Lies and Leadership
I am not interested in waving Mark Stokoe’s banner, one way or the other. (I’ve certainly disagreed with his editorial decisions by private email on several occasions, as he can attest. We have never met in person.) What I am interested in is seeing is the return of leadership that is built on truth, trust, and accountability. If we define leadership as influence, OCA Truth has been a leader without peer over the last two months. Sadly, that leadership was built on lies, and those were built on anonymity and a total lack of accountability. (I wrote previously that OCA Truth’s heated rhetoric was only making the possibility of a reconciliation within the Holy Synod even more remote.) Detractors might respond with, “But Stokoe did it, too!” but he didn’t. At a very minimum, his name was on what he wrote, so that people could evaluate the source and his history in the same way I read or don’t read several columnists in the paper based on my perception of their credibility. I know several members of the alleged cabal, and, despite any disagreements I might have with them, I know them to be honest, upright, and Christian.
In the end, OCA Truth has provided a negative example of leadership, by demonstrating how lies and, really, anonymity ultimately come to ruin. For now, it is time for us to return to prayer for our real leaders, to ask that they be guided by the Holy Spirit and that the divisions of the recent couple of years and the acrimony of the past two months can be healed. We need the concerns of the first cohesive Holy Synod seen in decades to be addressed for the sake of God’s people.
“Lying lips are abomination to the Lord: but they that deal truly are his delight.” -Proverbs 12:22
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Rebecca Matovic:
May 4th, 2011 at 3:48 pm
Well said.
We all need to be on guard against temptation, and it’s very easy to fall into the temptation of subsuming right behavior to a vision of oneself as a warrior in a holy conflict — the ends justifies the means. Not a philosophy for Christians.
John Tkachuk:
May 4th, 2011 at 5:00 pm
Thank you, Father Basil and Rebecca ~ as you said: “Well said!”
Matushka Elizabeth:
May 4th, 2011 at 6:34 pm
Well done, Father. God be with you and your familia. God be with the Holy Synod of Bishops and with the Metropolitan Council as they meet. Let the Light of Christ and Wisdom reign.
Stephen Montgomery:
May 4th, 2011 at 7:45 pm
Bless you Father…I wonder why Rod did all of this…he has certainly lost what credibility he had with me and he probably will and should lose his job at The Templeton Foundation..I dissagree with their politics but surely they wouldn’t put up with his foolishness.
Ed Unneland:
May 4th, 2011 at 7:49 pm
I’ll add my axios to the above.
I have said on a number of occasions that it is depressing beyond words to encounter greater morality and human decency from Monday to Friday at my S&P 500 company than seemingly exists at certain parts of the OCA. Gerhard Weinberg notes that military competence was inversely related to one’s rank in the Italian Army in WWII. Perhaps something similar is at work here?
Fr John Erickson:
May 4th, 2011 at 8:27 pm
And let me add my thanks. As previous posters have said, “Well said!” May God richly bless you and your family in this Paschal season!
Mickey Hodges:
May 4th, 2011 at 9:46 pm
Agree with all of the above. Christ is risen!
Jesse Cone:
May 5th, 2011 at 12:14 am
Fr. Basil,
First of all, I apologize if you felt I was taunting. I asked you that question seriously and exasperatedly. If those of us who are worried about an uncanonical ousting of Met. Jonah are wrong, please give us legitimate reassurances.
As for the lies… I’m sorry but I don’t see what you mean. I never lied about not having or seeing or hearing the SMPAC report. Yes I decided to post elsewhere under my own name. That’s also not a lie. I never lied to anyone about my involvement in the blog, going so far as even to inform the acting rector of my parish in an act of good faith and pastoral confidence.
When you say you determined two of the OCATruth writers before the emails where released, I am assume you are speaking about Rod and Fr. Joseph. Fr. Joseph was never part of the blog. If you argue he was by extension I would argue that at least half of the Holy Synod is then part of Mark Stokoe’s blog. Not a vital point, but just a small correction.
I think it is a bit of stretch to look at OCATruth as an example of leadership. It’s a blog voicing a different opinion that OCANews. It was never meant to be permanent, and it was never meant to be your one-stop-shop for auditing the OCA or to spreading dirt on bishops/clergy. If it was, it would look very different.
Perhaps you are trying to say that we didn’t take responsibility for the impact of our words seriously, or maturely enough. Perhaps, but it wasn’t for lack of effort or prayer. As I’m sure you know, it is difficult to gauge the impact of what one does online, but please know it is something I do take seriously.
Chris Banescu:
May 5th, 2011 at 1:42 am
An excellent, well-reasoned, objective, and balanced evaluation and analysis. Thank you Fr. Basil for bringing some much needed wisdom and proper perspectives.
Fr Basil Biberdorf:
May 5th, 2011 at 8:44 am
Jesse,
Lies are significantly determined by the intent to deceive. By posting under a mix of identities – all belonging to you – at OCATruth.com, Monomakhos.com, and perhaps other places of which I’m unaware, the following impressions were given: a) that Jesse Cone had no affiliation with OCA Truth, b) that OCA Truth had more supporters than perhaps it did in reality, c) that “reasonable” graduate students like Jesse Cone, unaffiliated with OCA Truth, support the work of those anonymous guys responsible for it. Beyond that, I stand by the points I made until someone can demonstrate that they are wrong. OCA Truth did say those things, but without proof apart from “our sources.” Pray tell, who might those be? Was your site to be a Truth site or a Gossip site?
As for leadership, a common definition is that “leadership is influence.” OCA Truth absolutely tried to influence what was going on. (So did OCAnews. For that matter, so does this blog, at least in this matter, and mostly by discussing what has happened.) Why else “tell your friends,” and “tell your neighbors”? Why attempt to shape the Washington Post profile of His Beatitude?
