Sorry ACI, but parishes are creatures of Dioceses and Dioceses are creatures of the General Convention. Deacons, Priests and Bishops are also creatures of the overall organizational structures of the National Constitution and Canons. They all, whether Deacons or Dioceses agree to that at their creation, by signing the accession clause. With that accession comes the privileges, ecclesial and civil of call themselves a Church.
Sadly, for them, there are no Canons for de-accession to the national canons. And the courts will hold, in due time as they have done in California that individuals may leave, but that the property and corporations belong to the overall organization that granted them existence.
Since there are no Canons to cover the situation of people illegally seizing the corporate name and assets it is absurd for the ACI to attack the Presiding Bishop or to impute to her the sorts of motivations they have alleged. But she is well within her responsibilities, as would be the President of the House of Deputies, to identify and acknowledge who are the people representing the corporation whose genesis and identity are connected to the accession clauses. It is further their fiduciary responsibility to act in the interests of those displaced by the illegal actions of local dissidents.
In the Fallbrook, California case the decision hinged on who rightly could name the Vestry of the parish. The court concluded it was the Bishop. This is a separate decision from the CA Supreme Court upholding TEC’s hierarchical nature. So two streams of law here, and we are a model for other decisions in time, affirm our hierarchical prerogatives.
We should all be aware that these decisions make the actions of those who seized buildings and assets criminal and now criminal penalties may come to apply. It is also possible that the clergy and Vestry persons will be held individually liable for TEC’s litigation expenses. Even if they kept Officers and Directors; insurance those companies may refuse to insure illegal activities. I continue to wonder if all of the laity in these congregations were apprised of this potential liability.
Whatever the outcome, the baseline is established. TEC is a hierarchical church and in instances where people repudiate accession they cease to be legal anything. In the case of Dioceses it falls to the PB and PoHD to insure that those who maintain their accession to TEC end up in control of corporations, buildings and assets because they were all given within the umbrella of legitimacy that TEC and its accession clauses provided.
As a side note, the Anglican Covenant could perhaps be viewed as a form of noveaux accession clause at an international level. But it has no legal or canonical status, it has not been affirmed by any legislative process, and yet it purports to create a form of judicial disciplinary power. Even a simple comparison between the processes leading to accession in TEC and the processes surrounding the covenant reveal the haphazard and flimsy nature of the latter.
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