After Theological Split, a Clash Over Church Assets

Posted on October 6, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized

MONROEVILLE, Pa. — After an overwhelming vote here over the weekend by the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh that created the second schism with the national church since the 2003 election and consecration of an openly gay Episcopal bishop, both sides were hoping for a simple resolution.

“If the national church would stay out of it, we could work it out,” said the Rev. Jonathan Millard, who favored secession and led the convention on Saturday. “And I think 90 percent of the churches here would agree with me.”

Mr. Millard was referring to that most secular of issues: resolving who owns what among the millions of dollars’ worth of diocesan and parish property.

It is a huge concern for both sides after the vote on Saturday, which realigned the majority of the 74 parishes of the Pittsburgh diocese with a more conservative branch of the church in South America. On Saturday, 119 of 191 lay members voted in favor of leaving the national church, as did 121 of 160 clergy members.

“The people who have given and sustained these places ought to be able to keep them,” said Bishop Robert W. Duncan, who was deposed last month as Pittsburgh’s bishop because of his push for secession and is expected to be appointed to lead the realigned churches at their first convention on Nov. 7.

Those who opposed secession, not surprisingly, did not share Bishop Duncan’s view.

“The idea that you can vote to leave the church and have the assets and the finances go with you is nonsensical,” said the Rev. Harold Lewis, rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh, a leader of those in the diocese opposed to secession.

Or, as Joan Gunderson, who helped create the group Across the Aisle to fight secession, put it: “Their position is that the diocese left when they did. Our position is that the diocese didn’t leave, individuals did.”

Pittsburgh became the second Episcopal diocese to leave the national church over a theological battle that had been brewing for 30 years and boiled over with the consecration of an openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson, in New Hampshire five years ago.

Other issues that have been hotly debated in the church include the ordination of women, which was approved by the national church in 1979, and whether Jesus is the son of God and the only way to salvation.

The Diocese of San Joaquin, in Fresno, Calif., voted to leave the national church last December. The dispute there is continuing with a lawsuit filed in April by the local diocese and the national church.

After Theological Split, a Clash Over Church Assets New York Times