She said: "So, the next time you see a Sunday school teacher, thank them for spending their time with your sons and daughters. As teachers, we are planting seeds of knowledge without knowing how they will grow. We hope the lessons they are exposed to and learn will aid in their spiritual growth as they blossom into adulthood. To help insure that will happen, we need to tend to them regularly in our parish setting and nurture them as seedlings while cutting back on the fertilizer."

The truth is; Bennison is chest deep in fertilizer. He has been asked to resign or retire and has steadfastly refused to do. He has deeply offended the Black Clericus, the Union of Deacons, the few remaining orthodox priests, and, worst of all he has lost the trust of the vast majority of broad, liberal and revisionist priests who no longer trust him. He has been forced to cut his staff by two thirds, and doctrinally he has uttered more heresies in his tenure than the Arians and Gnostics put together.

He also faces two outstanding lawsuits from Fr. David L. Moyer for firing the Anglo-Catholic priest and using the wrong canon to dismiss him.

It has been learned that Bennison may have spent as much as $20 million to purchase Camp Wapiti with an additional $500,000 a year just to maintain it. Yet Bennison told the TLC (3/30/2006 issue) that "the whole business plan is working out beautifully. Most people in the diocese want to have Wapiti. We know Wapiti is just one aspect of diocesan youth ministry. Unless we can attract our kids to church and ignite their faith in Jesus Christ, our Church will continue to decline."

But the truth of the matter is that the decline in the diocese both in giving and people has nothing to do with the purchase of the camp set on a flood plain in Maryland, but in the fact that Bennison has no gospel to proclaim except "inclusion" and "diversity" and he has been forced to lay off numerous staff and cut back on giving to historic Black churches in order to fulfill his "mission" and to fuel his enormous ego as part of his legacy.

And the Diocesan Council wants him gone. There was talk at the last diocesan wide meeting that they would look at the Episcopate budget, code for the bishop's salary and there was talk by some of approaching the Attorney General's office.

In what an attorney described as "sheer madness", Bennison is featured on the latest cover of the TLC flanked by a clergyman and a layman at the opening of the $11 million St. David's chapel in Wayne, PA, which, a clergyman noted, "Bennison had nothing to do with." They all look like they are attending a funeral, said another priest.

Both Bishop F. Clayton Matthews and Ms. Woodriff Sprinkel, have expressed the view that a long-term conciliation process to bring healing into the diocese is useless, citing the "unanimous opinion that the bishop is incapable of entering into any process without being in control of it." This is a nice way of saying the bishop is a control freak. The Standing Committee also agreed with the ECUSA representatives that a reconciliation process would not be "beneficial." Bennison must, therefore, go. Perhaps then the TLC will run a photo of Bennison leaving diocesan headquarters for the last time.

For the moment the diocese waits on tenterhooks for the audit, due out in less than two weeks. At that time the calls for Bennison's resignation will reach crescendo point, and someone perhaps will have enough sense to cut his salary to $1.00 and change the locks on Diocesan house. At least by keeping him out he can't do any more damage than he has already done.

END