anglicans in sydney open forum

Acting on trust: the morality of Church investment practices

2009-12-14T02:23:00.000-08:00

The recent financial crisis has produced some surprising admissions from public bodies that have invested in the risk of equities and lost. Harvard University lost vast amounts and locally in Sydney St Vincents Hospital lost a great deal of money. Also in Sydney the Anglican Diocese borrowed money for clearly risky investments and appear to have lost something over $300 million of their trust funds.

Gearing might not in itself be unethical. But doing so in the context of the kinds of long term trust responsibilities of the diocesan officers is fairly clearly a moral failure of significant proportions for which someone should presumably take responsibility.

There is, however, a further and quite important issue that should attract the attention of the NSW Attorney-General. The powers given to the diocese in the Trust Property Act assume that the endowments exist for the benefit of the church over a very long period. They assume the church will outlive other bodies and trusts. The diocese appears to have signally failed to honour that assumption and to have acted like any other high risk taking investor. That should surely raise the question of whether the diocese is entitled to continue to be given the very generous powers to vary trusts which it currently enjoys under the Act.

See the complete article Acting on trust: the morality of Church investment practices at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=9801&page=0

Anglicans in Sydney in a Time of conflict

2008-12-29T22:06:00.000-08:00

World wide Anglicanism is in conflict and Sydney is in the midst of it. What that might mean within the diocese is not yet clear.

Within the diocese the level of uniformity of view is increasing and this presents a crucial moral test for the leadership of the diocese. To claim the right to dissent and to act out that dissent in one arena and to deny that option in your own diocese presents significant questions about honesty and integrity. The way in which dissent from the majority is handled in the diocese of Sydney is thus becoming a crucial moral test for the leadership in the diocese.

Increasing coherence brings with it greater responsibility for those who are marginalised, left in the "desert", from whence, of course, come the prophets.

See

http://www.brucekaye.net/files/spch/Anglicans%20in%20Sydney%20in%20a%20time%20of%20conflict.%20On%20Line%20Opinion.%20%2019%20November%202008.pdf

Difference and Conformity in Sydney Anglicanism

2008-12-29T21:51:00.000-08:00

Sydney Anglicanism is increasingly coherent, some would say uniform. The greater the coherence the greater is the responsibility of leadership in the diocese to exercise their episcopal oversight for all and to encourage respect for differences among Anglicans in Sydney. The involvement of the leadership in one side of the international Anglican disputes means that handling difference at home is a crucial moral issue for them. To claim the right to dissent, and to act out hta dissent in one arena and to deny it in another raises questions of integrity and honesty. What happens within the diocese in relation to dissent from the current so called "orthodoxy" has the potential to become a crucial test for the leadership in the diocese.

See Anglicans in a time of Conflict

Visit the web site http:/www.brucekaye.net/