Archbishop John Hepworth Quizzed on Funds
September 23, 2012 38 Comments
UPDATE: The letter of Archbishop Samuel Prakash obtained by The Australian has been released in the media here (pdf.).
What a spectacle the Archbishop makes for. This is the story of a ruined man…
The former Australian head of the Traditional Anglican Communion has been questioned about his involvement in financial irregularities within the breakaway church.
Archbishop John Hepworth, who was instrumental in seeking his church’s reunion with Rome, was forced to resign as the global head of the TAC in April, seven months after he raised allegations that he had been raped by Adelaide priest Ian Dempsey and two others in the 1960s.
Monsignor Dempsey returned to work last week after he was stood aside by the church for 12 months. Police investigations into the matter are ongoing and the South Australian Director of Public Prosecutions, Adam Kimber, is considering whether or not to lay charges.
In a letter obtained by The Australian and sent by the new head of the breakaway church, Samuel Prakash, to Archbishop Hepworth confirming the acceptance of his resignation in April, he raised allegations about financial concerns.
“A report was delivered and tabled at the College of Bishops meeting with substantial supporting documentation concerning the financial situation in the church in Australia and your role in the same,” Archbishop Prakash wrote.“Although this is a local church matter, and will have to be dealt with in that forum before action can be taken . . . we wish to express our shock and dismay at what we have heard.”
The TAC, also known as Anglican Catholics, is a breakaway group from the Anglican Church with about 400,000 members around the world, including in Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, India, Pakistan and the US.
The scathing letter, which discusses Archbishop Hepworth’s “very poor quality of leadership”, detailed concerns about alterations and additions to private properties owned by the former church leader and lay canon Cheryl Woodman.
“Both you and Ms Woodman have made substantial alterations and additions to your private properties at the expense of the Australian church to accommodate the Office of the Primate, and I require details of those additions to private property from you, as well as the authorisation that preceded the construction thereof,” Archbishop Prakash wrote.
The new global head accused Archbishop Hepworth of a “shocking lack of integrity” in his decision not to join the Catholic church as an ordinary citizen despite committing to do so if the church in Rome approved the reunification.
Archbishop Hepworth said he had never made any alterations to his property, other than converting a disused bedroom into an office. “They may well be talking about the fact the church built an office and repository for documents on Cheryl Woodman’s property,” he told The Australian.
Archbishop Hepworth said the TAC had bought a former church in the Adelaide Hills for $104,000, but sold it later for $400,000.
He said the TAC used the profits of the sale to fund the office on Ms Woodman’s land at Lobethal in the hills outside Adelaide.
A Catholic archdiocese source said allegations of financial mismanagement were raised when Archbishop Hepworth was administrator of the parish of Glenelg, a beachside Adelaide suburb, in 1974.
“There has never been anything in it; the church has never been able to prove anything,” Archbishop Hepworth said. “It never happened.”
He also faced court in Ballarat about 30 years ago charged with misappropriating $1200 from the Anglican parish of Sebastopol. “I wrote a cheque from a church account for a debt; there was no conviction recorded,” he said.
Monsignor Dempsey has maintained his innocence since Archbishop Hepworth raised his allegations, and has been given the full support of the Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide to return to parish duties.
Monsignor Dempsey said his hiatus had a serious impact on his health. “The pressure has taken its toll, and the stress of knowing that I’m innocent and having to put up with this ongoing investigation for some time.” He said his absence had created a ripple effect on his parish.
Despite the police investigation continuing, an independent report commissioned by the church and conducted by Adelaide silk Michael Abbott cleared Monsignor Dempsey last year. “It concerns me that it hasn’t been concluded, even though I’ve been cleared by Mr Abbott,” he said.
Why does Archbishop John Hepworth refuse to admit any culpability? In anything? He alone is right in his beliefs - always right – and everyone else is wrong. Accused, as a man of the cloth, of:
- Financial mismanagement as a Catholic priest.
- Faced court for misappropriating funds as a Anglican priest.
- Financial concerns as a Continuing Archbishop.
But nothing is wrong?
He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.
