Lead story
Deadlines Loom, Bethlehem Brinkmanship Offers Optimism
Volume 29 Issue 1, 2 & 3 | Posted: March 19, 2015
On Sunday February 8, I attended the biweekly meeting of the Friends of Bethlehem Society at Bethlehem centre in Nanaimo. These meetings are part the ongoing effort of the society to purchase and operate Bethlehem as a progressive spirituality centre for Vancouver Island and beyond. Well organized, the meeting was full of optimism, positive suggestions and informative updating.
Bethlehem has been functioning as a progressive Roman Catholic retreat centre since 1986 but its owners the Benedictine Sisters are making the wise choice based on internal and external realities and selling off the centre, hopefully to its long term ally, The Friends of Bethlehem Society.
On Sunday February 8, I attended the biweekly meeting of the Friends of Bethlehem Society at Bethlehem centre in Nanaimo. These meetings are part the ongoing effort of the society to purchase and operate Bethlehem as a progressive spirituality centre for Vancouver Island and beyond. Well organized, the meeting was full of optimism, positive suggestions and informative updating.
Bethlehem has been functioning as a progressive Roman Catholic retreat centre since 1986 but its owners the Benedictine Sisters are making the wise choice based on internal and external realities and selling off the centre, hopefully to its long term ally, The Friends of Bethlehem Society.
With a price tag of $3 million and the need for $500,000 operating cash, the Friends of Bethlehem Society are taking on the challenge creatively. ICN reported on the overall situation in its last issue, which is posted on-line at its website. (www.islandcatholicnews.ca)
UPDATE
The main news update has to do with the purchase investment partners. An important meeting was held in Vancouver February 11 with the BC Conference of the United Church of Canada. Peter Daniel, asset manager for the Anglican Church on Vancouver Island, reported that the United Church officials listened careful and will carry it forward to an upcoming finance committee meeting for consideration as an investment.
Friends of Bethlehem Society chairperson Gerry Herkel added that he expected to hear very soon. Bishop Remi De Roo, chaplain to the Benedictine Sisters, said he was optimistic after the meeting. It is important to get at least three major investors. The Anglicans are leading the way in the search for further investors in the property.
A successful meeting with the owners, the Benedictine community of the House of Bread in Nanaimo, was held February 19 to seek a three month extension for the first stage of the fund raising effort.
$70,000 in pledges and cash donations has been raised as of the February 8 meeting at the centre. Peter Daniel, asset manager for the Anglican Diocese and a successful developer for forty years in Victoria, claims the project is still very do-able.
THE STATE OF THE QUESTION FOR CATHOLICS
Bishop Remi De Roo and many progressive Catholics are closely associated with these developments, attending biweekly meetings at Bethlehem where the grassroots Friends of Bethlehem Society holds planning meetings focused on membership, fund raising, coalition building and grassroots involvement. It’s very exciting.
As mentioned, some seventy thousand dollars has been donated overall for the program aspect of the centre. The ownership question has been given an extension to secure one or two more partners, hopefully including the United Church of Canada along with the Anglican Diocese who have been leading the charge.
The stumbling block for Catholics is the ownership question.
THE CURRENT DILEMMA
Many people are wondering where the Catholic Church stands on the question of investing as a partner in Bethlehem. The history of the centre included ownership by the Diocese in 1986 under Bishop Remi De Roo. The Benedictine Sisters purchased it, with the help of the community, from the Diocese in 2001. Two years ago, Bishop Richard Gagnon was elevated to the archdiocese of Winnipeg just at the time the Diocese of Victoria was looking again at purchasing it back. As a result, the effort fell fallow.
The new Catholic Bishop Gary Gordon was approached by the new Anglican Bishop Logan McMenamie to be a purchase partner as a sign of solidarity between the two Christian denomination. Anglicans and Catholics in Victoria have been particularly close since The Second Vatican Council in the mid-1960s.
There have been no signs of positive response, just the opposite unfortunately. It was felt that the Sisters of Saint Ann might be in a position to make the profitable investment that purchase of Bethlehem can mean. Discussions were underway when it was suddenly announced that the idea was closed. It is well known that the Sisters of St. Ann would never proceed with such a step without getting permission from the local Ordinary.
OPUS DEI?
On the topic of retreat centres, the new Catholic bishop is known to have been expressing an interest in such a project. He said he was heading that way in his last diocese, Whitehorse and has been presenting the idea to certain groups he has been meeting with since his arrival on Vancouver Island.
He is interested in a new retreat centre but Bethlehem is not in the equation as a consideration. Speculation is that he has an independent source of funds that will not tolerate the multifaith progressive spirituality typified by Bethlehem, and previously Queenswood House in Victoria. Under this analysis, the new centre would have to reflect uber-Catholic values a la Opus Dei. It would be very sad if the new bishop has gotten himself compromised in this way.
The Diocese of Victoria is in a particular dilemma. The new pope is progressive but Bishop Gordon was appointed by the previous pope so does not reflect Francis’ style or progressive values. He has been notably ushered in by handlers of the Opus Dei sort, including Archbishop Michael Miller of Vancouver and the rector of the cathedral here on Vancouver Island, John Lasczyck.
The big question for the diocese and its future as a bona fide Vatican II church (such as Francis has been re-establishing) is whether he can shake off these regressive influences or whether he too will go down the indifferent path of his two immediate predecessors, bishops who made little if any real headway with their programs for the church on Vancouver Island.
Bishop Gordon would be well advised to seek out the progressive Catholic voices who have been developing the Catholic church on Vancouver Island for fifty years. He would also be encouraged to get on board with the Bethlehem project as a prophetic unitary symbolic gesture. It would show that he is looking ahead with Francis, not through the rear view mirror at the cosy church of yesteryear, and not controlled by the deadwood of Opus Dei types.