Even as Grace Episcopal, the clergy perjury parish, faces the loss of almost 25 percent of its purchasing power following Bob Malm’s 2015 misconduct, the denomination lags not far behind in its decline.
Specifically, while giving is up for the denomination as a whole, the Episcopal Church continues to shed members at an unsustainable rate. This led to even official church publications predicting a “dire future” for the church.
Pretty alarming, right? In fact, if the church were a for-profit facing the sort of precipitous decline documented in the annual parochial reports, it would be a case of all hands to battle stations. Shareholders would be in full-blown revolt, and heads would roll in the c-suite.
So what is the Episcopal Church’s response?
Nothing. Deafening silence.
In fact, at the last meeting of the house of bishops, the house couldn’t even come to closure on the issue of virtual consecration. But if nothing else, the few remaining Episcopalians in 20 years are going to require virtual consecration, because they won’t be able to afford the current creaky edifice that makes up the church. And they’ll be so thinly geographically dispersed that in-person consecration will be a logistical impossibility for many.
(Contemplating the 2040 version of the old-time circuit riders is amusing. Eight AM Mass at Trinity Wall Street, followed by jumping on the bullet train for 11 AM Mass at the National Cathedral; blasting off the runway for a hyper-speed flight to Tampa, wheels down just in time for Mass and a quick dinner with the retirees; culminating in a mad dash to Phoenix for low Mass and evening prayer. Ain’t travel in the mid-21st century grand?)
Even worse, the numbers do not reflect the impact of the pandemic. Reduced to lackluster online renditions of tired old rote rituals, further precipitous decline is inevitable.
Meanwhile, Grace Episcopal has learned nothing from recent events. This all but guarantees that the parish will be gone in 20 years.
Nor is the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia any better. Susan Goff, the hypocrite in chief, continues to defend perjuring priest Bob Malm’s misconduct—a sure sign of the moral bankruptcy of the Episcopal Church.