Pittsburgh Standing Committee Writes to Diocese

NOTE: I have often remarked that the fact that we have two entities in Pittsburgh calling themselves “the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh” is a nightmare for journalists. In the post below, I encountered the same frustration professional journalists have. As originally posted, a number of people complained that they couldn’t keep the players straight. Fair enough. I have revised the post to be as clear as I can be. I hope this helps.

Below, the diocese acknowledged as being in The Episcopal Church by the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church is referred to as “EDoP/TEC.” The group led by Robert Duncan that claims to be a diocese in the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone is referred to as “EDoP/SC.” For readability, I use less formal terms, but I use these abbreviations in parentheses to avoid any possible misunderstanding. I have made no changes to the material quoted directly from the letter that is the subject of this post.

Frankly, the letter is easier to read than to describe, and readers may want to skip my description of the letter entirely and just read the document itself.

I received a letter today from the Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (EDoP/TEC). It was signed by the Standing Committee president and addressed to “Clergy and Lay Leaders of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (TEC).” The scanned letter can be read here; there is not yet mention of it on the (EDoP/TEC) diocesan Web site.

The letter concerns the dispute with the group that left The Episcopal Church but is in control of most of the diocese’s assets (i.e., EDoP/SC). The letter is “an effort to communicate clearly and directly with our own leadership.” It reiterates a number of facts, but it also updates the (EDoP/TEC) diocese on heretofore unreported developments.

What is new here is that the group led by Robert Duncan (EDoP/SC) made a proposal to the diocese (EDoP/TEC) on February 5, 2009. According to the letter (from the EDoP/TEC Standing Committee) to the Episcopal Church diocese (EDoP/TEC):

[M]embers of the Standing Committee received a two page guide to determining a division of assets of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. Included in this guide was a demand that claims to the official name of our diocese be relinquished.

The (EDoP/TEC) letter goes on to describe the response of the diocese (EDoP/TEC to EDoP/SC), which, among other things, suggested that everyone return to the diocese (EDoP/TEC) “so that no disputes over property would be necessary.” The response (EDoP/TEC to EDoP/SC) referred to the October 14, 2005, stipulation “signed in good faith by Bishop Duncan’s attorneys” which, of course, states that diocesan property should stay with The Episcopal Church. The response of the diocese (EDoP/TEC to EDoP/SC) also explained that “we [the people of the diocese, presumably] are stewards, not owners, of the assets entrusted to the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh over many generations.”

The letter to (EDoP/TEC) diocesan leaders concludes as follows:

It seemed important to communicate this information to you directly in light of a cloud of misinformation we have observed over recent weeks produced by those wishing to leave The Episcopal Church. Please remind your parishioners that we are stewards not owners of assets entrusted to our responsibility and that, at least for assets of the Diocese, a stipulation was signed three years ago defining clearly the outcome of any dispute. We are hopeful that a determination will be reached quickly so that the mission and ministry of our Diocese may be freed from further distraction. [Underlining exactly reflects the letter.]

Coming Together

The December 2009 special convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh was called “Coming Together in Faith.” Its purpose was to elect people to positions vacated by those who had chosen to “realign” with Robert Duncan after the schismatic vote at the annual diocesan convention the previous October, as well as to declare certain changes made to the constitution and canons of the diocese inappropriate, and, therefore, of no effect.

That convention was neither the start nor the conclusion of the process of re-creating an effective Episcopal Church diocese from the wreckage wrought by Duncan, Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, and their supporters over many years. Pittsburgh was fortunate in having a small cadre of diocesan leaders who did not wish to abandon The Episcopal Church. In particular, one member of the Standing Committee did not leave the diocese. (My understanding, of course, is that Duncan and his followers did not take the diocese out of The Episcopal Church, but left the diocese to form what our church called “an entity of unknown form” in its recent court filing—see “Episcopal Church Asks to Join Calvary Lawsuit.”) The diocesan constitution allowed that one Standing Committee member to appoint others to vacant positions.* The Rev. Jim Simons used this power sparingly, but effectively, to get the reorganization process underway immediately. Those people appointed by Simons, as well as an army of volunteers, somehow managed to determine everything that needed to be done and organized the special convention in two short months.

It is now two months on the other side of that special convention, and I am happy to report that the (real) Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh is well on its way to regularizing its operation as a functioning, diverse, amicable diocese of The Episcopal Church. I say this after having talked to a number of people involved in diocesan affairs and in response to reports given at a meeting of Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh a couple of days ago. At that meeting, Joan Morris, president of Diocesan Council, and others, including members of the Standing Committee, reported on the ongoing progress of the diocese.

There seems to be universal agreement that the choice of the Rt. Rev. Robert H. Johnson to be assisting bishop for the diocese was a particularly good one. I have heard only positive reports about Bishop Johnson. His pastoral and organizational skills have received high praise, and they are much needed now. Most current diocesan leaders have either little experience working at the diocesan level or have experience that is less useful than one might like. Those with recent experience under the former administration know only a diocese in which the real decision-making was done by the bishop and his inner circle; those whose experience was years ago are unfamiliar with the mechanisms needed to run a diocese in 2009. Bishop Johnson is proving to be a good coach for the inexperienced diocesan team. He has also shown that there is no substitute for experience in dealing with the pastoral issues that invariably present themselves at the diocesan level.

Bishop Johnson came to my own church for confirmations on February 1, and the congregation of St. Paul’s, Mt. Lebanon, was quite pleased with his visit. The bishop has an unpretentious, yet reassuring manner. He took a special interest in the confirmands, preached a fine sermon, and very much seemed to enjoy his work. His down-to-earth informality was in sharp contrast to the attitude of our now-deposed bishop (and “archbishop-in-waiting”).

By now, diocesan elected and appointed positions are largely filled, although we are finding areas where new structures are needed: for communications, social justice, and parish life, for example. The job of building institutional infrastructure is certainly taking precedence over what is usually thought of as mission, but everyone expects this to be a transient phenomenon, rather than a persistent one. Bishop Johnson has made many helpful suggestions about running the diocese, and he plans to conduct monthly meetings of the members of the main diocesan bodies, which will help coördinate activities and build a more cohesive diocesan team. Recent practices under Duncan’s administration worked to connect people of the diocese to the inner circle of diocesan leaders and to discourage relationships among people from different parishes. There is a lot of getting acquainted and getting re-acquainting going on now in the diocese, and people are rejoicing in the experience.

People who have recently served on diocesan bodies report a very different experience since the departure of our former leaders. Members of Diocesan Council, for example, which includes both clergy and lay representatives from across the diocese, had become used to receiving an agenda that required them merely to rubber-stamp what had been decided by Duncan and his inner circle. Members report that there is much more work to do because the Council is now behaving like what it is meant to be, namely, the representatives of convention between its annual meetings. There is a new feeling of freedom to advocate for one’s own view of what needs to be done, though that freedom is accompanied by the responsibility of putting in the hours needed to make the Council an independent governing body.

Immediately after the October 4 “realignment” vote, the diocese established a small office in a church far removed from the city of Pittsburgh. It might properly have been called an outpost, rather than an office, and limited work was actually done there, in part due to its out-of-the-way location. The diocese did invest in a computer, cell phone, multifunction printer, and wireless router, however, which allowed a volunteer to do much of the clerical work needed to stage the December special convention.

