At Lambeth, TEC’s bishops were (whether deliberately, or negligently—it makes no difference) giving out wrong information about the lawsuits they are involved in with their own parishes. The Bishop of Lichfield, the Rt. Rev. Jonathan Gledhill, in the Province of Canterbury, reports on his Weblog about the meeting of his indaba group on August 2 (Day 18 of the Lambeth Conference):
In the discussion afterwards we are told that the US House of Bishops has regretted for the hurt it has caused and its lack of consultation and has issued a public apology – though no one has the exact wording. We are also told that the Canadians have voted against same-sex blessings – though two dioceses are pressing their bishops to change that. We are told that in the lawsuits in America between parishes and their dioceses it is the dioceses who are the defendants and the conservative parishes who are the accusers.
Since it is well known to many individual Episcopalians who have been involved in the many lawsuits instigated and still pending at all levels here that the statement I have put into boldface type above is simply not the case, it did not take long for a blog reader familiar with the details in Virginia to inform the good Bishop of the facts on the ground there. The Rev. Canon Kendall Harmon put the information up on his site at TitusOneNine, and it elicited this comment from a reader:
In the interest of being scrupulously fair: this just refers to the Virginia situation, is it possible there are other parishes/dioceses where the reasserters are suing?
Well, let us be scrupulously fair, and see just what the facts are. The Episcopal Church and/or one of its Dioceses played the role of plaintiff—the party who initiates a case in court, by filing a complaint—in bringing the pending or former lawsuits I have listed below over Church property and assets in the courts of the United States. This list makes no claim to be complete; it comprises just the ones I have read about (I have listed them alphabetically by State, and not chronologically):
Read it all and, yes, do take the time to look up the references.
[blockquote]The only other instance of which I am aware in which a diocese is the defendant in a suit initiated by a church is the declaratory action brought by Grace Church & St. Stevens against the Bishop and the Diocese of Colorado. However, in that suit, the plaintiff church sought a simple declaration that the Diocese had no right, title or interest in its property, in response to an attempt by the Diocese to freeze the church’s bank accounts. The response of the Diocese was to file a counterclaim against the church, its rector and seventeen of its vestry and leading parishioners seeking millions of dollars in damages. Those so named answered in kind, and the claims have been set for trial in February 2009.[/blockquote]
Could someone tell me about the situation in San Joaquin? I know that Merrill-Lynch froze disputed assets. Were these all the assets or does San Joaquin still have other funds to carry on?
This is apparently a well known technique to freeze the assets so that one of the parties can’t carry on the defense in the dispute.
Despite repeated BabyBlue’s clear repudiations, we still hear (and will go on hearing), “Waaah, but they started it, Mommy.”
What started it was the, “We wrote the bible, we can rewrite it” attitude.
The revisionists must be viewed as secularly motivated progressive politicians and the ‘blatant untruth’ is a standard implement in the progressive tool box.
So, it is no surprise that the revisionists have misrepresented themselves regarding law suits against orthodox parishes and dioceses.
I haven’t had time to read this, but I believe that in this next phase of the dispute being able to document the actual factual position is going to be increasingly important. Isolated stories are too easily forgotten or spun or dismissed.
I have already suggested over at Standfirm that one of the big blog sites should be used to do this (and suggested they do it — but here would work equally well). What is needed is the systematic collation of what is happening, with documentation.
I believe that a running count needs to be done of
(1) every statement of a bishop and/or convention that they are not going to abide by the ABCs mortatoriums
(2) every same-sex blessing that we can find, and whether it is in the USA, Canada, UK or elsewhere
(3) every ordination of a person in a same-sex relationship and where it occurs
(4) and every lawsuit with some breakdown of who inititated it
Then everytime KJS or the ABC or anyone else claims the mortatorium is being upheld etc , these statistics, with their backing evidence, should be circulated. I think that in a very short period of time they would speak for themselves and make it impossible for lies to continue to be used as a weapon.
I’m the one who wanted to be “scrupulously fair.” This is good work and a powerful rebuttal. Haley should type up a note and send this off to +Litchfield and any other bishop who made such a statement. Hopefully this will get publicized and can be a resource others can use when they confront that false claim.
#3 has the right idea.
Just to add briefly. it has been the lack of straight forward consideration of the legal issues, adding in all sorts of side distractions, and the ‘dirty tricks’ campaign that essentially marks the Colorado diocesan’s attack against us quoted by Rob Roy above, which includes among items too numerous to bore you all with: suing our fragile day school, freezing our bank accounts and trust funds, attempted extortion of the vestry, law suits against individual parishioners, claims with the police about sermon content (specifically that Jesus casting evil into pigs and running them over the cliff was a veiled threat), visits with Christian community leaders rallying support against me personally, previous to all of this covertly undermining the cohesiveness of the congregation.
Christians, when finally going to the courts ought to behave with integrity and charity to resolve their disputes…and we will continue to do that…with the Lord having purged our hearts of enmity, and calling us to this course we will not trade barb for barb…and I would invite TEC leaders to do the same…even in our disputes, our behavior is our witness and under God’s judgment.
Wasn’t Bishop Duncan also sued?
Shouldn’t inhabitions also be catalogued?
What? “claims with the police about sermon content (specifically that Jesus casting evil into pigs and running them over the cliff was a veiled threat)”
Now that must have been some interview with the police. (“Well yes, officer, we tried to cast some demons into them, but we couldn’t get them anywhere near a cliff. One of them walked into a telephone pole and broke his glasses later that day, but we’re not entirely sure that was due to us.”)
Robroy,
Merrill Lynch froze the assets of accounts on June 2 as they knew of them, and as some were listed in the complaint filed in May by Bp Jerry Lamb, and The Episcopal Church, regarding Corp Sole identified with Bp Schofield. A couple of these accounts (such as our parish’s) had nothing to do with Corp Sole, but Merrill Lynch froze them anyway in something of a protective measure. Then Merrill Lynch submitted a request to the judge to decide on the funds by court (rather than ML figuring it out for themselves). The judge decided that there were congregations in the complaint list that were obviously “sucked up” into the whirlwind, and, not being named as defendants, were non-parties without legal representation (you can read it all online – or at least you could. that’s where I got this info, since no one else is handing this information to us). The judge refused to to anything because of that situation and set a date for a pow-wow between the named bishops (and attorneys).
I just now read through the Fresno Supreme Court online case updates and see that the judge has ordered (in July) a sit down between parties on August 25, combining the Merrill Lynch issue, and the original complaint issue.
Our prayer, and our request to both sides (one of which has already complied with our request), is that the parish account with Merrill Lynch will be agreed to as an account that is not supposed to be in contention. You can pray for that result.
You know, they don’t have to wait until August 25 to sit down with each other. They could do it tomorrow. As well, the one side could write a letter to Merrill Lynch – say, next Monday – and Merrill Lynch would unfreeze our account without further ado.
Robroy,
To finish the answer, I’m not sure whether there are other accounts or not. The Diocese of San Joaquin prior to the December Convention never did have a lot of money coming in from earnings of savings or investments, and was quite reliant on assessment payments. My guess is the Southern Cone diocese after December would be stretched very thin without St Paul’s Modesto or St Paul’s Visalia in the fold. Visalia is back in, so that probably helps their monthly accounting.