Tag Archives: Diocese of Niagara

Diocese of Niagara supports living wage program

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From here:

Hamilton’s business voice and a leading social service agency have joined a crusade to make the city a living wage economy.

The Hamilton Chamber of Commerce and the Good Shepherd Centres signed onto the drive Friday, joining a growing group calling for a basic wage that’s tied to what it actually costs to live here.

[….]

In Hamilton, the campaign argues a working person needs at least $14.95 an hour to purchase adequate shelter, clothing, food, transportation, child care, health insurance and “social inclusion” needs, such as a city recreation pass and other necessities.

Companies and agencies backing Living Wage Hamilton …….

Anglican Diocese of Niagara

There is only one problem with this: the Diocese of Niagara pays its janitors $12.50 per hour while campaigning for everyone else to pay at least $14.95 per hour; poor chaps will be deprived of their social inclusion needs – whatever that means..

The Diocese of Niagara’s continuing mission in Guelph

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Alienating the residents:

Protest2

From here:

Protesters seek meeting with Anglican bishop over sale of Guelph property

GUELPH — Passionate but peaceful protesters gathered outside St. George’s Anglican Church in downtown Guelph on Sunday morning to send a message to the church’s bishop.

As parishioners filed into the Woolwich Street church, roughly 25 members of two south end community groups handed out literature and marched on the sidewalk with signs critical of Bishop Michael Bird of the Anglican Diocese of Niagara.

While the protesters made it clear they have no issue with St. George’s Church itself, they felt it was another way to try to pressure Bishop Bird to meet with them and discuss the sale of property on Kortright Road that is the home of the former St. Matthias Anglican Church.

The Bishop was not at Sunday’s service.

And while the behaviour was cordial and polite, the signs and words of the protesters were a little more barbed.

“I think the bishop should meet with the people. Jesus met with everybody, sinners and non-sinners, so why would the bishop not meet with the people,” said Bruce Taylor of Citizens for Community.

The property in question, on the northeast corner of the intersection of Kortright and Edinburgh roads, has been sold to HIP Developments, which has gone to the Ontario Municipal Board to try to get the property rezoned from institutional to specialized residential.

HIP Developments plans to build a six-storey, 81-unit residential complex.

Opponents feel it is the wrong use for the 0.81-hectare site and want to preserve the land and property for community use.

“The church should practise what they preach,” said Filippa Mirotta, who has lived near the property for 30 years.

She and others felt the church was intent only on maximizing its financial return on the property rather than the social implications.

“The church has a moral responsibility,” Mirotta said. “The church is not in the business of making money.”

Linda Davis of the McElderry Community and Friends group said they have asked three times for a meeting and were turned down each time.

“We want to meet with him face to face and he continues to shun us and treat us with disrespect,” Davis said. “It’s a very sad situation.”

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:

The Diocese of Niagara and the love of money

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The Diocese of Niagara’s self-proclaimed mission is to be a champion of social justice.  By its actions, it is not only doing a magnificent job of concealing that but it is managing to convey the impression that the church really just wants your money.

From here:

The Anglican Church of Canada Niagara Diocese has inadvertently confirmed a perspective many have about churches: they’re only out for money.

The diocese turned down offers from two local congregations (one for $1.2 million, the other for $800,000), who would have maintained the St. Matthias Church property’s institutional and community use.

Instead it accepted a $2-million bid from HIP Developments whose proposed student housing project has met with resounding opposition from the neighbourhood.

Contrast that to the Sisters of St. Joseph, a dwindling community of nuns in the Steeles and Bayview Avenues area of Toronto. (Pope John Paul II visited this convent while in Toronto for the World Youth Day celebration in 2002.) Developers offered the sisters $75 million for the 23 hectares of prime real estate. Instead, the nuns accepted a $58-million offer from the neighbouring Tyndale University College, who pledged to maintain many of the convent’s unique characteristics, including an incredible chapel and an outdoor Stations of the Cross.

The response from the diocese’s head, Bishop Michael Bird hasn’t helped matters: “Going forward, our ministry — both with the re-envisioned St. Matthias community and all our area parishes — will continue to further God’s loving purposes throughout the Royal City.”

The Diocese of Niagara has competition in Guelph

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The Diocese of Niagara is closing both St. Matthias and St. David and St. Patrick in Guelph. As a counterpoint to the sound of shrivelling, accompanied by revving bulldozers, echoing throughout empty diocesan buildings ANiC is considering opening an Anglican Church in Guelph. Ecclesiastical free enterprise is a wonderful thing.