Since that special convention, the diocese has rented an apartment and automobile for our half-time bishop, and it is getting ready to move into a suburban four-room office suite. Although the new office of the diocese will lack the luxurious appointments of our former bishop’s office on the ninth floor of a downtown office building, neither is it embarrassing for its Spartan simplicity. The new office has reasonable furniture, new computers and computer network, telephones, and attractive pictures on the walls. The diocese has hired a half-time director of administration and will soon hire at least one other person. The view from the large fifth-story windows does not match that of the Oliver Building, but the windows do enhance the ambiance and decrease the need for artificial lighting.

The diocese has not had many opportunities to celebrate or have fun as a community, but the recent Absalom Jones Day was encouraging. This is an annual event sponsored by the Commission on Racism. In recent years, however, there has been a diminished role in the event for Holy Cross Church, the major traditionally African-American parish of the diocese, and attendance, at least for clergy, had become something of a chore of political correctness. This year’s celebration, however, was held at Holy Cross, benefited from a choir whose members came from a number of churches, took its hymns from Lift Every Voice and Sing II, and had Bishop Johnson as the celebrant. It was a joyous occasion that one attendee described as “lots of fun.” The offering raised more than $1,000 for the needful physical plant of Holy Cross. I expect that the people of the diocese will be getting together for such events more often and enjoying a renewed sense of community and purpose.

Not all is well, of course. We lament those who have left the diocese, even though we admit that, spiritually, it was the right thing for some to do. Especially troubling are the congregations that have been split almost equally on the question of staying in The Episcopal Church or leaving it. Some such congregations have taken one road and some the other, and all the groups resulting from such fracturing will likely have a difficult future. Moreover, property issues, both of diocesan assets and parish ones, remain in legal limbo. Unlike other dioceses that have gone through “realignment,” however, property litigation was begun in Pittsburgh long before the alienation of property by dissidents became a fait accompli, and that litigation may be expected to run to its conclusion long before property matters are settled in San Joaquin and elsewhere.

Despite residual problems and uncertainties, there is a general sense of freedom and of exciting possibilities in The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. It may be some time before the diocese is ready to stand on its own financially, and it will surely be a while before it can, with confidence and goodwill, elect a new diocesan bishop. The legacy of Bob Duncan is one of mutual distrust of one another and of suspicion of bishops generally. The diocese is recovering from that legacy, but recovery is more difficult for some than for others. Many feel a sense of personal betrayal by our former bishop. Time, however, does heal old wounds, and the coöperation needed to get the diocese up and running is diminishing any residual anxieties about whether those of differing theological stripes can, in fact, work together in harmony.

The Diocese of Pittsburgh in The Episcopal Church is alive, well, and getting better. I invite your prayers as we strive to become what we have often called a “normal” Episcopal diocese. Pray, however, with joyful anticipation, rather than urgent anxiety. This diocese has a bright future ahead of it.

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*In my original post, this sentence read: “Ironically, a recent canon change promoted by the former leaders of the diocese allowed that one Standing Committee member to appoint others to vacant positions.” I was reminded that the 2007 change I had in mind when I wrote this sentence involved, but did not create, that appointment power. The relevant constitutional provision was one of longstanding. There was, therefore, no irony in its use.

Further Analysis

In my last post, I described the latest filing in the Calvary lawsuit. There, I concentrated on the petition to intervene and gave short shrift to the complaint-in-intervention. The former document makes the case that The Episcopal Church should have a place at the table in the proceedings, and the latter document lays out the facts of the case as viewed by the church. It also states the outcome for which the church is petitioning. That complaint-in-intervention deserves more attention. (The complete filing can be read here.)

The complaint-in-intervention contains 59 numbered paragraphs. The first 58 are intended to lay the groundwork for the final paragraph, which sets out what the church wants from the court.

The first 11 paragraphs are listed under the heading “Parties,” and they merely identify the the players and their roles in the case. There is nothing controversial here.

The next section, encompassing paragraphs 12 through 22, is labeled “Structure of The Episcopal Church.” I find this section unremarkable, but the defendants may have some quibbles. As described in this section, The Episcopal Church is “three-tiered” (paragraph 12), consisting of the General Convention (“the supreme legislative authority of the Church,” paragraph 13), along with a Presiding Bishop (paragraph 14) and Executive Council (paragraph 15). According to the filing (paragraph 14): “The Presiding Bishop is charged with leadership in initiating and developing Church policy, strategy, and programs; speaking for the Church on such matters; and carrying out appointive and disciplinary functions prescribed by the General Convention.”

Paragraphs 16 and 17 address dioceses, described as the “next level of the Church’s organization.” Paragraph 16 points out: “A diocese may be formed only by action of the General Convention, and only with an unqualified accession to The Episcopal Church’s Constitution and canons.”

Paragraphs 18 and 19 describe parishes, and paragraphs 20–22 describe how the three levels interact through conventions. Paragraph 21 cites Canon 1.17 (8), which requires that office holders carry out their duties in accordance with the constitution and canons of the diocese and general church.

The next section is titled “The Anglican Communion” and comprises paragraphs 23–25. The Communion is described as a fellowship of 38 autonomous provinces, each uniquely exercising jurisdiction within a defined territory.

Following this is “Dioceses of the Episcopal Church,” paragraphs 26–29. According to the document, diocese are formed only with the consent of the General Convention and must accede to the authority of the General Convention (paragraph 26). Once formed, a diocese is “a subordinate unit of the Church, bound by the provisions of the Church's Constitution and canons” (paragraph 27, which also lists specific requirements imposed on dioceses). Paragraphs 28 and 29 explain how missionary dioceses may be transferred out of The Episcopal Church, but that the Diocese of Pittsburgh is not a missionary diocese. “The Constitution and canons of The Episcopal Church do not provide for the autonomy, release, withdrawal, or transfer of any diocese that is not a Missionary Diocese (paragraph 29).”

Of course, Bob Duncan and his allies would dispute the description of dioceses as being subordinated to the General Convention. He advances the theory that independent dioceses voluntarily associate in the General Convention and are free to leave it at will, a view unsupported by the governing documents of the church or its history. Alas, this unorthodox theory was given some credibility by the unfortunate remarks made by the Archbishop of Canterbury recently, who, nevertheless, has no legal authority over The Episcopal Church.

Paragraphs 30–34 are titled “Ordination and Discipline of Bishops by The Episcopal Church.” These paragraphs describe the Declaration of Conformity, the need for consent to the consecration of a bishop, and (briefly) the disciplinary procedures of Title IV.

“History of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh” is the title for paragraphs 35–40. This section notes that the diocese was formed in the usual way in 1865 and that, until recently, it participated in The Episcopal Church as required by the constitution and canons of the church. Presumably, this is meant to establish that, until recently, diocesan leaders shared the view that dioceses are subordinated to the General Convention.