- Proverbs 28:13
About Fr Stephen Smuts
Having read the accompanying letter to Archbishop Hepworth, this line jumped out at me: “The
attitude of the meeting of the College of Bishops was entirely positive and supportive
towards those who are moving in that spiritual direction [the Ordinariates] and every encouragement will be given to them in terms of ministry and time required.” Since there is of course no reason to doubt the sincerity of the remaining TAC bishops, I take this to mean that in areas where the local Roman authorities are slow off the mark, the TAC will continue to foster the Ordinariate-bound vocations of priests and parishes among them, until such time as local Catholic hierarchies catch up with the Church.
This is negated by facts: ie, the attitude of the ACA Bishops in the St Mary of the Angel’s case, they did everything to get the property, even without the faithfuls, in a typical TEC way…
It’s also funny to see photos taken at the Portsmouth Synod (where those Bishops signed the Catholic Catechism) on an official letter from a Church that declined Anglicanorum Coetibus…
+ PAX et BONUM
Obviously you are allowing facts to blind you…er…I mean…that is to say…oh, never mind!
The Affirmation of St Louis determines that every parish owns it’s temporalities. This also applies to St Mary’s. The property was only safeguarded against being hijacked by the Fr. Kelly supporters.
It never was, nor will it ever become ACA property, Bishop Campese.
https://sarumuse.wordpress.com/2012/09/23/a-final-word-on-archbishop-hepworth/
As to the facts in the case of the Hepworth Affair, I too am in no position to judge. Certainly, everyone – concerned or otherwise – has been left with a very bad taste in their mouths. There has been a great deal of pain on every side in this and so many other matters concerning the Ordinariate. But God brings good out of evil; satan does his best to destroy the good, using our weaknesses against us; and the immense potential for good arising from the Ordinariates is sufficient to make them a grand target for the World, the Flesh, and the Devil – even those of us who support them may unwittingly work against them for that reason. Dear and Reverend Father, you and everyone like you who are caught betwixt and between are the objects of my especial prayer. As you say, God have mercy on us all.
With God’s grace, punch the Devil in the kidneys!
Thank you, Charles. Your prayers are appreciated.
Father Chadwich you are bloody idiot .. you have beeh ++Hepworths puppy-dog all the years on that English Catholic web .. Father Smuts has only ever reported on the facts as they stand .. nothing more and nothing less .. unbiased .. Not like you who did ++Hepworths dirty work. .. You think we have forgotten all about the witch hunting that you and he did??
So what ‘trashing’ of ++Hepworth are you talking about ? !! You saw that at GPong’s blog .. ++Hepworth is trashing himself and does not need any to do it for him .. Wake up !! You are always asking “should remain I in the TAC” Stop. Bugger off because you are doing more damage than good .. Sucking up to Bishop Damian Mead of the ACC publicly on your web .. You make me sick .. The TAC has given you a home so stop looking for and making any stupid excuse to leave .. Go if you must .. Disloyal so and so that you are ..
You really have gone quite mad.
Mad ?!! Maybe .. I may be old but I’m no fool ,, nor have I forgotten !!
John, I am glad you are finally seeing the light and recognising him for what he really is.
I’ve been trying to follow the St Mary of the Angels case and it seems that the story is about the ACA trying to get rid of a priest with similar allegations surrounding him, is this right? Of course, it should surprise no one that it would be bound up in the ACA bishop’s attempt to keep the property in their denomination!
But how do the people begin moving into the Ordinariate when the priest who wishes to do it also seems to want to do it to also avoid ecclesiastical discipline?
To Ioannes (September 23, 2012 at 20:50)
Don’t underestimate the Devil, as he can do you more harm than punching you in the kidneys. Prayer and fasting might be more like it – and it’s just the same thing here. They who live by the sword will perish by the sword – and I think you know who said that.
Yes, I know we don’t really stand a chance by ourselves against the devil. Still, you have hermits and monks engaging in spiritual combat, so there’s a way to fight. (As you said, prayer and fasting)
Look at St. Paul; wasn’t he beheaded by a swordsman? And he turned out okay. Not sure if our Master is telling us it’s a bad thing to perish by the sword and we should avoid it.
