Court ruling is setback for US traditionalists
By George Conger,Religious Intelligence
The third province movement in the United States may have received a severe setback this week after a California court issued a tentative ruling holding that dioceses are creatures of the national Episcopal Church and may not secede.
On May 4, Judge Adolfo Corona of the Fresno Superior Court issued a preliminary opinion, stating that he would likely issue a summary judgment on behalf of the Episcopal Church against Bishop John-David Schofield (pictured) and the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin.
As a matter of law and fact the judge argued, the Episcopal Church was a “hierarchical church is one in which individual churches are organized as a body with other churches having similar faith and doctrine, and with a common ruling convocation or ecclesiastical head vested with ultimate ecclesiastical authority over the individual congregations and members of the entire organized church.”
“In a hierarchical church, an individual local congregation that affiliates with the national church body becomes a member of a much larger and more important religious organization, under its government and control, and bound by its orders and judgments,” he said. Under this principle, a parish is a subunit of a diocese, which is itself a subunit of the national Episcopal Church, the Judge Corona reasoned.
As the Episcopal Church held that Bishop Schofield had been deposed and that it recognized Bishop Jerry Lamb as Bishop of San Joaquin, the assets and property held by the Anglican diocese should revert to the loyalist group, the judge argued. The actions of the San Joaquin synod to amend its constitution to secede from the Episcopal Church were “ultra vires”, unlawful and void.
Judge Corona scheduled a hearing for May 5 for the parties to respond to his tentative opinion which accepted at face value the opinions of the Episcopal Church’s expert witness as fact, but rejected the diocese’s expert witness testimony as opinion.
Canon Bill Gandenberger of the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin told The Church of England Newspaper the judge’s opinion was a “preliminary ruling which shall be argued against in court tomorrow.” San Joaquin looked “forward to the opportunity to present our positions properly and convincingly” before the judge.
The proceeding before the court was a motion for summary judgment by the Episcopal Church against the Anglican Diocese. Under California law a Summary Judgment or Motion to Adjudicate can be made when there are no disputed issues of fact, and the court may decide the issues on their merits.
However, in this case the judge’s assumption that as the Episcopal Church is “hierarchical” in a manner akin to the Roman Catholic Church is a disputed material issue of fact, upon which the whole case turns for the diocese.
Attorneys for the diocese argued in the May 5 hearing the judge erred as a matter of law in accepting the Episcopal Church’s expert witness testimony on the ecclesial structures of the Episcopal Church as uncontroverted, while the diocese’s expert witness testimony offered contrary evidence, asserting that when the two sides dispute the facts to which the law is applied, there is a disputed issue of fact, and as such the matter cannot be resolved via a summary judgment.
The diocese’s attorneys also argued in the hour and 20 minute hearing that the attempt by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori to place Bishop Lamb in the San Joaquin see violated the constitution and canons of the diocese. Since the rules were not followed, the diocese argued, Bishop Lamb could not be Bishop of San Joaquin and had no standing to claim the assets of the diocese.
Attorneys for the Episcopal Church rejected the charge that the election of Bishop Lamb was defective, and cited the judge’s opinion that the synod votes to secede were ultra vires. The national church also argued that the courts had no authority to review the Episcopal Church’s internal procedures, and must accept the decision of the Presiding Bishop as to whom she recognizes as the lawful bishop of the diocese.
A decision by the court is expected in the coming weeks, however, whichever way the court rules, an appeal by the losing party is all but certain
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