By Lloyd Mackey

WHEN a Victoria West Anglican church’s rector resigned recently after admitting to unspecified sexual misconduct, the interim leader appointed in his place turned out to have a considerable reputation as an artist – and some fairly specialized education in conflict resolution.

David Opheim, interim rector of St. Saviour’s Anglican Church in Victoria West, is seen to be drawing on his conflict resolution studies at University of Victoria law school to help his congregation through the trauma of the recent resignation of his “gifted” and popular predecessor.

“Gifted” is the term used by Bruce Bryant-Scott, archdeacon and executive officer of the British Columbia diocese of the Anglican Church in Canada, whose responsibility is to provide the church’s public face in the painful transition.

Bryant-Scott noted that Antonio Osorio, rector of the church for the past decade, was quick and transparent in admitting to his sexual misconduct and resigning from the rectorship of St. Saviour’s. And, while many of his friends hope Rosario will return to parish ministry some day, the executive officer says that is up to the bishop of the diocese, James Cowan, who will oversee his rehabilitation process.

But Osorio’s quick exit has not made it any easier for the congregation of 80, Bryant-Scott noted. That is because the rector, a native of Colombia, married to a Brazilian and with a daughter about 10 years old, was both well-liked and energetic in his pastoral and social justice leadership.

While Osorio received a fair amount of ink recently for pressing the Anglican communion to be accepting of same sex unions, Bryant-Scott was firm that the publicity was not related to the reason for his resignation.

While Osorio would be on the liberal/social justice side of any Anglican theological or social issue debates, the archdeacon points out that sexual misconduct among clergy has historically shown up in all sectors of the church whether they be “evangelical conservative, low church, broad church, liberal or high church.”

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Ironically, says Bryant-Scott, St. Saviour’s rector some 25 years ago resigned over sexual misconduct issues and as it happened, the church “was a part of the charismatic renewal” at the time.

The archdeacon says that, despite the trauma, St. Saviour’s is a strong and stable church. Indeed, “while the congregation is relatively small and tending to lean to the middle-aged, its social programs are on the scale of those often only carried out in much larger parishes.”

As for Opheim, Bryant-Scott says the first reason for choosing him as interim rector was not his conflict resolution skills, but, they will, in any case stand him and the congregation in good stead.

Opheim served as interim rector a year ago, when Rosario took a medical leave (also unrelated to the present issue, Bryant-Scott points out).

“So [Opheim] was familiar with the parish,” he adds.

Some of the social programs – particularly those instigated by Osorio – have been cancelled, but not necessarily permanently. Bryant-Scott suggests the congregation needs time to sort things out before assuming too much of a voluntary community service load.

While the rector’s duties will be pretty close to full time over the next month or so, Bryant-Scott says the thinking is that Opheim will resume his conflict resolution studies at UVic, as well as the artistic vocation for which he has gained a deserved reputation.

Opheim confirms that his current conflict studies are proving to be timely -- and perhaps providential -- in his interim rector role.

“It is true that whenever you have people working together, you have the potential for conflict,” he notes, adding that a sudden leadership change, for the reasons present in the St. Saviour’s situation, cannot help but exacerbate the need for intense conflict resolution work.

October 2007