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Bishops, deputies see crisis and opportunity in proposed budget
The proposed budget, which must be approved by both houses, would reduce the amount of money requested from the church's 110 dioceses while eliminating some church-wide programs. Thirty of the 180 people employed by the Episcopal Church in its New York and regional offices could lose their jobs.
The Program, Budget and Finance committee (PBF) restored a line item budget dedicating 0.7 percent of income to Millennium Development Goals work that had been cut from a draft version of the budget, and added a corresponding percentage for domestic-poverty initiatives.
Most bishops and deputies had not been able to study the budget in detail, but offered their initial impressions as they left the House of Deputies after the traditional joint budget-presentation session.
Lexington Bishop Stacy Sauls called the budget "a bitter pill to swallow" that is "ultimately going to be good."
Calling it "hard news," Sauls said, "I particularly grieve over the number of very fine servants of the church who've been devoted to the Episcopal Church and to God's mission whose positions are going to be eliminated. I also think that this is something we've needed to do for a long time and the ultimate result is going to be putting our resources to more efficient use at a more local level."
Kansas Deputy Mike Morrow said he was "sad we had to make some difficult cuts, and we're going to have to accept that fact the next three years."
California Bishop Marc Andrus said, "This is a creative church, also a generous church. I think we'll respond both creatively and by increased giving. It does call us to be especially attentive to the most vulnerable."
Diocese of New York Bishop Suffragan Catherine Roskam echoed Andrus' sentiment. "These times remind us that God's abundance is not synonymous with Wall Street's abundance and that we trust in God's abundance for God's church," she said. "Our Anglican partners in other parts of the globe engage in joyous and deeply spiritual worship and common life, in extraordinary mission and evangelism with so few resources. These times give us an opportunity to learn from them."
The Episcopal Church is "going to be leaner," said Maryland Bishop Eugene Sutton.
"We're going to push mission more and more to the dioceses," he said. "Sometimes the Holy Spirit works in strange ways. Because of the financial crisis it's resulting in the right move to force the dioceses to do more mission and not look to the church center."
That scenario makes it "a great day to be an Episcopalian because we're going to operate differently," Sutton added.
The Rev. Rayford Ray (Northern Michigan) called PBF's proposal "sobering," adding that "it's the reality of how we are going to live as part of our ministry and mission … What grieves us is the staff cuts that will take place, which is always hard."
The Rev. Devon Anderson (Minnesota), executive director of Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation, called restoration of the MDG line item "a courageous and prophetic expression of faith."
"Tough financial times require us to make heart-wrenching choices, separating the urgent from the important," she said in an emailed statement. "The budget reflects the heart of our church. While we realize that this is a sacrificial budget, the heartbeat of mission beats the loudest. And for this reason, we can be very proud as a church."
A proposed 26 percent cut to the amount of money the Episcopal Church grants to its "covenant partners" in Central America, Liberia and Mexico worried some. The partnerships include promises of financial subsidies for certain amounts of time, as well as mutual ministry and interdependence.
Ecuador Central Provisional Bishop Wilfrido Ramos-Orench said the proposed cuts will make for a "tough time."
"Hopefully we can, through the generosity of many, move forward and perhaps overcome this before long," he said. "But I haven't lost my hope."
The final page of the PBF's presentation document lists the percentage levels of giving for each dioceses, but those figures were challenged by some during the joint session and that concern echoed in some of the post-session comments.
"I'm so concerned about the misreporting of my own diocese's giving [that] I'm wondering about the accuracy of the budget," said Kentucky Bishop Ted Gulick, who is also the provisional bishop of Fort Worth.
Gulick said that "loyal Episcopalians" in the Diocese of Fort Worth gave $44,000 directly to the wider church in 2008 "because they knew that [former Fort Worth] Bishop [Jack] Iker and his parishes were not giving anything to the mission and ministry of the Episcopal Church." That figure does not show up in the listing, he said.
"I would feel more confident in the accuracy of the budget if I could see some accuracy on the income side," he said.
During a news briefing on the budget later in the day, Connecticut Bishop Andrew Smith, PBF vice chair, said that the committee wants to work with the church's Executive Council "to spend much more attention to the income and funding side of the budget." In particular, he said, more attention has to be paid to the financial relationship of the dioceses and the Episcopal Church.
There have been suggestions of an appeals process for dioceses that cannot meet the convention's request for 21 percent of dioceses' income, Smith said, as a way to remove "the shame factor." Those dioceses that can afford to meet the asking but choose not to must be handled "directly and pastorally," he added.
Vince Curry (Central Gulf Coast), a former PBF chair, told the briefing "we're poised on the threshold of many, many new ministry opportunities [for which] we can't seem to find adequate or sufficient funding."
"At the same time, our polity is being threatened somewhat because of the scarcity of funds," he said, speaking of a large proposed cut to the money available for the triennial work of the church's 25 committees, commissions, agencies and boards.
"I want to offer on behalf of the House of Deputies, the fact that we want to be players in the process," Curry said. "We want to see if we can find a better way to do General Convention, find a better way to do committees, commissions, agencies and boards. We do not want to lose sight of the fact of that the House of Deputies, the president of the House of Deputies and the General Convention are such a vital part of the Episcopal Church that we are going to be vigilant in those issues."
The House of Bishops will take up the budget on July 15 and the House of Deputies must concur with the bishops' decision in order for the budget to be adopted. Either house may amend, but, if a specific line item is increased, the amendment must specify which other line item would be decreased.
More information about the proposal is available here. The budget resolution is available here.
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