US Bishops Ask for Disclosure: CEN 7.19.07 p 6. July 19, 2007
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Property Litigation, The Episcopal Church.trackback
The Episcopal Church must disclose how much it is spending on lawsuits against rebellious conservatives and where the money is coming from, four bishops stated in an open letter to the church’s Executive Council, or the culture of mistrust will only worsen.
“An open and transparent disclosure” of money spent on lawsuits “is crucially important to avoid speculation, rumors and consequent distrust of the Episcopal Church,” Bishops C. Fitzsimmons Allison, Maurice Benitez, Alex Dickson, and William Wantland said.
“You will never get the people back by the most potent litigation that money can buy” the retired bishops of South Carolina, Texas, West Tennessee and Eau Claire, Wisconsin wrote on July 14. “The Episcopal Church has the capacity to bankrupt and destroy all of the congregations and dioceses that dare to meet the Episcopal Church in court. But that will not get the people back,” they said.
The four bishops challenged the Episcopal Church’s Executive Council to account for the national church’s portion of the millions believed spent in property litigation. “Where [is] the money” coming form to pay for these law suits, “especially in view of the fact that the program budget is being reduced because insufficient funds are being received from dioceses?”, they asked.
The bishops’ letter follows closely upon several months of aggressive litigation against traditionalists mounted by the national church and several dioceses. In their Feb 19 communiqué the Primates urged the Episcopal Church to “suspend all actions in law” over property and asked all sides “to give assurances that no steps will be taken to alienate property from The Episcopal Church without its consent or to deny the use of that property to those congregations.”
The Episcopal Church rejected the primates’ call for restraint, and has intensified its legal barrage against the conservative minority. At the June meeting of the Executive Council, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s legal adviser stated litigation was one weapon in dealing with recalcitrant conservative dioceses.
“We can sue them,” Chancellor David Booth Beers said. “These are recalcitrant dioceses” who have . What did they actually do? Those dioceses have said that they don’t like what we are doing and they won’t go along with it. We will frame our litigation in reference to that.”
Last month the National Church filed suit against seven breakaway congregations formerly members of the dioceses of San Diego and Los Angeles, demanding ownership of the parish properties. Litigation is currently pending before courts in several states including California, Virginia, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and New York.
On June 26 a California appeals court in Los Angeles, reversed a lower court decision denying the Diocese of Los Angeles’ claims against three former parishes that had defected to Uganda, ruling the hierarchical nature of the Episcopal Church gave dioceses a superior claim to property over congregations.
The ruling of the Los Angeles appeals court conflicts with other California appellate court decisions, making it likely the matter will proceed to the California Supreme Court for adjudication. Church property law in the United States differs from state to state and the California decision is not binding upon other state courts.
The PBI and and the National Church must surely be the Devil at work. They will implode and I hope we will be more Christian towards what ever is left, then they have been about all of the Break Away Churches. I embarrased to have been an Episcopalian.