In a ruling released yesterday afternoon by the Eighth Judicial Circuit Court in Adams County, Illinois, Judge Thomas J. Ortbal denied motions for summary judgment brought by ECUSA and its rump diocese of Quincy, which had intervened to join in ECUSA’s counterclaim against certain clergy and laity who held property and funds in trust for the (now missionary) Diocese of Quincy in ACNA.
To my knowledge, this is the first summary judgment motion lost by ECUSA, or by any of its rump dioceses, in their attempts to seize the property of the four dioceses which have thus far realigned with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone and with the Anglican Church in North America (“ACNA”).
HUGE!!!!!!! If TEc loses it’s claim to hierarchy, as they erroneously claim for themselves in the courts, they are done though out America.
Milton–That is already part of the SC holding in the Pawleys Island case.
I wouldn’t have burned all those exclamation points. The most this means is that a secular court thinks that the issue of whether the Church is hierarchical is a disputed question of fact, requiring the presentation of testimony and evidence, rather than a question of law that a secular court can decide. I rarely find that there is a direct link between a negative disposition of a summary judgment motion and the ultimate disposition on the merits. If TEC ultimately loses on this point in this case, it may not mean that they are “done” thoughout America. It could mean, however, that they are “done” in the 8th Judicial District of Illinois. However, they could still win on the ultimate property issue if the court decides that the appropriate remedy for people leaving a church to affiliate with another denomination is the tried and true conservative, traditional approach of walking out the door. However, with an activist judiciary, one never knows what judges here or there will do.