Ex-clerics condemn Episcopal lawsuits
By Julia Duin
July 23, 2007

Four retired Episcopal bishops have issued a challenge to their own denomination, asking where church leaders are finding the funds to mount simultaneous lawsuits against fleeing conservative congregations.

In an open letter dated July 14 to the church's 40-member Executive Council, the bishops called the lawsuits "an outrageous example of exacerbating rather than reconciling the divisions in this church."

Thousands of Episcopalians have departed since the 2003 consecration of the openly homosexual New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson. Numerous congregations in several states, including several in Northern Virginia, are holding onto their property, provoking legal responses from the denomination, which says it alone holds title to church properties and assets.

"We, in the name of the living God, declare that by litigation, you may win possession of some buildings and land, but you will never get the people back by the most potent litigation that money can buy," the bishops wrote. "The Episcopal Church has the capacity to bankrupt and destroy all of the congregations and dioceses that dare to meet the Episcopal Church in court. But that will not get the people back."

The letter was instigated by retired Texas Bishop Maurice Benitez. Other signatories were retired South Carolina Bishop C. FitzSimons Allison, retired Eau Claire, Wis., Bishop William Wantland and retired West Tennessee Bishop Alex Dickson.

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