CASEY: Grace Church property dispute “absurd”
July 4th, 2009, 6:28 am · 3 Comments · posted by Mark Barna
In my July 4 column in the Gazette, I write about the Rev. Dayle Casey’s view of the Episcopal Church and its future. Dayle, 71, retired last Sunday after giving his final sermon at Chapel of Our Saviour Episcopal Church in Colorado Springs.
Casey was ordained deacon and priest in the Diocese of Milwaukee in 1977, and served as vicar of St. Mary’s Church in Wisconsin from 1977 to 1986, when he became rector of Our Saviour.
Here are more edited excerpts from my interview with Casey
MARK BARNA: You have a degree in history and a master’s degree in philosophy. Why did those subjects interest you?
DAYLE CASEY: I am interested in the meaning of life. I found a lot of it in history and philosophy, but they never answered the ultimate questions of what life is all about as well as the Gospel did.
The problem with philosophy in the 1960s fro me was that it was so focused on linguistics. They didn’t have time for Plato and Aristotle.
BARNA: What drew you to the Episcopal Church?
CASEY: I was part of the (evangelical) Disciples of Christ, a very good church that took the scriptures seriously. But liturgically, it did not feed me like the Catholic tradition does. The liturgy (in the Episcopal Church) is a rehearsal for salvation. Every time you go through it, it is like reciting a wonderful poem that’s meaningful to you. But also in the Episcopal Church preaching was taken seriously, unlike in the Roman Catholic Church.
BARNA: What is your view of the split within the Episcopal Church?
CASEY: When push comes to shove, we tend to be willing these days, if pushed too far, to say, “Well, we don’t belong to you anymore.” It’s sort of like a divorce. But divorce is unacceptable.
BARNA: What did you think of the property fight for Grace Church?
CASEY: I think that was absurd. The folks at Grace Church, and certainly Don Armstrong, should have known — and did know, I guess – that the property is held in trust by the diocese. The argument in court that they weren’t Episcopalians didn’t wash. Don was part of the diocese for 20 years, went to all the functions, served on committees.
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The position that the property was held in trust by the diocese won in the court - that is true. However, Casey fails to face up to the fact that justice was not served in this case. The diocese never contributed a nickel to the formation or upkeep of the property. A majority of the parishioners voted for separation with the assumption that they would keep the Civily (and locally) registered title to the property. This is where the train left the tracks with the guidance and financial support to the diocese from the National church. Deep pockets there. A similar case in California will head for the U.S. Supreme Court and could be settled quite differently there.
Other than that, the heresies of the hierarchy of the Episcopal church over the last 40 or 50 years are almost taking on a legendary stature in the scriptural Christian communities.
Casey is just another sell-out to the episcopal “business” that left God a LONG time ago.
Dayle has been a good and faithful priest to his parish. He has a clear sense of how the ethos of the Episcopal church is lived out, revealed by his comments in the interview. The narrow-minded bloggers here seem to want rigid, solid boundaries that start to look like the walls of a trench.