Church's Shame

Episcopal churchmen tell of how Rt. Rev. Henry Wise Hobson, Bishop of Southern Ohio, lately made a visitation in one of his parishes. Getting out of his automobile he carefully locked its doors. "Don't bother to lock your car, Bishop," said the senior warden. "We're all honest around here." Sharply retorted Bishop Hobson: "Oh, no, you're not! You've been using your missionary money to pay your coal bill."

The Episcopal Church operates on a pay-as-you-go budget, each diocese and each parish contributing its share. The parish budget contains an item for missions, and the parish is expected to send this allotment to headquarters. But currently many a rector, like the one in Southern Ohio, is holding out on missionary money. Last week, in a report announcing a deficit of $1.200,000 for this year and last, National Episcopal Treasurer Lewis Battelle Franklin revealed that only 4-c- out of every dollar given the church had been used for missions. Mildly he noted that "pressure of parochial and diocesan needs has caused a widespread retention of a far larger part of the total money given than is justified. . . ."

Well aware of these practices, Episcopal churchmen have mostly maintained a discreet silence. One who spoke out bitterly last week was 33-year-old Rev. C. Leslie ("Les") Glenn of famed old Christ Church, Cambridge, son-in-law of wealthy Harper Sibley, who sits on the potent Episcopal National Council. Cried Rector Glenn:

"This is the shame of the church! This is stealing, misappropriation of funds--embezzlement in banking circles. The hand that is nearest the till gets most of the money. If I had been a banker sitting in church listening to the favorite subject of some parsons these past two years, 'Dishonesty with Trust Funds,' I should have stood up and shouted, 'Shut up, you pilferer, there is a seminary classmate of yours out in China with his work crippled because the money you collected in this congregation to go to him was used by you and your vestry to repair the chimney or to pay your salary.'

"The layman doesn't realize that most of his money is being held this way. He gives to a budget and supposes that if reductions are necessary they will be made proportionately on all items, not on missions alone. ... In some cases the bishops have failed to send their share. What isn't held back by the priest is kept by the bishop. The deep shame of keeping the money lies in the fact that there is no one to protest, to the hurt of men and women who trust us out in the far corners of the world."

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