An official press release read thus:

"During the fall meeting of the House of Bishops, twenty-eight bishops from across the Episcopal Church met to explore the creation of a resource to assist congregations and dioceses in the challenging work of resolving property disputes. Concern was expressed regarding the emotional, spiritual, and financial costs of such disputes and the potential benefit of pooling experience, expertise, and other resources to assist in these difficult processes. It was imagined that such resources might include legal, canonical, financial, real estate, and mediation experts.

"Because of the proliferation of lawsuits about church property, there is both a growing body of experience and wisdom emerging across the nation in these matters, as well as predictability that many more dioceses and bishops will face these challenges in the near future. Bishops deeply feel their responsibility to be good stewards of sacred places. To be drawn into litigious contests that threaten profound loss does harm to the past generation who contributed to the mission of the Episcopal Church and denies future generations' rightful resources."

The bishop who brought this matter before the House of Bishops was William Swing, the revisionist Bishop of California. He stated that a Steering Committee of ten people - bishops, chancellors, and lawyers - will be recruited immediately and that a report on its progress will be made at the next meeting of the House of Bishops.

For the first time, at least publicly and on record, the ECUSA House of Bishops admits what many of us have been saying for years - that the Episcopal Church is apostate and heretical on matters of faith and morals - and that sooner or later it would be felt in diocesan bank accounts, parishioner pocketbooks and in the departure of many faithful from The Episcopal Church.

White House columnist, radio commentator and Episcopal priest Les Kinsolving said this: "The Episcopal Church, the bishops are so desperately concerned about the possibility of having hundreds - or even thousands - of local churches secede from their sodomy-accepting denomination, that they are forming a legal task force." "To be drawn into litigious contests that threaten profound loss does harm to the past generations who contributed to the mission of the Episcopal Church and denies future generations' rightful resources," the statement said. Think about that absolutely incredible statement! Then, ask the bishops who drew it up to consider "the past generations who contributed to the mission of the Episcopal Church," asks Kinsolving. "Just how many past generational Episcopalians ever, ever supported the consecration of a sodomist bishop? Or same-sex marriage? And what on earth do these bishops believe with regard to the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion?" ripped the White House columnist. "Should any court in America rule that a local church - whose members agree with the Holy Scriptures' strong condemnation of sodomy - be penalized for this belief by having a bishop able to confiscate all the church property they and their ancestors have paid for? Is this freedom of either speech or religion?"

Behind the thinking of these bishops is this; they want to work together to fight those orthodox parishes and priests who want out, rather than get picked off one at a time. They also want to figure out how to use Canon X and the Dennis Canon so they don't get lawsuits thrown in their faces by an increasingly growing, better informed group of canonically trained lawyers who now understand the canons and who have figured out the game and are coming back at these revisionist bishops with legal guns blazing.

The days of fearful and sometimes stupidly dumb orthodox rectors rolling over to revisionist bishops has gone. From California to Connecticut, from Pennsylvania to Florida, groups of priests like the "Ct Six" and the newly formed Alliance of Anglican congregations and clergy in North Florida, are taking the bull by the horns and they are willing to challenge their bishops in ecclesiastical and civil courts. And in some cases they are winning.

But deeper into the collective blindness of these revisionist bishops is the notion that property issues, euphemistically called "resources" should be protected from those who want to maintain the faith that they themselves swore to uphold but have failed to do so.

Since when did homoerotic behavior in a priest or bishop ever get God's approval or for that matter from most of Christendom? The answer of course is never, but that has not stopped a generation of revisionist bishops brokering sodomy into the church and when they get opposition for doing so they turn around and want to protect the properties from orthodox priests who just want to do, believe and preach what they (the bishops) should have been doing all along!

So who's breaking the laws either spiritual or ecclesiastical? And who should the properties truly belong too if these bishops violate the consciences of priests and go against 2,000 years of church teaching and Holy Scripture?

And that question and many others are being asked in one court after another and that includes the court of public opinion. And the revisionist bishops don't like the answers they are hearing, furthermore they have been surprised and overwhelmed by the tide of revolt by godly priests they thought they would never see. (At a higher level the formation of the Anglican Communion Network by Bishop Robert Duncan is a major slap in the face at the whole revisionist apparatchik.)

But they are seeing it, and it is going to get a lot worse before it gets better, if it ever does.

The National Church has already spent over $500,000 by one report, but you know that is only the tip of the iceberg and that figure will run to the millions over the next few months and years, and that doesn't include what dioceses themselves are spending.

Some revisionist bishops are smart enough to cut deals - like the Bishop of Kansas - because he doesn't have Diocesan Trust Funds to draw on to fight back, but many bishops will, and are, fighting back.

The US Episcopal Church is dying the death of a thousand cuts. The tide of Anglican Communion opinion is against them, the culture is moving ever so slowly away from hedonism; there is a conservatism in the air that is saying American liberalism, and that includes its liberal mainline denominations, does not speak for the vast mass of American Christians anymore. They have moved to healthier spiritual pastures.

Regrettably Episcopal Church leaders do not see the handwriting on the wall, but many know that it has been weighed in the balances and found wanting, and no property task force is going to stop the rot at this late stage in the unfolding drama of decline.

END