The next section is “Recent Developments in the Diocese,” which encompasses paragraphs 41–49. This part of the narrative begins with the November 2007 convention, at which Duncan and his allies advocated constitutional changes purporting to allow the diocese to detach itself from The Episcopal Church. It describes Duncan’s deposition, the vote for “realignment” at the October 2008 convention, and the reorganizing convention of the Episcopal Church diocese in December 2008. The section ends (in paragraph 49) with the church’s view of the status of Duncan’s “diocese”:

The Episcopal Church is informed and believes that defendant former Bishop Duncan, as well as the other individual defendants described in Paragraph 45 who were formerly part of the leadership of the Diocese, control an entity of unknown form that uses the name “Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh,” and hold that entity out as the Diocese; have asserted authority over Episcopal parishes, congregations, and other organizations in the Diocese; and have exclusive possession and control of substantially all of the real and personal property of the Diocese.

The final section is titled “The Current Dispute” and accounts for paragraphs 50–58. It begins by reviewing various milestones in the Calvary case, the most important of which is the agreement of all parties to the stipulation of October 2005 (paragraph 50). In paragraph 57, it is asserted that the various actions taken by Duncan and his supporters are contrary to the law and to the constitution and canons of the church. The diocese, as recognized by The Episcopal Church, is the proper authority to use the assets of the diocese and is the entity to which paragraph 1 of the stipulation applies. (That paragraph says that, whatever happens to individual parishes, diocesan assets are to stay with “the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America.”) On the other hand, Duncan has a different view (paragraph 58):

The Church is informed and believes that defendant Bishop Duncan and the other individual defendants described in Paragraph 45 take the position that they are properly in control of the governance of the Diocese; that they have withdrawn the Diocese from The Episcopal Church to join the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone; that they are thus entitled to the use and control of the real and personal property of the Diocese; and that their actions are not in conflict with Paragraph I of the Stipulation and Order.

Paragraph 59 points out the incompatibility of its view of the current situation (paragraph 57) and that of the defendants (paragraph 58). The court needs to declare which side is correct. In particular, The Episcopal Church asks that the court:

1. Declare that the people recognized by The Episcopal Church are the proper authorities to control the assets of the diocese.
2. Declare that property held by and for the Diocese of Pittsburgh may only be used for the mission of The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Pittsburgh, subject to the rules of each.
3. Order the defendants to relinquish all diocesan assets to the proper authorities of the diocese.
4. Require defendants to submit an accounting of all assets held on October 4, 2008, when the “realignment” vote took place.
5. Provide such further relief as may be proper.

This paragraph, of course, sets out what Calvary Church, the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, and The Episcopal Church are after. It is difficult to see how the court could refuse this request without ignoring the facts of the case and without running afoul of the constitutional separation of church and state. How long this will take, I cannot guess, but Judge Joseph James does not seem to have a very difficult decision to make.

Episcopal Church Asks to Join Calvary Lawsuit

An objection that the defendants have raised more than once in the lawsuit filed by Calvary Church against now-deposed bishop Robert Duncan and other (now former) leaders of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh is that Calvary had no right to sue without The Episcopal Church’s being a party to the suit. Well, Archbishop-in-Waiting Duncan seems about to get his wish. Papers were filed today in the Allegheny Court of Common Pleas on behalf of Bishop John C. Buchanan, Retired Bishop of West Missouri and parliamentarian of the House of Bishops. In a “petition to intervene,” Buchanan, representing The Episcopal Church, asks the court to become a plaintiff in the case.

In support of the request, the petition sketches the polity of the church and the history of the schism that has taken place in Pittsburgh. Paragraph 11 of that discussion asserts the following:

Once formed, a diocese of the Church is a subordinate unit of the Church, bound by the provisions of the Church’s Constitution and canons, which govern both temporal and ecclesiastical matters, and by The Book of Common Prayer of the Church.

which is perhaps the central assertion of the petition. The problem, as the church sees it, is set forth in paragraph 28:

The Episcopal Church is informed and believes that defendant former Bishop Duncan, as well as the other individual defendants described in Paragraph 24 who were formerly part of the leadership of the Diocese, control an entity of unknown form that uses the name “Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh” and hold that entity out as the Diocese; have asserted authority over Episcopal parishes, congregations, and other organizations in the Diocese; and have exclusive possession and control of substantially all of the real and personal property of the Diocese.

The emphasis is mine. (I have repeatedly asserted that whatever Duncan leads is neither a diocese nor properly in the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone.)

The petition makes it clear that the proper Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh is neither new nor led by Duncan. The final paragraph (32) says:

The issues raised by defendants in their motions for this Court to decide thus directly impact the substantial legally enforceable interests of The Episcopal Church. The Episcopal Church has an interest in ensuring that any determination by this Court regarding the ability of the Diocese to disaffiliate from The Episcopal Church or the identity of the persons now comprising the leadership of the Diocese, including in connection with an interpretation or application of Paragraph 1 of the October 14, 2005 Stipulation and Order, does not contravene The Episcopal Church’s Constitution, canons, or polity, including the requirement that all Church property may only be used for the mission of the Church subject to the Constitution and canons of the Church, guaranteed to the Church under the First Amendment.

Along with the petition, attorneys for The Episcopal Church, including the recently appointed Mary Kostel, submitted a “complaint-in-intervention” as exhibit 1. This complaint repeats and expands upon the information presented in the petition.

The filing can be read here. The Standing Committee of the diocese has issued a statement supporting the action of The Episcopal Church, which can be read on the diocesan Web site here.

UPDATE: See my 2/15/2009 post “Further Analysis” for more information and thoughts on the Episcopal Church filing.

Acer’s Technical Non-support

Consumer technical support for computer equipment has always been difficult and expensive to deliver. This is especially true of support involving computers themselves, since every day a person uses the computer, the device is being customized and made different from every other computer in the world, even if the user is not adding devices or changing components in the machine. Technical support for more specialized equipment—printers and routers come immediately to mind—has generally been better, presumably because it is less open-ended.*

When I purchased my first computer running Windows (3.1 at the time), I was promised lifetime technical support, by telephone, e-mail, or bulletin board. These days, however, support can be limited in many ways, including duration, medium (e.g., e-mail only), and accessibility (support from badly coached non-native speakers of English can make technical support virtually useless). We learn to adapt, and most people, particularly in the present economic circumstances, are probably willing to trade a bit of convenience in technical support for a low purchase price.

I was nonetheless infuriated by a technical support experience I had yesterday with Acer America. I had purchased and set up a relatively inexpensive Acer computer for a client. The computer was well-supplied with external connectors of all kinds, but I found myself short of USB ports on the back of the machine. (I preferred to leave the USB connections on the front panel available to the user for temporary connections.) With most keyboards, mice, and printers using USB connections these days, my problem is an increasingly common one.

I happened to have a USB mouse that came with a USB-to-PS/2 adapter, and I thought I might free up a USB slot by plugging the mouse into a PS/2 port. For whatever reason, this did not work, so I decided to contact Acer, particularly because there could be a hardware problem with the PS/2 port. Reading over the characteristicly useless “documentation” that came with the computer and visiting the Acer Web site, it seemed likely that my only support option was via e-mail. I filled out a Web form, describing my problem this way:

Because I would rather not use a USB port on the front of the computer for my mouse, I tried using the mouse with a USB-to-PS/2 adapter. This does not seem to work, however. Is there something special I have to do, or is there a possibility that the PS/2 ports are defective?

In response, I received a note explaining that my question was received and that questions are answered in the order received. My work was not being hampered by a failure to receive an immediate answer, so I went on with my business.

