In a victory for the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, a state appeals panel has upheld the diocese's claim to the buildings and other property of three conservative parishes that had severed their ties with the diocese.
The unanimous decision by a panel of the appeals court in Santa Ana reversed lower court rulings in the case, which involves St. James Church in Newport Beach, All Saints Church in Long Beach and St. David's Church in North Hollywood.
The ruling was reached late Monday by a three-judge panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal.
In August 2004, the dissident parishes pulled out of the six-county Los Angeles Diocese and the 2.3-million-member Episcopal Church, citing differences over biblical interpretation, including what they described as the diocese's too-lenient views on homosexuality. Instead, they placed themselves under the jurisdiction of a conservative Anglican bishop in Uganda.
The Los Angeles Diocese sued, arguing that the parishes held their church buildings in trust for the diocese and the national Episcopal Church and thus were not entitled to the property. An Orange County trial judge, in separate decisions, had ruled in favor of the parishes.
The legal battle has been both a tug-of-war over real property and a local reflection of tensions at the heart of a deepening rift within the Episcopal Church, and between that church and much of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
The Episcopal Church is the American branch of Anglicanism, but for years has been at odds with much of the communion over the U.S. church's more liberal views on homosexuality and other issues.
In Monday's ruling, however, presiding Justice David G. Sills, who wrote for the panel, made clear that it had confined its decision to the property dispute and not the broader controversy.
"Readers will look in vain in this opinion for any indication of what religious controversy may have prompted the disaffiliation," Sills wrote. " ... That controversy is irrelevant to this action."
Sills later concluded, "The right of the general church in this case to enforce a trust on the local parish property is clear."
Officials with the Los Angeles Diocese said Tuesday they were pleased by the decision.
"I believe this is a conclusive statement that the property will come back to us and that the lower court will be directed by this opinion," said the Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, bishop of the diocese. "Now we can get about the business of healing and about the business of being a church. It's been a long ordeal."
