New lawsuits face Church in USA

From Religious Intelligence-

The Episcopal Church’s legal wars continued unabated last week, with new lawsuits in Tennessee, and appeals filed in Pittsburgh, Georgia and San Joaquin.

The Diocese of Tennessee on Oct 30 filed suit against St Andrew’s Church in West Nashville, asking a state court to grant it control of the parish’s property. In 2006 the congregation quit the diocese to affiliate with the Diocese of Quincy and is now part of the Anglican Church of North America.

Tennessee caught many observers by surprise as it had been numbered among the conservative communion partners group, which had pledged to abide by the Windsor Report process, including the primates’ call for a halt to lawsuits.

The Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh announced last week that it would appeal against a lower court ruling granting control of the diocese’s assets to a loyalist faction aligned with the national church. “Our decision to appeal is for the purpose of protecting the mission of our 51 local congregations. Left uncontested, the award of all diocesan assets to the minority party, a group that comprises only a third of the parishes that were a part of our diocese when we withdrew from the Episcopal Church, would establish a precedent that we believe the minority would use to take steps to seize all the assets of all our local parishes,” the diocese said.

The loyalists’ bid to keep all of the assets of the diocese, “which is supported by the aggressive leadership of the Episcopal Church, is unfair, unreasonable, and unconscionable,” Pittsburgh said. On Oct 29, Christ Church in Savannah, Georgia, appealed a lower court’s ruling granting control of the oldest church in the state to the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia.

“This is another step in what we knew would be a long process,” said the Rev Marcus Robertson, Rector of Christ Church. The parish’s lawyer Neil Creasy said he believed they would win on appeal. “The Supreme Court of South Carolina is the only state supreme court to have ruled in a case involving facts, law and issues similar to ours. It ruled in favour of the local congregation. We are confident of a similar result here,” he said.

In California’s Fifth District Court of Appeal in Fresno, briefs were filed last week in the case of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin v the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin. In June a lower court granted summary judgment to the Episcopal diocese in its bid to seize the assets of the Anglican diocese. The lower court declined to hear arguments proffered by the Anglican diocese on the question of whether a diocese may secede from the national church and issued an order granting relief to the Episcopal diocese --- the loyalist faction in San Joaquin.

Canon law commentator AS Haley noted the decision in the San Joaquin case would likely have an impact on the cases underway against Fort Worth, Quincy and Pittsburgh.

The “current leadership” of the Episcopal Church “is contending that once it joins the Church, a Diocese must forever remain a part of that organization. It has neither language nor logic on its side, but it still makes the argument,” he said, noting the Fresno appeals court will be the first “appellate court in any State to evaluate the merits of the Church's case.”