Episcopal Church's gay-inspired financial crisis

While the rapid disintegration of the denomination to which most of America's Founding Fathers belonged is not being widely reported by most of America's Old Big Media, it surely is being detailed by VirtueOnline.org.

David Virtue, a reporter and columnist, does an excellent job keeping track of – and internationally exposing – the continuing stream of Episcopal Church scandals.

These have lost this historic denomination more than 1 million members – leaving only 2.1 million (on the books). These include South Carolina's Gov. Mark Sanford and former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey.

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Virtue reports, for example, the following:

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• San Francisco's historic Trinity Parish, founded before the Gold Rush, is "the gay-friendliest in the heart of the city. It is now scheduled to move Sunday services from its main chancel (capacity 300) to a chapel seating 75." This may be due to the fact that its presiding cleric, the retired Episcopal bishop of Utah, the Rt. Rev. Otis Charles, has been married five times – three times to women and twice to men.
• Virtue notes serious financial problems and loss of membership in the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C., New York, Pennsylvania and southern Virginia, among others; as well as in Episcopal cathedrals in western Michigan (which were sold to another denomination), in Atlanta, in Seattle and in Boston's large and historic Trinity Church.
• He also reports that the total average Episcopal Sunday attendance is 700,00, or one-third of its claimed membership. And with 19,000 more Episcopal deaths than births each year, this represents the loss of one diocese per annum. This in addition to four dioceses the majority of whose clergy and laity have voted to leave the Episcopal Church.

As this denomination holds its nationally governing General Convention in July, Virtue reports:

• 35 percent of domestic congregations have no full-time clergy (2,526 congregations);
• 51 percent of domestic congregations have an average Sunday attendance of 75;
• 24 percent have an average Sunday attendance of between 76 and 140;
• 14 percent are between 141 and 225;
• 8 percent between 226 and 400; and
• 3 percent have 400-plus.

With regard to the national effect of homosexuality, which support of by the Episcopal National Headquarters and General Convention has caused so much of the vast loss of conscientious members, Virtue quotes a LifeSiteNews.com report:

"The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has issued a fact sheet which says that 54 percent of HIV infections among males age 13-29 were caused by homosexual contact in 2006. This is opposed to 34 percent of infections caused by heterosexual contact in the same demographic.

"From 2001 through 2006, male-to-male sex was the largest HIV transmission category in the United States and the only one associated with an increasing number of HIV/AIDS diagnoses, the fact sheet said. The article further states that 77 percent of HIV-positive homosexual men between the ages of 15 and 29 do not know that they are infected.

"The demographic of young adult homosexual males between the ages of 13 and 29 is the only noticeable demographic in terms of HIV infection. The other age demographics seem reasonably stable in comparison, says the CDC."

In the Episcopal Church's numerically largest diocese of Virginia (comprising Richmond and Northern Virginia), two of the largest parishes (Truro in Fairfax and George Washington's one-time parish, The Falls Church, for which the suburban city is named) have joined nine others in leaving the Episcopal Church. Instead of supporting the First Amendment's ideal of religious freedom, the national Episcopal Church and Diocese of Virginia have spent millions of dollars in unsuccessful court efforts to seize the church property of these departing clergy and laity.

At the Lambeth Conference of the world's Anglican and Episcopal bishops, the bishop of the Diocese of Southwest Florida, the Rt. Rev. Leo Frade, wrapped himself in the rainbow flag of homosexuality and announced:

"When we talk about justice and mercy, we need to remember that gay and lesbian persons are discriminated against by the church and the government."

There are no reports that this allegedly broad-minded prelate has asked for any such recognition or support for any of our nation's polygamists, polyandrists, pedophiles, zoophiliacs, coprophiliacs or necrophiliacs.

Bishop Frade has, however, accepted into his diocese the Rev. Alberto Cutie, the famed Roman Catholic priest who had a sexual affair with a formerly married woman with whom he is now living.

This led Miami's Catholic archbishop John Favarolla to make the statement:

"This has caused a grave scandal. This truly is a serious setback for ecumenical relations and cooperation between us. The Archdiocese of Miami has never made a public display when for doctrinal reasons Episcopal priests have joined the Catholic Church and sought ordination. In fact, to do so would violate the principles of the Catholic Church governing ecumenical relations. I regret that Bishop Frade has not afforded me or the Catholic community the same courtesy and respect."