For more than a decade, the Church of the Good Shepherd and its rector Fr. David L. Moyer have been embroiled in an ecclesiastical and legal battle with the Diocese of Pennsylvania, its Bishop Charles E. Bennison, and, more recently, with the parish's former attorney John H. Lewis Jr.,

It has been a nasty protracted war that has left the battlefield with walking wounded, broken relationships, anger, frustration, lost assets and profound bitterness on all sides. A ruling by Montgomery County Court Judge Stanley Ott, this past week, brought closure to the legal imbroglio by saying Moyer must leave the parish and depart from the rectory. He also said two vestrymen must step down.

Echoes of the enduring pain were heard briefly in remarks by Vestryman David Rawson who told parishioners that "Michel was probably the best of the lot from Church House and said the decision to receive communion was up to individual conscience." Only four were seen not to take communion. He said a new "fully orthodox interim rector" would be announced in the next two days. He would not reveal the name to the congregation.

Lay leaders in the church immediately called for parish-wide healing and prayer.

A vestry meeting has been called for Sept. 7 to elect a new vestry and a transition committee will be charged to plan for an interim priest. There is no energy or plans to accept an Ordinariate by the members.

LAWSUITS

The deeper truth in all this is that these lawsuits have brought nothing but profound disgrace on the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The twists and turns in this decade-long drama would have all the stuff of a great novel if it weren't all true.

Having known Fr. Moyer for more than a decade, I have finally concluded that what has driven him all these years is his own self-importance, his own deep-seated narcissism, tempered with yards of millinery and pomp, pipes, port and a high-powered racing car.

When he stood up to Bennison, many others and I admired him. He publicly challenged the megalomaniac, sociopathic bishop at Church House on a number of basic doctrines (which Bennison confessed he could no longer believe). Moyer stood tall. He had the support of leading Anglican archbishops and bishops and thousands of laity across the country and around the world. He was a hero in many eyes. His parish stood solidly behind him. For his "sins" of disobedience, he was inhibited and deposed. He refused to go. His attorney and then friend, John H. Lewis Jr., came to his rescue. He kept Bennison at bay for nearly eight years.

Then everything went terribly wrong. Moyer dumped his friend and lawyer and settled for lawyers who did not know nearly as much canon law as Lewis does. It was the beginning of Moyer's long, slow, painful decline and downfall. He either listened to his own inner voice (mirror, mirror on the wall) or the voices of those who consistently gave him bad advice.

As a result, Moyer lost all his subsequent lawsuits, and squandered the assets of the church. In the midst of his troubles with the leadership of Anglicans as far afield as Central Africa (under which he briefly served), he jumped into the arms of somebody called John Hepworth and the Traditional Anglican Communion, a body of Continuing Anglicans that is unrecognized by either TEC or the Archbishop of Canterbury. TAC is also not recognized by the conservative provinces of the Global South, which now represent most Anglicans in the world. And though Hepworth and other TAC leaders were key lobbyists for what ultimately emerged as the Anglican Ordinariate, approved by the Pope in late 2009, it is hard to discern whether even Rome has a lot of respect for Hepworth, who (inter alia) won't be able to deliver as large a constituency to the Ordinariate(s) as originally envisioned, particularly due to considerable resistance in TAC's American branch, in which Moyer resides. Moyer had leapt out of the frying pan into the proverbial fire.

TRADITIONAL ANGLICAN COMMUNION

This reporter was at Good Shepherd when Moyer was consecrated for the TAC alongside Australian priest David Chislett. It was a great show, with more millinery than Jesus and the 12 disciples could have worn in six lifetimes. Present was a bishop from the Anglican Church of Australia who was later discredited and tossed out of that church for "conduct unbecoming." Chislett later fled back to the Anglican Church of Australia, leaving Hepworth and his miter behind. It was perhaps an omen of things to come.

With miter firmly in hand, Moyer came to believe in himself even more firmly. He dumped his lawyer, hired new ones and and lost the lawsuit brought by the Diocese. He then fired off a lawsuit at his former friend and attorney for malpractice, but then withdrew it because he (and those with him) realized it was unsupportable, based on the evidence. (Moyer, et al, wanted money to continue the lawsuit against Bennison).

