Liberal churches with large groups of orthodox believers which are leaving and taking their money with them are causing headaches for liberal priests who are calling Florida Bishop Samuel Johnson Howard complaining, asking him how they can stop the hemorrhaging, the slow bleeding of both people and money.

At the Camp Allen meeting of Windsor Bishops recently, Howard complained openly, bitterly and repeatedly about bishops crossing jurisdictional borders, only to be met with a 'can it' from Texas Bishop Don Wimberly.

The logical conclusion of those 37 priests who have either left or are leaving the Episcopal Church is the formation of a new diocese. "We are behaving as a diocese; we get together for quarterly clergy conferences, all the AANF clergy are lead by a steering committee of the AANF. We are starting Cursillo and calling it the Anglican 4th day. We are planning youth and children's camps next summer," said an AANF leader. "Like a diocese we are sending in supply priests and helping parishes that have departed to search for new rectors," a AANF leader told VOL.

Howard has inhibited some 30 priests, and out of a total of 74 parishes in the diocese, there are only 35 rectors, 7 priests, 11 vicars, 5 interim priests, 3 priests in charge, 6 supply priests, 3 lay, 3 vacant and 1 with no one listed.

A source told VOL that Howard has lost over $500,000 in diocesan pledge income, an estimated 25 percent of the diocese's budget

What this means is that Howard has total fiscal as well as spiritual control over the actions of more than 52 percent of the churches in the diocese.

With the exception of rectors, the rest of the spiritual leaders serve at the pleasure of the bishop, and that includes vestries and/or mission boards. This gives Howard a level of control that exceeds Saddam Hussein in his glory days.

But it doesn't end there. In addition to this sorry state of affairs, there are four churches that have separated from The Episcopal Church in Florida, but who are still on their property. They include the Church of the Redeemer, in Jacksonville; All Souls in Jacksonville; The Church of the Nativity in Jacksonville and St. Peter's (formerly St. James) in MacClenny.

If Howard has his way in the courts, he will reclaim these properties, reduce the parish to a mission, and hopefully try and jump start them again. Sixteen of the parishes are affiliated with the Anglican Communion Network which also makes the bishop nervous.

The Church of the Redeemer has a court date Wednesday, October 4, so perhaps we'll know more how things will go after that, VOL was told. "As far as I know, the diocese has not yet taken any action against the other three parishes that have left but remain on their property."

Howard is an example of what Pittsburgh Bishop Bob Duncan said at the meeting of Network bishops in New York City recently. Revisionist bishops are, he said, into power and property. Howard takes the prize. No single bishop has done more than turn upside down his clergy, stripping them of their properties, than he.

VOL has learned that there are also additional defections pending that are being considered that will increase the numbers of churches under Howard being served by supply priests. "Other parishes in the diocese are actively considering their separation options. We don't know yet who will leave their property and who will stay, at least for awhile," said the source. As a result Howard will appoint more and more "Priests in Charge" in order to gain absolute control of all of the assets of individual churches, thus providing the means by which he can dictate the specific amounts that will be taken from the parishes coffers and directed to the bleeding budget of the diocese.

Wrote one VOL reader: "There are many who have boldly challenged the heresies being promulgated in the diocese and have stood firm in the Gospel of our Lord. Some have left their buildings and chattels behind; others are challenging the right of the diocese to retain the physical properties when it is the diocese itself that has left the Anglican Communion and the faith for which it stands."

Whether these struggles over property rights will end in favor of the orthodox, still remains to be seen. However, on the spiritual front there are now a number of orthodox Anglican churches serving the same area encompassed by the Diocese of Florida, and there are moves underway to expand, through missionary outreach, the number of such churches in the area.

"Howard sees himself and his leadership in the Diocese of Florida as exemplary. He speaks to the people in the diocese suggesting that he (Howard) and the Diocese of Florida are paving the way for the reformation of the Episcopal Church. He has vowed to remain a part of the ECUSA/TEC. He wants it both ways and fails to see that it just ain't gonna happen," said another source.

Even though he is a Windsor Bishop and was present at Camp Allen, he did not sign the final document, causing a former Episcopal priest to observe that while he claims to be a Windsor Bishop and Florida a Windsor Diocese, his excessive need for power and control, and his ousting of every orthodox priest in his diocese, makes him a misnomer.

Howard should be worried; there are at least five Anglican jurisdictions in his backyard: the Anglican Mission in America (AMIA), the Episcopal Missionary Church (EMC), Southern Cone (Recife), and churches under dioceses in the provinces of Kenya and Uganda. They are all nipping at his heels scooping up his churches, or at least his people, even as they vacate the properties.

What is interesting is what Howard will do when the Episcopal Church is finally expelled from the Anglican Communion. What will he do with the 16 churches and 37 clergy who he has inhibited and, in time, deposed? By standing for nothing but himself, he has put himself in a no win situation.

One need only see the million dollar mansion in which "Sheriff Sam" resides and know that the funds for his insatiable appetite for power and trappings are being satiated by the gifts wrung from the labors of the poor.

After all, why should he suffer when he can live in a grand style and let others who have a gospel to proclaim do all the suffering.

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