As it happened, I found that I needed to connect even more USB devices to the computer, so I decided I simply had to buy an external USB hub. This was a fine solution that still left me with two open and accessible USB ports and did not cost very much.

About 10 hours after I submitted my support request, I received the following message from Acer:

Dear Lionel Deimel,

Thank you for contacting Acer America. I’ll be happy to assist you.

As Acer America does not test third party hardware we are unable to provide technical support or recommendations regarding this issue. For assistance with this issue, it will be necessary for you to contact the manufacturer of this device.

Respectfully,
Acer America
Online Technical Support

Almost everything is wrong with this kiss-off response. To begin with, if Acer America is so “happy to assist” me, why doesn’t it? The message, clearly a boilerplate response that acknowledges nothing specific about my inquiry, is cold and impersonal. Acer would do well to have support people sign such messages by name, even if the names are made up. Instead, I received e-mail from “Acer America.” Someone should tell Acer America that customers need to feel that their concerns are at least being heard, even if the company, for whatever reason, is unable to help them. Empathy (or at least the appearance of empathy) is cheap.

The message actually was helpful in the sense that I had not considered that the adapter I was using might be defective. (What, after all, can go wrong with such a simple device?) I had assumed that it had actually been used with the mouse to which it was attached when it was given to me, though this proved not to be the case. Acer did not even directly suggest that there might be a problem with the adapter, which they could have without putting themselves out or “supporting” third-party hardware. I wonder what Acer’s reponse would have been had I told them that I had connected a PS/2 mouse that had been used successfully on another computer to the Acer. Would I have been told to contact the Mouse vendor? Wouldn’t the mouse vendor have told me that the mouse clearly worked and that the problem was likely with my computer? Acer completely ignored even the possibility that their computer might have been at fault.

Acer could have been even more helpful without getting bogged down in problems related to non-Acer hardware. They could have suggested that I try the mouse and adapter on another computer or that I try a PS/2 mouse on the Acer PC. Perhaps I should have been directed to look at the Device Manager, where it was not immediately obvious what settings applied to the PS/2 ports. Instead, Acer simply responded with not-our-problem arrogance.

The message from Acer also contained this statement: “If this issue is not resolved to your satisfaction, you may reopen it within the next 7 days.” Do I lose my right to even ask the question after a week?

I actually rather like the Acer computer and monitor I bought, and I don’t rule out buying Acer equipment in the future. I will advise clients that they should have low expectations of Acer technical support, however. My grade of Acer’s technical support for this incident is definitely F.

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*I have to express my appreciation here for the telephone support I have received for my Oki color LED printer. It has always been knowledgeable, friendly, and readily available. This is a very complex printer, but Oki technical support folks have invariably solved my problem, even when that problem was, in a sense, not a printer problem. (I was once advised how I should change what I was doing in Microsoft Word to get the printer output I was seeking.)

Ketchup in the Fridge

I have long been an aficionado of Heintz ketchup, which, I long ago concluded, tastes strongly of tomatoes, whereas competing brands generally have a strong vinegar flavor. My family in New Orleans, where I grew up, was every bit as loyal to this product as are many Pittsburghers, who live in the city that hosts the headquarters of H. J. Heinz Co.

Although I always buy Heinz ketchup, I am not particularly attached to any one package. Instead, I approach buying ketchup with a calculator. I choose whatever container allows me to buy the condiment at the lowest cost per ounce. If necessary, I will buy more than one unit. I don’t much care if the container is glass or plastic, roundish or some other shape.

When I went to the supermarket the other day with ketchup on my shopping list, I discovered that the best value was provided by a plastic 46-ounce bottle that was tall, wide, and not too deep. The front label contained the words “FRIDGE DOOR FIT” and a small picture of such a bottle sitting on a refrigerator door shelf.

I find it interesting that Heinz would market such a container. I know that some people do indeed store their ketchup in the refrigerator, but I never have. Many restaurants leave ketchup bottles out on their tables, and McDonald’s and other fast-food restaurants dispense ketchup from large, unrefrigerated vats. Nowhere on my current bottle of ketchup (or any other Heinz ketchup container I have seen) is there a warning such as “REFRIGERATE AFTER OPENING.” I checked the Heinz Web site and could nowhere find an admonition to refrigerate ketchup.

So why the refrigerator-friendly bottle? Some people, I guess—perhaps even a lot of people—are going to store their ketchup in the refrigerator whether it’s convenient or not. Heinz probably decided to make their lives easier. Those folks probably put their ketchup bottles in the refrigerator because their parents did. After all, I put mine in the pantry because that’s what my parents did.

By the way, although I assume the bottle does a fine job of fitting on a refrigerator door shelf—I haven’t bothered to actually try it—it is not particularly ergonomic as far as dispensing product is concerned. The bottle is attractive, however, and may fit more comfortably in the hand of someone bigger than I. Oh, and the ketchup bottle has a cool round cap with a flip-top cover in the shape of the Heinz 57 keystone logo, which is embossed, white-on-white, on the plastic.

Habits Are Hard to Break

For the past few days, I have been doing some work on a laptop computer, though my standard desktop machine has been running and being used for e-mail and other chores concurrently. The laptop is sitting on my desk, and my desktop monitor, which rests on a shelf atop the desk, is fully visible above the laptop screen. My desktop keyboard sits in a keyboard drawer under the desk. To my right is a mouse pad and mice connected to each computer. When I have been working on the laptop, 90% of my work has been done on that machine.

What has been remarkable to me while I have been working with this configuration is the fact that I cannot seem to break the habit of using the keyboard in my keyboard drawer.When using many applications, I spend a lot of time manipulating the mouse, making only occasional excursions to the keyboard. What I am finding is that I will use the laptop’s mouse and, when I need to use the keyboard, I go to where I am used to finding it, namely, in the keyboard drawer. This can be really irritating, not only because I am not accomplishing what I am trying to do, but also because the effect is to enter essentially random keystrokes into my desktop computer. Sometimes this has no effect at all, but I have inadvertently deleted mail messages this way and otherwise effected unintended changes in applications running on that computer. Yesterday, I managed to get Windows XP to hang, though I am hard-pressed to explain how.

I keep telling myself not to use the laptop keyboard, yet I keep making the same mistake. Habits, especially ones that have served you well, are hard to break.

“Hail Barack Obama” in the Post-Gazette

My friend and literary critic Jane Little liked my poem written for Barack Obama’s inauguration. (See “Inauguration Poem.”) She urged me to submit it to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for possible publication. I told her I would have to think about that.

My reluctance seemed justified. I had only finished the poem on Sunday night, and the inauguration was Tuesday. The inclusion of the line “Inauguration’s just hours away” seem to require a Tuesday publication. This didn’t give the newspaper much time to make a decision, and I thought that the poem might seem too partisan.

In the end, I decided Monday morning to send the poem anyway. What did I have to lose? I had heard nothing from the Post-Gazette by Monday evening and concluded that that was that. I was surprised by the arrival of a mid-afternoon e-mail message from an editor on inauguration day. The newspaper was planning to print three poems it had received related to the inauguration.

