The Archdeacon - Chapter Three

Chapter Three: The Bishop

When the Archdeacon arrived at the diocesan office that morning to get his marching orders, he had expected to check in with reception and wait to be called into the bishop’s office. Instead, upon arrival he was met by the Bishop standing next to the “no smoking within nine metres” sign affixed to the front door of the building.  It was his custom always to be early for meeting with his ecclesiastical superiors and he had caught her having a quick vape.

“Nine metres isn’t what it used to be, Bishop.”

“Hrmph. If I had to stand nine metres away from the building, I’d be standing in the middle of the street, and probably dead, run over by one those lunatics out there who must have an afternoon appointment with Jesus.”

“Well,” Archdeacon Fulman added, “You’re the bishop, and you get to make lots of rules, and break them, too, but this one’s a municipal by-law and outside of your jurisdiction.”

“I’d bet there are plenty of clergy in this diocese that would just love to see me take my chances standing out there on that ‘speed-way’.”

The Archdeacon, who tried to make a habit of not lying, if at all possible, decided simply not to respond to that last comment. “Ha!” she said, pointing at him, “Well they won’t get the pleasure. Not today, anyway.” She put away her vapestick and led him into the building. 

As may be discerned by the above exchange, Bishop Temperance Verity was not afraid of speaking of speaking her mind. She was known to be direct, frank, and sometimes a bit…caustic.  She had been bishop for fifteen years now, but she was not yet at that age where she was quite ready for retirement. However, she was closer to the end of her episcopacy than she was to its beginning. It wasn’t so far away that the usual cadre of “purple-dreamers” hadn’t already started imagining themselves at her desk, sitting in her chair, and calling all the shots (as most people think bishops do).

It was true, she was straight-forward, and at times, one might even say, a bit crass, but this did not prevent her from being considered an excellent bishop. She was a “break the mold” sort of person, though.  Aside from her pious name, one wouldn’t have guessed that she was raised in an evangelical puritanical church.  I’m not quite sure which denomination it was. Maybe it wasn’t even a legitimate one. I’m told that she found her way into Anglicanism while at university, when a friend invited her to attend a nearby Anglo-Catholic parish.  She immediately fell in love with the liturgy.  I have known many evangelicals for whom this has been the case.  Unlike most Anglicans, they have interiorized their scriptures and know them by heart.  When the scripture is ritually enacted, it’s like some kind of spiritual light-bulb goes on.  For example, at the first sight and smell of incense the first part of Psalm 141:2 suddenly comes alive. Previously, they had been waving their hands in praise: “the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice”; now, a whole new world is opened: “let my prayer be set forth in you sight as incense.”  What was previously dead is now alive, the whole of a person’s senses are engaged in the worship of God. Whereas old-time Anglicans just do all this stuff because it was part of their tradition, converts from evangelicalism know what it means, and they relish in it. The bible that was carried to church every Sunday is soon replaced by their own personal leather-bound prayer book.  Where they were fundamentalists about the scriptures before, now they become fundamentalists for liturgical rubrics…ah, but I digress.  The Bishop was just such a convert to Anglicanism.  Something like this had happened to her during those university days, and pretty soon she found herself enrolled in seminary at Trinity College, testing out a vocation to priestly ministry.  She felt like she had found her real home.  And what really clinched the deal for her was that she no longer had to hide her smoking habit as if it were sinful. Many of the young seminaries in those days, trying to give off an air of sophistication, actually smoked pipes and cigars.  Then there was the sherry after Evensong in the common room. This was probably the first time she had ever tasted alcohol.  After graduating and upon entering her curacy, she graduated to single-malt scotch after her supervising rector introduced her to “the company drink.”

If I have painted an ill picture of the Bishop, I do regret that, for although she could be a bit harsh, although she could swear up a storm amongst her closest and trusted friends, and although half the clergy of the diocese were frightened to death by her, as I have said, she was a very good bishop in many ways.  She was an able administrator, a strong and confident leader with extraordinary intelligence, and perhaps surprisingly, when pushed to it, she had a genuinely pastoral heart.

