Calif. court sides with church over property 3 parishes split from Episcopal Church over ordination of gay ministers
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) Jan 5 2009, 2:25 PM |
| |
The state's high court has prohibited three Southern California
parishes who left the U.S. Episcopal Church over its ordination of gay
ministers from retaining ownership of their church buildings and
property.
In a 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 includes
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.
Since
2003, four dioceses and dozens of individual churches have split,
setting off bitter legal feuds over division of property.
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards,terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
