Calif. high court rules US Episcopal Church retains ownership of breakaway parish property

[moobu2]

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The state's high court ruled Monday that three Southern California parishes that left the U.S. Episcopal Church over its ordination of gay ministers cannot retain ownership of their church buildings and property.

In an unanimous decision, the California Supreme Court ruled that the property belongs to the Episcopal Church because the parishes agreed to abide by the mother church's rules, which include specific language about property ownership.


St. James Church in Newport Beach, All Saints Church in Long Beach and St. David's Church in North Hollywood pulled out of the 2.1 million-member national Episcopal Church in 2004 and sought to retain property ownership.

Each church held deeds in their names to the property. The court ruled that Episcopal Church canons made it clear the property belonged to the individual parishes only as long as they remained part of the bigger church.

"When it disaffiliated from the general church, the local church did not have the right to take the church property with it," Supreme Court Justice Ming Chin wrote for the seven-member court.

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[xchrom]

1. ...

:woohoo:

[donco6]

2. Good.

They can go join with Bishop Akinola in Africa. Maybe he'll buy them a new church.

[annabanana]

3. This really isn't a surprise. The Epicopal Church in America

is the owner of these properties. Congregations that chose to take their pastoral counsel from Anglican Bishops in Africa are no longer part of the American Episcopal Church.

[kwassa]

4. Actually, no. Property laws are controlled by the individual states

and California in the past has ruled the other way in a couple of hierarchal church cases.

This is very good news, however, for the property in the Diocese of San Joaquin where the bishop claims to have taken out the entire diocese of churches.

The biggest case for TEC losing the property is in Virginia, which has a unique division statute enacted during the Civil War that essentially allowed churches to secede from their denomination. The Episcopal Church has already lost in lower courts and hopes to win on appeal in the state supreme court.