Canada’s breakaway conservative Anglicans have a million-dollar war chest to fight pending legal battles over church property and have hired a Bay Street law firm, documents from the groups’ recent meeting in Burlington reveal.
“It is possible that we could lose church properties at the end of the day,” reads one of the documents, released this week by Anglican Essentials Canada. “However, that day could be very long coming.”
The document is from a session on the legal implications of separating from the Anglican Church of Canada that was closed to the media. In it, lawyer Cheryl Chang says the group is confident it has sufficient resources to fight any legal battle.
“We feel we have a very good legal case to make and have a substantial commitment for a legal fund in the amount of $1 million,” the document reads.
[i]Rev. Canon Charlie Masters, a priest in Lowville and leading member of the group, says Essentials will ask all its members from 16 parishes across the country to donate 10 per cent of their income.
“We are going to be encouraging every individual to tithe. That’s the biblical standard,” he told a press conference last week.[/i]
I’m sorry, but given the discussion on tithing earlier in the week, I do not like to see stewardship being tied to raising money for the lawsuits. There is a case for fighting for property every inch of the way, though I don’t entirely buy into it myself, but raising the funds to do so should not be associated with tithing in this fashion. In the case of my own cathedral parish, I have said publicly that ultimately, if we can’t reach a settlement, we should not take the matter to law. In our case, fortunately, we already know that we reasserters couldn’t sustain the building out of our own resources, so the problem is unlikely to arise.
Of course the “million dollar war chest” could actually be used to buy properties, or start to invest in properties. Or even wait till dioceses have to start selling off properties and buy them back.
But nope, gotta waste money on lawyers.
[i]”It is possible that we could lose church properties at the end of the day,” reads one of the documents, released this week by Anglican Essentials Canada. “However, that day could be very long coming.”[/i]
I don’t know about anyone else, but I find this statement incredibly disturbing.
When you’re leaving Egypt you leave your houses behind. Lawsuits will take up so much time and energy that the ‘essential’ gospel activities will be neglected.
What was that I said a week ago?
Oh, yes… [url=http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/7863/#149415]Let the lawsuits begin[/url].
Welcome to the fray, Canada.