Why No Report On The 2015 ACA DEUS Synod?

The home page for the ACA Diocese of the Eastern US still contains a reference to its May 7, 2014 diocesan synod. However. although I'm told that a 2015 diocesan synod occurred this past June, there's no equivalent reference to it on the DEUS home page.

As we've seen, the ACA bishops announce only what they choose to make public, and when they choose not to make something public that they've made public in the past, there may be good reason. The only reference I've been able to find to the 2015 DEUS Synod is contained in the Rector's Report 2014/2015 of St Stephen's Anglican, Timonium, MD. Included in this report is the following joyous news:

What’s more, this June the parish will host the Annual Diocesan Synod. And during the course of it, The Rt Rev. John Vaughan, our Bishop Ordinary, will, God willing, ordain two deacons, Dan Bursi and Mark Newsome, and confer Anglican Orders on Episcopal priest, Robert Ludwig.

A knowledgeable party contacted me not long ago to say that although Fr Hawtin and Bishop Vaughan appeared to be under the impression that Robert Ludwig had been an Episcopal priest, this was never the case, and in fact, Mr Ludwig had dropped out of high school, though he later obtained a GED in an abbreviated career with the US armed forces. He does not have a degree from any undergraduate institution, much less a degree from an accredited seminary.

As a result, my informant reasoned that there was no way Mr Ludwig could ever have been an Episcopal priest. Concerned about this, I contacted Fr Hawtin of St Stephen's Anglican, as well as Bishop Vaughan of the ACA DEUS, with a copy to Presiding Bishop Marsh, in the following e-mail, asking what I feel was a reasonable question:

Bishop Vaughan and Fr Hawtin, I received an e-mail regarding the conferral of Anglican orders at the June 2015 DEUS synod on Robert Ludwig[.] [Material regarding the identity of my informant redacted.]

Can you explain what type of background check, reference check, criminal record check, or psychological evaluation was conducted on Robert Ludwig prior to conferring ACA orders?

Eventually I received the following e-mail from Fr Hawtin, with slanderous references to a third party redacted:

Dear Mr. Bruce,
It is not generally my habit to answer ugly e-mails of this nature from people I do not know. Moreover, I find uncharitable e-mails particularly distasteful. [redacted]

Robert+ was accepted as aspirant and postulant at this church in 2001 by our then Bishop Ordinary. Whether or not he was a “priest” in the TEC played no role in the decision to ordain him as we do not regard TEC orders as valid. Robert+ was ordained because he was accepted as a candidate for Holy Orders by our Standing Committee after passing our extremely demanding and comprehensive diocesan canonical examinations with a straight A grade. Naturally, he was required to submit to a psychological evaluation. Moreover, he was not presented for ordination by me but by the diocesan archdeacon.

However, one thing seems clear to me: We believe in redemption. You and [redacted] do not. This correspondence is now closed.
In Christ
Canon Guy Hawtin

Well, redemption doesn't come into it. Protection of innocent parties, of course, does. It appears that at some point, at least as reflected in the Rector's Report, Fr Hawtin, Bishop Vaughan, and the "diocesan archdeacon" apparently saw fit to represent Mr Ludwig as an Episcopal priest, whatever the truth of this may have been, and in fact seem to have relied on the prestige of TEC in their annoucment. As of now, they've clearly backed off that assertion and have angrily put out a different version.

Considering the record of the ACA in licensing Robert W Bowman, the REC priest who had a child pornography arrest, or the assortment of other priests and bishops without seminary degrees and dodgy histories, Mr Ludwig is nothing new. I wouldn't advise anyone to go anywhere near an ACA parish.

The Timing Of John Hepworth's "Retirement"

A visitor corrects some facts in yesterday's post:

A slight correction re: Abp Hepworth, to what you wrote in the last day or two: He had announced his "intention" to retire as of the Easter Octave, April 15 [2012] (not Easter Day, April 8, as you stated). Therefore, both April 2 and April 9 were "during" his Primacy, despite the rogue acts of Marsh, Prakash, et al -- a "rump" action, not recognized by all other bishops.

It appears in hindsight that Bishop Marsh was closely involved in plans by the TAC College of Bishops to remove Hepworth as Primate. TAC Bishop of Pretoria and Southern Africa Michael Gill spoke to a conference of "continuing Anglicans" in Brockton, MA in November, 2011. Gill was appointed Secretary to the College of Bishops at the meeting in February and March, 2012 that expelled Hepworth prior to his announced retirement and appears since then to be the power behind the curtain. However, Brian Marsh was also at the meeting and is quoted in the press releases.