Almsgiving, too. It’s a triple-whammy. When the twin demons of avarice and pride are on the attack, don’t underestimate the power of giving what you have to those who have not.
Bishop Hepworth is his own worst enemy.
The time is right for him to come clean about incidents in his distant and recent past if he wishes to be remembered with any respect whatsoever.
To err is human and to forgive divine. Now is the time for him to seek forgiveness from all whom he misled.
amen and again I say amen !! At least there is someone showing some insight. .. ++Hepworth must repent of his wickedness.. That is all we ask !! There is not witch hunt !! Repent and forgiveness and healing will be found ..
I think that nothing, or almost nothing reported to be in this letter is new news, and all it really does serve to confirm is that investigations into serious allegations are ongoing. But nobody has yet been found culpable, and I am afraid that this is now starting to resemble an undisguised witch hunt.
I wonder who leaked the letter to the press, and what they hope to gain from it – it appears to me to be score-settling. Truly it must be telling a pretty tune for the demons to dance.
Lord have mercy!
There seem to be several posts here regarding Fr Kelley at St Mary of the Angels. It’s worth pointing out one more time that the elected vestry there voted, and Fr Kelley accepted, a proposal from Msgr Steenson that the parish award Fr Kelley a sabbatical leave that would amount to a termination, and the Ordinary would then appoint a different priest at such time as the parish would enter the Ordinariate (highly unlikely at this point). Fr Kelley is a non-issue, although I should point out one more time that a judge who looked at the allegations of financial impropriety against Kelley in June gave the opinion that they were without merit. In addition, the same charges were brought against Kelley in 2011, while David Moyer was the applicable bishop, and Moyer gave the opinion that they were too vague to act on. At no point has Fr Kelley attempted to use the Ordinariate to escape ecclesiastical discipline — he is 65; retiring would be the easiest option if that were the case anyhow.
It’s worth pointing out that the ACA has had the parish locked, with no masses said, since June. At the same time, it is excommunicating (by formal letter) parishioners whose only offense appears to have been to act in good faith to further the parish’s entry into the Ordinariate and departure from the ACA, which the members voted to do three times. Fr Kelley has been holding masses in a public park, the only cleric in any denomination (ACA, RC, unaffiliated) to act as though there are actual parishioners who need clerical and sacramental care, and he is doing this without any assurance he will eventually be compensated. I’m puzzled that several people here and on VOL, like Mr Jackson, claim to be neutral and not fully informed, yet continue to make scurrilous and baseless allegations against a sincere and conscientious priest. There is absolutely no similarity between Kelley and Hepworth.
The question to me is whether the TAC has any remaining credibility. At most, Fr Kelley would be a renegade (though I don’t believe there is any credible evidence to that effect). The TAC’s former primate, a key individual, on the other hand, appears to have lied about sexual impropriety that threatens another priest’s career, presumably to advance his own. If any parallel is to be drawn with the ACA, it would be whether charges are being brought against Kelley to advance the careers of Anthony Morello (who in an e-mail has announced that he is now Rector of St Mary of the Angels, although no elected vestry has called him) and Stephen Strawn. Hepworth’s ex-Chancellor stands accused of buggery himself. How comfortable can the likes of Brian Marsh, Louis Falk, or Samuel Prakash have been in hobnobbing with that lot? What does it imply about them?
I’m not sure if enough attention has been paid to the history and politics of the TAC approach to the Vatican circa 2007, the assent of the bishops at that time to the RC Catechism, the apparent backtracking from that assent, and the politics within the ACA since then.
Looking in from the outside, I have a lot of sympathy for the views expressed by John Bruce in his posts and his anger and frustration is understandable.
There have of late been real tensions of late within the Anglican Communion as the “official” Anglican bodies in the developed world have sought to adapt to secular trends and in many constituent churches of the Anglican Communion breakaway or “continuing Anglican” churches came into being each claimimg to represent “traditional” Anglican beliefs and practices (whatever they may be- part of the problem with Anglicanism and the Anglican Communion is that there is no mechanism for authorititatve statements of what is or is not the belief of the whole communion).
These breakaway Anglican Churches sought to develop a structure not unlike that of the Anglican Communion with metropolitans for each province, bishops for each diocese etc and this developed into “The Traditional Anglican Communion” (“TAC”).
