The joke around the Anglican Watch virtual offices is that Todd Ousley has a special touch. In fact, it’s called “The Reverse Midas Touch,” and everything he touches turns not to gold, but rather, caca.
And so it is with every job Ousley has held in the church. Even when he was in the MIchigan dioceses, we heard horrific stories in which complaints about clergy abuse were sent to Ousley, only to met with deafening silence.
Of course, once Ousley ran the Michigan dioceses into the ground, it was not long before he was onto bigger and better targets. As a result, he spent the next seven years in the Office of Pastoral Development, where he proved oddly uninformed about the canonical authority of the presiding bishop (PB), telling Anglican Watch staff that the PB had no authority to tell bishops diocesan what to do.
That in turn left us scratching our heads, wondering: If that’s true, why does it expressly say otherwise in the Title IV canons? And isn’t Ousley in charge of training other bishops on Title IV?
Hmmmm.
But we do have to give Ousley credit: Having been rescued from Michigan after pulling the scuttlecocks, only to land in church headquarters in a still cushier job, he wasn’t going to let a fellow member of the Pointy Hats Club suffer over a little thing like adultery.
Indeed, when Whayne Houghland was discovered to have a zipper problem with a woman not his wife, he got a full year’s pay, a severance package on top of that, and soon after a prestigious job at a wealthy parish in Chicago. And Michigan got a delightful lesson in what Ousley thought of them, which was deafening silence until it came time to pay the settlement that Ousley had negotiated.
Damn, it’s good to be an adulterer!
Then there’s the little bit where Ousley sent a letter of support involving the head of the standing committee in Haiti. Normally no biggie, right? But in this case, the man in question is wanted by the national police for arms trafficking, resulting in a fiery blast from local Haitian officials, who said, Ousley’s expression of support was “immoral and unacceptable.”
Yeah no kidding.
As for the follow-on from the national church, which explained that the letter could only be sent to the chair of the standing committee, that’s hogwash. Send the letter to delegates to convention, the last known members of the standing committee, or form your own standing committee. We don’t really care as long as the result is a reputable group that consistently reflects integrity. That said, gun runners need not apply.
And if you’ve guessed we don’t have much respect for Ousley, you’re right. We just don’t see much common sense or integrity in him, and we see no care for others.
And now, the much traumatized Diocese of Wyoming, hurt over the previous bishop’s marital infidelity, may be about to get an even more damaged, mean-spirited and incompetent bishop than the last one, this time in the form of Todd Ousley. Better yet, the election is something straight out of the Castro regime: Delegates to an upcoming Wyoming Diocesan Convention can vote for any candidate they want as long as he’s on the ballot. That would be Ousley, who is running unopposed.
So, if Ousley is affirmed at the convention, we’re reasonably confident he’ll show zero pastoral pastoral concern for the Diocese, ignore its members, and do his utmost to line his pockets while he’s there. And of course he’s ignoring the inherent conflict of interest: Ousley himself is the one who helped push the previous bishop out in a Title IV case over his infidelity.
In other words, Ousley may insist others follow their ordination vows, but he sees no reason for the same rules to apply to him. In fact, he doesn’t even follow the requirements of Title IV, and this butthead is supposed to be training other bishops?
Thus, Anglican Watch sent the following release out on Christian Newswire this week. We hope that, by raising awareness, members of the Diocese of Wyoming will feel, if so led, comfortable voting against Ousley and holding out for a spiritually healthier individual as bishop provisional.
ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 27, 2025 /Christian Newswire/ — Anglican Watch, the unofficial watchdog of the Episcopal Church, today announced its opposition to Todd Ousley’s candidacy as bishop provisional for the Episcopal Diocese of Wyoming. The Diocese will hold a special convention via Zoom on March 2 to consider Ousley’s nomination as the sole candidate for the position.
“Ousley has a dismal track record,” said Anglican Watch editor Eric Bonetti. “This includes repeatedly refusing to follow the church’s Title IV clergy disciplinary canons, sandbagging complaints against bishops, and even providing others false information about the provisions of Title IV during his time in the Office of Pastoral Development.
“Even worse, Ousley has a long track record of looking out for his fellow bishops in ways that are harmful to the church and its members.
“For example, in the case of Whayne Hougland, a former bishop of the Michigan dioceses, Ousley rewarded Houghland’s extramarital affair with generous severance payments, a cushy new job at an affluent Chicago parish, and more.
“Ousley did all of this while ignoring the needs of those hurt by Houghland’s misconduct, contacting them only when it was time to write the check to Houghland.
“Tellingly, Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe now says that Ousley, the man responsible for training other bishops in Title IV, needs Title IV training himself.”
Bonetti continued, “In short, Wyoming has been hurt deeply by its last bishop, who failed to honor the vows he made at his consecration. Now, the church proposes to install Ousley, who has spent his career disregarding his vows as a bishop, all while aiding the comfortable and afflicting those hurt by the church. In other words, we regard Ousley as sinful and corrupt.
“We categorically oppose Ousley’s nomination and believe that members of the Diocese of Wyoming deserve the ability to conduct a real election versus the current proposal for a Soviet-style, one-candidate thumbs-up. Additionally, Ousley’s track record demonstrates that he is entirely unsuited for the position.
“Finally, we remind all participants in the upcoming Wyoming special convention that they are free to follow their conscience and need not vote to approve Ousley,” Bonetti concluded.
Anglican Watch is the unofficial watchdog of the Episcopal Church. It covers abuse and misconduct within the church. Founded in 2015, we are online at https://www.anglicanwatch.com.
Leave a Reply