August 20, 2004

The Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno
Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles
Cathedral Center of St. Paul
840 Echo Park Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90026

Dear Bishop Bruno:

Greetings to you in the name of Jesus Christ from the

Diocese of Pittsburgh.

News of recent developments involving St. James’, Newport Beach, and All Saints’, Long Beach, has been greeted by many of us here with distress, though not with surprise. After all, we are merely seeing the implementation of the strategy so chillingly laid out months ago for the American Anglican Council by Pittsburgh priest Geoff Chapman.

How strange that the Anglican Communion has been turned into the Wild West, where rustlers, with crosiers and miters, rather than lariats and horses, steal parishes from their erstwhile colleagues! How ironic that, almost simultaneously with the defection of the Los Angeles parishes, the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes (NACDAP) should release publicly the testimony it recently offered to the Lambeth Commission, in which Hugo Blankenship could say: “We believe the Network is worthy of your trust and that of the whole Communion.”! With equal sincerity, Bishop Robert Duncan spoke of the Episcopal Church as the burning, fatally wounded, World Trade Center towers, neglecting to include, in his analogy, the role of himself and of his supporters in piloting the airplanes! I can only imagine how difficult it is to maintain episcopal collegiality at a time when an Episcopal bishop regularly makes such destructive statements.

I do not write to commiserate, however, but to congratulate you on your wise and timely pastoral letter, and to offer whatever tangible assistance Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh (PEP) might be able to offer in the present circumstances. You have, I believe, labeled disloyalty, betrayal, and theological error for what they are, and, in so doing, you are helping to awaken and rally the majority of Episcopalians who have hitherto been ignorant of the threat to our church or who have mistakenly viewed that threat as insignificant. Your swift action to discipline the clergy involved and your resolution to protect the property that is our common heritage represents a turning point at which the Episcopal Church has now declared that it will not longer tolerate that which is intolerable.

PEP members feel a special sadness over these events because, as often seems to be the case, the breakaway parishes have multiple connections to our diocese and to organizations with which our bishop is associated: we have no doubt that the actions of the clergy of these parishes are part of the NACDAP strategy. In fact, beginning with the David Moyer incident two years ago, the transferring of clergy to dioceses outside the Episcopal Church to evade church canons seems to have become something of a Bishop Duncan specialty, and, judging by his Lambeth Commission testimony, a source of satisfaction for him. The diocese of Pittsburgh is indeed dominated by the so-called “orthodox.” Nonetheless, more than a quarter of the people of this diocese support the PEP vision of a united and tolerant church, and disapprove of the NACDAP and its actions.

Know that our prayers are with you, as, in coming days, will be the prayers of increasing numbers of Episcopalians.

Yours in Christ,

Lionel Deimel

President, Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh, A Via Media USA Alliance Member