The TAC states on its website:-
“The Church seeks to uphold the Catholic Faith, Apostolic Order, Orthodox Worship and Evangelical Witness of the Anglican tradition within the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ. The Communion holds Holy Scripture and the ancient Creeds of the Undivided Church as authentic and authoritative, and worships according to the traditional Liturgies of the Church. Along with the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches, it is considered one of the three branches of the universal Catholic Church .”
That last sentence may be important. By implcation it suggests that the “TAC” has inherited the claim of the Anglo-Catholic tendency within the official Anglican Communion and perhaps also suggests that the official bodies from which the TAC separated, can no longer claim to be Cathollic.
The TAC website claims to have parishes in parishes in Africa, Australia, the Torres Strait, Canada, Central and South America, England, Ireland, India, Pakistan, Japan and the United States.
How John Hepworth was ever admitted to Holy Orders in an Anglican jurisdiction of any kind, let alone be chosen as Primate, is beyond me. But, ever since Anglo-Catholic clergy started to leave the CofE and other Anglican Churches to join the Catholic Church, some Anglican jurisdictions have been perhaps over anxious to encourage defections going the other way without making the same rigorous enquiries as to suitability that have historically been made in the Catholic Church. Perhaps when Hewpworth absconded from the Catholic Church and joined the ACCA in 1992, insufficient enquiries were made because the ACCA wanted its “trophy” Catholic. Certainly his rise in the ACCA was meteoric: He became bishop in that church just 4 years later. Hardly time to assess his quaification for the episcopate.
But whatever Hepworth’s personal defects may have been, the TAC has its governance institutions and there are a number of indisputable facts:-
(1) The College of Bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) met in Plenary Session in Portsmouth in October 2007 and unanimously agreed to the text of a letter to the See of Rome seeking full, corporate, sacramental union. They also declared their adherence to the doctrines expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. From that moment there was no good reason not to enter into Communion with the Catholic Church.
(2) On 3 March 2010, in Orlando, the eight members of the House of Bishops of the Anglican Church in America voted unanimously to formally ask the Holy See to be accepted as a personal ordinariate; on 17 March 2010, leaders of the Canadian branch of the TAC decided to do the same and the TAC member churches in the United Kingdom and Australia also petitioned for the formation of respective ordinariates.
Now perhaps the TAC bishops believed that they would be admitted to communion as a corporate body, a separate church in communion, perhaps they believed that they could bring their priests and clergy with them like so many sheep without individual consideration by each, perhaps they considered that they could continue to ponce around in their self-conferred pontificalia and with the grandiose titles they had created for themselves.
Well in that case, they must have been sadly disappointed when the terms of Anglicanorum Coetibus were announced: no married bishops, one ordinary per conference of Catholic bishops, individual reception of the laity, consideration for Catholic holy orders on a case by case basis.
So some TAC bishops went back on their expressions of Catholic belief of October 2007, and delclared that they would not be seeking entry into the Catholic Church on the terms of “Anglicnorum Coetibus”. It has to be said that every potential entrant into the Church has the right as an individual to say “thanks but no thanks” – just as the Catholic Church has the right to say, “sorry, brother, but we do not consider you suitable for holy orders”.
But whatever the motives, I do not think the way the TAC College of Bishops as a whole went about things redounds to their credit. If they genuinely accepted the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 2007, what possible jusfification do they have for remaining outside of the Church? I have yet to see anywhere a coherent explanation of that. I suggest that immense harm has been done to the TAC as a continuing viable church. Immense harm has also been done to the clergy and laity – both those who wished to come into Communion and those who wished to remain Anglicans.
Hepworth certainly has a reponsibility. But the TAC ought to have known about the flaws in his personality before he was purportedly consecrated or made Primate To try to go after him now on the grounds of alleged financial irregularities is about as shady and vindictive a tactic as can be – a distraction from any enquiry into how the TAC College of Bishops have aquitted themselves in this whole sorry affair.
