THE HERETIC

Grace Cathedral seems like a vast and regal ark on this January afternoon. San Francisco’s winter light sheds gold across the several hundred visitors who stand near the massive double doors, bolted shut. Two bishops of the Episcopalian church--one carrying a shepherd’s staff, the other dressed in the flame color stole of his office--wait expectantly. The dense scent of beeswax candles fills the air as the choir rings Renaissance hand bells.

For centuries, whenever churches answer society’s call and launch a program to feed the hungry or shelter the homeless, they bless the ministry and give it a name. The ministry to be blessed this day is new to the Episcopalian church. Called Oasis, it is an outreach program for gays and lesbians. But this service is about more than just Oasis.

Nothing makes this more apparent than the insistent knock at the door. In times of reform, dissenters fled to the church for sanctuary. In times of purge, clergymen were dragged from the altar. The man rapping on the door is both dissenter and clergyman: Walter Righter, silver-haired and broad-chested, polished and grandfatherly, cloaked in bishop’s red. Accused of heresy.

Five years ago, in Tenafly, N.J., Righter ordained an openly gay man to the order of Episcopal deacon. Barry Stopfel has since been ordained a priest and is now rector of St. George’s Church in Maplewood, N.J. He and his partner of 10 years, Will Leckie, live in the church rectory, as would any married couple. For assisting Stopfel on this journey, Righter has been charged by his peers with teaching false doctrine and breaking his priestly vow.

Righter’s heresy trial, scheduled to start Feb. 27 in Wilmington, Del., is only the second in this century involving such a high official of the church, and the fourth in the church’s 206-year history. That a heresy trial is taking place in the late 20th century is shocking enough. That it is taking place within the Episcopalian church, one of the most liberal Protestant denominations in the country, makes no sense even to some of its members. Labor unionists, civil rights activists, feminists and social reformers of every stripe have found a home in the Episcopal communion of 2.5 million. But for the last 20 years the church has been unraveling.

Women’s ordination, placed in the canon in 1976, tore congregations apart. Considerable numbers broke away, and many a bishop refused to accept women clergy in his diocese. That same year, a new prayer book was approved, one with updated language that laity and clergy are still fighting about. The church was badly torn by women’s ordination, changes in the prayer book, and the same can now be said about homosexual ordination,” says church historian John Booty. “It’s been one crisis after another.” Or as Bishop William Frey of the Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pa., puts it: “Sometimes the church is like Noah’s Ark. If it weren’t flooding outside, you couldn’t stand the smell inside.”

The presentment to Righter (the official statement that accuses him) pierces the heart of the church--and perhaps its soul. There have been months of pretrial bickering about the Episcopalian understanding of the term doctrine. There hasbeen heated discussion about whether a statement signed by a majority of bishops is legally binding or simply a recommendation.

If the church does have a doctrine stating that a practicing homosexual cannot be ordained, as some of his peers insist, Righter has violated it. Further, if the Episcopalian church honors the Christian tradition that clergy either enter a conventional monogamous marriage or remain celibate, Righter also has failed to comply. If, however, these are “guidelines” instead of binding laws, as Righter and others insist, he has committed no crime. And if a bishop can choose to accommodate modern culture and expand the definition of marriage to mean monogamous, lasting, homosexual partnerships, Righter is not a criminal.

A man who could be a heretic ought to look more like the devil than Righter does. The word brings to mind the image of a brazen outlaw, even if history later blesses the heretic--like Martin Luther, who accused the Roman Catholic clergy of flagrant corruption and launched the Protestant Reformation; or Theresa of Avila, the 16th century Spanish mystic and Carmelite nun who challenged her own religious order and is now a doctor of the church; or Galileo, the 17th century layman who announced that the earth was not the center of the universe, who was exonerated only in 1992.

Righter might take some comfort in these cases, but that cannot diminish the gravity of his own situation. He has been a priest for 42 of his 72 years, a consecrated bishop for 25. If he is found guilty, he could be defrocked. If he is found guilty but not stripped of his office, he could be reprimanded or barred from further progress in his career. Since he is retired, the latter is not a concern, and no one--not even his accusers--believe that the church should take away his pension benefits. Still, Righter knows that, in one sense, the verdict will be irrelevant; whatever is decided in Wilmington, he will go down in history as only the second Episcopalian bishop charged with heresy.

