael Bird defends the sale of St. Matthias, Guelph

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St. Matthias Anglican Church in Guelph has been sold by the Diocese of Niagara for $2 million to a property developer who intends to build a six story apartment building on the lot. Residents in the surrounding area are less than happy about this and are protesting the sale. The local paper recently published an editorial implying that the Diocese of Niagara is behaving more like a corporation – in an “unflattering sense of the word” – than a church. Developers are expected to be motivated by profit, churches are not:

In the story of what’s next to come to a former church property in south end Guelph, a development firm has frequently been framed as a villain in the narrative.

Whenever that happens, it’s a convenience for the current owner-vendor of the property.

That’s the Anglican Diocese of Niagara.

It’s the stakeholder in this chronicle that decided to put the former St. Matthias Church lands up for sale – and to choose the big-bidding developer, whose intentions could easily have been anticipated by the diocese. The diocese has confirmed that it received two purchase offers from churches but they were “substantially lower” than the offer it tentatively accepted.

The diocese had every right to accept whatever bid it wanted to in this process. But it must accept that in making this decision it will be regarded as behaving corporately – in an unflattering sense of the word.

Michael Bird, unhappy at the thought that there are villains at work in all this, has responded:

I strongly disagree with the editorial board’s characterization that there are villains in this story. The Diocese, the developer, members of city council, concerned citizens and others are each playing a role in what has become a very thorough planning process. I continue to have every confidence that the needs and well-being of Guelph citizens will be of primary concern.

[….]

Today our congregations in the city of Guelph continue to proclaim Jesus’s message of love and hope and justice, particularly in this season of Easter.

I note that Jesus’ message of salvation is missing from the list.

Apparently, the reason the building has been abandoned and sold is so the congregation can “focus on ministry”:

In 2013, the St. Matthias congregation voted to take leave of their building to focus on ministry in the community rather than the upkeep of a building and property.

What ministry, you might be wondering? Well, advertising Earth Day, for one. And being a member of Proud Anglicans for another – evidently the massive influx of LGBTQetc Anglicans was insufficient to keep the place afloat.

The organisation of local residents opposed to the sale has its own perspective on how effectively St. Matthias has managed to “focus on ministry in the community” since its closure:

From our perspective, there does not seem to any continued Anglican ‘ministry’ in this neighbourhood. We have not seen a public service, prayer meeting, flyer, social event or any other invitation in the two years since the church closed. The site itself has been vandalized and/or signs empty,  for most of that time.

The Diocese’s director of justice, community and global ministries, Rev Bill Mouse clearly had not been briefed by the bishop when he admitted in an interview that, in the end, it all came down to money:

It came from the congregation’s size and their ability to financially support the ministry and the property.

A United Church minister was “baffled and disturbed at the diocese’s decision”. He approached the diocese to cooperate in setting up:

a spiritual centre — a place where different religious traditions could meet, celebrate in their own tradition but co-operate for the sake of the neighbourhood.

Normally this type of mushy mult-faith amalgam would be right up the Diocese of Niagara’s street but, in this case, there was no response from the diocese. Well, $2 million is a lot of money.

Nathan Cirillo, the soldier shot on Parliament hill, was from Hamilton

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From here:

Cpl. Nathan Cirillo was shot at point-blank range as he stood guarding the National War Memorial in Ottawa Wednesday.

The young Hamilton father was a reservist who was only on a short-term posting at the memorial, relatives and other sources have confirmed.

Bishop Michael Bird had this to say:

Bishop Michael Bird visited the armoury to pass on the message that the soldiers and their fallen comrade’s family were in his thoughts and prayers.

“We are blessed to live in this country … but maybe this is a reality check for us,” he said.

Canada is traditionally at the forefront in peacekeeping, he said. “Obviously, we live in a different world, now. We live in a violent world, but ultimately violence does not have the final say.”

Bird has it wrong: ultimately, there will be judgement and it will be not be non-violent. Those who have not received the forgiveness afforded by Christ’s atoning death on the cross will be judged; their fate will be unpleasant.

Even the less than ultimate, temporal, final say will be the exercise of force by state authorities who have the Biblically sanctioned authority to restrain evil by the sword – using violence.

More free advertising from the Anglican Journal

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Thanks AJ:

As a part of a mutually agreed upon court settlement of a defamation of character lawsuit, blogger David Jenkins has apologized to Bishop Michael Bird of the diocese of Niagara “for any suffering he has experienced as a result of blog postings” on his blog, Anglican Samizdat.

The settlement also stipulated that Jenkins would pay “a majority of the legal costs involved, remove the Bishop from his posts, and agree not to publish any similar posts about the Bishop in the future,” according to a release issued by the diocese of Niagara. In a related post on Anglican Samizdat, Jenkins noted that he had agreed to pay $18,000 toward legal costs, which Bird’s lawyer had stated were $24,000.

Jenkins’s statement of defence had denied that his postings were libellous or defamatory. It asserted that Jenkins was exercising his freedom of religion and expression and that his comments were intended to be humourous and satirical.
-STAFF

Church of England Newspaper: Bishop drops lawsuit against blogger

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Read it all here:

The Bishop of the Ontario-based Diocese of Niagara, the Rt. Rev. Michael Bird, has dropped his $400,000 defamation of character lawsuit against David Jenkins, after the conservative blogger agreed to partial payment of the bishop’s legal fees and an apology.  A first of its kind lawsuit that was closely watched by free speech activists….

Anglican Journal: Bishop settles lawsuit with blogger

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Read it all here:

The settlement also stipulated that Jenkins would pay “a majority of the legal costs involved, remove the Bishop from his posts, and agree not to publish any similar posts about the Bishop in the future,” according to a release issued by the diocese of Niagara. In a related post on Anglican Samizdat, Jenkins noted that he had agreed to pay $18,000 toward legal costs, which Bird’s lawyer had stated were $24,000. Jenkins did not pay damages, which were listed as $400,000 in the original claim filed in February 2013.

Jenkins’s statement of defence had denied that his postings were libelous or defamatory. It asserted that he was exercising his freedom of religion and expression and that his comments were “…intended to be humourous and make use of satire, sarcasm, irony, hyperbole, wit, ‘send up’ and other types of humour to make a point other than what one would take literally from the comments. In those cases, no reasonable viewer or reader of the blog postings would be expected to believe that the statements are true…”