The cathedral was built in 1969 at a cost of over $2 million and has steadily dropped in value. It is now on the market for $1,275,000, less than half of what it cost to build. The organ and other significant items will be sold separately. According to the Portage city assessor's office, the cathedral would be a good location for a hotel.

The cost to run the cathedral has kept rising. At a Cathedral Corporation meeting in 2002, Chancellor Ward Kuhn identified the financial trouble the Corporation was experiencing and its future potential direction. Renting, as a way of bolstering the financial viability of the Cathedral, was considered. The Convention increased the rent to $75,000 in 2003. In 2004, $80,000 was paid to the Cathedral Corporation "to continue to assist with its finances," wrote Gepert.

"However, in 2005 the assessment was made that the Diocesan Budget could no longer provide a higher level of support, and the rent was lowered to $30,000, an amount determined to be consistent with the space usage of the diocesan offices. When the diocesan offices were moved in 2006, the Convention voted to no longer pay rent to the Cathedral."

Gepert said that Linda Puckett, a consultant from the Church Pension Group, came to the diocese in April 2005 and recommended that the diocesan headquarters move out of the Cathedral based on the inappropriateness of the space for effective staff development and community. The diocese moved to new office space in March 2006.

The bishop then said the Diocese had to review its spending priorities. At a Special Diocesan Convention in April 2005, the diocese prioritized its giving and said the first order of support was the national church at the level of 10-15% with the second area of support being the paid staff/volunteer commissions and committees,; and, lastly, support of the Cathedral.

Money was quickly running out. The cathedral, built at over $2 million by ultra-liberal Bishop Charles E. Bennison as a monument to his enormous ego, could not be sustained. At the October 2005 Convention, the diocese voted down additional funding for the Cathedral.

Breton Group did a fund raising feasibility study during the fall of 2006. No one interviewed for the study was willing to contribute time or money for the long-term support of the Cathedral. The writing was on the wall.

The dean of the soon to be closed cathedral in Kalamazoo, The Very Rev. Cynthia L. Black, a reported lesbian, was president of the Episcopal Women's Caucus from 1995-2000. She currently serves on the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church and is a member of the Claiming the Blessing steering committee. She was ordained to the priesthood by John Shelby Spong. She serves on the board of Claiming the Blessing http://www.claimingtheblessing.org/whoweare.html, and was given a DD by Church Divinity School of the Pacific.

As one source noted, the kind of liberal, homosexual-friendly congregation that the diocese tried to plant at the cathedral (and that is typical of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Michigan generally) has not gone over very well in the conservative, predominantly Dutch Reformed areas of western Michigan.

A VOL reader said that Gepert and the diocese face serious financial shortfalls. "This is the third church this bishop has closed: The first was St. Matthew's, Sparta (after they changed the name to Holy Spirit). The church was sold and the dollars were used to set up a church plant in Belmont. St Paul's in Grand Rapids, Michigan has also closed, and now the Cathedral."

In a note of irony tinged with sarcasm, a priest in the diocese told VOL that these are all signs of a re-invigorated, healthy and growing diocese (a microcosm of TEC and its new religion). "Apparently +Gepert was successful in closing parishes before he was elected here, so, he was very well qualified for the episcopate, at least as it operates in TEC of today," he wrote.

Apparently, members of the diocese did not see the cathedral as a diocesan or parish asset, preferring to contribute their resources to support their own individual parishes.

The castle-like structure was doomed from day one, according to sources. Bishop Gepert, leader of the diocese's 14,000 members, isn't any more theologically enlightened than Bennison. The diocese is going down hill, financially. It has strapped finances and a dwindling church maintenance fund. Last year, the diocese had to move its administrative offices out of the building. Gepert did say a burial garden, containing the ashes of former priests and members, will remain property of the diocese. We remember the dead, even as the living, flee The Episcopal Church.

It's ironic; the late Bishop Charles E. Bennison, an imperious and liberal bishop, is the father of the Rev. John Bennison who was recently removed from his parish in California for committing sex offences with a minor and for having sex with other women. His brother, Charles E. Bennison, the Bishop of Pennsylvania, faces presentment charges, as well as civil suits. The majority of that diocese wants him gone. Like his father, who had a penchant for spending other peoples money, Bennison (the son) has spent millions of Diocesan dollars to purchase a property in Maryland even as parishes close, diocesan funds fall off, and as he, himself, faces possible eviction.

END