Moyer was asked to apologize to his former friend and attorney, a small act of contrition that you'd think a man who now stood more closely to our Lord as part of his inner ecclesiastical ring could perform. He refused. In a surprising, farewell letter to his former Good Shepherd parishioners on September 3 Moyer acknowledged sinfulness and apologized for any hurt he caused, explicitly mentioning hurt to the Lewis family. However, this apology was long overdue; and Moyer has yet to apologize directly to Lewis, let alone try to make the restitution that real amends require. There was no apology from the pulpit or to Lewis personally. It was a politician's apology. Now he faces a lawsuit for defamation and for bringing a frivolous lawsuit. For Lewis the lawsuit is a matter of "honor."

In all of this, Moyer pled his innocence and cited that verse of Scripture which talks of being persecuted for righteousness' sake. The irony here should not be missed. It was the same verse that Bennison cited when he was in his own "wilderness" period, having been inhibited and deposed for covering up his brother's sexual abuse of a minor. As all of TEC is now tilted in favor of liberals, however, Bennison got a reprieve; nay, more than that, he was brought back from the ecclesiastical dead by the less-than-almighty hand of legal statutes.

A double irony is that Moyer said, not once but three times during one of his trials that Bennison was his friend. I was forced to ask, when he said that, what then is the difference between Moyer, Bennison and another narcissistic Bishop, V. Gene Robinson - a totally self-absorbed homosexual? The same pathologies are rooted in all three men - the absolute rightness of their positions, no compromise under any circumstances about anything. As a result, they will go, in time, like Zoroastrians and Shakers into extinction.

Though the establishment of a U.S. Ordinariate, longed for by Hepworth and Moyer, is generally anticipated soon, it has not yet materialized in the U.S., but it has already been rejected by three quarters of the Anglican Church in America, (ACA) TAC's U.S. province. I am reliably told, as well, that their rejection of it could well split the TAC when the bishops next meet, isolating Moyer even further. If Hepworth is ousted, where does that leave Moyer if the U.S. Ordinariate is not brought into being?

Furthermore, if and when the Ordinariate comes, can he really guarantee that he will be among the chosen ones to be anointed by Rome? Is he a guaranteed shoo-in? Is he prepared to lay down his miter and priesthood at that time (as did the three Church of England bishops who briefly became laymen before being re-consecrated priests and later as Monsignors in the Roman Church?)

Moyer cannot guarantee any of this. Does he imagine that Rome and Cardinal Levada, Rome's point man for the Ordinariate, haven't been watching and reading about Moyer's legal woes and shaking their heads? They don't need him. The Roman Church has enough legal problems over priestly pedophile scandals by harboring their former leading U.S. cardinal (Bernard Law) from Massachusetts behind Vatican walls. There is an irony, here, though. As The Christian Challenge previously reported, Cardinal Levada himself, before Pope Benedict plucked him out of Los Angeles for the Vatican post, had the dubious honor of being one of the most-subpoenaed Catholic prelates in connection with clergy sexual abuse lawsuits.

In his farewell address, Moyer announced he would be staying in the area and would start another congregation.

By midweek, he had hastily announced on the Internet the formation of Christ our Good Shepherd, which would meet at a former parishioner's home. A blurb at an Anglo-Catholic website said the church is comprised of people who were part of the Church of the Good Shepherd, Rosemont, under the aegis of the Fellowship of Blessed John Henry Newman, an Ordinariate-bound community of Anglicans. He drew some 58, a source told VOL.

That Moyer has presumptuously organized his small community around the recently beatified convert and cardinal Blessed John Henry Newman is filled with irony. Newman left the Church of England and converted to Rome; Moyer wants to enter Rome with certain Anglican trappings. "He is too tainted for Rome to consider him," a source told VOL. "Rome has enough problems with pedophile priests, they don't need a bishop from a vagante episcopoi tainted with a decade of lawsuits."

Observers say that there is little chance now of Moyer ever being accepted into the U. S. Ordinariate when it is established. "Rome has been watching and reading what has gone on here for the last decade and Moyer's credibility with Rome is zero. His history is known to the Vatican, he comes with too much baggage." a source told VOL.

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