Episcopal Diocese sues Attleboro dissidents
By Michael Paulson
The Boston Globe
June 29, 2007
The Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, faced with the prospect of conservatives bolting the denomination over its support for gay rights, is taking a newly tough stance against would-be schismatics, filing suit to freeze the bank account of a breakaway group in Attleboro.
The diocese, which filed the suit Tuesday in Bristol Superior Court in Taunton, is alleging that in the months leading up to a split in Attleboro, the parishioners secreted away about $200,000 that rightfully belongs to the Episcopal Church.
It’s all here …
Anglicans face suit
BY GLORIA LaBOUNTY
The Sun Chronicle, Attleboro-North Attleboro, MA
Friday, June 29, 2007
The Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts and All Saints Episcopal Parish in Attleboro are suing the breakaway All Saints Anglican parish and its pastor, the Rev. Lance Giuffrida, over money the diocese claims was wrongfully used.
The civil suit filed this week in Bristol County Superior Court in Fall River alleges the Anglican parish used or kept about $200,000 that rightfully belonged to the Episcopal parish that remained at the North Main Street church after the Anglicans left in late January on the order of Bishop Thomas Shaw.
The suit asks not only that the money be repaid, but also that Giuffrida personally be ordered to repay a $10,000 loan initially granted to him by the parish to help him buy his house when he was first hired several years ago.
It’s all here …
Anglicans allege ‘intimidation’ in attempt to name defendants
William C. Flook
The Fairfax County Examiner
2007-06-29
Virginia Anglicans who split from the Episcopal Church last year are accusing their former diocese of “intimidation,” after the diocese moved to specifically name dozens of its former congregants in a land lawsuit.
A hearing is set today in Fairfax County Circuit Court to resolve whether about 75 now anonymous defendants — all vestry members or trustees of eight dissident churches — can be named in the suit.
The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia is suing to reclaim the properties after one of the most high-profile rifts within the Christian Church in modern American history. The conservative congregations left the Episcopal Church in December after a long-standing feud over the interpretation of scripture, a fight intensified by the ordination of a gay bishop four years ago in New England.
“It’s just harassment of defendants, that’s all it is,” Jim Oakes, vice chair of the Anglican District of Virginia, the umbrella group for the churches, said of the most recent motion. “It’s frankly intimidating to soccer moms and people who aren’t used to encountering our legal system.”
It’s all here …
Okay, two things.
Orthodox Anglican bishops in Africa and elsewhere are offering oversight to breakaway parishes, and the Washington Post recently reported that up to 250 of the 7,000 congregations in the U.S. church have come under their jurisdiction.
Your editor has been cross-checking various dissident websites for a long time now, and there may be 250 congregations within the continental United States that claim to answer to various Anglican bishops in Africa and Latin America--but that's not the same thing as "up to 250 of the 7,000 congregations in the U.S. church."
The numbers, as we've said before, are hard to pin down, because--as we all know--"congregations don't leave, people do." The vast majority of the congregations listed under foreign bishops appear to be fledgling "new church plants" meeting in homes and hotels, not established, full-bore, paid-up TEC parishes.
In fact, so far your editor has found less than a dozen TEC congregations that were officially listed by their dioceses as "closed" when a significant group chose to depart and re-form as an "Anglican" congregation. (More later; watch this space!) The rest remain open as TEC congregations, in many cases greatly renewing their mission and ministry in the absence of the controversy du jour.
And with due deference to the soccer moms and legal innocents to which Jim Oakes refers in the second story, there
are also some pretty impressive political heavyweights who attend the
dissident Virginia parishes and support their cause. Perhaps they can comfort those who've never heard that taking control over something that isn't legally yours will oftentimes land you in court...
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