Bishop Seizes Continuing Congregation Property

http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=8232

[VirtueOnline] 14 May 2008--On Friday, May 2, Diocesan Bishop James McNeley and Bishop Leo Michael Suffragan Bishop of the Holy Catholic Church-Anglican rite (named by Bishop McNeley to be his successor) seized the building, bank accounts, and personal property of St. James Church, Kansas City, under a court order they obtained without prior notice to the congregation, its Rector, Senior Warden, or Vestry.

Representatives of St James say this suit is the "flight test" of a new procedure for HCC(AR) Bishops to deprive other HCC(AR) congregations of their assets. The Bishops' suit against the parish and their attempted takeover of parish property are expressly forbidden by the HCC(AR)'s Constitution, sources said. Autonomy of parish property is common to all the "continuing Anglican churches" which began in the late 1970s by separations from the Episcopal Church (ECUSA). These were reactions to ECUSA's ordaining women clergy, promoting homosexuality, and abandoning Scripture as the source of moral principles.

Most of these withdrawing Episcopalians lost their parishes and property to the Episcopal Church. This experience made local ownership of parish property a cornerstone of the "continuing church" movement. Since the HCC(AR) formed in 1997 in a schism from one of the original "continuing churches", HCC(AR) members have declined to eliminate the constitutional guarantee of parishes' freedom to leave that body with their property intact.