The blogosphere has been abuzz about the recent interview that Honor Moore gave the New Yorker, as they publish an excerpt from Ms. Moore’s forthcoming book on her father, Bishop Paul Moore. One blogger ends a flowery write-up thusly:

Of this I am quite certain: there is great rejoicing in heaven. All the choirs of angels and archangels are singing. For, as Jesus himself told us, what is bound on earth is bound in heaven and what is loosed on earth is loosed in heaven.

I’m willing to bet that even Paul himself is smiling. The man who was always ‘larger than life’ finally is.

Well, perhaps heaven is smiling. But it turns out to be more complicated than that. This is not only the story of a bishop living in the closet, but it’s the story of broken vows. Bishop Moore broke his marriage vows and his ordination vows. The current bishop of New York has written a pastoral letter, in which he ends this way:

Though A Bishop’s Daughter reveals Paul Moore to have been a vastly more complex man than many of us who admired and respected him ever knew, and though there can be no excuse for the enormity of the betrayal of personal trust that he perpetrated in his private life, yet similarly there can be no diminution of the greatness, the nobility even, of the purposes and goals of his public life. We are left seeing a deeply flawed man in desperate need of God’s merciful grace. As are we all.

That seems about right. People always have the capacity for good and for evil, and neither diminishes the reality of the other. Pray for the Moore family, pray for his victims, and give thanks for the vibrant ministry of this legendary bishop.

Read Bishop Mark Sisk’s letter, after the jump:

February 29, 2008

To the clergy and people of the Diocese of New York

My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

It is with sadness that I write to you.

The March 3, 2008 issue of The New Yorker contains an article by Honor Moore which is drawn from her forthcoming book A Bishop’s Daughter (prepublication copies of which are in circulation). While the book is, in the main, autobiographical, Ms Moore goes into considerable detail about the private life of her father, Paul Moore, Jr., the 13th Bishop of New York.
Her description of him comes as a shock to many of us. The man that so many of us knew and admired was a man of enormous personal courage, a passionate, articulate, and tireless champion of the poor, the disenfranchised and the most desperately helpless in society. He was all that, but as Ms Moore tells us there was another side to him, a man who led a secret double life. While on the one hand he inspired people to work for, and hope for, a community that could stand against the powers of oppression and exploitation, on the other he was himself an exploiter of the vulnerable.
Ms Moore’s article brings to light what appears to be her father’s decades long violation of his wedding vows. This was an offense of the most serious nature. Any person who has extra-marital relations commits an offense. This is true whichever party is married: whether clergy or lay, same-sex or heterosexual. Whatever the circumstances, it is family relationships which are broken. And, indeed a point of Ms Moore’s article would seem to be just that: the relationships between Bishop Moore and Ms Moore and her mother indeed were evidently severely damaged. The preservation of those relationships is an important aspect of the Christian life and of course of the life of its ordained ministry. Actions such as those which Ms Moore reports are wrong and could quite conceivably result in the most severe penalties that the church can apply to an ordained person.
But there is more. It appears as well that Bishop Moore violated his ordination vows in another respect. The long term extra-marital relationship that his daughter describes was begun, according to her account, with a young man who had come to the Bishop for counseling. That inappropriate relationship is a fundamental violation of an ordained person’s vow to minister to the needs of those entrusted to his or her care; never is this more so than when working with the vulnerable who have come seeking pastoral care. Sadly the violation of trust that Ms Moore reports is consistent with behavior recorded in complaints about Bishop Moore’s exploitative behavior received by the office of the Bishop of New York. As Canon Law required, the concerns of those complainants (who wished their identities held in confidence) were duly conveyed to the then Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning for disposition.
Though A Bishop’s Daughter reveals Paul Moore to have been a vastly more complex man than many of us who admired and respected him ever knew, and though there can be no excuse for the enormity of the betrayal of personal trust that he perpetrated in his private life, yet similarly there can be no diminution of the greatness, the nobility even, of the purposes and goals of his public life. We are left seeing a deeply flawed man in desperate need of God’s merciful grace. As are we all.
Faithfully yours,
+ Mark