XPost: alt.religion.christian.episcopal, alt.christnet.christianlife,   
   alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   XPost: talk.politics.guns, sac.politics   
   From: democrat-insurrection@mail.house.gov   
      
   https://thefederalist.com/2024/12/27/the-destruction-of-a-beloved-new-   
   york-choir-school-epitomizes-the-fall-of-the-episcopal-church/   
      
   It is hardly a novel observation that the Episcopal Church is in freefall   
   — its once-immense cultural influence reduced to a mere whisper, its   
   ancient liturgies now little more than quaint relics in a world that has   
   long ceased to value the transcendent.   
      
   The leadership, having spent decades more preoccupied with virtue-   
   signaling on fashionable social justice causes, identity politics, and the   
   moral imperative of appeasing the ever-changing winds of political   
   correctness, now finds itself on the brink of irrelevance. It is as though   
   the church decided to exchange its eternal spiritual heritage for the   
   transient concerns of modernity, only to discover, with a bemused shrug,   
   that the transaction has rendered it hollow.   
      
   The ecclesiastical train wreck, long in the making, may be regarded as   
   inevitable, but even in this context, St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue’s   
   decision to dismantle its eponymous choir school — a treasure that has   
   stood as the pinnacle of Anglican choral excellence for over 100 years —   
   is nothing short of an affront to the senses. Were the Episcopal Church a   
   sinking ship, St. Thomas might be imagined as its last remaining lifeboat   
   — staunch, dignified, and afloat in a sea of mediocrity. Yet, in its   
   infinite wisdom, the church is now preparing to hurl that lifeboat   
   overboard in favor of something less majestic. If this is what the   
   “preservation” of an institution looks like, perhaps we should welcome a   
   shipwreck.   
      
   St. Thomas Church, founded in 1823, was once the epitome of ecclesiastical   
   grandeur in New York City, a sanctuary where the Anglican tradition   
   flourished in all its solemnity and beauty. Its walls have resonated with   
   some of the finest sacred music in the Western canon, and its pews were   
   once filled with captains of industry, statesmen, artists, and patrons of   
   the arts. To enter St. Thomas was to be drawn into an august world, an   
   intersection of the sacred and the sublime, a place that radiated a sense   
   of purpose and permanence that has all but vanished from modern life.   
      
   This legacy owes much to the generosity of Charles Steele (1857-1939), a   
   partner at J.P. Morgan and the choir school’s principal benefactor, who   
   sought to uphold the highest standards of cultural and spiritual   
   education. Through a series of endowments, Steele enabled the choir school   
   to thrive as an institution of excellence, integrating faith, academics,   
   and music to shape young men into torchbearers of Anglican tradition. That   
   such an institution is now being gutted by a vestry seemingly bent on   
   expediency over vision is a betrayal of Steele’s legacy and the ideals he   
   sought to preserve.   
      
   Yet when I recently asked the wardens of the vestry, Gregory Zaffiro and   
   Lloyd Stanford, what makes St. Thomas special, they could scarcely muster   
   more than a flaccid litany of clichés, musing about the beauty of the   
   place and the friendliness of the people. The mission statement’s   
   reference to “the Anglican tradition and our unique choral heritage” seems   
   to be a mere afterthought at best for the two lay leaders of the parish.   
      
   No mention of the choral heritage. No reverence for the institution’s   
   towering liturgical contributions. No sense of duty toward a mission that   
   extends beyond the merely pleasant. It is as if, for the vestry, St.   
   Thomas is little more than a quaint meeting hall where Sunday’s sermon is   
   an item on the social calendar, rather than a venerable institution where   
   heaven meets earth in liturgy and song.   
      
   In an era when few institutions even aspire to uphold such high values,   
   St. Thomas has remained an emblem of continuity and purpose — until now.   
   Under the Orwellian guise of “preservation,” the vestry has recently   
   announced its intention to dismantle the choir school’s integrated   
   academic model by “collaborating” with the Professional Children’s School   
   (PCS), a secular institution with no liturgical foundation.   
      
   According to the plan, choristers will be shuttled across Manhattan for   
   their academic studies, transforming the choir school into a hollowed-out   
   boarding facility devoid of its academic program. Such doublespeak would   
   be amusing if it weren’t so tragic; as Orwell noted, political language   
   often serves to “make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.” Here,   
   the vestry’s language does precisely that, invoking “preservation” to mask   
   the wholesale abandonment of the choir school’s raison d’être.   
      
   The Absurdity of the Plan   
   Consider the practical absurdities underlying this farce. The choir   
   school, since its founding in 1919 by Dr. T. Tertius Noble, has existed to   
   preserve the Anglican choral tradition by offering a place where music,   
   academics, and faith are integrated into a seamless whole, ensuring that   
   boys are not only trained in song but are nurtured in character and   
   intellect. Yet the vestry’s decision will transform it into a hollow   
   shell, a skeletal entity where boys may sing but cannot study.   
      
   Meanwhile, the rector himself, Carl Turner, lives in a rectory purchased   
   in 2018 for close to $8 million — a substantial asset that, were it sold   
   and the proceeds reinvested, could provide the choir school with a stream   
   of funding to offset operating costs. Is there any compelling reason why   
   the rector himself could not move into one of the vacant choir school   
   apartments, should the finances truly be as dire as claimed? Apparently,   
   the idea of stepping down to a more humble living space is far less   
   palatable to him than the wholesale destruction of a century-old   
   institution that has long been the jewel of the Anglican choral tradition   
   on this side of the Atlantic.   
      
   Fiscal Hypocrisy and Moral Cowardice   
   This disingenuous handling extends beyond fiscal hypocrisy to outright   
   obfuscation. Nowhere in vestry communications do we find specifics on how   
   much the PCS model will actually save compared to a scaled-back “retain”   
   model. When I inquired with the chief advancement officer, Bruce Smith, I   
   was told the decision wasn’t driven “strictly” by finances but by a lack   
   of “appetite” for a scaled-down school. So is it about finances or not?   
   The vestry vacillates between fiscal alarmism and vague enthusiasm for   
   “collaboration,” revealing either a profound lack of transparency or a   
   fundamental misunderstanding of their own priorities.   
      
   The indignities do not end here. In a move that would be laughable were it   
   not so brazen, the vestry has appointed none other than the rector’s wife   
   as “Interim Director of Transition” — a unilateral decision made without   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)