Citing a possible conflict of interest during its regularly scheduled monthly meeting on Sept. 26, the standing committee of the Diocese of Pennsylvania declined to give its consent to Mary Kohart, the person recently named chancellor by Bishop Charles E. Bennison, Jr.

“The standing committee’s position is that having the chancellor of the diocese in the same law firm as the one that represents the diocese in court proceedings may be perceived as a conflict of interest even if it is not such,” the committee said in a brief statement posted on a website it maintains. “In addition, Ms. Kohart is involved in pending legal cases involving the diocese.”

The meeting included discussion of current diocesan finances and the proposed budget for 2007. The standing committee took no action with respect to a proposal to initiate additional legal action against two parishes which during the past four years have continued to hold services using priests who have not been licensed by Bishop Bennison.

In a Sept. 11 letter posted on the diocesan website, Bishop Bennison said he did not believe further efforts at reconciliation with leadership at the two parishes would be beneficial. “As one of seven appointed to the House of Bishops’ property dispute task force, I know that the longer we wait now, the more difficult and expensive will be legal action to meet our responsibilities to hold in trust both properties,” he wrote.

In a Sept. 28 interview with a reporter for The Living Church the Rev. William H. Wood III, rector of St. Christopher’s Church, Gladwyne, and president of the standing committee, elaborated on the nature of the disagreement between the standing committee and Bishop Bennison, and reported that the committee’s call for donations to fund an independent legal advisor has met with an enthusiastic response. The standing committee has retained Michael Rehill, former chancellor for the Diocese of Newark.

“Our disagreement with the bishop and other leadership at Church House has to do with a runaway budget,” Fr. Wood said. “Their dreams have exceeded our income. Each year we have proceeded with deficit budgets with the understanding that there would be a capital campaign to make up the difference. There has been no capital campaign and now they are telling us that this is not the time to conduct one.

“We find it very frustrating that the bishop does not support release of management letters [from the auditing firm] to the standing committee,” he said. “We have conflicting testimony on [Camp Wapiti] and we can’t get accurate information. Now it appears as though they are trying to run up income in order to make the budget for next year appear balanced.”

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