The summer months have seen no break in the Episcopal Church’s legal wars, with new lawsuits, appeals and victories for both sides in the litigation over parish and diocesan property.
On July 6, the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin filed suit against the rector, vestry and parish of St Paul’s Anglican Church in Visalia, California. A congregation of the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin, St. Paul’s along with a majority of the diocese withdrew from the Episcopal Church in 2007 and affiliated with the Province of the Southern Cone.
The St Paul’s litigation joins a growing list of parish lawsuits funded by the national Episcopal Church and initiated by loyalist faction in San Joaquin. Suits against lay leaders and parish corporations are pending against St Francis Anglican Church in Turlock; St Michael’s Anglican Church in Ridgecrest; St John’s Anglican Church in Porterville, James Anglican Church in Sonora; Holy Redeemer Anglican Church in Delano; and St Columba’s Anglican Church in Fresno.
Don’t they grasp this as “evangelism” in the “New Thang Gospell” (r) “church” formerly known as PEcUSA/EcUSA/TEc?
Talk about disconnect. But since the goal is to make all the Anglican Communion in TEc’s image, they know what they have in their future!
Keep in mind, of course, that senior staff in the New York headquarters of TEC understand that the Archbishop of Canterbury gave a tacit go-ahead to their litigation through back channels.
Pendennis88, can you tell us all who those “back channels” are, or should we already know who they are?
I do not believe for one minute that +Rowan gave a tacit approval of the lawsuits and think that the allegations in comment 2 are not erroneous, unhelpful, and probably worse. If a senior staffer at 815 has said as much, I might believe, given 815’s notoreity, that 815 might allege that or give that impression for political purposes.
Oops. Eliminate “not” in “not erroneous”. I meant to say ‘not just erroneous but unhelpful and probably worse.’
http://bible.cc/1_corinthians/6-7.htm
#4. Exactly.
I could believe that 815 had something to do with this, but I have no doubt that it was done for political purposes.
Believe as you wish. However, I have little difficulty believing that inquiries were made as to what would happen if the lawsuits continued, and the answer back was that no action would be taken. And no action has been taken, has it?
What actions there have been have spoken louder than words. And every action by Canterbury from New Orleans to Jamaica, to the Lambeth Conference, and now to the ACC and the Standing Committee has spoken quite loudly of a great deal of duplicity. It is not helpful to pretend otherwise.
Oh, and I might add that Ian Douglas, on the Standing Committee of the ACC, is an active proponent of the TEC lawsuits, and is one of TEC’s principal “expert witnesses” for their litigation.