Last Rites

WITH the $2.2 million she embezzled from the Episcopal Church, Ellen Cooke purchased a 23-acre vacation farm, a large home, a necklace from Tiffany’s, and pretty much everything else she wanted. Her benefactions included gifts of $88,000 to the parish her husband served as rector. When she resigned last January as the church’s national treasurer, Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning lauded her “prudent and wise fiscal management.”

In other church news, the 61-year-old Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts recently shot himself to death. Investigation disclosed that the bishop, David Johnson, who was married, had a lady friend on the side. Speculation centered on his possible reluctance to leave her after his retirement. It also came to light that during his ministry, Johnson—the chief pastor and moral example in one of the Episcopal Church’s most visible dioceses—had carried on several other extramarital affairs, some of which seemed to involve sexual exploitation.

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William Murchison

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WITH the $2.2 million she embezzled from the Episcopal Church, Ellen Cooke purchased a 23-acre vacation farm, a large home, a necklace from Tiffany’s, and pretty much everything else she wanted. Her benefactions included gifts of $88,000 to the parish her husband served as rector. When she resigned last January as the church’s national treasurer, Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning lauded her “prudent and wise fiscal management.”

In other church news, the 61-year-old Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts recently shot himself to death. Investigation disclosed that the bishop, David Johnson, who was married, had a lady friend on the side. Speculation centered on his possible reluctance to leave her after his retirement. It also came to light that during his ministry, Johnson—the chief pastor and moral example in one of the Episcopal Church’s most visible dioceses—had carried on several other extramarital affairs, some of which seemed to involve sexual exploitation.