By SEAN D. HAMILL
The New York TImes
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/us/06church.html?_r=1&ei=5070&emc=eta1&oref=slogin
October 5, 2008
Bishop Robert W. Duncan was removed last month for leading the secession of Episcopalians in Pittsburgh. He said diocese property should belong to those who split from the national church.
"If the national church would stay out of it, we could work it out," said the Rev. Jonathan Millard, who favored secession and led the convention on Saturday. "And I think 90 percent of the churches here would agree with me."
Mr. Millard was referring to that most secular of issues: resolving who owns what among the millions of dollars' worth of diocesan and parish property.
It is a huge concern for both sides after the vote on Saturday, which realigned the majority of the 74 parishes of the Pittsburgh diocese with a more conservative branch of the church in South America. On Saturday, 119 of 191 lay members voted in favor of leaving the national church, as did 121 of 160 clergy members.
"The people who have given and sustained these places ought to be able to keep them," said Bishop Robert W. Duncan, who was deposed last month as Pittsburgh's bishop because of his push for secession and is expected to be appointed to lead the realigned churches at their first convention on Nov. 7.
Those who opposed secession, not surprisingly, did not share Bishop Duncan's view.
"The idea that you can vote to leave the church and have the assets and the finances go with you is nonsensical," said the Rev. Harold Lewis, rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh, a leader of those in the diocese opposed to secession.
Or, as Joan Gunderson, who helped create the group Across the Aisle to fight secession, put it: "Their position is that the diocese left when they did. Our position is that the diocese didn't leave, individuals did."
Pittsburgh became the second Episcopal diocese to leave the national church over a theological battle that had been brewing for 30 years and boiled over with the consecration of an openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson, in New Hampshire five years ago.
Other issues that have been hotly debated in the church include the ordination of women, which was approved by the national church in 1979, and whether Jesus is the son of God and the only way to salvation.
The Diocese of San Joaquin, in Fresno, Calif., voted to leave the national church last December. The dispute there is continuing with a lawsuit filed in April by the local diocese and the national church.
The decision to file a lawsuit over church property in Pittsburgh rests with those who have remained with the national church, said the Rev. Charles Robertson, canon to Katharine Jefferts Schori, the presiding bishop of the national church.
"We are always hoping to avoid litigation; that is always a last resort," Mr. Robertson said. "But seeking to be responsible means taking care of the heritage of the church. And we have seen again and again most of the time in our system the courts rule that the property needs to stay with the diocese."
At least 16 parishes have voted to stay with the national church, and others are likely to decide within the next few months. Some of those 16 - many of which disagree with secession but agree with conservatives on theological issues - could decide to leave the diocese if some changes are not made.
The diocese's remaining parishes will begin rebuilding this week when a new Standing Committee, the diocese's lead administrative body, is selected. Just one member of that committee remained after seven of its eight members voted for secession.
The diocese will hold a convention and elect a temporary bishop, probably by the end of the year.
The Rev. James Simon, a conservative who is the remaining member of the Standing Committee, said he had heard from many people who hoped to avoid litigation with a compromise on the property issue, as a symbol of healing after the split.
But Mr. Simon did not sound hopeful.
"I wish it were that simple," he said.
END
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