News of St. James the Less, Philadelphia, PA

Dear Friends,

I wanted to let you know that the Bp of PA has filed a suit against our
parish of St. James the Less in Philadelphia, PA. He filed in Orphans Court,
which happens to have jurisdiction over non-profit organizations, which was
a bit of a surprise. It looks that this was done probably because Orphans
Court is less congested and tends to act more quickly than the Court of Common
Pleas. He has asked the court to do four things:

1. Declare null and void the April, 1999, merger by which the congregation left the diocese (the earlier church of St. James merged itself with another corporation created for that specific purpose. When corporations merge, they can choose to use the By-Laws of either one (I am not sure whether they can pick and choose or not). The newly created merged corporation took the By-Laws of the specially created corporation, which make no reference at all to ECUSA.

2. Dissolve the parish as it now exists. This is much more drastic even than
reduction ot mission status. He wants to wipe us out totally. This makes
clear that he has no intention of maintaining a parish in our location, and
that he cares not a whit about either the people of St. James or our
neighborhood.

3. Make the Bp. himself trustee of all parish property, real and personal.
He is not naming himself rector, because he want there to be no parish. This
will allow him to take the money, particularly the trust fund, and basically
use it for anything he wants. This further supports what I said about his
real interests in item 2.

4. To hold each individual Vestry member personally accountable for all
money spent in the past two years as breach of fiduciary responsibility. This
looks like a scare tactic to see if he can frighten one or more Vestry members to
come over to his side, testify against the rights of the congregation, and
thereby be exempt from his request.

It looks like we can expect a trial in less than 6 months. Whoever loses
will almost certainly appeal, and there are two levels of appeal possible in the
state courts. It looks like we are in for a long, expensive, draining fight!

I thought you would want to know what is going on. I ask for your prayers
for the survival of the parish of St. James the Less, in its present location
and without being looted by the bandits.

Sam