A.S. Haley: Rump Diocese Tries “Hail Mary” Pass in South Carolina

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Let’s see ... when you’re on your own 20-yard line, it’s third down and still ten to go, you’re behind 7-0 and there’s just 30 seconds left in the half, what do you do as quarterback?

You send your ends out wide and long and hope to connect with what is called a “Hail Mary” pass.
Now in the current litigation in South Carolina, the drive by ECUSA’s team to move the ball into federal court has been blocked at every maneuver. They are stuck back on their own 10-yard line, with just a few dozen seconds left on the clock. (The case in South Carolina’s Court of Common Pleas for the County of Dorchester is due to go to trial early next summer; all discovery in the case has to be completed by February 7.)

And so what do they decide to do?

The defendant rump group (but not yet ECUSA itself) throws a “Hail Mary” pass—a motion to add, at this late date, four new defendants and eighteen new claims against those defendants, who are Bishop Mark Lawrence, James Lewis, Jeffrey Miller and Paul Fuener. The Rev. James Lewis serves as Bishop Lawrence’s Canon to the Ordinary and Executive Secretary to the Diocesan Convention; the Revs. Miller and Fuener have both served as President of the Standing Committee of Mark Lawrence’s Episcopal Diocese.

The very first claim the rump group seeks to assert demonstrates the flaw in the entire motion: it is a claim for alleged breach of “fiduciary duty.” The theory of the claim is that Bishop Lawrence and the three additional priests each took vows upon their ordinations which imposed upon them “fiduciary duties ... to adhere to the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church ... and of the Diocese ...”...the rest Comments at Stand Firm TitusOneNine

ACNA friend of the court brief in the Falls Church case