Some good will come out of all this: some former TAC bishops have led substantial parts of their flocks into the Holy Mother Church in exemplary fashion, Former TAC clergy and laity are being received. Whether the TAC itself will survive as a separate worldwide jurisdiction to rival the Anglican Communion remains to be seen.
Well, Mourad, I agree with you. I really think we can bid the TAC good night, except perhaps the two main sections where ordinariates have not been offered: the African Continent and India. If I were Archbishop Prakash, I would keep my own outfit in India and keep up good relations with Bishop Gill in South Africa – and tell the rest to go through with their commitment to become Roman Catholic, knock on the door of a respectable continuing Anglican church or go quietly into the night.
I know what people like some will say to me, as I have been so confused and disorientated throughout this whole mess. I can say in good conscience that I have never sought to deceive or lead astray, or to act as a “school yard bully”. Perhaps they are right, and if they are witnesses of Christ, then perhaps that’s it and I should fade away! That is in any case what I am intending by the end of this year if no canonical solution is forthcoming – since I believe in the necessity of the Canonical Mission.
As for Archbishop Hepworth, I have had no contact with him for a considerable length of time, so my judgement is independent. In a certain way, he has exorcised the demons and everything is laid bare. All that remains is hatred. It is not Christian, Anglican, Catholic or anything. I have had enough of the feeding frenzy and blood lust this and similar posts have provoked. I want nothing more to do with this subject.
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out .. Faux-jeton !!
Archbishop Hepworth left the exercise of the Catholic priesthood — he was never laicized — in 1973, and entered the Anglican Church of Australia in 1976. He left the ACA for the Anglican Catholic Church in Australia in 1992, when the ACA accepted the pretended ordination of women, and the ACCA was founded. He became an assistant bishop in the ACCA in 1998, its diocesan bishop in 2002, and Primate of the TAC in 2004.
What a shambles. And divorced and remarried I understand. How he could ever have thought that he would ever be allowed to officiate in the Catholic Church really escapes me. How oh how could he have been conisdered for episcopal orders in any Church?
Still there always have been some who think that the rules are for other people.
It woulld perhaps be kinder if he were allowed a time out of the limelight to come to terms with his position.
Considering how “canonically conservative” Anglican churches were about granting annulments save under the narrowest of circumstances, and wholly rejecting remarriage-after-divorce (in the modern sense of the word, meaning the pretended dissolution of a valid marriage) from 1604 (and in practice 1559) until well into the 20th Century, it is little short of astonishing how many divorced-and-remarried bishops and clergy there are i virtually all Continuing Anglican bodies in the United States and perhaps to a lesser extent elsewhere.
Dear me Mourad. There are just two things I would say to you. We have all become fully aware of your view that those persons who are not Roman Catholic are definitely inferior. You obviously don’t believe there are any sinners in the Roman Catholic Church. It would be nice if you changed horses occasionally. The second point is that you need to check your facts concerning Archbishop Hepworth. He did not join the ACCA immediately after leaving the Roman Catholic Church. A little more effort on your part would assist you to make more worthwhile contributions to this blog.
If I may say so, I doubt there is any Catholic in the Church from the Holy Father down who presumes to think him or her self as other than a sinner. Certain logical consequences follow from that. Second, I took the troulbe to read two accounts of Hepworth’s background before I wrote my post.
Let’s be clear – the Catholic Church has over the years ordained many persons who have later been shown to have been unsuited for holy orders. Even the lengthy periods of pre-ordination training and supervision (longer than is the norm in Anglicanism) have proved insufficient to filter out all those who are unsuited and the Church has accordingly strengthened its criteria – which, for example, now involve much more rigorous psychological asessment than once was the case. But the demands on the priesthood are such that there will probably always be some who fall by the wayside,
The point about Hepworth is that he had already proved to be unable to live up to he demands of his Catholic priesthood and that should have been a red flag for any other denomination. The fact remains that he was consecrated in the ACCA just 4 years after joining the Church. Do you assert that sufficient enquiries were made before he was consecrated? If so, please give particulars.
It seems to me that consecrating unqualified people is a problem with the TAC generally, and Hepworth is just a symptom. The two current ACA diocesan bishops appear to lack any significant pastoral or interpersonal skills, and one interpretation of the Fr Kelley brouhaha would simply be that he’s actually qualified to be a priest, and many others in the ACA simply aren’t.
