March 11, 2010
The Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin on Thursday filed a lawsuit against St. Columba Church that seeks real estate and other assets from the Fresno parish, which was part of a 2007 breakaway movement from the national Episcopal Church.
Already, the diocese has filed similar lawsuits against St. Francis Anglican Church in Turlock and St. Michael's Anglican Church in Ridgecrest, a high desert community in far eastern Kern County. Those parishes also were part of the secession.
"If a person wants to leave [the Episcopal Church], that is their right under the First Amendment, but you don't take property that doesn't belong to you," said the Rev. Jerry Lamb, bishop of the diocese.
The suit against St. Columba, filed in Fresno County Superior Court, and the suits against the other individual parishes are part of a larger legal battle pitting the Episcopal Church against the breakaway Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin.
John-David Schofield, bishop of the rebel diocese, led 40 of its 47 parishes out of the Episcopal Church in December 2007, joining first the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone of South America, and now the newly formed Anglican Church in North America.
Already, the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin and its parent, the national Episcopal Church, have won a legal victory against the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin in an effort to recover what they say are property and other assets that belong to the Episcopal Church, and not the breakaway diocese.
But St. Columba and a handful of other churches have incorporated individually -- and separately -- from the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin, which has necessitated the separate lawsuits against the individual churches, said officials of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin.
Local breakaway churches in Porterville, Visalia and Delano also incorporated individually and will face lawsuits similar to the one filed against St. Columba, Episcopal officials said.
Besides St. Columba, its priest -- the Rev. James Snell -- as well as eight others on the church's board of directors are named in Thursday's lawsuit. . .
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