Judge Sides With 2 Episcopal Parishes in Property Dispute

In another setback for the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, an Orange County Superior Court judge ruled Monday that two conservative breakaway parishes were the rightful owners of their church buildings and other property.

The decision in favor of All Saints Church in Long Beach and St. David’s Church in North Hollywood was not unexpected. Last August, the same judge, David C. Velasquez, handed down a similar ruling in favor of St. James Church in Newport Beach.

All three parishes pulled out of the six-county Los Angeles Diocese and the 2.3-million member national Episcopal Church in August 2004. They said there were sharp differences over how to interpret the Bible, including what they said was the diocese’s unorthodox and lenient views on homosexuality.

The Los Angeles Diocese, which had argued that the parishes held their church buildings and other property in trust for the diocese, said Monday that it would appeal the latest ruling, just as it appealed the previous ruling.

“We continue to be very confident of our position on all three of these cases and believe the Court of Appeal will see it our way,” diocesan attorney John Shiner said.

The appeal is expected to be taken up early next year.

Orange County attorney Daniel F. Lula, whose firm has represented the parishes, said he was also confident that the three congregations would prevail on appeal. He said the judge had followed precedents in other cases previously affirmed by appeals courts.

At the time they broke with the diocese, all three parishes placed themselves under the jurisdiction of a conservative Anglican bishop in Uganda. They said they were no longer under the authority of the Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno of Los Angeles, who has permitted his priests to bless same-sex unions and favored the ordination of the national church’s first openly gay bishop.

The Episcopal Church is the U.S. member of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

The three parishes argued that the Episcopal diocese sought to seize control of their property only after they challenged what they saw as the diocese’s support of homosexuality. “The Episcopal diocese was perfectly content to see the property held by these three churches until they publicly disagreed with the diocese’s theology,” Lula said.

Father William A. Thompson, rector of All Saints Church in Long Beach, said he was “exceedingly pleased and not surprised” by the ruling.

The legal dispute has drawn attention across the national Episcopal Church and the 75-million member worldwide Anglican Communion.

The fight in Southern California reflects similar tensions within the worldwide communion, whose spiritual leader is Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. Williams heads the Church of England, the mother church of the Anglican Communion.

The debate over the church’s treatment of homosexuality has torn at the fabric of unity in the Anglican Communion for years. It reached a peak in 2003 when the American church ordained a priest involved in a relationship with a man as the bishop of New Hampshire.

Conservative prelates in Africa, South America and the Far East have either broken or downgraded relations with the U.S. Episcopal Church over the issue and have warned of schism.

Williams has attempted to hold the worldwide communion together.

The U.S. Episcopal Church was asked to recuse itself from active membership in international Anglican bodies for now. It agreed.