The editor had two suggestions, with which I readily agreed. He wanted to remove the couplet that put the inauguration “just hours away.” His motivation was clear, but I was already concerned about the poem’s short shelf life, and the lines were not my favorite ones anyway. I thought their removal strengthened the piece. The editor also wanted to place blank lines between the couplets, which, he suggested, would make the poem easier to read. He was probably right about that, too.

I changed the poem on Lionel Deimel’s Farrago Tuesday and eagerly awaited Wednesday’s Post-Gazette. Sure enough, my poem appears on page A-2 with two others, “We the People,” by Michael Uhrin, and “God Shines Forth: The Inauguration Of Hope,” by Romella D. Kitchens. The poetry was collected in an occasional feature labeled “News Muse,” which the Post-Gazette prints every now and then when news events inspire local poets.

You can read the revised poem here.

UPDATE. The Post-Gazette was slow in posting News Muse, but it hit the Web this afternoon. You can read it here.

Inauguration Poem

Many of my poems are topical, but I have an unfortunate habit of writing poems for specific occasions just in time for the event celebrated. This makes them hard to put into the hands of interested readers and virtually impossible to sell. A favorite poem of mine, for example, is “2001,” about the (mostly political) events of 2001. I thought it a good year-in-review piece, but I only started writing it on December 31, and I didn’t think anyone would want to publish such a poem in February or March.

True to form, I wrote a poem in honor of the inauguration of Barack Obama yesterday. The inauguration, of course, is tomorrow. I had thought of writing a poem about the President-elect before now, but I seemed to need the inspiration provided by yesterday’s We Are One concert. I rather like “Hail Barack Obama,” which was also influenced by my having been reading Ogden Nash.

Anyway, I invite you to read the poem. For the moment, Obama seems widely admired, but I should warn readers that the poem is decidedly partisan. Here’s a sample couplet:

Obama’s a thinker, not just a decider;
He’ll bring us together, not be a divider.

Enjoy!

Neither in Hand nor in the Bush

I returned home yesterday after being out-of-town for a few days. As is usually the case when I am away, Darlene, my cat-sitter, had come by a few times to take care of Zeke and Eve.

The temperature was below zero when I drove up to the house, even though it was mid-afternoon. I parked on the street, as the driveway was covered with a blanket of snow, which I had not anticipated. I grabbed a few items that had to be taken inside and trudged through the snow that covered the sidewalk, steps, and porch. As usual, Zeke was waiting for me when I opened the door. I told him hello, and I greeted Eve, who I spied lying on the bottom stair to the second floor. (Eve seems not to have any particular need to experience my homecomings firsthand, and seeing her when I walked into the living room was unusual.)

I dumped my burden on the kitchen table and looked for Darlene’s pet-sitting report. These reports are generally unremarkable, but her last entry this time was unusual and a bit difficult to make out. Despite her better-than-average penmanship, I could not quite parse her final note, which somehow involved “bird” and “house.”

I put down Darlene’s report and went back out the door. I grabbed the snow shovel resting on the porch and spent the next few minutes cleaning off the driveway, porch, and sidewalk. After returning the shovel to its resting place, I backed the car into the driveway. After a couple of trips back and forth, the car had been unloaded, and all my belongings were inside.

Back in the kitchen, while looking over the mail, a bird flew into the room toward the window. Unable to get out the window, it then flew back into the dining room. I still did not know exactly what Darlene had written, but the essential message now became clear. (I later decided that the note ended with “you have a bird visitor in the house.” Right!)

I was a bit surprised that the bird had survived more than 24 hours in the same house as Zeke. Although my older (and larger) cat no longer is allowed outdoors, he was once a fearless hunter of small birds and mammals. Presumably, the bird spent most of its time atop bookcases and cabinets when it was not actually flying.

I must admit that I find birds flying about the house rather disconcerting, although it was not my first experience with the phenomenon. The last time I had to chase a bird out of the house, the feathered friend had been brought inside by Buddha, a Tonkinese who died a few years ago. Buddha carried the bird in his mouth. I thought his prey was dead, a notion I had to revise when it flew up from the floor. I eventually chased it out the front door.

In this instance, I considered both the kitchen window and rear door as possible exits for the bird, but, in the end, the front door seemed to offer the most promising way out. It could be seen from a greater volume of space than either of the other possibilities. My plan was to first confine the cats in an upstairs room, so that no one was tempted to follow the bird out the door. In retrospect, I don’t even know if the cats were paying much attention to the bird. In fact, I didn’t even pay it so much attention as to figure out what sort of bird it was. It was about the size of a small robin, I think, and seemed dark in color.

Before I had a chance to herd the cats upstairs, the bird flew into the living room, landing atop the tall TV cabinet. This gave it a good view of the door, so I propped open the storm door, pulled back the wooden door, and stood back. The bird quickly flew outside, and I closed the doors with a sigh of relief.

I have no idea how the bird came into the house. There is a fireplace in the living room, but it is protected by glass doors, so it seems unlikely that the bird came down the chimney. When I saw Darlene today, she said she didn’t think the bird had come in with her, so its presence was something of a mystery.

The Other Shoe Drops

Ever since the Presiding Bishop acknowledged that those who did not follow Bishop Robert Duncan out of The Episcopal Church represented the church’s Diocese of Pittsburgh, one question has hung in the air: When will Calvary Church go back to court to claim the real and personal property belonging to the Diocese of Pittsburgh?

The Calvary lawsuit, initiated in October 2003, resulted in a stipulation, enforceable by the court, that states in part:

Property, whether real or personal (hereinafter "Property"), held or administered by the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America (hereinafter "Diocese") for the beneficial use of the parishes and institutions of the Diocese, shall continue to be so held or administered by the Diocese regardless of whether some or even a majority of the parishes in the Diocese might decide not to remain in the Episcopal Church of the United States of America. For purposes of this paragraph, Property as to which title is legitimately held in the name of a parish of the Diocese shall not be deemed Property held or administered by the Diocese.

The Presiding Bishop—not, of course, former Bishop of Pittsburgh Robert Duncan—is in a position to determine what organization represents the Diocese of Pittsburgh in the church that she heads, even though two groups call themselves “The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.” (See respective Web sites here and here. I see that Duncan’s group has now appended “(Anglican)” to its name on its Web site. Of course, the diocese in The Episcopal Church has an even greater right to call itself “Anglican,” since it is unequivocally in the Anglican Communion, whereas the status of the other “diocese” is unclear.) I should also point out that the court would risk violating the First Amendment by trying to second-guess Katharine Jefferts Schori.

Well, the other shoe has now dropped. Calvary Church, joined by the (real) Diocese of Pittsburgh, went to court today to demand the assets that it owns both by right and by virtue of the stipulation signed by both plaintiffs and defendants in the Calvary Lawsuit. The actual filing is not yet available—apparently it was being edited just before being presented—but a press release from the diocese is available here.

Stay tuned for more exciting court action from the Diocese of Pittsburgh, the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, and the Anglican Neighborhood of Make-Believe.

Modest Success

My campaign to have the information updated on the Anglican Communion Web site for the Diocese of Pittsburgh (see “Change It Now!”) has largely achieved its goal. You can see the current page here. Gone are any references to Bob Duncan, Henry Scriven, or the former site of the diocesan office in the Oliver Building, where Duncan still reigns over his imaginary diocese and free-floating pretend province. On the downside, the listed URL for the diocesan Web site, though serviceable, is not the preferred one (which is http://episcopalpgh.org). That’s a minor quibble, of course. Also, the listed connections between the Diocese of Pittsburgh and those of Chile and Shyira are, I think, pretty much history.

