For 48 years, the Episcopal Diocese of Milwaukee ran a popular summer camp on Little Hills Lake in Waushara County. Beloved by many, its 135 acres offered great variety, with deciduous trees, pine woods, beachfront, swampland, grassland and prairie. Camp Webb celebrated Mass every Sunday, but was open to youth of all faiths and used recreational opportunities to teach values to kids.
“It’s the kind of place that changes lives,” says 45-year-old Andy Griswold, who first attended Camp Webb in 1966. He’s been involved ever since as a camper, volunteer and board member. “Without Camp Webb, I would have gone to jail.”
But Bishop Steven Miller has shut down the camp. That’s created controversy for a diocese where history can be important. The Milwaukee diocese, one of three in the state, was established in 1838, has 15,000 members in 59 parishes, and stretches across the entire southern third of the state. Just 10 bishops served before Miller, who took over in 2003.
Camp supporters say Miller abandoned the camp in 2007 and allowed it to deteriorate: Buildings were broken into and sacred items in the camp’s church were left unprotected. “It was an unpleasant surprise,” says Clarice Girdauskas, a volunteer at the camp who sent her children and grandchildren there.
The Rev. David Pfaff, canon to the ordinary with the Milwaukee archdiocese, says the camp was $400,000 in debt and Miller couldn’t afford to keep running it. But Griswold and others say Miller bypassed longtime volunteers and spent more on staff to run the camp. They also say the diocese was lukewarm about an emergency fundraising effort in December, which netted $105,000 for the camp.
Supported by a vote of the diocese’s executive council, Miller has now decided to sell the camp. But he refused to sell to a newly formed group of camp alumni, called Preserve CW [Camp Webb]. Instead, the diocese plans to sell to a developer, retire the debt, and use some of the proceeds to start a new outdoor ministry program by renting space at a camp within the diocese and closer to its parishes.
The plan’s opponents have responded by filing a complaint against the bishop with national Episcopal leaders. Their allegations: Miller failed to maintain Camp Webb and considered an offer to sell the property for $1.5 million Ð $1 million less than its assessed value – to a private developer. The dissenters say it violates canon law to sell diocesan property to commercial interests.
Pfaff says the group is letting emotions get out of hand. “People have an emotional attachment to land,” he says.
Miller has been harsher. “The use of mass unauthorized and sometimes inaccurate communication is of grave concern to me,” he wrote to diocese members. “I do not see Christ in such behavior.”
But Matthew Payne, a member of Preserve CW, says the group may consider suing the diocese. More than the camp is at issue, he says. “Our problem is with the laissez-faire attitude the diocese has had throughout this process. There’s been no transparency or honesty about whatÕs going on.”