Standing on the threshold of Grace Cathedral, he appears as a man between two worlds. Walter Righter, bishop and outsider. He knocks to ask for admittance. Although he is greeted with warm applause, it is not the church as a whole that is receiving him. Marginalized in their own church, gays and lesbians have raised this bishop as their mentor only when he became marginalized, too. Without a presentment, Righter would not have been invited here. It is not entirely clear where to find honor in that welcome.

Righter suggests his answer in the speech he delivers from a carved wooden pulpit above the crowd. He refers to his wife, Nancy, seated in the front row, and to himself. “We feel really privileged to be point people for what is happening in this church right now,” he says. “This is a phenomenon that involves our society as well as our church. To be lively and serious about it is to have some connection with the world outside church doors.” By the time he is finished, he is close to tears.

*

Barry Stopfel never expected to be ordained. Thirty-four years old and openly gay, he was working for American Express in its marketing department when he decided to enter New York’s Union Theological Seminary in 1984. “I planned to study business ethics in the seminary and go back to corporate work,” he says. His chances for the ministry didn’t improve when he fell in love with Will Leckie, a fellow student. Gay priests, even those who promise celibacy, are not likely to be called to be an Episcopalian pastor. Gay priests who live with their partner are practically unheard of. “It seemed naive,” Stopfel says, “to think I would ever do parish work.”

Stopfel has the mild manner that suits a man from Pennsylvania Dutch country. He has lost the top of his strawberry-blond hair but not all of his boyhood freckles. Leckie, by contrast, is wiry and intense, with a trace of his native Virginia accent, which has rubbed off on Stopfel. After ordination, Leckie, ordained in the United Church of Christ, served as chaplain for a hospice and helped found Spirit of the River, a church in Manhattan for gays and lesbians. He is now an actor with the Jean Cocteau Repertory Company and a graphic artist as well.

After leading Sunday morning service and hosting an open house at the rectory, Stopfel sits near the living room fireplace with Leckie at his side. Snow hurls past the window as Stopfel recalls how he managed to rise in the church. “As a student, I began to shift. I started to think about the ministry after all,” he says. “The advice from professors was: ‘This is not going to work unless you want to hide.’ But as a gay man, you don’t have access to the structures of power; all you have are your own personal ethics. So I have learned what the church as an institution thinks of me, and by and large that has freed me. I keep my eyes on three things: Am I being faithful to my call to be a priest, faithful to myself, and to Will?”

Walter Righter ordained Stopfel deacon in September 1990. Retired after 18 years as the bishop in Iowa, Righter had come to New Jersey for a part-time position, as an assistant to John Spong of Newark--considered the most liberal Episcopalian bishop. Iconoclastic, articulate, comfortable with the press, Spong has written more than a dozen books, including one in defense of homosexuality. He became bishop of Newark in 1976, the year women were first ordained, and he has led every progressive fight since. His first reaction to the trial was typically brash: “I’m somewhat disappointed I wasn’t accused first.” In fact, many in the House of Bishops (the Episcopalian Senate) believe that Spong is the ultimate target of the heresy trial--the actual object of the conservatives’ wrath. “Spong is a much bigger target than I am,” Righter says. “My feeling is they’re afraid of him.”

Even Spong admits, though, that Stopfel’s ordination was a complicated piece of business. A few months earlier, the Newark diocese had embarrassed the church when Spong ordained a man named Robert Williams. At a church-sponsored conference soon after his ordination, Williams advocated open marriages, both for gay and straight Episcopalians. No one was meant for monogamy, he pronounced.

After that, Righter says, “everything hit the fan.”

A few months later, at a House of Bishops meeting, Spong’s peers voted to “dissociate” themselves from his action, and steps were taken to remove Williams from the priesthood. Before the church came to a decision, Williams resigned. He ultimately died of complications from AIDS.

Ordinarily, Spong would have ordained Stopfel, but the heat from the Williams incident had not yet cooled. Spong consulted the head of the Episcopalian church, Presiding Bishop Edward Browning, who was considered a liberal on most church issues. “Both agreed that Spong would be a lightning rod,” Righter says, “but I would not be one.” Privately, several of Righter’s friends say now that Spong used him. Righter agrees that he has been used--but not by Spong. “I’m being scapegoated, and part of my outrage is that.”

With the scent of autumn leaves in the Bergen County air, Barry Stopfel entered Tenafly’s Church of the Atonement on Sept. 30, 1990, and was made a deacon. “It was very upbeat,” Righter recalls. “The church was loaded.” Three or four hundred family members, friends and parishioners crowded into the service. Upbeat, except for one, breathtaking moment. At a point in the ceremony when those present were invited to speak if they had any reservations, a loud voice shot forward.