Of more concern is that the page for neither the Diocese of Fort Worth nor for the Diocese of Quincy has been changed.

Nonetheless, some celebration is in order. (We Christians, after all, are taught to be thankful for the gifts we have received.) I hope that my own efforts had something to do with causing the Pittsburgh page to be changed, but I don’t know whether that was actually the case. I do know that others wrote to the Anglican Communion Office, and The Episcopal Church itself had requested the changes even before I wrote my essay. I offer my thanks to anyone who contributed (or might have contributed) to achieving this modest success.

Now, can we get the Anglican Communion Office to make some changes to the Fort Worth and Quincy pages?

POSTSCRIPT: After I wrote the above post, a friend pointed out a more serious error on the Anglican Communion Web site about the Diocese of Pittsburgh. Our assisting bishop is listed as “The Rt Revd Robert Robert Johnson.” Bishop Johnson’s parents were actually more imaginative than this listing suggests. His middle name is Hodges, not the rather improbable Robert listed by the Anglican Communion Office. Well, I did say our success was modest.

1/3/2009 UPDATE: Bishop Johnson’s name has now been corrected.

Let It Be

Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich’s surprise appointment yesterday of Roland Burris to the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama has received uniformly negative reviews. No one, it seems, is content to let this appointment stand. The conventional wisdom is that Blagojevich’s arrest for trying to sell the open Senate seat means that any appointment by Blagojevich is illegitimate.

Admittedly, everyone is outraged—or wants to be seen as outraged—at Blagojevich’s apparent corruption. The legal or logical case against the appointment, however, is just short of nonexistent. Has Blagojevitch lost his moral authority to govern? As one famous politician might say, you betcha. Nonetheless, Blagojevitch is still innocent until proven guilty, and there has been no trial. To my knowledge, no Illinois statute requires the governor to relinquish his power upon arrest or indictment. Like it or not, Blagojevich is still the governor and has every legal right to appoint Burris. Whether he has the moral right is somewhat beside the point. Various legal moves might be able to delay Burris’s taking a Senate seat, but I don’t see that any person or body has the legal right to undo the appointment.

Now that politicians have had their opportunity to establish their ethical credentials by denouncing the Senate appointment, it is time for everyone—Democrats, anyway—to recognize that the governor has done them a big favor. The appointment creates a win-win situation. Blagojevitch, by appointing a seemingly qualified person with no connection to the appointment-selling controversy, enhances the credibility of his otherwise dubious claim of innocence. Illinois gets the representation in the Senate to which it is entitled. The Democrats get a much-needed additional vote in that body, not to mention a rare black face among a sea of white ones. And all our lawmakers can get back to the more important business of saving us from Great Depression II.

On the negative side, of course, the Republicans lose an issue if the Burris appointment stands. They will, I predict, find others.

Illinois legislators may feel compelled to move forward with impeachment proceedings against the governor. One can make a case for the appropriateness of doing so, though even impeachment will not undo whatever actions Blagojevich has taken as governor before he might be removed from office.

As far as the Senate appointment itself goes, however, my recommendation is that everyone just let it be.

Change It Now!

I was distressed that, even after Bishop Duncan was deposed, the convention of the Diocese of Pittsburgh voted to “realign,” and Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori acknowledged new leadership in the continuing diocese of The Episcopal Church, the official Anglican Communion Web site’s page about the Diocese of Pittsburgh did not change. I wrote to the Anglican Communion Office about the page, and I was reassured that The Episcopal Church had requested changes as well. When I checked today, however, more than three months after Bob Duncan was deposed and two-and-a-half months after Duncan’s supporters voted to leave The Episcopal Church, the Anglican Communion page on the Diocese of Pittsburgh is unchanged.

I say enough is enough! It’s time for a serious campaign of harassment of the Anglican Communion Office to update the page. For all you church activists out there, I offer the graphic below (click on it for a larger version):

I am beginning my campaign with this post and with the following message that I sent from the Comments page of the Anglican Communion Web site:

I find it distressing that your page about the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (http://www.anglicancommunion.org/tour/diocese.cfm?Idind=686&view=alpha) still lists Robert Duncan as bishop and Henry Scriven as assistant bishop. It also lists the wrong address, the wrong telephone numbers, and the wrong URL for the Web site (which, as it turns out, is redirected to the proper site). Bishop Duncan was deposed by The Episcopal Church in September, and his followers voted to “join” the Southern Cone in October. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, a few days later, recognized a diocese quite distinct from the “diocese” you list on the official Anglican Communion Web site. The Anglican Communion Office has had ample time to correct this page.

I and others have tried to get the page changed to no avail. More than two months after Bob Duncan led members of the diocese out of The Episcopal Church, the Anglican Communion Web site still does not recognize the real Diocese of Pittsburgh. After this much time, one begins to wonder if the failure to update the page is deliberate. Surely, this failure is yet another indignity visited upon The Episcopal Church by an Anglican Communion obsessed with appeasing whoever whines the loudest. Your “Diocese of Pittsburgh” page can only encourage Bob Duncan and his schismatic followers. The Communion will not be better for it.

Your unacknowledged brother in Christ,
Lionel Deimel
St. Paul's, Mt. Lebanon
Diocese of Pittsburgh (in The Episcopal Church)

I will follow up with e-mail messages to selected people listed on the Contacts page as well. Perhaps some messages to people at the Episcopal Church Center would also be in order.

As it happens, the pages for the Dioceses of Fort Worth and Quincy are also unchanged, though the San Joaquin page does seem to be up-to-date. I’m not sure how long it took for the San Joaquin page to be changed; perhaps I have unrealistic expectations of what business-as-usual looks like at the Anglican Communion Office. Or perhaps the Communion should spend a bit less money on travel and report writing and a bit more on actually communicating facts to Anglicans around the world.

Special Convention

I hope that I didn’t lead any readers to think I was going to cover the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh’s special convention in anything like real time. I did not anticipate that anything unexpected was going to happen, which made prompt reporting seem unnecessary.

Of course, Standing Committee president Jim Simons did announce that retired Western North Carolina bishop Robert H. Johnson was going to be a half-time assisting bishop in the diocese through July 2009. Simons did not say what the diocese will do for a bishop after that, but, presumably, that will depend on how things go in the coming months. A press release from the diocese about Bishop Johnson can be read on the diocese’s Web site. I don’t know much more about him than is available there. Louie Crew has some facts about the bishop and his voting record here. You can make of that what you will. General coverage of the convention was done by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

For me, the highlight of the convention was Simons’ State of the Diocese address. This turned out to be something different from what the title suggested. I expected facts, such as how many parishes were in the diocese and how many may soon join. Instead, Simons essentially said that it is time to stop fighting and time to start building. What was surprising was that he accepted some personal responsibility for the creation of what he called “a culture of fear and control” under Bishop Duncan. (The deposed bishop was not mentioned by name.) As one who has fought against that culture for the past five years, it was gratifying to hear a repudiation of it from someone who enabled its development.

