Even those using a Braille keyboard can readily obtain all this news (information) on the Internet.

It doesn't require $2,000+ in LAN airfares (average cost to each bishop and spouse), five nights at the Hilton Colon Quito hotel, plus transportation, meals and more. So assuming an average cost of $4,500 - $5,500 per couple for six days (depending on where they came from), the cost for this gabfest is well over half a million dollars. Now think what this money could do for the struggling Diocese of Haiti or for hundreds of Episcopal parishes in need of repairs, or to prop up Mrs. Jefferts Schori's litigating properties that will lie fallow once the diocese regains them. For the record the average per capita income for an Ecuadorean is approximately $4,500.00. 98% of Ecuadoreans could not afford one night in a Hilton hotel let alone a week.

Bishop Greg Rickels (Olympia), noted wryly in his blog from Quito, "I understand there has been some 'chatter' in and around the Church regarding our coming here to such an 'exotic' place. There is certainly enough on both sides of that argument to question and wonder about but I would address this in several ways. I can tell you personally that although it was a bit more expensive to get here, we have probably spent far less while here than any House of Bishops Fall meeting I have been to."

Really bishop. Ya think? Math is clearly not the bishop's strong point.

The Diocese of Virginia would love to have had that kind of money to continue operating after all those Anglican parishes left his Episcopal grip. Just ask the Rt. Rev. Shannon Sherwood Johnston, who was publicly humiliated last week when one of his fleeing parishes - Truro- entertained 16 Anglican bishops and 700 Anglicans to see a new Anglican bishop invested in the newly formed Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic. One can hear his teeth grinding all the way to Richmond.

So the deeper question is what will the average pew sitter get out of this Ecuadorian foray for his/her money?

The answer: Not much. Maybe nothing. Definitely nothing.

Bishop Ruiz has been in an ecclesiastical war with the Standing Committee so the diocese is effectively not working. There's a great start for openers. Apparently, a decision was brokered in before the bishops arrived that all factions attend church at the Cathedral. This happened. The Cathedral was packed, standing room only in fact, and everyone was warmly welcomed, wrote Bishop Rickels at his blog. This is seen as a good development, but there certainly is a long way to go, he wrote. Really.

The Presiding Bishop then praised Liberation theology in her sermon. Following that, she made all 116 bishops sit and listen to five days of lectures on Liberation Theology by various "Liberation" theologians flown in for the occasion. That's reminiscent of Joe Stalin force-feeding Marxism down 60 million Russian throats for 72 years.

For the record, Liberation theology is or was (it is now passé) a Christian movement in political theology that interprets the teachings of Jesus in terms of liberation from unjust economic, political, or social conditions. Proponents have described it as "an interpretation of Christian faith through the poor's suffering, their struggle and hope, and a critique of society and the Catholic faith and Christianity through the eyes of the poor". It has been out of favor for well over three decades. Its detractors viewed it as Christianized Marxism.

Although liberation theology has grown into an international and inter-denominational movement, it began as a movement within the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America in the 1950s–1960s. Liberation theology arose principally as a moral reaction to the poverty caused by social injustice in that region. The Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutiérrez, who wrote one of the movement's most famous books, A Theology of Liberation, coined the term in 1971. Peru has a border with Ecuador.

The influence of liberation theology diminished after proponents were accused of using "Marxist concepts" leading to an admonishment from the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in 1984 and 1986. The Vatican criticized certain strains of liberation theology for focusing on institutionalized or systemic sin, apparently to the exclusion of individual offenders/offenses; and for allegedly misidentifying Catholic Church hierarchy in South America as being members of the privileged classes that had long been oppressing indigenous populations since the arrival of Pizarro onward.

Of course this fits perfectly with Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori's notion that the [Episcopal] Church should never talk about personal sin and redemption, but keep bashing institutions and corporations which are capable of doing great harm, especially oil companies that keep millions of cars running on American, and presumably, Ecuadorian roads. Ironically, a certain Cardinal Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XIV, criticized liberation theology for elevating orthopraxis to the level of orthodoxy. As TEC doesn't have much orthodoxy left, Liberation Theology makes perfect sense.

Bishop Jefferts Schori is 30 years behind the times, maybe longer, unless she thinks she can reinvigorate a dead movement.

Evangelicalism in Latin America has swept aside Liberation Theology. Half of Brazil's population will be Evangelical Christians by 2020. An international mission reports that evangelicals are expected to reach 57.4 million in Brazil this year in accordance with the evangelical annual growth rate of 7.42 %. Researchers predict Brazil's evangelical growth rate over the next decade with an estimated half of Brazil's population being Pentecostal by the year 2020. Not a one believes in Liberation Theology. Brazil is no longer a Third World country. Apparently, evangelicalism and economic self-determination are better kissin' cousins. Ecuador and Brazil, it should be noted, are only a few hundred miles from each other's borders. Evangelicalism is not huge in Ecuador but it is growing. It may well sweep that country in the next ten years as revival takes hold as it has in Brazil.

The Evangelical Missionary Union Church is the largest Protestant church in Ecuador. They have also started two Indian radio stations that are now under the leadership of Quichua believers. One of the largest Protestant broadcasting projects is HCJB ("Voice of the Andes"), located in Quito and owned by World Radio Missionary Fellowship. Started in 1931, it now broadcasts in 17 major languages, and is aired in short wave, long-wave, and local radio programs.

None of the Episcopal bishops made reference to this in their blogs that VOL could find. Apparently that is not the kind of [evangelical] outreach Episcopal bishops want to know or hear about.

So the new version of TEC under Jefferts Schori (following the pluriform version/vision of Frank Griswold) will now see dozens of bishops preaching Liberation Theology to emptying pews. If so, I have news for you. If you thought Gene Robinson's election started emptying churches, Liberation Theology will seal the deal. EMT nurses will be called to churches across America on Sunday morning to carry out aging passed out parishioners and administering oxygen in the vain hope that some geriatric Episcopalians will still be alive to write out checks to ERD in time for Christmas.

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