That's the bishop's spin. A reader close to the scene said the rectors of the parishes did indeed go to Diocesan Center on Tuesday morning, and were unable to contact any of the four bishops of this diocese. They did indeed "leave voice messages", which, in this technical-gadget age, was the best that they could do, as no bishops were available (or perhaps willing) to meet them. Driving to the diocese - a distance of some 50 miles - is no small feat when you bear in mind Los Angeles traffic. They made the effort. According to the source, Bruno made himself unavailable.

What the four clergy said was that they had had enough of The Episcopal Church's theological and moral innovations and bade the bishop, the diocese and the Episcopal Church farewell, and said they were coming under the Diocese of Luweero in the Anglican Province of Uganda and were therefore accountable now to the Primate of the Province of Uganda. A third parish, St. David's in North Hollywood also upped and left the diocese and the Episcopal Church two days later.

On hearing the news the bishop went ballistic. The ecclesiastical outrage ran for more than a 1,000 words, with the bishop invoking the weight of his office, the canons and constitutions, the primacy of Frank Griswold and his office, even and including dashing off a letter to the Archbishop of Uganda and the Archbishop of Canterbury no less, asking for the latter's intervention!

Bruno promptly called an emergency meeting of the Diocesan Standing Committee, and inhibited the four clergy, (later adding two more) which included a woman deacon, for abandoning the communion of the Episcopal Church, that is, the faith, which they have not, and served them notice that unless they change their minds (which they won't) he will move to take their parishes and properties from them (which may not be as easy as he thinks). The Fifth District Court of Appeal opinion recently found in favor of a Fresno Methodist parish church that had seceded from the United Methodist Church (California-Nevada Conference). While the UMC will appeal to the California State Supreme Court the court of appeal decision does not bode well for Bruno, et. al. Furthermore PA Bishop Charles Bennison has been unable to unseat two rectors in his diocese who have come under the Province of Central Africa and who have kept their properties.

Both California churches are in the process of re-writing their respective corporate charters to excise trust language that might be construed as favoring the ECUSA.

Now these two parishes are no small bit players in the unfolding drama of ECUSA's slow but steady demise. They are two of the richest, most powerful parishes on the West Coast of the U.S. The former rector of St. James is the Rev. David C. Anderson who now heads the American Anglican Council, and he is an implacable foe of Frank Griswold. The illustrious Ahmanson family attends this church, and they have enough money to send Bruno and Griswold on a one way ticket to the moon and keep them there.

Now you know why Bruno had a cow over their departures; he will lose hundreds of thousands of dollars that would have gone to his coffers to feed his revisionist agenda and the church's sodomist Moloch. Of course they are not the first parishes to leave the ECUSA and they certainly won't be the last.

Reading through his letter of ecclesiastical outrage, one gets the usual carrot and stick approach to fleeing clergy that one is all too familiar with in these instances. If you come back all will be well, we still love you, please come home and the temporary inhibitions will be lifted against you. If you don't, we will not be waging reconciliation and graceful conversation is over and we will toss you into ecclesiastical outer darkness, and use the canons to wrest your properties from you. Long experience has taught this writer that the latter always prevails.

The fact that the three parishes have come under the ecclesiastical authority of a Ugandan Bishop and ultimately under that of Henry Luke Orombi, Archbishop of Uganda, only gores Bruno's ox even more. He sent a stiff letter to Rowan Williams whining mightily.

Frank Griswold weighed in with a letter to Archbishop Orombi expressing his concern about "boundary violations" with Orombi replying that these priests and their parishes are now part of the Anglican Province of Uganda and under his authority. "They are part of the Diocese of Luweero under Bishop Evens M. Kisekka who has appointed retired U.S. Bishop Ben Benitez of Texas to give immediate oversight to these parishes," said the articulate Archbishop.

In an audio taped statement, Benitez said he felt that perhaps his entire ministry up to this point was the Lord preparing him for this moment!" Neither Griswold nor Bruno made any mention of Benitez in their responses to the fleeing parishes. Do we smell a presentment in the wind? Recently five retired orthodox bishops refused to meet with Griswold's Council of Advice and its President because they smelled a kangaroo court action.

Griswold talked about Bruno's "ministry of reconciliation" in the diocese, but Griswold can't reconcile squat in the ECUSA. He couldn't reconcile Bishop Charles Bennison and Fr. David Moyer, despite promises that he would intervene on Fr. Moyer's behalf and deal with Bennison. It never happened. Furthermore you cannot reconcile the irreconcilable. Light and dark, truth and falsity about sexuality issues are clear in Scripture, so "reconciliation" for Bruno means never having any moral absolutes and keeping your fingers crossed that everybody will stay in line.

