| Friday, July 6, 2007
"For a time is coming when people
will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate
for themselves teachers to suit their own passions..."
2 Timothy 4:3 ESV
- Commentary on TEC Lawsuits
- Major Texas Parish warns House of Deputies'
President
- Canterbury: No Change to Bishop Robinson's
Lambeth Status
- California Judge rules in TEC's favor
Commentary on TEC Lawsuits
Source: Virtueonline
Date: July 3, 2007
By David W. Virtue
The strategy of Episcopal Church leaders, led by Presiding Bishop Katherine
Jefferts Schori and her attorney David Booth Beers, is to go after orthodox
dioceses and churches and litigate them into bankruptcy rather than allowing
them to leave the Episcopal Church with their properties, says the president
and CEO of the American Anglican Council (AAC).
Canon David C. Anderson told VirtueOnline that it is now
apparent that the strategy of Mr. Beers is to spend millions of dollars, or
whatever it takes, to keep properties from leaving the grip of the Episcopal
Church. Liberal dioceses, with the assistance of the national church, will
sue repeatedly until they win.
"The Episcopal Church (TEC) will probably sue everyone -
that is to be expected. Even if TEC can't win consistently on law or on
facts, it appears that they will sue anyway, to bankrupt parish churches and
perhaps dioceses in legal defense. If a church or diocese can't afford to
stay in court, however well they may (or may not) have law or facts on their
side, they lose by default," he wrote in the AAC's weekly email message to
subscribers.
Diocesan Bishop J. Jon Bruno has sued three orthodox
parishes formerly in the Diocese of Los Angeles for their property. St.
James Church had successfully won the right to retain their properties in
two lawsuits in a lower court decision, but recently faced another round of
litigation with the diocese winning on appeal.
Since the Court of Appeals decision went against two other
California Court of Appeals decisions, one in 1981 and one in 2004 the
California law is now in confusion. The case will need to go forward to the
State Supreme Court.
In a victory for the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, a
three-judge state appeals panel upheld the diocese's claim to the buildings
and other property of three conservative parishes that had severed their
ties with the diocese.
The unanimous decision by a panel of the appeals court in
Santa Ana reversed lower court rulings in the case impacts St. James Church
in Newport Beach, All Saints Church in Long Beach and St. David's Church in
North Hollywood.
"I believe this is a conclusive statement that the
property will come back to us and that the lower court will be directed by
this opinion," said Bruno.
Eric Sohlgren, lead lawyer for the three parishes, called
the decision an anomaly, saying it ran counter to what he described as
nearly 30 years of legal precedent in California. "Church property disputes
have been looked at through neutral principles: who has the title to the
property, who bought it, who maintains it and what state statutes say," he
said.
"What the court said here was that if a hierarchical
church wants to take control of local church property, all it has to do is
pass a rule." Another parish, St. John's Fallbrook, and its priest, the Rev.
Don Kroeger, face a third round of litigation from revisionist San Diego
Bishop James Robert Mathes.
Twice the courts have rebuffed the diocese in its attempt
to take the property back from the parish and its priest. In a letter to the
clergy of the diocese, Mathes said that when canon law is breached and "all
efforts to remedy the violation are rebuffed, it is necessary to use the
civil courts."
Said Anderson, "This raises the serious question as to
where the Episcopal Church is getting the money from to do all this
litigation. Will someone crack open the Church Pension Fund and raid the
pensions of liberals and conservatives to fund the litigation? Only time
will tell.
Will someone crack open the Trust Funds of TEC and use
their money for the litigation?" Two things are certain, TEC will continue
litigating, and the faithful will not be deterred by such action, Anderson
stated.
"It is a tragedy of the first order that a presiding
bishop who preaches the "gospel" of Millennium Development Goals to save the
poorest of the poor, is willing to spend millions of dollars litigating for
properties that, at the end of the day, may only have a dozen people left in
them."
Anderson cited the example of St. Paul's, Brockton, Mass.
a parish that left the Episcopal Church and tried to retain the property and
buildings that housed a massive social outreach to the community.
Click here to
read the rest of the article.
Major Texas Parish warns House of Deputies'
President
Source: Chuck Collins
Rector, Christ Church
San Antonio, TX
Date: July 5, 2007
An open letter to: House of Deputies President Bonnie
Anderson
Dear Ms. Anderson,
I read with interest the ENS report of your visit to
Albuquerque a few days ago. If the report is accurate, it's shocking the
veiled and not so veiled attempts you made as a guest in the Diocese of the
Rio Grande to undermine the authority of their bishop and the leadership of
the Diocese of the Rio Grande.
My purpose in writing, however, it to ask you to not
include me or Christ Church San Antonio in your reports about the "majority"
in the Episcopal Church. The talking point that you and the Presiding
Bishop continuously repeat - that only "45 of the Church's 7,500
congregations have decided to leave" - suggests that parishes like ours in
San Antonio are with you. I want you to know that, even though we have not
joined another Anglican body, we are emphatically not with you and we do not
support the revisionist agenda that seems bound and determined to lead us
away from the wider Communion.
