Aglican Church in lawsuit limbo

From gosanangelo.com via TitusOneNine:

Congregation remains split over role of gays

By Matthew Waller
Posted January 20, 2010 at 9:26 p.m.


SAN ANGELO, Texas — A desert tranquility surrounds the buildings of the Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd in San Angelo. Mesquite trees shade its parking lot and sway in the breeze, a broad expanse of rolling grass and dirt spreads out to the east of the buildings, and a large cross adorns the side of one of the walls, while ivy creeps up others.

This peaceful domain, however, has been the field of a legal battle for more than two years. And now the congregation of the Good Shepherd has been left in limbo after Judge Blair Cherry ruled in favor of giving the property to the Diocese of Northwest Texas.

“We’re just waiting and watching and praying,” said Stanley Burdock, the pastor of the Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd. “It’s an unfortunate situation, and we can trust to God to bring it to its appointed conclusion, although we don’t know what that conclusion will be.”

The Texas Third Court of Appeals Web site says the case was appealed Jan. 7.

In January 2007 the congregation of the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd split over interpretation of Scripture and the role of gays and lesbians in the church, triggered in part by the consecration of a gay bishop in New Hampshire in 2003.

San Angelo’s breakaway group joined about 700 congregations in the U.S. and Canada by affiliating with the conservative Province of the Anglican Church of Uganda. In late 2008 those churches formed the Anglican Church in North America.

The members of Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd who disaffiliated kept the building at 3355 W. Beauregard Ave. and renamed it the Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd. The other members moved in with a Lutheran congregation, sharing the worship space.

In March 2007 the Episcopal Diocese of Northwest Texas sued the vestry of Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd for the property and money invested in its facilities.

The defense argued that since the church — which had been a mission since 1965 — had become a full nonprofit corporation in 1974, the diocese could not tell the church what to do.

In addition, the Diocese of Northwest Texas signed over the general warranty deed of the property to the church in 1982, at a time when the church wanted to build up its facilities.

“The deed was made so that the corporation could secure financing to make capital improvements to the property,” the defendants said in response to the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, in which a decision is made by a judge rather than by a jury.

According to the affidavit of Craig Porter, a member of the sued vestry, the capital improvements included office space, a large kitchen and a few Sunday school rooms at a cost of about $150,000.

The plaintiffs said members of the former Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd must abide by the laws of the Episcopal Church since it has been part of the hierarchical entity.

Mark Brown, another sued vestry member, said in his affidavit that the hierarchical authority of the Episcopal Church is limited.

“The Episcopal Church does not have control of the local parishes like other hierarchical churches appear to,” Brown said.

The defense claimed, for instance, that the church has no authority to decide who is a member or which members can vote.

In its brief responding to the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, the defense said, “The question in this case is not whether or not someone, even a bishop, may term the Episcopal Church ‘hierarchical,’ it is whether or not the Church must comply with Texas state law when dealing with ... a Texas nonprofit.”

The plaintiffs, however, argued that canon law, to which the Episcopal Church would have been bound, states that property is held in trust by the local parish but ultimately belongs to the diocese and the national church.

The defendants also highlighted several cases involving church property with decisions supporting the defense’s claim to the property, but the plaintiffs noted that several of those churches were not hierarchical.

The plaintiffs brought in as an expert witness Robert Bruce Mullin, a professor from The General Theological Seminary in New York, to highlight various Episcopal canon laws that show how property is given to the supervening diocese if a church disaffiliates from the Episcopal Church.

Mullin concluded that the diocese was right to claim the property occupied by the Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd.

The judge granted the summary judgment Sept. 16 and ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, and on Oct. 8 he signed a formal order for the Anglican Church to return the property to the Episcopal diocese.

“In his opinion there were no issues of fact, that the church was in fact a hierarchical church, and that the church property was vested in the Episcopal Church,” plaintiffs attorney Guy Choate said. “Anytime there is a dispute within a church it’s very sad. ... But I think it’s clear the court has done the right thing.”

Attorney George Finley, representing the defendants, was unavailable for comment.

A hearing on the appeal will probably not be scheduled for more than a year, staff at the appeals court said.

For the time being, congregants of the Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd hope to stay in the building until after the appeals process, pastor Burdock said.

The decision in favor of the diocese follows those of other cases around the country.

The U.S. Supreme Court turned away an appeal from the disaffiliated St. James Anglican Church of Newport Beach, which was involved in a property dispute with the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. The California Supreme Court and appellate court ruled in favor of the diocese.