Sisterhood’s $7.9 Million Gift Will Aid in the Transition
Editor’s note: On May 4, the lay and clergy orders of all three dioceses overwhelmingly approved the reunification plan.
It’s a time of transformation for the Episcopal Church in Wisconsin.
On May 4, barring some unforeseen change of heart, the three dioceses that encompass the state will vote to reunite and reclaim the name of the historic Diocese of Wisconsin. If the General Convention approves in June, the dioceses of Eau Claire, Fond du Lac, and Milwaukee will combine to form a statewide diocese. A “Trialogue” has been working toward the reunion since 2021.
Less than 10 days before the vote, Bishop Matthew Gunter, who already leads all three dioceses under separate contracts, announced that the Diocese of Fond du Lac had received a donation of $7.9 million from the Sisterhood of the Holy Nativity (SHN).
At first glance, that looks like a very nice gift. On closer examination, it looks astonishing, on a couple of levels.
The first fact is the sheer size of the gift, relative to the size of the recipient. Fond du Lac is one of the smallest dioceses in the church, with about 3,500 baptized members. The diocesan budget is about $625,000 — meaning the gift is more than 12 times what the diocese spends annually.
The current budgets of the three dioceses total about $3.1 million. Note to diocesan and parish treasurers everywhere: Imagine the impact on your organization of a gift 2.5 times your annual budget. We’ll get back to the coming impact in Wisconsin shortly.
The second startling fact is the nature of the donor. The Sisterhood is a 142-year-old, once-thriving religious order for women, founded in 1882 by Charles Chapman Grafton, a champion of the Anglo-Catholic movement who later became the second Bishop of Fond du Lac. (Grafton also co-founded the Society of St. John the Evangelist, a men’s order that still thrives today.)
SHN was founded in Boston, but moved to Fond du Lac during Grafton’s episcopacy. At its height, the Sisterhood had ministries in a dozen states, but it stopped accepting new novices in the early 2000s, and quietly began selling property and making end-of-life plans for the order. Gunter remembers a time when the convent in downtown Fond du Lac housed about 20 sisters, who played active roles in the religious life of the nearby Cathedral Church of St. Paul, but the convent was sold long ago.
Two elderly sisters remain alive, and the business affairs of the Sisterhood are run by a board of directors. The Ven. Michele Whitford is president of the board, and also serves as vicar of St. Paul’s Church in Plymouth, Wisconsin. She did not identify the two remaining sisters, and declined a request to interview them.
When a church or religious organization declines gradually over many decades, its assets tend to dissipate. TLC asked Whitford how it happens that the Sisterhood has millions of dollars to donate. (In addition to the $7.9 million gift to Fond du Lac, SHN also gave undisclosed amounts to the cathedral and to St. Peter’s in nearby Ripon, as well as donations to “many” other organizations.)
“The sisters have lived and worked following their rule of charity, humility, prayer and missionary zeal,” she said by email. “The Sisterhood has received honorariums for their work and donations from Oblates and Associates for 142 years. The sisters live a frugal life and have invested wisely.”
Fond du Lac and its sister dioceses also plan to invest wisely. Of the $7.9 million total, the sisters earmarked $1 million for theological education, and Gunter said income from that fund will support seminarians from Wisconsin. The remaining $6.9 million is for congregational development. At least at the beginning, “the plan is not to spend the principal of that, but to draw on it,” Gunter said, although $500,000 will be dispersed to the 34 congregations of Fond du Lac in the form of rebated assessments. At a conservative investment draw of 4 percent, the remaining funds would be expected to throw off more than $300,000 annually.
There are eight congregations in Fond du Lac and three in Eau Claire whose assessments will rise significantly under the formula devised by the Trialogue, and $2 million will be invested to help offset those increases. Assessments will decline for the remaining churches in those dioceses, and for all of the churches in the Diocese of Milwaukee.
The rest of the funds will support initiatives throughout the new Diocese of Wisconsin. More than $2.2 million will go to a Sisters of the Holy Nativity Permanent Endowment, the earnings of which will support the diocesan congregational development budget. The principal will be locked up in perpetuity, which Gunter said would ensure that the Sisterhood plays a permanent role in the life of the diocese.
A separate $2.2 million will go to a Sisters of the Holy Nativity Congregational Development Fund. The earnings will support congregational development, and the principal will be available for major initiatives such as church planting, or strategically revitalizing sustainable churches. Gunter said he hopes this will “help spur the imagination of every congregation.”
Historically, “we play a lot of defense, trying to keep churches open. We want to go on offense,” he said.
All of this hinges on six votes in Wisconsin, and one in Louisville, Kentucky. On Saturday morning at 10 a.m., delegates from the three dioceses will gather for a Eucharist at Ho-Chunk Gaming Wisconsin Dells in Baraboo, a town pretty close to being equidistant from the three diocesan cathedrals. Each diocese will vote by orders, lay and clergy, and all six approvals are required.
In preliminary votes at separate conventions in October, more than 90 percent of the delegates favored reunion in Eau Claire and Milwaukee. Fond du Lac was closer, with 61 percent approval by lay delegates and 76 percent by the clergy — which would still be considered a landslide in secular elections.
Then General Convention must approve the reunion in June in Louisville, and it is hard to imagine any opposition. The logic is compelling — Eau Claire is even tinier than Fond du Lac, and Milwaukee is not much bigger. The combined Diocese of Wisconsin will be very close to the median size for domestic dioceses.
Gunter would then become the fourth Bishop of Wisconsin — a role that has been empty since 1886, when the diocese was renamed for the state’s largest city. It will make for a much simpler business card. Gunter currently serves as Bishop of Fond du Lac, Bishop Provisional of Eau Claire, and Assisting Bishop of Milwaukee.
The May 4 combined convention will not be livestreamed, but the results presumably will be available quickly on the Facebook pages of the three dioceses and the Trialogue.
