Dawn Hopper
February 10, 2022 Most Rev. Carlye J. Hughes The Episcopal Diocese of Newark 31 Mulberry St Newark, NJ 07102 Re: Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church of Montvale Dear Bishop Carlye Hughes, I hope this correspondence finds you and your family well. I am compelled to respond to the letter I received from you on 2/4/2022. I expect you will not be pleased to receive yet another letter of complaint from a St. Paul’s parishioner. I pray you read my letter and don’t dismiss it because it is long, especially considering the gravity of the situation here. Please, please, please stop ignoring this. Take charge of the clergy you oversee and guide them. Be a bishop for all and not for only a few. “When someone shows you who they are believe them; the first time.” -Maya Angelou. You advise us to pray for days and weeks and months. Do you think we are not praying? Until this is resolved, you have my promise I will continue to pray. But praying is NOT the answer. YOU need to help resolve this. Ignorance is often the root cause of a lot of pain and suffering and that is the only thing that makes sense to me here. You must not be truly aware of what is going on. My Christian brothers and sisters have been trying to peacefully reach out to those who are in charge to BEG for help. If help is NOT you, who is it? In less than a year with a new “priest-in-charge”, everything fell apart at my church. I and many other parishioners watched without being able to stop it -- like watching a tidal wave. We are not the decision makers, and we are also being told not to ask questions. Everything is VERY bad and NOT getting better. The decision makers we entrusted have left the parish or been removed from vestry. We DO need communication, but how? Communication should include the entire parish: new, old, and banned. Pastor Jill missed the opportunity to do this a long time ago. For any chance at progress, communication needs to be mediated as well for any possibility for trust to build again (if possible). We are the light of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church and we ALL deserve to be heard as a group. In your letter to “us”, you ask us to read the gospel Matthew 7:5. I read this gospel a lot for guidance – especially of late. I recommend everyone read Matthew 7:5 and read ALL of Matthew 7. The HUNDRED or so parishioners of St. Paul’s who no longer feel welcome are NOT all walking around with planks in our eyes. The entire point of Matthew chapter 7 is that ONLY GOD can judge man. However, I and many others who are now considered FORMER parishioners by the St. Paul’s vestry have been judged. I, and several others have been excommunicated from St. Paul’s church. Excommunication in any form, as policy, is absolutely supposed to be approved by the bishop in charge. You do not say you approved it, yet you also do not say you didn’t approve it. I pray this is not coming from you and if it is, I will pray very hard for you while I continue to ponder Matthew 7.