Of course Dr. Williams can't really do anything about it either, except make noises about the need for greater understanding and tolerance between those of differing points of view and then defer the whole thing back to Griswold who hopes that all parties will go to his now famous "deeper place" to find reconciliation; perhaps even consult Sufi the Rumi on same plain or other.

Bruno also wrote a letter of protest to Bishop Evans Mukasa Kisekka of Luwero, with a copy to Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi, the primate of the Province of Uganda expressing his ecclesiastical displeasure. The African bishops replied in the vein of a certain American General surrounded by a German Army corps in the forest of Bastogne, "Nuts". The parishes now belong to us.

At the end of the day Bruno has one of two courses of action; let the rectors and the parishes go in peace to love and serve the Lord, and there is no evidence to suggest he will, or hire a battery of lawyers, and sue them for their parishes and endowments. In the end the whole mess will wind up in the courts, where it was bound to end up anyway.

Now Bruno's letter tells us more about what he believes than he would like to have had revealed, especially to this writer. His anger and outrage got the better of him and he let slip his true feelings and beliefs.

Bruno blasted statements issued by the two congregations, declaring "these clergy have also framed their leaving in terms I find unfair and false" by saying that the Episcopal Church is "not orthodox biblically or theologically."

The Episcopal Church is orthodox? Who does Bruno think he is fooling? Perhaps the bishop can explain why some 82 bishops could not affirm Resolution B001 upholding certain basic doctrines of the faith at last summer's General Convention, and then the majority of those same bishops voted for the blessing of same-sex unions and then to consecrate a divorced homoerotic bishop. These actions are orthodox!

Bruno: "No bishop outside the diocese has the jurisdiction to oversee ministry within that geographical diocese. The fact that a bishop from another autonomous church within the Anglican Communion has chosen to exercise oversight in this diocese flies in the face of our ethos as Anglicans and of the catholic unity of the Church. It is a clear statement that the Diocese of Luwero and its Bishop and the Province of Uganda and its Primate have broken with the established historic authority of the Anglican Communion."

Nonsense. Two priests in the Diocese of Pennsylvania have come under the authority of the Province of Central Africa and Bishop Charles Bennison can't do a thing about it, despite all his huffing and puffing, threats of lawsuits and more. There are also priests and parishes in the Dioceses of Atlanta and Oklahoma that have come under the ecclesiastical authority of the Archbishop of the Southern Cone. The truth is these three parishes and their priests in the Diocese of Los Angeles are in very good company. And you can be sure that company will, in time, only grow.

But it is the following two lines that gave Bruno away. He writes: "Yet I will not let the Holy Scriptures be compromised by those who seek to make their literalist and simplistic interpretation the only legitimate one."

Ah, there you have it. Herein lies the heart of the whole matter. Sex, specifically homosex is near and dear to the heart of every revisionist bishop, and God forbid that Bruno should offend or fail to pander to his coterie of gay and lesbian priests, because that would be a sin. The Rev. Susan Russell, an out and out diocesan lesbian leader and priest whined about why these priests should exclude themselves from her table. Really. The answer is simple; her sexual behavior can bring forth neither biological nor spiritual life and the orthodox priests know it.

So Bruno accuses these six priests of being fundamentalist about sex - in whose company could be added, St. Paul, St. Augustine, Athanasius, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, C. S. Lewis, Pope John Paul II, Billy Graham and a whole host of saints throughout the ages. But according to Bruno the Episcopal Church's orthodox believers - its true believers - are "literalist and simplistic about sex" - he should have also added homophobic as well because that is clearly what he meant. The inclusive bishop just lost his inclusive virginity.

And one has only to look at Bruno's own voting record. It speaks volumes. He has voted for every single sexual innovation in the ECUSA. He voted for the blessing of same-gender unions to be added to the Book of Occasional Services; he voted to recognize sex outside of marriage in Resolution D039; he signed a statement supporting Washington Bishop Jane Dixon whose million dollar pogrom to rid herself of one pesky Anglo Catholic priest is eerily reminiscent of what he is now doing, and he topped it off by voting to consecrate Gene Robinson, a divorced homoeroticist for Bishop of New Hampshire. So why should six orthodox clergy in his diocese follow him to hell, he can go there all by himself.

These six inhibited clergy serving the three Southern California parishes will no longer jeopardize their own souls and those of their parishioners by staying with the Episcopal Church and one can hardly blame them.

Bishop Bruno loves to strut around wearing a large gold cross over his equally large stomach, but he has never learned the truth that wearing that cross and carrying that cross are two entirely different matters, and the latter demands sacrifice (and truth-telling about sexual behavior) for which Christ himself died, a fact that seems to have entirely escaped the bishop. The way to Hell is paved with inclusive intentions, and these clergy have drawn their final line in the sand and will not follow him. They have relearned that age old truth that the gate is small and the way is narrow and few find it. They at least found it, before it was too late.

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