If you are a member of St. Gabriel’s church in Marion and you’re reading this, good for you. You support the church, financially, through your time and labor, and in many other ways. It is your church and you have the right to expect the highest standards of conduct by your staff, clergy and elected leaders.
With that in mind, I have some advice for you about Bob Malm, possibly worth exactly what you paid for it.
First, let’s recognize reality, which is that people are surprisingly consistent over time. That means it’s highly likely that Bob Malm has already trotted out his usual smear campaign. Doubtless he’s told you that I’m disgruntled, “dysfunctional,” that I threatened him, and more. I could go on, but you get the idea.
Second, Bob probably is charm bombing you. Smiles, hugs, references to how happy he was growing up in Marion, and more. (Never mind that he listed his hometown as Jekyll Island when he attended Tabor.)
All of that means that it’s important to step back and take a dispassionate look at things. Friendly is not the same as faithful, although the two often are conflated.
Take a look at the facts.
- Fact: Bob tried to drag a dying woman into court.
- Fact: Bob Malm lies to vestry members, bishops, parishioners, and courts alike. For example, he claims I left Grace Church on my own. If that’s the case, why then did he find it necessary to send me an email telling me to get lost? (In a meeting with Bishop Shannon Johnston, Bob admitted that his email was retaliatory saying, “When someone does something to me, I do something to them.” How’s that for Christian?)
- Fact: Bob failed to meet even basic standards of Episcopal governance while at Grace Church. For example, after more than 20 years on the job, he still did not have a finance manual as required by canon. He also interfered with the functioning of the vestry, appointing the executive committee in violation of diocesan canons. The canons call for the vestry to elect its executive committee, not for the rector to select it. And a vote up or down for the entire slate counts as an election only in North Korea, so don’t let Bob pull the wool over your eyes by telling you that the vestry votes on the matter.
- Fact: Bob is a bully who tries to yell and intimidate people when he feels threatened. For example, ask him about his screaming fit at vestry member Lee Meeks over Shrine Mont governance issues. Or the time he approached me on Russell Road in Alexandria, screaming and making threats.
Of course, Bob will respond to these issues with his usual claims of, “defamation, slander,” even though he has only an amorphous understanding of what these words actually mean.
That said, this blog provide plenty of documentation concerning Bob’s conduct. Read it. Draw your own conclusions. Don’t be taken in.
And if you want to get to the heart of the matter, ask Bob for any scrap of evidence to support his claim that my mother, or someone purporting to be her, set up appointments with him and then no-showed. It simply didn’t happen, yet Bob has stated in writing, under oath, while advised by church legal counsel, that it did. Moreover, his claim goes to the heart of his claim that I threaten himed, so it is material. In other words, Bob Malm is a perjurer.
By the way, I am not impugning Bob Malm’s integrity. I am stating directly that Bob Malm is a perjurer. The fact that he remains clergy in good standing is shocking, repugnant and appalling. Moreover, the Diocese of Virginia has had plenty of opportunity to deal with Bob and his perjury. It chooses not to do so.