The Bishop of Kansas recently wrote his clergy and senior wardens condemning as deceitful and divisive a letter sent to senior wardens at 2,200 Episcopal churches located in 20 states.

The letter, sent in plain envelopes marked “personal,” predicts the General Convention will fail to respond satisfactorily to the Windsor Report and offers to make available additional information.

“There is a certain desperation underlying this mailing,” the Rt. Rev. Dean E. Wolfe wrote. “[The Rev. D.O.] Smart has offered to provide information about a Church to which he no longer belongs. I believe we are better prepared to provide such information.”

Bishop Wolfe inhibited and later deposed the Rev. D.O. Smart and all of the other clergy from Christ Church, Overland Park, as part of a separation agreement between the Diocese of Kansas and the parish. In his letter to the clergy, Bishop Wolfe also questioned why the Diocese of Kansas was being targeted.

“Ironically, the only violations of the Windsor Report in our diocese occurred when bishops outside their own jurisdictions officiated at irregular services at Christ Church, Overland Park, including the one in which Smart was ordained a priest in the Diocese of Kampala in the Church of Uganda,” Bishop Wolfe said.

Fr. Smart is dean of the Mid-Continental Convocation of the Anglican Communion Network. He told The Living Church the letter was meant to contribute to the dialogue called for in the Windsor Report and denied that sending it to senior wardens in the Diocese of Kansas violated terms of the separation agreement.

“There was nothing in the [separation agreement] about a ‘gag’ order,” he said. “My intent was to help Episcopalians understand what the issues are and nothing more. I sense there are a lot of people who are misinformed and that many clergy are not sharing.”

Melodie Woerman, director of communications, said the Windsor Report does not appear to be a significant concern to most Episcopalians in the Diocese of Kansas. Bishop Wolfe, she said, has raised the subject with the vestry at every parish visitation he has made since the report was published in October 2004.

“Out of 50 visitations, he has received a total of five questions,” she said. “Most of our members are more concerned with making their congregations grow, with planting new churches and in learning how they can help start campus ministry programs.”

Mrs. Woerman said that the “family crisis” caused by Christ Church’s decision to withhold its apportionment payments to the diocese has consumed a significant amount of Bishop Wolfe’s time since the day before he was consecrated on Nov. 8, 2003.

“For [Fr. Smart] to monopolize our time and then criticize us for failing to address the Windsor Report is just not fair,” she said.

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