The Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin today filed a lawsuit against St. Columba’s, a Fresno parish that in 2007 joined Bishop John-David Schofield and 39 other churches in seceding from the national Episcopal Church.
Already, the Episcopal diocese has filed similar lawsuits against St. Francis Anglican Church in Turlock and St. Michael’s Anglican Church in Ridgecrest, a high-desert community in far eastern Kern County. Those parishes also were part of the secession.
The lawsuits against the individual parishes are part of a larger legal battle pitting the Episcopal Church against the breakaway Diocese of San Joaquin, which joined the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone of South America, and now also the newly formed Anglican Church in North America.
Even if the ‘national church sponsored’ Episcopal Diocese of San Jaoquin wins a court victory and takes over the Anglican church buildings, will it be able to provide congregations to occupy and sustain all of those buildings?
My guess is that they would not be able to handle the financial responsibility that they are spending so much money in lawsuits to obtain.
So why are they going to court? My guess is that the lawsuits are being sponsored by ECUSA in order to inflict as much pain on the Anglican Diocese of San Jaoquin as possible.
What a travesty! Vindictive lawsuits will only drive people away from ECUSA, which can be a good thing, if they are driven toward CANA affiliated parishes.
The Potemkin diocese is spending so much money that they had to move from their rented digs in Stockton into a mostly vacant building (former church) which they had gotten hold of earlier. If, under cover of law, they are able to get these properties back, the Potemkin diocesan authorities have told many people that they expect the parishioners of the congregations they’ve sued to return.
AnglicanFirst:
In answer to your first question….No! The majority….I would say roughly 95+% will not stay in the buildings if TEc wins. I also know that LAmb has a person(s) already making inquiries to other congregations to see if they would be interested in purchasing these properties….and a few of them are perfect for bulldozing down and selling to commercial developers. TEc will just either sale them to developers or wind up with property that will not sale for a while. I also know that many of the other denominations know very well what TEC is all about, what they have done and are doing and these pastors of these other denominations are very good and close friends and brothers in Christ of our clergy and our bishop and they will not buy these properties from TEc. In fact they are digusted at what TEc and Lamb are doing.
IN regards to your second question and then your answer to it…it is true …TEc wants to inflict a lot of hardship financially to these churches and to our diocese and lawsuits are the way to do it in a very depressed area where many are out of work thanks to no water or crops, and the highest unemployment rate in one state in the Union.
By the way…people have been leaving ECUSA for quite some time now….nothing new there and it will only get worse….they think they are winning but they are truly losing…they are just so wrapped up in their own sin they are blind to see it.
That should be “Water for crops”
“In fact all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” 2 Tim. 3:12.
Jerry Lamb has been begging for offers for these properties. Let’s see how the Court of Appeals rule before you get too far ahead of yourself. St Columba is a cardinal parish in our Diocese and I would wager that the ratio of legal professionals and their families make up at least 20% of the ASA. They will not be intimidated.
I hope those in the Godly Diocese of South Carolina are taking very good notes.
Intercessor
[blockquote]Besides St. Columba, its priest — the Rev. James Snell — as well as eight others on the church’s board of directors are named in Thursday’s lawsuit.[/blockquote]
Yet another example of the intimidation used by TEC against individuals.
In Newark the diocesan coffers were progressively depleted. At every diocesan convention in the 1990s (and perhaps until today — I have no direct knowledge of that now) there would be a “Celebration of the Transition of Ministry” with music, balloons and streamers. In fact these “celebrations” were the [b]closing of parishes[/b]. The diocese would then sell off the property to antique shops and real estate developers and fill up the empty coffers to pay their staff and keep on keepin’-on for another year or two.
This is NOT about ministry and protection for loyal TECies. This is about asserting utter dominance and about cold hard cash.
815 has adopted the Newark Plan for keeping the structure alive.
When there are no more local “franchises” to source money into TEC — [i]then[/i] what will they do? They’ll just think about it tomorrow… ’cause tomorrow is another day after all…….