Concerning Fr. Fester’s role, I can’t say whether he authored site-specific content or not. He does appear to have provided a steady stream of information, variously confidential or specious. As but one example, where else does one obtain a document, the one from Abp Dmitri threatening indefinite suspension against Gregory Burke mentioned at http://www.ocatruth.com/?p=344 , that sure looks like it came from a personnel file? You guys weren’t breaking into chancery offices, were you?
Worst of all, your “effort” and “prayer” led to repeated slurs against real individuals – my own bishop (+Melchisedek), the rector at my parish (Archpriest John Reeves), my diocesan lay representative to the Metropolitan Council (Gregg Nescott), Faith Skordinski, Archpriest Alexander Garklavs, and others – who have served honorably and faithfully. Several of those have labored under the most difficult circumstances as they sought to unwind the corruption (is that a “liberal” or a “conservative” issue, by the way?) from the previous Metropolitanates. Do you know any of the people you were trashing?
I’ll close with this: “Against an elder [πρεσβυτέρου; presbyter, a priest or bishop in NT context] receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses.” 1 Timothy 5:19 Why would St. Paul say such a thing?
Jesse Cone:
May 5th, 2011 at 1:38 pm
Father,
Allow me to respond to a couple of things, though I get the sense that I have already been tried and convicted in your eyes.
You say that I posted with the intent to deceive. The reason for this is that I was anonymous. That is non sequator — however much you abhor anonymity. It is curious your outrage doesn’t extend to other, more viscious and slanderous commentators such as “The Whale”.
You call me a liar, which I ask you to demonstrate. Then you ask me if my site is “A Gossip Site” or a “Truth” site. If that wasn’t a false dilemma I would then be able to ask you to show where I lied and then categorize your own site. But it is a false dilemma, and this is a site you to reason and opine according the facts as you know them — nothing wrong with that.
Trust me Father, we never declared open season on bishops or priest, though we did ask for some suspicions to be addressed. If this led to slurs, I’m sorry, but I am not aware of slurs I have utterred.
I hope you realize that I take that seriously. That’s one of the reasons we didn’t enable comments and why we felt an alternative to OCANews was needed. I would urge you to let your criticism cut both ways — how can you justify Stokoe’s unrestrained barrage against clergy and the anonymous piling on that he initiates?
The fact that the site was run anonymously is immaterial to the argument. It is both ad hominem and a red herring. If it is still anonymity that has your goat, and you disagree with a decision you find distateful, than that is another issue.
Distasteful though you may find my decision, it was hardly nefarious. Keep in mind, our goals are ultimately the same — even extending the eventual end of OCATruth.
Diane:
May 5th, 2011 at 7:37 pm
I am a Catholic. Over the years, I have been appalled to see Rod Dreher take his righteous (and entirely understandable) indignation at the Catholic sex-abuse scandals so far that he no longer lets facts, reason, truth, or charity get in his way. He lies, smears, misrepresents, tells half-truths and outright untruths.
Is there tons of REAL dirt in the Catholic scandal? Of course. Tons and tons and then some.
But, not content with retailing the real dirt over and over again, obsessively ad infinitum, Rod must manufacture new dirt; misrepresent what’s there; impute the worst motives to those less apoplectic with outrage than he; and impugn the good faith of those countless Catholics sincerely trying to implement reforms. Case in point: Rod’s recent gross misrepresentation, in WaPo, of the RC Philly situation. (Bill Donohue of the Catholic League has effectively countered Rod’s cheap shots: http://www.catholicleague.org/release.php?id=2102 As Donohue observes, just as it is critical not to understate the Catholic sex-abuse problem, so it is equally critical not to overstate it — especially when due process and “innocent until proven guilty” are involved. But when has that ever stopped Rod Dreher?)
Given all this, I am not in the least bit surprised that Rod is using the same tactics now vs. the Holy Synod that he once used (and still uses) vs. the Catholic Church. It is of a piece. Same old Rod.
The one thing that does surprise me (but shouldn’t) is the astonishing hypocrisy he shows here. Crusader Rod supposedly led the charge to force those Evil RC Bishops to reveal their coverups and lack of transparency. Now he is apparently sitting on the SMPAC Report while insisting that the OCA does not have a sex-abuse problem like the Catholics’ problem, blah-blah-blah. (At one point, he even suggests that the OCA sex-abuse cases have not [ever?] involved children. I nearly choked on my cappuccino when I read that. Has he never read Pokrov.org?)
Today’s Catholic Church is transparent and zero-tolerant to a fault. (Yes, we’ve been forced into it; yes, it was an excruciatingly painful process, still ongoing; nonetheless, we are indeed implementing our zero-tolerance policy, and I can give you examples from my own diocese to document this in spades.) Yet Rod *continues* to attack the RCC relentlessly…while defending Met. Jonah and suppressing SMPAC. The irony is staggering.
Rod just needs to shut up already. About the RCC, which he left five years ago, for crying out loud. And about the OCA Holy Synod, too.
Matushka Jan Koczak:
May 5th, 2011 at 8:47 pm
Christ is Risen!
I also say “well said”, Fr. Basil.
The first couple sentences from I Constantinople Canon 6 that you include in this post are clear and instructive.
I also have been greatly saddened and disheartened by the attacks against bishops on the Holy Synod, priests and leading laity.
OCATRUTH.COM never had any credibility in my sight. It is a dark and divisive site, the less read, the better.
I pray for our Holy Synod and Metropolitan Council. May the Holy Spirit guide us!