Re: A Plea For Help, Prayers

Kevin,

Thank you for the response.

Things have been moving along and students have been rallying well. More things have come to the light about all of this that both softens the blow and further frustrates everybody.

It's been made clear that the only threat is Father Thorne's position. The school has no intentions of doing anything with the property nor of restricting services in any way however the proposed cuts to his funding would essentially mean the loss of a full time chaplain.

As it stands the President of the University is in favour of maintaining a full time chaplaincy and with the help of a small committee and the Board of Governors will look into the possibility of funding half of Father Thorne's budget through incorporating that cost into the general operating costs of the school. In a way, this would be ideal as it both maintains the chaplaincy and allows us more of a "stake" in the position, rather than being at the mercy of the Diocese. On the other hand, the very best solution is if either money could be raised or the BOG could find endowments which could be reallocated for this purpose. Both are possibilities at this point.

The response to this within the college and alumni community has been overwhelming and in some cases tempers have risen and inflammatory things have been said which I don't think will affect us in the long run, but from the outside make the advocates for the chapel seem less reasonable than we all are.

I think if you were to share or post anything on a blog, asking others to pray that the path to keeping a full time chaplain is made clear to us is all that needs be said. I do not wish to incite tempers, at this point any further than they may already be incited and simply want to let providence work. The lesson for many of us here in the coming weeks will be that we cannot wait until we are under great threat from without to start extolling the beauty within the chapel or praying that God's will be done through all of us, we have to live it continually.

Thank you for your prayers and thoughts. I will certainly continue to update you.

In Christ,

Colin