No one publicly rose to challenge the bishop on whether he should even be chairing the convention, bearing in mind the severity of the charges leveled against him.

The Committee found there was enough evidence to send Bennison to trial on two counts of the presentment centering on accusations that when he was rector of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Upland, California, he did not respond properly after learning sometime in 1973 that his brother, John, who worked as a lay youth minister in the parish, was having an affair with a 14-year-old member of the youth group. John Bennison was married at the time, according to the presentment.

And there is no indication it will turn around any time soon, if ever.

Average Sunday attendance for 2006 was reported at 804,688, down 2.6%, or 21,856, from 826,544 in 2005. That's approximately 420 active dues-paying parishioners or the equivalent of six parishes (average size 70) closing across the United States each week.

For the most part, dioceses who have sued orthodox parish priests and vestries to retain the properties have been successful. A number of parishes in the Diocese of California have been more successful because of state laws favoring the local parish. But that is still an open question as these liberal diocesan bishops repeatedly counter-sue in state courts to "recover" the properties that say rightly belong to them even though, in most cases, they did not put a dime into their construction.