“One person did stand up and raise objections about Barry’s sexual preference,” Righter says. “I said, these questions had been considered by the various screening committees. Barry had not once tried to hide his sexual preference. Therefore, we’ll go on with the ordination.” No one seemed upset by the drama. In fact, standing to object is not as unusual as it used to be. That single volley did not sound like a warning shot.

The following year, without fanfare, Spong ordained Stopfel an Episcopal priest. During his time in Tenafly, Stopfel began to see how an openly gay priest living with his lover could be accepted after all. “Tenafly is a highly class-conscious, very upscale community,” he recalls. “The people were nearly risk-averse, but it worked. They came a long way. There is always a chance, so long as the priority is relationship.”

Perhaps, Stopfel started to believe, his priorities could actually shift the debate about gay priests and homosexual marriages--or at least win a following. If so, his faithful relationship with another man might even become a role model for a parish. It depended, in part, on whether a congregation could share his vision: “Look at Will and I; look at what we create. Don’t look at whether our marriage is ‘legal’ or not.”

In May 1993, the parish of St. George in Maplewood called Stopfel to lead their congregation. A search team of 12 parishioners spent close to a year interviewing candidates for the position of rector. Spouses were interviewed, too, so Will Leckie was invited in for a talk. Two church wardens and the nine members of the church vestry met the finalists. “We kept the parish advised of our progress,” says Gail Austin, a vestry member at the time. Still, she admits, “I was a little nervous about how people would receive it, the day I announced the decision.”

Parishioner Casper Ewig, seated near the altar that Sunday, recalls the announcement. “Talk about dropping a bombshell. First, Gail Austin gave a very nice, five-minute speech on Barry. Then she ended by saying, ‘And he will be living in the rectory with his life partner, Will Leckie.’ There it was, a done deal. A lot of people felt that wasn’t fair. Some of them had serious concerns about Barry’s homosexuality. This is not a conservative parish, but its not as liberal as some like to think. Others, though, were captivated by the political correctness of it all.”

For several parents in the parish, Stopfel and Leckie embody the diversity of modern life. They want their children to be exposed to it. “I told my kids about a gay couple in the congregation,” Austin says. “They said, ‘Noooooo.’ Their image of a gay couple was very different, based on the things they’d heard other kids say at school. Hopefully, this will teach them to be more tolerant.”

A few families actually did leave. One father of two took his family out of the parish after 10 years at St. George. “We feel the church was carjacked,” he says. “There were homosexuals in the parish before, and it was fine with me. But, a practicing homosexual in the rector’s position of authority was sending a message to my children I didn’t want to accept. The message was: This is a valid alternative, a moral equivalent to Christian marriage.”

*

“Your Grace: . . . . It is with great reluctance that we have taken this action. Further, the fact that the action was filed against Bishop Righter is not a personal attack on him. . . .”

“We are deeply concerned for the Episcopal Church. Many question whether we really have any moral teaching, and more doubt that we have the will to call to account those who openly violate the moral teaching we have. We are hopeful that this action may bring to a head, and then bring to a close, the practice of open disregard for order, authority and collegiality. . . .”

With that letter, and the enclosed presentment, Bishop William Wantland of Eau Claire, Wisc., a canon lawyer, informed Presiding Bishop Browning that the required 25% of the House of Bishops demanded that Walter Righter be brought to trial. Dated Jan. 27, 1995, the presentment cited a number of statements approved by the House that Righter had violated by ordaining Barry Stopfel. The key statement was a resolution approved in September 1977: “In the case of an advocating and/or practicing homosexual, ordination is inadmissible.”

Righter was at home in Alstead, N.H., when Browning called and informed him of the charges. He was retired, looking forward to the rhythms of small-town New England life--serving on community committees, occasionally guest-preaching in a neighboring county. He says he had no inkling that he was in trouble. “Nobody talked to me when they were skulking around at the bishops’ meetings,” he says. By the time he received his own copy of the presentment, two bishops had already released it to their local newspapers. From the start, the trial was meant to be a public fight.

An approach to lawmaking that’s been less than specific has allowed both Righter and Wantland to feel confident that each is correct. That, Wantland says, is exactly why this trial was called. “Does the Episcopal church have a doctrine concerning sexual relations outside marriage and the appropriateness of ordaining those who practice sex outside marriage, or doesn’t it? Each bishop who signed the presentment felt there needs to be clarity.”