Simons had an interesting take on “diversity,” a term about which he clearly has some ambivalence. Nonetheless, he declared that “diversity needs to be a hallmark of our common life together.” Using the analogy of stream ecology, he argued that diversity is not so much the result of direct action aimed at its enhancement as it is the result of building a healthy community. “But the church is broader than we have allowed it to be here and we need to work at creating a healthy environment that fosters appropriate diversity,” he said. "We must be in conversation, seeking to understand each other and when possible to rejoice and embrace the diversity God has blessed us with.”

Openness and coöperation were evident in both obvious and subtle ways at the convention. Individual parishes were assigned the task of providing refreshments at various points in the program, and attendees were fed well. Six parishes provided singers for the combined choir of about 50 that sang at the closing Eucharist. In the past, only official “mission partners” of the diocese could have displays. Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh, for example, has never been able to have a sanctioned role in a diocesan convention. But displays from PEP, Integrity Pittsburgh, the Calvary Church Bookstore, and a Ugandan orphanage were all in evidence at the special convention. PEP distributed perhaps 100 of its “The Episcopal Church Welcomes All” buttons.

That the diocese is getting better at staying in conversation was obvious from the discussion of the four resolutions proposed to facilitate the diocese’s reorganization. All of these were passed with virtually no discussion and no dissenting votes, a far cry from the acrimonious debate of recent conventions. Of course, the resolutions had been distributed in advance of the convention, and people had opportunities to express concerns about them. In the past, those favoring or opposing any particular resolution would consult in advance of the convention with allies, strategizing how to strengthen or weaken a resolution and planning how to carry on a floor fight. The draft of Resolution IV for the special convention did raise some concerns. It was intended to declare constitutional and canonical changes made under Bishop Duncan null and void, but there were disagreements over how wide-ranging the resolution should be and how the intended actions should be justified. The underlying problem, of course, was that some of the people who needed to declare past changes improper had supported them enthusiastically. The resolution went through three official rewrites, and the version presented to the convention was the product of a process that sought to listen to and address the concerns of everyone. No one voted against Resolution IV; it attracted a single abstention.

Many people remarked to me how different and friendly the atmosphere seemed. The tenseness of recent conventions was not in evidence. When things went wrong—some errors were made in tabulating votes for Board of Trustees positions, for example—everyone seemed to take it in stride. In past years, the closing Eucharist has been notable for the number of people who left the convention before it began. It seemed that many fewer people made an early getaway this time. The service was crowded. Because St. Paul’s curate, Kris Opat, was being ordained, some worshippers came especially for that service, of course. In any case, the service and the reception that followed were very happy affairs.

Jim Simons’ address was, of course, a challenge. There will be disagreements among the people of the diocese in the future, and it remains to be seen whether we can change what had become a dysfunctional culture. There is surely hard work ahead of us, but I think we’re off to a good start.

POSTSCRIPT: Because so many diocesan leaders had left the diocese for the Southern Cone, many diocesan positions had to be filled by election at the special convention. I spent a lot of time thinking about how I could best serve the diocese and to what position I might reasonably expect to be elected. (My résumé didn’t make me look like a strong candidate for Board of Trustees, for example.) I finally decided to run for the single lay seat open on the Committee on Canons, since I have spent much time contemplating and writing about the constitutions and canons of both The Episcopal Church and the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh over the past several years. I ran and won against four other candidates. I am grateful for the confidence in me shown by the convention. I have no illusions about the difficulty of the work I have agreed to take on, however. Jim Simons’ challenge to reform diocesan culture will need to be kept in mind both in how my new committee works and in what it actually accomplishes.

So Far, So Good

I returned from Evening Prayer and a lovely reception a little while ago. So far, the diocesan convention seems well-planned and well-executed. Unfortunately, the weather was not particularly coöperative tonight, and a light snowfall and slippery roads no doubt kept attendance down. The crowd was not embarrassing, however.

A number of special guests made people feel like others cared for us in the diocese and were cheering us on. Bishop Paul Marshall attended from the Diocese of Bethlehem, as did Nathan Baxter from the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania, and Bishop Sean Rowe of the Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania, my previous diocese before I came to Pittsburgh. Bishop Bob Ihloff, Province III president, was unable to be present, but he sent a letter and communicated greetings from all the Province III bishops. (The Rev. Barbara Saras, coördinator of Province III was on hand and had set up a table with materials about the province.) Of course our consultant, Bishop David Jones was present from the Diocese of Virginia, as was the Ven. Richard Cluett, who was recently named by the Presiding Bishop as pastoral assistant for reorganizing dioceses. On the eccumenical front, the Rev. Kurt Kusserow, ELCA bishop of Southwestern Pennylvania Synod was there, as was the Rev. Don Green, executive director of Christian Assoicates of Southwest Pennsylvania.

The business part of the convention starts early tomorrow. Time for bed … .

Diocese of Pittsburgh Special Convention About to Begin

The special convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (i.e., the diocese actually in The Episcopal Church) begins this evening with Evening Prayer and a reception. Tomorrow promises a busy morning of business and a joyous Eucharist and Ordination in the afternoon. It all happens at my parish of St. Paul’s, Mt. Lebanon.

I spent much of the past week preparing for the convention on behalf of Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh (PEP) and the reorganizing diocese. (I am an alternate deputy unlikely to be promoted to deputy status. I am, however, one of several lay candidates for a position on the Committee on Canons, which will perform a complete review of the constitution and canons of the diocese in 2009.)

On Tuesday, I helped make final revisions to one of the four resolutions that will come before the convention. Resolution IV has now been through four official versions. Its purpose is to declare that certain changes to the constitution and canons made over the last five years were beyond the power of the convention to enact and were therefore null and void. I had expected that taking care of this piece of bookkeeping—essentially, getting rid of the changes that Bishop Duncan and his supporters claimed allowed them to “realign”—would be straightforward, but there were disagreements about just what provisions were improper, as well as how the justification for consigning them to the trash bin should be explained. The resolution to be presented tomorrow will restore the accession clause of the diocesan constitution to what it was before the 2003 annual convention, and it will eliminate the recently passed canon that declares the diocese to be part of the Southern Cone. I hope that all parties with serious concerns about the resolution are now on board, and no real debate will be necessary tomorrow. The final version of the resolution can be found on the diocesan Web site.

My second convention-related task this week was getting out an issue of PEPtalk, the PEP newsletter. This December 2008 issue is short and designed mainly to show the flag at the convention. It reviews recent events—it has been a busy fall—and looks to the future. Interested readers can read the new edition on-line.

Finally, I worked on the preparation of materials for PEP’s table at the convention, and I spent time at church this afternoon arranging the table itself. What is exciting about this effort is that this convention is the first one at which PEP (and other organizations that were not “mission partners” of Bishop Duncan’s diocese) could participate in a convention in any authorized capacity. Among the groups represented at tables at this convention are PEP, the Calvary Church bookstore, Episcopal Women’s History Project, and Integrity. This is a new day in Pittsburgh.

PEP vice president Ken Stiles wrote a story for PEPtalk that could not fit in a four-page issue, but I decided that it, and an earlier story he wrote for the newsletter, would make good handouts for the convention. The stories concern the litigation between Philadelphia parish of St. James the Less and the Diocese of Pennsylvania. The parish tried to leave The Episcopal Church with its property, an action that ended badly. Ken’s stories are “The Saga of St. James the Less: A Cautionary Tale” and “St. James the Less Revisited.”