The Archdeacon, having known her for many years before she became a bishop, and having socialized with her much over his twenty-five years of ministry, was not amongst the half of the clergy who were afraid of her. True enough, he respected her. He certainly respected the office. And he never lost sight of the fact that she was his bishop, and he was her priest.

Having led Archdeacon Fulman through the halls of the Diocesan Centre and into her office, she invited him to sit down. She placed herself authoritatively behind her desk and began the business, “Tom, you know as well as I that we have a big problem on our hands.” The Archdeacon just looked on without a word. “In the last ten years we’ve had to do a lot of trimming, pruning – let’s be honest – downsizing. I recognized right after I was elected and consecrated that we were in trouble and that decisions needed to be made.  I’ve tried not to put the burden onto the parishes…” This was true, when she came into her episcopal office there was as staff of seventy-five at the diocesan centre.  It was now a third of its size and not much more than essential officers and a few clerical staff.  When she had become diocesan bishop, there were four suffragan (or assisting) bishops each with their own geographic area of responsibility.  Now there were now two, one having died in office and the other retiring, neither being replaced.  The elimination of their positions, their area offices, and their expenses had realized considerable savings, even though there was a fair bit of chaos that ensued for a couple of years with less episcopal oversight.  The diocese was now partitioned as follows: Bishop Verity took responsibility for all the parishes in the metropolitan area of the See city, while the remaining two suffragans labored away in the suburban and rural areas of the diocese, one to the west, and the other to the east.  “Tom,” she continued, “I’ve trimmed every piece of fat off this operation that I possibly can.” The Archdeacon wondered what the late Bishop Brady might have said if he could know he was considered fat that had been trimmed. “It’s time to take a look at the parishes.  We need to go deanery by deanery and take a cold, hard look at every parish church in this diocese. We’re going to start with the Milbank Deanery.  It’s a mess. Half of those churches should have been shut down years ago and have been on life-support for too long. It’s time to lower the axe.”

Now, our friend Archdeacon Fulman, was not a man to use phrases like “trim the fat”, or “lower the axe.”  He was a gentle sort of fellow – not weak, though. He was strong, but diplomatic.  He knew how to talk to people. That was why she had chosen him as her special agent. It was not something that she could execute with any measure of grace, herself.

“I see,” he said, “You want me to make a deanery visitation.”

“Yes, exactly!” she said, pointing at him.  “Visit each one of these parishes. Go over their finances, their attendance numbers – yes, I know, we have all that on file – but I want you to make a bit of a formal show of it. I know clergy lie about how many bums are in pews on Sundays. Go and find out what’s really going on in these places…what they actually do there…and why we shouldn’t just board up the windows.”

“Milbank Deanery?” He said, with a slightly questioning tone.  Milbank Deanery was a small deanery which had a large suburban parish, a couple of mid-sized town churches, and three country parishes.  It was also the deanery of which his friend (or should I say more precisely, his lover) Canon Christa Clement was the rural dean.

“Yes,” she said frankly, “Milbank.”

“Umm…” he began slowly, “I think I might have a conflict of interest…”

“How so?” she seemed to be losing her patience.

“Well, Bishop, Canon Clement, the rural dean, and I are … friends.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Tom, everyone knows you are … friends.  We’re all friends in this diocese, one big happy family.”

Sure, he thought to himself, half of whom wanted to see their bishop struck down vaping in the middle of the street in front of the diocesan centre.  “It’s just that…”

“Is there something you need to tell me?” 

“No… it’s fine,” and for the second time today, he lied to her.

“Very well. I want you to get started right away.  And first thing, I want you to visit St. Anskar’s.  It’s the only church not in financial or numerical trouble. The only problem is that I’m not sure what the hell’s going on there. I hear it’s barely an Anglican church anymore.”

“Will do,” he said drawing in a deep breath and then turning away. Without any further discussion, the Archdeacon took his leave of her and knew that his first order of business was to call Christa.

... THE ARCHDEACON CONTINUES TOMORROW