During that week, St. Paul’s will become the first parish in the San Joaquin Diocese — and one of the first self-incorporated parishes in the nation — to willingly sign its property over to the Episcopal Church before a lawsuit has been filed. The church, which is 130 years old and has been at various locations in Modesto, predates the San Joaquin Diocese and owns its property free and clear.
“Our name’s on the deed. It doesn’t even have the name ‘Episcopal’ on the deed, and we paid for it,” said the Rev. Michael McClenaghan, St. Paul’s priest. “Not a dime came from the Episcopal Church, not even a dime from the diocese.”
Once again the Episcopal Corporation (EC)refuses to divulge how much money it has spent pursuing its campaign to intimidate, harass, and punish those who have decided the EC is no longer a Christian entity, let alone a church. Instead its spokesperson says information about the general finances of the Church can be found. Like most assertions emitted by the EC, the information can be immediately discounted as misleading, if not completely false. Yet another chapter in the on-going story of “gracious conversion” and “inclusivity”. St. Paul’s approach has the benefit of completely cutting off the contagion of the group which lusts after its property. May God abundantly bless them for their courage.
Would that more of the departing brethren did the same and not “lust after its property” (quoted from #1 above). This shows that St. Paul’s truly believed what they preached.
You established it, you built it, you expanded it, you maintained it…but we own it. Seems fair to me.
Love,
Kate
While St. Paul’s may have enough members and resources to simply walk away from their property and start over, many smaller congregations do not – especially in California where property values and rents are high. Bearing in mind that TEC as a whole is moving steadily away from traditional Christian doctrine and practice, any purported trust from previous generations resides with the faithful who continue to promote the gospel message for which the previous members gave of their time and money.
Departing churches are not suing TEC, TEC is suing them. Why is the burden of responsibility placed on the parishes who, due to conscience sake, cannot continue in this new revised religious system? Simply walking away from church property may be expedient, or even necessary in some cases, but it does not necessarily constitute a more authentic following of Holy Scripture.
Thank you Fr. Jack. Your words are an encouragement to us while we are being sued. We pray that as long as we are stewards of God’s building, here, we will use it rightly and as a work of praise to His Holy Name. — Stan
Eugene RE: “Would that more of the departing brethren did the same and not “lust after its property†(quoted from #1 above). This shows that St. Paul’s truly believed what they preached.”
Sadly, the diocese and the national organization under the PB do lust after all property and are happily and insensitively willing to sue and sue and sue.
The question of ‘departing’ is not clear. While the Anglican congregations may be dissociating themselves from the Episcopal organization, it is this organization that is departing from the Anglican Communion and sadly is in a state of impaired communion with the vast majority of the AC.
The Church is people…..not property…..something that Schori and Company don’t recognize, evidently. Now the question is, who’s going to take up the slack, now that a faithful priest and his congregation have left? Maybe they think more people will begin to fill the empty pews when +Jerry Lamb moves his faux diocese’s office to Modesto.
Will the ECUSA/TEC/GCC/EO-PAC be able to keep up the appearances? Fill a pew or maybe two with bus-congregants at current gas prices? Sell it for money to sue, sue, sue, sue, sue?
Tough call. So many options and all that upkeep too.
God bless you +McClenaghan.. It is rare to find people of integrity in the property dispute. I too am glad to see a congregation practice what it preaches. Best wishes for the future.
I am curious to know what is unusual about St. Paul’s, that it alone of the San Joaquin/Southern Cone diocese parishes has chosen to surrender its property to the Episcopal remnant. Is it the name on the deed that allows it to make up its own mind about disposition of the property? Is it that there is a viable Episcopal remnant ready to continue in the building, one with which it still shares some bonds of affection? Or does its vestry have a greater aversion following through with the legal process that the rest of the diocese seems to be committed to?
The newspaper article seemed very positive to me, full of grace and charity and utterly lacking in bitterness or ill will between the congregations. Thanks be to God!
Ladytenor,
It was not a Southern Cone parish.
I guess it saves a lot of trouble simply to walk away – but I am afraid it sets a bad precedent, when the parish antedates the Dennis Canon and when the name of the parish only is on the deed.