Over the past few days, a number of people have volunteered to me that they are looking forward to this weekend’s convention. That is surely a change from past years, when most of the Episcopalians I know anticipated diocesan conventions with fear and loathing. The diocese has encouraged observers to attend, and I hope that we can fill the house.

Those Pesky Silent Ls

An often-visited page on Lionel Deimel’s Farrago is “Silent Ls.” There are, it turns out, a significant number of English words that contain Ls that are not voiced, and my page is intended to draw attention to them. The pronunciation of some of these words is uncontroversial; I have never heard anyone pronounce the L in “would,” for example. Other words may be pronounced with or without an L sound, and the pronunciation with a voiced L may even be more common. One such word is “falcon,” which I pronounce with an L sound.

I find it maddening to hear common words that have traditionally had silent Ls pronounced with a voiced L. Newscasters, even those at NPR, are regularly guilty of this. The most common mispronunciations seems to be of “calm” and “qualm.” I think this comes of reading too much and listening too little.

It was particularly disheartening this morning to hear NPR’s Cokie Roberts pronounce “balk” as one would normally pronounce “bulk,” or something very close to that, in any case. These are distinct verbs with very different meanings, however, and they are definitely not homonyms. Seemingly, Cokie said, “The Senate Republicans are bulking, and they have the support of the public in the bulking.” This conjured up an image of Senate Republicans getting bigger and bigger. You can hear it for yourself here.

A Tax Question

The annual letter requesting donations for the publication of Trinity arrived in the mail yesterday. Trinity has been the magazine of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. It has been published six times a year and sent free to the homes of Pittsburgh Episcopalians. (Most laypeople in the diocese have never seen or heard of Episcopal Life.) I have responded with a donation to this solicitation in the past, but I have not done so in recent years, during which the magazine has been transformed from one about the diocese and Episcopal Church to one about Bishop Robert Duncan and his marvelous deeds and plans.

As usual, the letter was from Bishop Duncan, of the “Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh,” which is to say, those folks currently in control of most of the assets recently “liberated” by extra-canonical means from The Episcopal Church. (How long, I wonder, will I remain on this mailing list?) The letter seemed pretty much like those of previous years; it did not suggest that anything as remarkable as “realignment” might have happened recently.

Like most letters from charitable nonprofits, the letter emphasized that donations are tax-deductible. But are they really?

In the wake of the diocesan convention’s voting October 4 to leave The Episcopal Church and join the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, it didn’t take long to determine which entity thereafter claiming to be the “Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh” legitimately represented a diocese of The Episcopal Church. Recall that, at the time of the convention, the diocese had no bishop, as Duncan had already been deposed. Ecclesiastical authority was therefore held by the Standing Committee. All but one member of the Standing Committee announced their departure for the Southern Cone, so the remaining Standing Committee member, namely, the Rev. Jim Simons, represented organizational continuity with the Episcopal Church diocese called the Diocese of Pittsburgh. On October 9, the Presiding Bishop acknowledged that Simons’ Standing Committee was indeed the ecclesiastical authority of the Episcopal Church diocese.

But what about the other guys? Whatever Duncan’s “diocese” is, no one, especially Duncan himself, has suggested that it is part of The Episcopal Church. Although Duncan registered a Pennsylvania nonprofit corporation called “Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh” earlier this year—see “Which Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh?”—he has claimed not to have transferred any assets to the new corporation and has not, as far as I know, received a determination from the IRS that it is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt entity. I assume—admittedly without definitive evidence—that Duncan, who has emphasized the continuity of leadership among the realigners, is using the same tax ID the diocese has always used.

Therein lies a problem. The diocese seems never to have had a tax exemption of its own, but has used that of The Episcopal Church. Charities are listed on the IRS Web site, and the church appears there as “Episcopal Churches & Dioceses in the U. S. & Inst. Thereof.” It is associated with Deductibility Code 1, explained as follows: “Generally, a central organization holding a group exemption letter, whose subordinate units covered by the group exemption are also included as having contributions deductible, even though they are not separately listed.” If Duncan’s group is using this as the basis of its tax-exempt status, one has to question on what basis this is possible.

Perhaps there is another tax-exempt organization through which Duncan’s group might claim to be tax-exempt. There is an entry for the “Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes,” for example, but I was unable to find any listing for, say, “Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh” or for any name containing “Southern Cone.” One could argue, I suppose, that the realigners are part of the Network, though one could point out that the Episcopal diocese joined the Network and that that diocese is not what Duncan heads. But, of course, my former bishop resides in the Anglican Neighborhood of Make-Believe. I think the IRS resides elsewhere.

Perhaps Duncan can validly claim that contributions to Trinity are deductible. Perhaps the Trinity letter is not actually a fraudulent solicitation, but neither does it seem a transparent one. Would you feel confident that your donation to Duncan’s magazine could be deducted on your income tax return? If so, you are more trusting than I.

Training at the Donut Shop

I have been doing some computer work for the reorganizing Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, and this has required a few trips to Brackenridge, Pennsylvania. Brackenridge is—how should I put it?—out of the high-rent district. Anyway, about half a mile before I reach St. Barnabas’ Episcopal Church, where the office is, I pass a small strip mall under construction. At one end of the mall, a Dunkin’ Donuts shop has, invitingly, been taking shape.

Unexpectedly, I found myself heading out to Brackenridge in mid-morning today. Since I clearly was not going to get lunch at my accustomed time, I grabbed a few scraps of a spiral-sliced ham I had in the refrigerator, filled my coffee mug, put a Fun-Size Snickers left over from Halloween in my jacket pocket, and headed out on the 28-mile trip. When I passed the donut shop, I saw lots of cars in the parking lot and conspicuous activity inside, so I made a mental note to stop by sometime. (Dunkin’ Donuts’ TV advertising has been wearing down my resistance, I suppose, but there is no Dunkin’ Donuts close to my house.)

It was mid-afternoon when I headed back to Pittsburgh, and I thought it might be worth stopping at the new shop for a donut and, perhaps, even some coffee. I pulled into the parking lot, parked the car, and headed for Dunkin’ Donuts. I was delighted to find the place rather crowded, though it also looked a bit messy. I stood in line behind three other customers. Well, I thought they were customers, but I wasn't quite sure. I was about to ask the person ahead of me if the shop was really open for business when a young woman walked up to me to explain that the place was actually opening Monday, and what I was witnessing was a training session. (It was about this time that I noticed that the “customers” had scripts in their hands that they were reading from and were paying with play money.) The young lady explained, however, that I could order something on the house if I would be patient with the new staff. I couldn’t resist all the luscious-looking pastries behind the counter, so I considered that a pretty good deal.

In the end, I came away with a blueberry cake donut and a medium cup of coffee. It was a bit like watching the Keystone Cops behind the counter, but everyone was good-natured and trying very hard to get things right. And perhaps I helped with the training, since I wasn’t using a standard script, and the people behind the counter seemed a bit vague about what Equal is and just how large is each size coffee cup. I walked out of the shop with a smile on my face.

Perhaps when I stop by next time, everyone will seem a bit calmer and more self-assured. I wish the new enterprise all the best.