Which reminds me (uh oh!) of another little story I don't recall having told here before. There was a certain radically liberal retired Episcopal priest whose evening classes I favored, partly because he had a very Catholic bent. Anyway, the guy in charge of that congregation was the exact opposite, and you talk about sparks flying! So when I moved to the area, they had a small but gorgeous 150-yr-old building in town, completely paid for and full for all 3 services of a Sunday morning. First service was spoken word only, no singing; second service was fairly traditional but included music; and third service was almost charismatic. Something for everyone. Not to mention those fascinating theology classes by one of the nation's foremost civil rights activists.
Anyway, somebody croaked and left the church a considerable amount of property with highway frontage and a battle royal followed about what to do with it. Eventually the man in charge (I could hardly even think of him as a priest) won out, the old church site was sold, and the congregation went into massive debt to build a hideous modern castle on the new property. For the several years I lived around there, this extremely wealthy congregation dispersed no more than $3K annually to the community, which positively enfuriated the good priest. The bad guy even kept trying to have the good one (Fr. Cruse, btw) defrocked or whatever they do.
One night before class I happened to be trailing Fr. Cruse down the hall when the bad guy intercepted him and snarled, "What kind of heresy are you going to teach the flock tonight, Bill?" Fr. Cruse fired back, "Probably something about the PEOPLE being the church. Come join us and you might learn something." Wouldn't have surprised me a bit to see those two come to blows, because the bad one was hateful as they come, and Fr. Cruse had a downright Irish temper with a boxing championship to back it up. Which is probably the main reason they never did get down to fists, because the bad guy was a craven coward in service to mammon. I could easily see Fr. Cruse taking on all the forces of darkness at once, and I was very glad he was on our side. Not a man to be trifled with.
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