It is highly debatable if engaging in a lawsuit with the Episcopal Church is in fact a violation of the Corinthians passage – 1) Is it wrong to defend yourself when sued? 2) Is one engaged in a lawsuit with fellow Christians if one’s opponent in court is the Episcopal Church?
Rob Eaton+ #11, I am confused. This, then, was one of the parishes which did not secede with the Diocese (now Southern Cone)? With what Anglican group is it affiliating when it begins anew next month?
As long as belief in the teachings of the creeds is required (it’s not been strenuously enforced since the ‘Enlightenment’) the Episcopal Church is still Christian.
St Paul’s reminds me of when a bishop and most of his diocese in the same area converted to Rome recently: Mar Bawai Soro and his former Assyrian (Nestorian) parishes. They didn’t try to take the properties.
[url=http://sergesblog.blogspot.com/]High-church libertarian curmudgeon[/url]
Fr. Eaton: So is this more of a split than a surrender, with those members choosing to remain Episcopal keeping the property and those choosing not to be Episcopal starting anew? And (as Katherine already asked) with what Anglican entity shall the new congregation align? I am struck again by the dignity and congeniality reflected in this report; I hope it is true and I wish both sides well.
Katherine, Ladytenor,
It is confusing, isn’t it. Unfortunately, the Modesto Bee article did not adequately identify the association that the parish made with the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA) after Bp Schofield was “deposed”. There is one such reference on the last page of the online article as Kendall has linked that gives a date for a parish vote to align with AMiA, which placed them in a probationary period (of one year, I believe). A recent ENS article said that St. Paul’s has been aligned with AMiA “for several years”, which is completely inaccurate. If anything, I understand now there were some initial conversations with AMiA from around the end of 2007, so even if you count from then, it would only have been now 18 months.
Here is a further confusing statement in the Modesto Bee article:
“During that week, St. Paul’s will become the first parish in the San Joaquin Diocese — and one of the first self-incorporated parishes in the nation — to willingly sign its property over to the Episcopal Church before a lawsuit has been filed.”
Since St. Paul’s was never a part of the what could be called the “Southern Cone” diocese of San Joaquin (I’ll elaborate in a moment), and since the parish aligned with the AMiA in early 2008, the sentence seems to suggest that St Paul’s is just now deciding to leave TECUSA, and to walk away without waiting for a lawsuit to be filed. Don’t think St. Paul’s hasn’t been in the litigation crosshairs until now; the first priority, though, of the litigation from the TECUSA diocese and David Beers, etc., has been to get the courts to rule that +Jerry Lamb is the recognized ecclesiastical authority and head of corp sole. You see, then, that the court battle has been clearly aimed at the definition of legal custody between Bp Schofield and the diocese that voted to leave TECUSA, and what could be considered the “left behind” TECUSA diocese.
St. Paul’s was clearly a parish that voted to leave TECUSA by voting to align with AMiA, and not with the Southern Cone group. Definitely a target for litigation, but in a different barrel.
As I promised to elaborate, Fr. McClenaghan and a lay member of the parish were both members of the San Joaquin Standing Committee that refused to accept the Convention decision in December of 2007 to align with the Southern Cone province (all four of the clergy members and two of the lay members had made that decision). So initially, St Paul’s was still a TECUSA parish, and Fr. Michael and the vestry held things together.
Then came the decision by the Presiding Bishop to “not recognize” the members of the existing Standing Committee for what she determined was their failure to fulfill their responsibilities, all the while the “not leaving” Standing Committee members were waiting for the appropriate transfer of ecclesiastical authority.
The Presiding Bishop’s action put all three of the St. Paul’s – Bakersfield, Visalia and Modesto – as well as St. Columba’s, Fresno, arguably the 4 largest parishes in the diocese even before Dec 2007, into a spin. None of these had decided to leave TECUSA as of the first part of January. But before the March special meeting with Bp Lamb and Bp Jefferts Schori, three of the four had made the decision to leave TECUSA – two to join up with the Southern Cone diocese, and one with AMiA.