NO. 1: an alternative motivation (to your theory of simply seeking to inflict pain) might be that it would be a revolutionary idea that departing parishioners get to claim chattels, accounts and real property when they leave. You may be quite correct that sufficient numbers have left in this or other parishes that it will be difficult or impossible for those who stay to sustain ownership. However, that point, even if valid, does not provide a very useful principle to guide where legal ownership resides. If that sort of thinking were to catch on, particularly to the point of becoming a guiding precedent, churches everywhere would end up being unstable political conventions, as factions strive to control enough of a consensus to make continued ownership by those who are not sufficiently dissatisfied to leave financially untenable and thus compel surrender of property rights. The better course is for people who find it appropriate to leave a church to leave it without rancor or lust for property, and then, over time, if the property proves unsustainable by those who remain, the door is open for possible acquisition (at a fair negotiated price) by those who leave. I can’t see that any church, however, could simply acquiesce in the idea that when people leave, they can take things. This seems an extremely unrealistic notion. It would be a gross violation of stewardship obligations for any church to just sit on its hands as people walked out the door with property.
#9. NoVA Scout,
In reality, your argument must be that TEC is fighting for principle because the cost to get the property will probably exceed the value of what the property will sell for. We are fighting for principle also. We have fought to save the faith once delivered. If we lose the property it will be a small price for us. We will leave with our faith intact. A church without parishioners is not a church. It is only a building. It is only property. You may question how we witness this faith but make no mistake about it, TEC has also demonstrated to the world where its heart is. In an effort to reclaim the “legacy”, it has lost all virtue in the name of what it calls justice.
#9 wrote: [blockquote] I can’t see that any church, however, could simply acquiesce in the idea that when people leave, they can take things. This seems an extremely unrealistic notion. It would be a gross violation of stewardship obligations for any church to just sit on its hands as people walked out the door with property. [/blockquote]
Unfortunately the facts undermine your theory, because that is exactly what happened when we left TEC. Bishop Schofield allowed those churches who for conscience sake did not want to leave TEC to leave the diocese with their property.
The “stewardship” line is one of the dumbest emanations from Ms Schori. The lawsuits are simply disastrous for the denomination. Good stewards are not penny wise and pound foolish. The denomination incurs terrible press coverage to possibly gain some empty buildings (as if they don’t have enough of those!). How anyone could be duped by Ms Schori and her “good stewardship” line is beyond me.
Senior Priest,
I hate to correct you, but your statement about the move from rented digs to a mostly vacant church – although, yes, that move did take place – was not due to lack of money, which you attribute to spending too quickly.
There are serious stewardship issues here for the diocese, no doubt. But I would encourage you, while at the same time that you are bringing light to that subject, make sure you use an illustration that is more factual.
One could argue that most every diocese in the US might have stewardship issues of one sort or another, whether it be in finances & property or in teaching and saving souls. You see stewardship involves far more than just what you do with the money, the buildings, the gilded crosses, chalices, patens, pews, stained glass windows, etc…
What a diocese is conforming to is just as serious as the above.
#15. NoVA Scout,
I appreciate your thoughtful responses and understand your position. You have dueled with some heavy hitters and held your own. Pax
Fr. Dale (NO. 10): I generally agree. It is an unavoidable point of principle thrust on the Church by those who leave and try to take property with them. I deplore it, but it is inescapable. The fight for the Faith Once Delivered is, as you observe, quite independent of the property dispute. Whether one believes that the faith once delivered is best served by staying or by departing, you are quite right that departing without property preserves that position at least as well as departing and trying to claim property on the way out.
I believe that those who have “Left” the faith have “Left” the Faith Once Delivered and have “Left” the Church so for them to clam any rights to property is deplorable. If they are not happy with the Church and the Churches teaching as well as with the Holy Scripture being the Authority for a godly and upright living and wish to change it then go and begin your “organization” else where. Why should the Church that has not left the Faith Once Delivered For all and the Authority of Scripture be changed to make sinners feel good about their sin and not have to be “TRANSFORMED” from it?
C’mon, TLDillon, don’t you remember… “Because we [the Church] wrote the Bible, we can rewrite it.†(source [url=http://www.forwardinfaith.com/news/moyer-bennison/02-03-05-bennison.html]Forward in Faith[/url] ). Get with the program, would ya? 🙂
IMGB007 – My bad! I refuse to conform to the world, culture shifts and to society that does not know best! ;>)