In a letter to Bishop Gary Lillibridge (July 26, 2006) we
stated: "In a unanimous vote, the clergy and [18 member] vestry of Christ
Church and Christ Church in the Hill Country affirm our commitment to Jesus
Christ, to the authority of Holy Scripture, and to that which binds us to
our Anglican heritage. As a consequence, when the Archbishop of Canterbury
and the Primates offer us an acceptable option, we will disassociate from
the Episcopal Church. We feel that we must do this because we believe The
Episcopal Church has left the Anglican Communion, and us, and now no longer
lives under the authority of the Bible."
Ms. Anderson, in the future, please report that "46 of the
Church's 7,500 congregations have decided to leave," or at least have the
intention to leave once the Primates together offer an option. If the
Presiding Bishop, House of Deputies President, and the House of Bishops were
to give even passing affirmation to the Tanzania Communiqué and the Windsor
Report, if there was even slight movement in the direction of wanting to
follow the direction of the Primates, we would feel differently. But the
trajectory of the Episcopal Church appears to be set in stone, and it is a
direction that clearly leads away from historic Anglicanism and the Anglican
Communion.
We at Christ Church wait prayerfully and with eager
expectation to see how God brings together orthodox churches and dioceses,
with the support of the Primates. We are committed to our bishop who
strongly upholds the Windsor Report and the Anglican Covenant as the hope
for our future. Until the Episcopal Church begins to support the mind of
the world-wide Anglican Communion, Christ Church San Antonio cannot be
counted on to support the Episcopal Church.
Respectfully in Christ,
Chuck Collins
Rector, Christ Church
San Antonio, TX
210.736-3132
www.cecsa.org
Canterbury: No Change to Bishop Robinson's Lambeth
Status
Source: The
Living Church
Date: July 5, 2007
By (The Rev.) George Conger
The Archbishop of Canterbury’s office has released a statement on the status
of the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson’s invitation to the 2008 Lambeth
Conference, saying “there is no change to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s
decision not to invite the Bishop of New Hampshire to the conference as a
participating bishop.”
Last week a British daily newspaper reported that a member
of the archbishop’s staff had informed several concerned clergy members of
the Church of England by letter that Bishop Robinson would be attending.
The letter sent to the clergy listed Archbishop Rowan
Williams’ previously stated reasons for not inviting Bishop Robinson, and
closed with a reminder that “it is still being explored whether Bishop
Robinson might attend in another status.”
In an interview with a reporter for The Living Church, a
spokesman for Archbishop Williams called for a halt to further speculation
and confirmed there had been no changes or new actions taken over Bishop
Robinson’s invitation to Lambeth since the invitations were extended last
month.
Senior advisors to Archbishop Williams noted it was
possible that some bishops may have their invitations withdrawn to the
gathering of the Anglican Communion’s bishops next summer in Canterbury.
In his letter of invitation, Archbishop Williams stated,
“with the recommendations of the Windsor Report particularly in mind, I have
to reserve the right to withhold or withdraw invitations from bishops whose
appointment, actions or manner of life have caused exceptionally serious
division or scandal within the Communion.”
California Judge rules in TEC's favor
Source: Episcopal
Life Online
Date: July 4, 2007
[Diocese of Los Angeles] A Los Angeles Superior Court
Judge ruled July 3 that the Episcopal Church and the Episcopal Diocese of
Los Angeles are entitled to the property of St. Luke's of the Mountains
Parish in La Crescenta, California. The decision comes on the heels of the
landmark opinion last week from the California Court of Appeal which
unanimously upheld claims by the Diocese of Los Angeles and the national
office of the Episcopal Church to the property of three separate parishes
whose leaders and members left the Episcopal Church in 2004.
The Diocese of Los Angeles encompasses the Counties of Los
Angeles, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Orange, and a portion of
Riverside County, under the ecclesiastical authority of Bishop Jon Bruno.
In February 2006, St. Luke's severed its relationship with
the Episcopal Church and the diocese, placing itself under the jurisdiction
of a conservative Anglican bishop in Uganda. The departing members claimed
they were entitled to take parish property away from the Episcopal Church
and the diocese. The diocese, citing church canons which place all parish
property in trust for The Episcopal Church and the diocese, asserted it was
entitled to retain the property. Litigation followed.
The ruling today by Judge John Shepard Wiley, Jr. follows
the recent appellate opinion and confirms Bruno's conviction that parish
property cannot be taken away from the larger church by departing members.
"We're very pleased with this decision today," said Bruno.
"We are a people of reconciliation, and our major concern is for the people
of St. Luke's, and how to bring them back into relationship with the Diocese
of Los Angeles if they wish. We will pray for them. I hope they will pray
for us."
Holme Roberts & Owen partner, John R. Shiner, Chancellor
of the diocese and its attorney in the litigation, called the ruling
"another important step to dispel any notion that local congregations of a
hierarchical church may leave the larger church and take property with
them." |