For almost two decades, the church had been waging a fight over who could--and could not--be ordained. In 1979, at a general convention, a statement was presented that reaffirmed the traditional Episcopalian teaching on marriage and chastity: monogamy and fidelity would still be expected; a homosexual with an active sex life, or a heterosexual involved in a sexual relationship outside marriage, should not be ordained. The majority approved it. Twenty-one bishops, however, refused to sign. Instead, they countered it with a response they called a Statement of Conscience. “It said the recommendation was not binding, and they could not accept it,” Spong says. Since homosexual marriage is not legally recognized, he argues, the church should honor gay and lesbian life partnerships if they are nurturing and monogamous.

For 10 years, that is where matters remained--each side vehemently disagreeing with the other, neither taking any action--until Spong ordained Robert Williams in 1989.

Several months later, without specific reference to Williams, Presiding Bishop Browning and his Council of Advice (in essence, his cabinet), in an apparent attempt to discourage future breaches, reaffirmed the church’s position on homosexual ordinations. Four months later, Washington Bishop Ronald Haines, like Spong an outspoken liberal, ordained Elizabeth Carl, a lesbian who was in a committed relationship.

Although the House of Bishops admonished Spong for ordaining Williams, it took no action against Haines. Further, Spong likes to point out, the vote against him was extremely close. “Eighty in favor, 76 against. I abstained.” The statement of disassociation was issued on September 18, 1990. Twelve days later, Righter ordained Stopfel.

“That ordination had a kind of in-your-face quality about it,” says Bishop William Frey, dean of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry in Ambridge, Penn., and a conservative widely respected by both sides. “With that, the whole thing became an undignified pissing match.”

In July 1991, at the General Convention in Phoenix, Ariz., two motions were presented. The first moved to make it canon law that only celibate homosexuals be ordained. The second proposed that Righter and Haines be censured for ordaining homosexuals. Both failed. But already, Wantland and company were laying the groundwork for a heresy trial. At the meeting, Wantland proposed that the number of bishop signatures required to call a trial be reduced from two-thirds to one-fourth. The motion passed. “It used to be almost impossible to call a heresy trial,” Spong says. Not anymore.

There was one last attempt at appeasement. At the general convention in 1994, the conservatives proposed a “pastoral study document” that committed bishops to continue ordaining “those persons we believe to be a wholesome example to their people.” They promised to proceed “in trust and koinonia.” Their choice of the Greek term, meaning fellowship, seemed a plea for reinstating the collegiality that bishops have traditionally engaged.

Suspicious of the conservatives’ motives, Spong wrote an instant response. He titled it, “Statement of Koinonia.” He would accept the document on one condition: Let the words “wholesome example” apply to heterosexuals and homosexuals, specifically “homosexual persons who choose to live out their sexual orientation in a partnership marked by faithfulness.” Seventy-one bishops signed.

A year later, 76 signed a statement consenting to Righter’s presentment.

*

“I’ve never met Barry Stopfel; I’m sure he’s a fine person,” says James Stanton, the bishop of Dallas, Tex. In his 50s, with steel gray hair, a linebacker’s build and restful eyes, Stanton has become the spokesman for the bishops who brought the heresy charges. Baptizing newborns at the Church of the Annunciation, he tolerates the wailing infants and fidgeting parents with the calm of experience. He relies on the a similar studied dispassion when making the case against Righter.

No, he doesn’t blame Stopfel--or Righter. He blames the entire hierarchy for the upcoming trial. This case represents a failing by the whole church to come to a unified mind. “What’s at stake,” he says, “is matter of order. How we establish order is the question. If the church’s position doesn’t carry by majority vote, it is chaos.”

More than any argument, that last point has won sympathy from the moderates. For someone like Frey, who is deeply disturbed by the animosity within the church, the liberal position that bishops are free agents who can go their own way is something he cannot tolerate. “Canon law developed with the assumption that the honorable would know and abide by the rules,” he says, “and that there would be good will among all parties. Some bishops have taken it upon themselves to behave in a different fashion. This trial is the only mechanism we have in place to find out whether we have a teaching that stands up.”

But the conservatives’ agenda, liberals like Spong insist, doesn’t end with this trial--pointing to Wantland’s letter to Browning, which warned of more accusations for more bishops to come. He promised the presentments would continue “until we are current in bringing to trial all those who knowingly violated the teaching of the church.”