The conference at which Gill spoke in Brockton, MA appears to have been held in some connection with James Hiles's "continuing" parish there, St Paul's Anglican. Hiles, a former Episcopal priest deposed following sexual and financial allegations, was in the process of moving his parish into the ACA during this same period. Since Gill was in Massachusetts in late 2011 to attend the conference, it is certainly credible that he would have met with Marsh at that time to plan Hepworth's expulsion after the holidays.

(Who, by the way, paid Gill's travel expenses from South Africa to Brockton in 2011? Could it have been Hiles's parish? Hiles was consecrated a suffragan bishop in the ACA Diocese of the Northeast on April 27, 2013. Payback?)

In the context of events surrounding St Mary of the Angels in the first half of 2012, it seems plain that there was a need to "dissolve" Hepworth's Patrimony of the Primate, which protected former ACA parishes intending to enter the Ordinariate from just the sort of adverse actions that Strawn and Marsh quickly took against St Mary's. Michael Gill, Samuel Prakash, and other TAC bishops appear to have been complicit in this scheme.

Why would they want to do this, or at minimum, enable it? There were very few prosperous parishes in the ACA. The former Cathedral of the Incarnation, previously in the ACA Diocese of the Eastern US, had left to join its own Pro-Diocese of the Holy Family and does not appear to have been even as reachable as St Mary of the Angels.

It's been suggested to me that St. Stephen’s Anglican Church, Timonium, MD, still in the ACA DEUS, is a "cash cow", but this would be one of the few continuing income sources for the ACA after most of its prosperous parishes left in 2011.

It appears that Hepworth's removal had a great deal to do with Marsh and Strawn's attempts to seize St Mary of the Angels. There seems little other reason than the multimillion-dollar property to edge Hepworth out so quickly. Michael Gill served as a catspaw in this effort.

The Events Of April 9, 2012

Not much was said at the most recent trial about the events of April 9, 2012, although statements allegedly made by Mrs Bush in the parish courtyard on that date are pertinent. In his September 23 testimony at the recent trial, Fr Kelley said that Mrs Bush loudly declared her intention to dissociate herself from the elected vestry in the parish courtyard on April 9. In her September 24 testimony, Mrs Bush denied that she had said this. Subsequent testimony at the trial established that, in any case, Mrs Bush did not attend any regular or special meetings of the elected vestry after March, 2012.

April 9, 2012 is the date of the second inchoate takeover attempt of the parish by Bishop Strawn in connection with the parish dissidents. It appears that this attempt was carefully planned and choreographed, and only the unexpectedly early delivery of a seizure notice from the IRS caused the misstep that resulted in the failure. Bishop Strawn, who had no authority to do so, since he was episcopal visitor to the ACA Diocese of the West, which St Mary's had left in January 2011, issued a notice of inhibition to Fr Kelley on April 2, 2012.

This notice was based primarily on non-payment of IRS salary withholding due from January, 2011, a matter which came as a complete surprise to the elected vestry and Fr Kelley, but which the parish dissidents appear to have communicated to Bishop Strawn as part of the planning. When the seizure notice for the unpaid withholding arrived four days early, the parish accountant was able to resolve the roughly $800 arrears immediately, establishing that it was an unintentional oversight and eliminating the issue. As a result, the pretext for the April 9, 2012 seizure attempt was removed, but the dissidents elected to proceed with it.

According to Fr Kelley, Keith Kang (a client of Mr Lancaster in the current legal actions) called him from the front office that morning to tell him there were two letters from the IRS there, one with Fr Kelley's name on it. Did he want to see them? However, there were no letters. (Presumably with the tax issue already resolved, any further correspondence did not take place, but the dissidents apparently proceeded with their plan nevertheless.) It appears to have been a stratagem to get Fr Kelley up to the front, where Anthony Morello, Mr and Mrs Creel from All Saints Fountain Valley and the ACA Diocese of the West, Mr Kang, and Mr Omeirs were waiting. Mrs Bush and Mrs Kang (also Lancaster clients) were in the courtyard, as they had used their keys to the parish door for the group to enter.

