The Rt. Rev. Peter Lee, Bishop of Virginia, told members and guests attending the first day of the diocese’s annual council in
“If the attorney general’s view of the law prevails, it will mean that the
Bishop Lee said a hearing in Fairfax Circuit Court was held earlier in the day to determine if Attorney General Bob McConnell will be permitted to intervene in the case. Previously Attorney General McConnell filed a motion to intervene and a brief stating that the Canons and Constitution of the Episcopal Church are subordinate to Virginia statutory law, which is in favor of congregations departing the diocese and the Episcopal Church.
Elsewhere in his address, Bishop Lee described at length a number of diocesan ministries that had been adversely affected by a combination of litigation costs and “a continuing inability or unwillingness [by congregations] to meet the suggested guidelines for proportionate giving of parish income to what we do together as a diocese.” Bishop Lee suggested the loss of income was in all probability due to hard times in general, saying that some wardens had already notified him that their 2008 contribution would be lower than the previous year, “but that I should not take it as a sign of any unhappiness with what we are doing as a diocese.”
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1 Comment
Bishop Lee's complains as his legal attack strategy boomerangs.
In his address to the Annual Diocesan Council, Bishop Lee disingenuously complained that the VA AG's had interfered in a "religious dispute" by submitting a brief supporting the constitutionality of VA Statue 57-9 and the legality of voting processes at ADV churches. He seems to have forgotten that he is the one who invited the civil authorities to intervene in a "religious dispute" by suing the 11 churches to compel the civil authorities to remove the vast majority of the congregations at 11 ADV churches from the property that they and their forebears bought, built, operate, maintain, and occupy.
Bishop Lee had better duck because his rhetorical boomerang is flying back at him: If he makes this a "religious dispute"---he has no means for removing the 70 to 94% of the members of these congregations that voted to sever ties with the Diocese of Virginia. If he continues to press his and TECs lawsuits in the civil legal court system, then he has to accept that the VA AG has a legitimate role. Poor Bishop Lee, it is damned if you do: damned if don't.