Now about splits for Modesto, the first “split” happened in the early 90’s when the then rector, Tom Foster, left St Paul’s to church plant Christ the King, Riverbank. That should explain why Christ the King is mentioned in the article. Fr. Foster, now retired, managed to start Christ the King with well over 100 members from St. Paul’s. There were some hard feelings on that one. The second “split” happened when St. Paul’s as mentioned above went with AMiA; some people had moved back to St Paul’s from Riverbank, and now some people left St Paul’s to go to Riverbank or a couple other much smaller congregations because they didn’t want to leave TECUSA. Now the third split as St. Paul’s walks from the property, and as the article suggests, some folks will simply stay with the facilities. But, as well, folks who had left in 2008 now indicated they wanted to come back to the now TECUSA St. Paul’s buildings to reclaim the spots they had left earlier.
Reminds me of the Dr Seuss story of the creatures with stars on their bellies, and those that had no stars on their bellies. You’ll have to read it if you don’t know it.
This leads me to offer my two cents. With the above grand confusion about loyalties, agendas, expectations, etc., the congregation pieced together will need a major common denominator, and just moving back into St Paul’s won’t do it. Also, there is nothing sacred about a triodetic dome, and any of the previous rectors will add their own frustrations with the nave architecture and worship environment acoustically. With that and another element of the parish dynamic including a church in Modesto area which was closed and sold, the best thing the diocese could do is sell the property and facilities and start a new plant in the south Modesto area, start over fresh.
I should have added one thing — AMiA is loathe to waste parish assets with litigation, and they would have added their own counsel to the parish to leave it behind.
Thank you, Rob Eaton+, for that very complete explanation. The situation in your area is very sad on many fronts. Best wishes to all believers.
And yes, I saw the photo of that sanctuary. Domes have a Christian history, but possibly not just like that one.
Well I do hope the property will be re-titled in the name of the diocese. Congregations should be renters of diocesan properties.
Thank you very much for the detailed explanation, Fr. Eaton. I am now more confused than ever, but it seems that is the fault of the facts and not the fault of my failure to be informed. 🙂 It seems the parish’s history is very complicated indeed, and now I find that I must wish all three congregations well!
Ladytenor,
After re-reading your comments of question, I want to explain the Episcopal diocese’s response to the news that the former-TECUSA-San Joaquin-now-AMiA (since 3/08) -congregation would be leaving the facilities and not contending for them.
This was a bit of a surprise. I don’t believe anyone was prepared with a plan of action as a result. There are people as I noted who had left St Paul’s, but because St. Paul’s facilities were not a part of the main litigation for all the other properties, it wasn’t like there was a former remnant chomping at the bit. Once Bp Lamb started asking around, however, and (now) announced a general meeting of interested persons, all of a sudden there IS a bunch of people who would like to get back in there. But they have not been meeting separately as a “remnant” or “remaining” St Paul’s. Do you see? The great difficulty in this is that people will generally be leaving the congregations where they have been worshipping for up to 18 months in order to go back to St Paul’s.
I don’t want to leave out making note of the group of people who are currently a part of this AMiA congregation, and will be until the end of June, who will then part with their brothers and sisters and NOT leave the facilities. But they are just as surprised (probably) as anybody else that it has come to this. These folks who STAY will be going to church after the first of July at the same place they have been, but now it will be a TECUSA congregation and not an AMiA congregation. We’ll see what wisdom prevails, but I hope you can see this next level of tension: the people “of the parish”, the ones attending this church, who now will be themselves reverting to TECUSA membership, will not be the ones who get to call the shots. The ones with such status will be those “coming back”, even though they left the parish behind a while ago. One grand disconnect. There will be an interim priest-in-charge, and the bishop will have to be the de facto rector.
And since the diocesan office will now be moved from Stockton (the very northern end of the diocese) to Modesto (which, an hour south, was more a decision of expediency and stewardship than anything else), the bishop will fortunately be right there (he may not be looking forward to that part) to try to help deal with things as they spontaneously erupt (I say that knowing church life, and with every expectation that all parties will have every good intention to fulfill the first and greatest commandment, and the second which is like unto it).
That’s part of why I think a fresh start would be better..