They presented Fr Kelley with Bishop Strawn's notice of inhibition. When Fr Kelley left with it to go back to the sacristy to review it, Mr Kang quickly brought in a locksmith to pick the lock to the rector's office. Fr Kelley returned and told the locksmith that what he was attempting to do was illegal. The locksmith recognized at once that he could lose his license and left. It appears that at about this time, the loud declaration that Fr Kelley testified to hearing from Mrs Bush in the courtyard appears to have taken place.

Fr Kelley called 911 to summon the police. According to the Freedom for St Mary timeline, someone from the dissident group then made four calls to 911 in an attempt to stop the police. Mrs Kelley also called Bishop Falk in Iowa, who was completely surprised at the move and spoke to the LAPD officers, explaining to them that Strawn had no authority to issue his letter of inhibition, since the parish was part of the Patrimony of the Primate. The officers then sent the Diocese of the West - parish dissident group away, saying there was no legal authority in Strawn's document.

According to Fr Kelley, Bishop Falk was taken aback to learn that Bishops Strawn and Marsh had "dissolved" the Patrimony of the Primate. The Kelleys contacted then-Bishop Moyer the following day, who was also surprised. Moyer said that if the ACA House of Bishops had "taken away" the Patrimony of the Primate (he didn't know how), then St Mary's had to be classed as "independent". This was the authority the elected vestry used in making its written declaration during the June 13, 2012 meeting.

Neither the Kelleys, Bishop Falk, nor Bishop Moyer was able to contact Archbishop Hepworth during this period. In reviewing the timing of events, I was surprised to learn that Hepworth had announced his intention to retire as primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion as of Easter 2012, which was April 8, the day before the inchoate takeover attempt. (However, the TAC College of Bishops expelled him on March 2.) It does seem to me that Bishops Strawn and Marsh were careful to act on the basis that the Patrimony had been dissolved only after the Primate himself was out of the picture, since the Patrimony was canonically his property. (Fr Kelley later learned that Hepworth was in any case incommunicado during this period due to hospitalization for blindness in both eyes.)

This timing leads me to believe that the first two seizure attempts, in January and April of 2012, were coordinated with elements in the TAC as well as in the US. I'll discuss this, and the possible reasons for it, tomorrow.

The Events Of June 13, 2012

One of the issues that Messrs Lancaster and Anastasia repeatedly brought up in the latest trial was an "illegal vestry meeting" on the afternoon of June 13, 2012. Several elected vestry members provided additional information on what happened that day in their testimony there. (I am continuing with a policy of not mentioning their names here to avoid the real possibility of harassment or reprisal against them.)

June 13, 2012 was the day that Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ann Jones dissolved the temporary restraining order against Fr Kelley and unspecified "John Doe" members of the parish, which had been obtained by Mr Lancaster on behalf of the ACA, Mrs Bush, and Anthony Morello on May 25, 2012. This turned out to be the first part of the legal quagmire that has nearly destroyed the parish in subsequent years: while Judge Jones dissolved the TRO and ordered the dissidents occupying the building to return the keys to Fr Kelley, she refused to enforce the order on the basis that this would involve her further in an ecclesiastical dispute.

As a result, the elected vestry returned to the building only to be turned away, apparently by Mrs Bush and other dissidents, who continued to occupy the building. (Mrs Bush in her September 24 testimony at the latest trial stated that she was on the premises on a daily basis at this time.) I assume they refused Judge Jones's order on the advice of Mr Lancaster, but this is probably covered by attorney-client privilege, and we'll never know.

At this point, Fr Kelley, elected vestry members, and other parishioners, a total of 12-15 people according to testimony, quickly had to develop a Plan B. The process of doing this, according to Mr Lancaster at the latest trial, immediately became an illegal special meeting of the vestry, as no notice of it was provided to Mrs Bush, who was barricaded in the church building only a short distance away.

Since Anthony Morello had already appointed a new alternate-universe "vestry" as of May 31, 2012, Mrs Bush at that time was, by her testimony, a member of the elected vestry, which had been turned away from the parish building by none other than Mrs Bush, who was also the senior warden of the appointed vestry in possession of the building. However, any attempt by the elected vestry to figure out what to do now would, according to Mr Lancaster, be illegal due to a lack of notice to Mrs Bush about this "special vestry meeting".