See below for details:

I met recently with the Reverend Zena Attwood, a minister of the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC). ANiC, she explains, is trying to stem this Anglican hemorrhage by establishing churches that fulfill [sic] the goals I’ve described. Their website (anglicannetwork.ca) shows that in their first five years they have 72 parishes across Canada. ANiC is a member of the conservative Anglican Church in North America, that reckons about a thousand parishes in Canada and the USA and is enthusiastically planting more. Ms Attwood says she’s creating a core group to start such a parish in Guelph. The group meets on Sunday mornings for Bible discussion and eucharist. Ms Attwood invites inquiries at 519 846 0454 or zena.attwood@gmail.com. Mr D’Arcy Luxton is an alternative contact at 519 846 0483 or darcy.luxton@gmail.com.

Another Diocese of Niagara church on the brink of closing

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The congregation of St. David and St. Patrick in Guelph will be worshipping in a Lutheran Church starting in June. The Anglican Church of Canada and Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada have been combining their office space and holding joint synods for some time now, so it’s not surprising to see consolidation at the parish level; this is almost certainly the first of many. The ACoC and ELCIC, for all their spiritual posturing, are behaving in much the same way as secular businesses. Unlike secular businesses, though, while paying no tax themselves, the ACoC and ELCIC lobby the government to redistribute other people’s wealth by increasing their taxes; this is called prophetic social justice making.

After the public relations debacle with the closing of St. Matthias in Guelph, the diocese is understandably leery about yet another church closure and probable sale of the property to developers. It seems that the parishioners are not “allowed to talk about the issue”. What would happen to them if they do, I wonder? Shipped off to Justice Camp for re-education, I expect.

From here:

GUELPH—As the debate around the sale of the St. Matthias Anglican church heats up, the future of another Anglican place of worship in the Royal City is left uncertain.

The Anglican Diocese of Niagara says the congregation at St. David and St. Patrick, at 520 Speedvale Ave. E., will move to worship at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church this June.

Reverend Bill Mous, director of justice, community and global ministries at the diocese, wrote in an email to the Mercury the Anglican parish has entered into a two-year “partnership agreement” with the nearby Lutheran church.

That leaves the future of the Anglican church building unclear.

[….]

A person who answered the phone at the Anglican church said no one there was allowed to talk about the issue.

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.

Diocese of Niagara is demolishing churches because everyone is doing it

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Rev. Bill Mous, possessor of what can only be an antonymic title – director of justice, community and global ministries – justifies turning St. Matthias in Guelph into a six story apartment building by telling us it is “a story that’s playing out in communities across the country”.

I await, with considerable anticipation, the same story playing out for the diocesan cathedral.

From here:

GUELPH — The story of St. Matthias Anglican Church is a story that’s playing out in communities across the country, says a spokesperson for the Anglican Diocese of Niagara, which oversees Anglican ministry in Guelph and the surrounding area.
The decision to sell the church, located at the corner of Edinburgh and Kortright roads, came about from a variety of factors, said Rev. Bill Mous, director of justice, community and global ministries in a phone interview.

“It came from the congregation’s size and their ability to financially support the ministry and the property,” Mous said. “And it didn’t happen overnight. The congregation made many attempts to engage the community in the ministry of St. Matthias. But in 2013 they faced reality and voted to leave their building.

“It was difficult, and bold.”

When the church went up for sale, several offers were received including offers from two churches, but theirs were “substantially lower than the others,” Mous said.

It just goes to show that difficult and bold social justice in the church is mainly concerned with maximising profits – just like capitalism but less honest.

Diocese of Niagara is reductionist and exclusive despite its best efforts

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When the lady priests in the Diocese of Niagara performed the Vagina Monologues in the diocesan cathedral for the edification – or titillation – of prurient Anglicans, they probably didn’t anticipate that their impetuous attempt to be trendy would, within a couple of years, be condemned as “inherently reductionist and exclusive”. The problem is, it seems, today, not everyone who claims – or self identifies, to use the current in vogue jargon – to be a woman has a vagina. I can’t think why this did not occur to the lady priests.

Such are the perils of the never ending quest for ecclesiastical relevance.

From here:

“Gender is a wide and varied experience, one that cannot one that cannot simply be reduced to biological or anatomical distinctions, and many of us who have participated in the show have grown increasingly uncomfortable presenting material that is inherently reductionist and exclusive.”

Ensler’s play, which debuted in 1996 and has added new scenes ever since, features in-your-face monologues about sexual discovery, homosexuality, rape and even pedophilia. But even now, most of these fiercely feminist monologues have yet to give a voice to the vagina-less.