With such confrontational language in the air, liberals were wary of any attempt to compromise and avoid a trial. In the spring of 1995, five bishops from each side met in Hendersonville, N.C. Browning encouraged them to meet in the hope that they could get past their destructive standoff.

“We said we were willing to take the presentment off the table,” recalls Stanton, who attended the negotiations, “if there could be a moratorium on the ordination of practicing homosexuals until and unless there was a change of teaching. We also said we should bring the question to the 1997 general convention. We asked for agreement that if anyone broke the moratorium, the whole House would serve that bishop a presentment.”

For the liberals, a moratorium was out of the question. (‘In my diocese, I have at least 15 gay or lesbian priests fully out of the closet,” Spong says.) And they suspected that the conservatives had another agenda as well--to dominate the at next year’s general convention, at which a new presiding bishop would be elected to replace the liberal Browning. They had reason to worry.

Rounding up 76 required signatures to bring Righter to trial was a daunting task, and Stanton and company had pulled it off like seasoned political pros. Letters were sent, follow-up telephone calls where made, powerful members of the laity were enlisted. “Back room politics?” asks Roger Boltz, associate director of Episcopalians United, an organization of clergy and laity that opposes the ordination of women and practicing homosexuals. “To a greater or lesser degree, that’s been done.”

*

At the same time Stanton was campaigning for the presentments, he and his diocese took a position that can only lead to deeper divisions. Every year, each diocese is expected to contribute to the national office for a variety of church missions and business expenses. In 1995, the Dallas diocese voted to “redirect, not withhold” half the funds it gave the previous year. “Instead, we will give that money to various missions and ministries,” Stanton says. “It was not a protest. But, in not being sure how the money is being spent by the national church, or what the church understanding of ‘mission’ is . . . I do see possible future boycotts and the withholding of funds from the national church.”

Surrounded by family photographs in his wood-paneled office, a tweed jacket over his bishop’s collar, Stanton explains this without so much as a quiver in his voice. If enough bishops joined such a boycott, the ramifications would be devastating for the Episcopalian church. “I’m not part of any organized effort to keep funds from the national church,” he continues, “but if a bishop can ignore what is passed at a general convention as a stated position of the church, I have to wonder if a general convention is worth the money.” *

Righter’s heresy trial, which is expected to last no more than three days, will resemble nothing that takes place in a civil court. There will be no jury. Instead, nine bishops, not specifically chosen for this trial but elected to a staggered nine-year term as judges, will issue the verdict. They will bring no pretense of objectivity. Four judges signed Spong’s koinonia statement; two judges were among the signatories condoning the trial.

The courtroom will be in the great hall of St John’s Cathedral in Wilmington. (The trial has been relocated twice; bishops in Chicago and Hartford, Conn., asked that the proceedings not take place in their dioceses.) The trial will be open to the public. Forty places have been set aside for the press, and another 350 viewers will be allowed to watch the proceedings on closed-circuit TV in the church sanctuary. Just about all officially connected to the trial will wear their clerical collars. The proceedings will begin with a prayer.

To cut personal costs and find some comfort as well, Righter and his wife Nancy will stay with a longtime friend, the Rev. Steve Snider, who plans to greet the Righters with a bottle of Old Fettercairn, the Bishop’s favorite Scotch. Snider’s hospitality might help trim expenses. Still, defense lawyer Michael Rehill, a layman and chancellor for the diocese of Newark who is working pro bono, says his side has already spent more than $100,000.

For all of the contention it has caused, for all the divisions it has exposed, for all the embarrassment it has brought to the church, few observers believe that Righter’s trial will change anything. “After the trial, I suspect the teaching of the church will continue to be no sex outside marriage,” says church historian Robert Prichard, of Virginia seminary in Alexandria. “But it is inconceivable that Bishop Righter be defrocked or suspended by this court. . . . I’d look for some negative statement in the next five years saying: ‘We do not believe in gay multiple lovers or in heterosexuals who have sex outside marriage,’ leaving blank the question on homosexuals who are in a relationship.”

Historian John Booty is more pessimistic: “My concern is that the Episcopal church, like our society, is becoming polarized, and the polarization threatens to pull down the whole church.”

However, Righter--who has the most to lose from this trial--continues to be optimistic. Sitting in his San Francisco hotel room, dressed in the emblems of his office, he can’t help but be sunny and pastoral. “I’d like to be getting ordained right now,” he says. “The next 50 years will be enormously significant. And to participate in shaping the future from the spiritual side--for me, nothing would be more exciting than that.”