John Bruce, I think you are on to something there. Fr. Morello is now the rector? And to think that he told everybody he had no intention to take over St. Mary’s. (Hmm. . . I wonder what his salary is) I hope you stick around to be a burr under his saddle.
OTOH, if they are not using the building, maybe they are open to renting it to the people that want to go into the Ordinariate.
Los Angeles Catholic
Your assumptions are as bad as an atheist’s. The Church is a hospital of sinners, not a museum of saints. Protestantism is deficient because the Protestants left first. High Church Protestantism looks Catholic, may call itself Catholic, but is far from Catholic, for without the Pope, there can be no Catholic Church. Outside, not only can there be no salvation, but no true unity, for there is no living, dynamic authority that interprets static authority.
Is the accompanying picture of Hepworth (or the ones posted September 14 and 17) recent? It is hard to believe he is still walking around in a purple shirt with a pectoral cross.
The date of the image above on the website whence it came is 23/09/2012 – but that does not mean that it was not originally taken on some other date. That posted on 14th September 2012 has an internal date of 05/11/2011 which meants it is at least a year old, but could be older. That posted on 17th September has an internal date of 09-2011 so it too is at least a year old.That posted on 21st September has an internal date of 29-11-2011 so it too cannot be absolutely current.
I have a neighbour who is a traffic policeman in the East End of London and he tells me the crews tend to refer to BMW motor cars as “Black Men’s Wheels” and often stop such vehicles to check the licence and insurance of the driver. Apparently, not so long ago, a patrol stopped such a BMW driven by an elderly gentleman and when he got out of the car he too was wearing a CofE purple stock and a pectoral cross under his overcoat. “Oh, my God” said the officer. “Father, will be quite sufficient” replied the Archbishop of York.
The story may well be apocryphal but it does suggest that it may do no harm to dress up a bit when visiting the constabulary.
I guess the credibility of the story depends on your definition of “elderly”, as the current Abp of York is 63.
Well, His Grace is now entitled to his “Winter Fuel Allowance for Older People” – although I doubt it will be of much help towards the cost of keeping Bishopthorpe Palace warm. He is also entitled to his Freedom Pass (concessionary municipal travel for senior citizens) and when I got mine (8 years ago) my great nieces and nephews made it perfectly plain to me that I thereupon qualified as a “Wrinklie”.
As a partial antidote to the none too pleasant subject matter of this blog, it may interest readers to know that the Bournemouth Ordinariate Group has today published on the OLW Ordinariate web site an account and pictures of the Ordination of Fathers Brian Copus and John Maunder which took place in he Church of the Sacred Heart in Bournemouth on 22nd September 2012. There are some good pictures.
This is perhaps as good an example of former Anglicans coming home to Rome as one can get. The Ordaining Bishop, Mgr Alan Hopes, is an Auxiliary of the Archdiocese of Westminster, (and a former CofE clergyman), the concelebrating clergy were Mgr Keith Newton, Ordinary of the OLW Ordinariate (and a former CofE bishops) and Mgr Edwin Barnes, Pastor of the Bournemouth Ordinariate Group (and a former principal of St Stephen’s House, Oxford and a former CofE Bishop). The Parish Priest of the Sacred Heart Church, Fr Bruce Barnes is also a former Anglican as are the two “new” priests..
There are also photographs of the First Mass of Fr Copus the following day at which 6 new members of the Bournemouth Ordinaraite Group were received into Holy Mother Church.
Fr Maunder (ex TAC) will be serving alongside Mgr Robert Mercer at St Agatha’s in Portsmouth, the place where the TAC bishops declared their acceptance of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. St Agatha’s is now one of the two home churches of the Portsmouth and Isle of Wight Ordinariate Group.
Ad Multos Annos to our very experienced “new” Catholic Priests and let us hope and pray that by God’s grace many of our separated brethren in Anglican and TAC parishes around the world may soon experience the joy of reunion.
Oops! – for “blog” in the first line above, please read “thread” – Sorry Father Stephen.
Virtue Online has posted this information – and a couple of comments.