ENS reports: California appellate court rules La Crescenta property belongs to Los Angeles diocese.
California appellate court’s June 9 ruling was the latest in a series of recent developments that return disputed church properties to three California Episcopal dioceses.
On June 9, the San Diego-based Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled unanimously that the Diocese of Los Angeles is legal owner of property currently occupied by St. Luke’s Anglican Church. The congregation had cited theological differences when severing ties to the Episcopal Church (TEC) in 2006 and realigning with an Anglican diocese in Uganda.
In unrelated agreements, displaced Episcopalians will return July 1 to two other disputed properties, St. John’s Church in Petaluma, in the Diocese of Northern California and St. Paul’s Church in Modesto in the Diocese of San Joaquin…
See also news reports:
Dispute over old church resolved
Breakaway Petaluma congregation returns building to Episcopal Church
and
Church ruling upheld
Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles wins another property battle
It is always good to see right prevail.
It always seemed to me, that the Church must get its property back, from those who had left.
A victory for the good guys! Hooray! Let the Rebellion chew on that one for a while, the bunch of thieves.
Bishops Orombi and Akinola (and soon Venables, Schofield, Iker, Duncan), have been striking out time-after-time at court, with their ¨poaching TEC¨ property/endowment antics…these costly capers only make them appear even more irresponsible when considering the rampant corruption at all levels of society in some of their HOME PROVINCES at The Anglican Communion. Bishop Akinola/Nigeria and CANA and his HOB´s were recently ¨called to task¨ for improper religious leadership by Nigerian Senate President David Mark…it seems all is not spiritually ¨well¨ in Gafconlandia: ¨SENATE President David Mark, at a synod of the Bishops of Anglican Communion held in Kaduna recently, accused… Read more »
Now let us hope and pray the Canadians and others do the right thing and return properties to the parish rather than deed it to one particular congregation which – as we know- changes from year to year while the parish endures – alleluia
Only time will tell if the Episcopal Church is able to reproduce thriving communities in these empty shells where families of believers have gathered for so long. The TEC mantra that “people leave the church, but buildings don’t” is really not a good long-term strategy and certainly not something to celebrate. People ARE leaving, with and without buildings. Congratulations.
Kind of a relief to have this other shoe drop. I doubt that anybody in California seriously expected any other type of ruling; but unanimous appeal court rulings strengthen how the appeal court weighed the issues, determined the law applies to the case(s). Guess? Now expect realignment folks nearer to the court ruling to suddenly discover that they were not all that interested in property and stuff, anyways. I predict lots of revisionist realignment believer history telling; and lots of high language about getting on with realigned conservative mission, witness, and so forth. Who was it, that got all mucked… Read more »
San Diego Anglicans wrote: “The TEC mantra that “people leave the church, but buildings don’t” is really not a good long-term strategy and certainly not something to celebrate. People ARE leaving, with and without buildings. Congratulations.” Oh, San Diego, would you people get over yourselves!!? You tried to steal something that didn’t belong to you, and you got caught and busted for it. If you don’t like what’s happening in TEC, either work within the system to change it, or do the honorable thing and just leave. Trying to steal property and blow up TEC doesn’t sound like a good… Read more »
Sorry, pete, but I would agree with SanDiegoAnglicans on this one. I’m not and never have been a member of the Episcopalian Church, but watching this from a distance it does not seem like a cause for rejoicing. Disunity is one of the greatest sins of modern Christians, and getting your land back from a congregation that left sounds like a pyrrhic victory to me. Great, you got the land back, but the more important issue is that a large group of Christians have left your church. Unfortunately, in the area I live, most of the people that have left… Read more »
TBTG, and God grant us reconciliation, in Your time…
Yes, I too am weary of conservative San Diego mantras. This is the same county whose citizens loudly preached they were for straight marriage only, but not against anybody else or anything else in particular; then denied permission for a married couple to sit together in a ho-hum bureaucratic interview (probably with county officials?) though the couple’s legal marriage had just been reaffirmed by the state supreme court ruling. Now, the numbers mantra? Yeah, folks are leaving, and folks are changing churches, or even changing faiths in some instances. Changing is very deeply American. In high transition times, seeker believers… Read more »
One wants to shout out to some conservatives “Get a life!” They are still obsessed with the “evils” of TEC as they choose to define them – however saying that on a conservative blog would just encourage their excesses and I would prefer to let their rantings die a natural death rather than prolong the agony with seemingly useless “dialogue” regards to all
I would rather be part of a small community that truly lives the Gospel than of a large one that talks a good game…
Benjamin Handelman wrote: Unfortunately, in the area I live, most of the people that have left the local Episcopalian church now don’t go to church at all. I’m not sure why anyone would be happy about this kind of outcome. I don’t think anyone is happy about this outcome. But I must wonder: if people left the Episcopal Church and now don’t go to church at all, what kind of faith did they have to start with? In any case, it is clearly the task of the Episcopal Church to find positive ways of winning these folks back… and welcoming… Read more »
I suspect that revolution will not be so appealing when it means holding services in a strip mall between a liquor store and a pawn shop.
“if people left the Episcopal Church and now don’t go to church at all, what kind of faith did they have to start with?” It is entirely possible that their faith is still as lively as before, they’ve just had it with religion and the endless posturing, the attempts to control what God likes and doesn’t like, the determination to decide who’s in and who’s out. With everything else that goes on in the world, they might even be a teeny weeny bit bored with the never ending obsession about sex. Church = faith, no church = no faith is… Read more »
Any thoughts on how long it will take for the conservatives to start splitting off from one another? Or to make an analogy with the French reign of terror for the revolution to start eating it’s own children.. Sad .. very sad…
>>>Any thoughts on how long it will take for the conservatives to start splitting off from one another?
It’s already happened. Jack Iker announced months ago that he is in “impaired communion” with Pittsburgh, since Duncan ordains women.
Furthermore Bishop Iker was in Walsingham recently praying to the Virgin Mary. Yet he is going to sign a constitution that affirms the 39 articles in their ” literal and historical meaning. “
Robert, you say that Bishop Iker was at the Shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham recently. Was that the Anglican or the Roman shrine do you know? The answer is rather important to me.
Father Ron
Rev Ron Smith:
Bishop Iker was at the Anglican Shrine in Walsingham. He gave Benediction at the closing liturgy of the National Pilgrimage.
Interesting that Mr. Iker would portray himself as an active bishop in the Anglican Communion, as he is neither.
Fr Ron: there are photos of the National Pilgrimage on the Walsingham Anglican Shrine website, showing Bishop Iker together with the English flying bishops, My Lord of Gibraltar and the former Bishop of Horsham, whose recent move to become the Administrator followed on rather swiftly from all the fuss about his sexuality in the press.
JPM: “not be so appealing when it means holding services in a strip mall between a liquor store and a pawn shop.”
Speaking as the manager of a liquor store, I would be seriously concerned about the spiritual corruption seeping through the walls onto my premises!
“I suspect that revolution will not be so appealing when it means holding services in a strip mall between a liquor store and a pawn shop” I also suspect a certain deafness to the possibility that this is precisely where God is calling them to minister. God’s got an odd way of doing that. Our parish used to have HUGE issues with the idea of female servers. That was twenty years ago. But twenty years of outmigration and aging have meant that we simp-ly can’t maintain the fiction that we have the right to pick and choose the people God… Read more »
I would rather be part of a small community that truly lives the Gospel than of a large one that talks a good game…