According to testimony, the vestry and other supporters were able to meet in the conference room of a local restaurant to consider their options. I assume that a call was placed to the elected vestry's counsel, although again, this is probably covered by attorney-client privilege, and we'll never know exactly what was discussed. However, the outcome was a handwritten statement signed by the elected vestry members who were present.

This statement was an exhibit at the latest trial and one subject of the repetitious questions put to all the elected vestry members. ("Is this your signature?" "Do you believe this as it applied to the parish, the Patromny of the Primate, and the ACA?" "Do you believe this as applied to you personally?" ad infinitum) The statement basically took the position that the St Mary's parish had been part of the Patrinony of the Primate since January 2011 and thus had left the ACA at that time. With the dissolution of the Patrimony, the parish had become an independent jurisdiction. This view was confirmed by Bishop Falk and then-Bishop David Moyer.

A source connected with the elected vestry tells me that the reason for the statement was to clarify the relationship of the parish to Bishops Strawn and Marsh of the ACA. The bishops had taken the position that with the dissolution of the Patrimony of the Primate (unilaterally announced by the ACA House of Bishops on January 10, 2012), St Mary of the Angels was back under the ACA's control, although this was contrary to the text of the January 10 announcement. This, of course, is the sort of ecclesiastical issue that continues to be part of the parish's legal quagmire.

Mr Lancaster then cited part of the Huber v Jackson decision to argue that in signing the statement, the elected vestry members had "denounced their prior promises to be subject to the governing documents of the national church and the diocese, abandoned their membership in the corporation, and lost the power and authority to be directors of the corporation, as they were no longer members in good standing of the [denomination]." Thus the elected vestry had lost all authority to call or hold any sort of meeting, ever.

The head spins. A source connected with the elected vestry has also provided new perspective on the timing of the Bush-Morello Easter Monday 2012 takeover attempt, which I'll discuss tomorrow.

Here's My Take On The Trial

If I turn out to be wrong, of course, I'll refund everyone's money. It's also worth quoting from the web site of Mr Lengyel-Leahu's law firm, which notes, "When it comes to civil litigation matters, there are never any guarantees on how your case will turn out." Nevertheless, here is how my wife and I see the issues and the potential outcome.

I've said here in the past that the object of the appeals court in sending the case back for retrial on narrow factual issues was to see justice done and avoid messy detours into legal quagmires, which abound in this case. As a result, the appeals decision took up questions like "who is the real rector of St Mary of the Angels?" and decided that if the outcome of the August 6, 2012 vote could be confirmed by the trial court, any decision by the appeals court on this and similar issues would be unnecessary.

The decision by the appeals court not to publish its decision formally also meant that, although parties watching the case would have preferred that it be a precedent, it would be much less likely that the California Supreme Court would hear a further appeal. The appeals court's judgment in this matter turned out to be correct.

Judge Strobel has said at least once during scheduling and case management conferences that she felt the appeals court had provided a clear road map on how to resolve the case. It's worth pointing out that the judge has herself just returned from several months' service on the same appeals court. She is likely to know the colleagues who wrote the opinion and hold them in regard. On the other hand, her question prior to concluding arguments indicated that she felt that Mr Lancaster, in raising new issues like whether Mrs Bush had received adequate notice of a vestry meeting, was asking Judge Strobel to deviate from the appeals court's road map.

The question of whether Mrs Bush had voluntarily abandoned her position on the elected vestry or whether, as she blithely insisted in testimony, she was both the senior warden of the Morello-appointed vestry and a member of the elected vestry, is a legal quagmire. It is a new quagmire that was not anticipated by the appeals court, but it's a quagmire of the type that the appeals court clearly intended to bypass. I believe that Judge Strobel will want to follow the thinking of the appeals court and do everything she can to avoid this quagmire.

(I do note that among the audience for the trial was an attorney for the Church Mutual Insurance Company, taking copious notes. If the ACA and Mrs Bush lose this case, there will almost certainly be lawsuits against Mrs Bush, a deep pocket, for damages. Church Mutual would insure vestry members of St Mary's against such actions, but Mrs Bush's case, in which she clearly claims to be on both potential plaintiff and defendant vestries, will be interesting to say the least. The quagmires won't go away; let's hope they occur in cases other than this one.)

Mr Lancaster's citation of Huber v Jackson turns out to be an illustrative red herring. I was able to find some discussion of the case:

In Huber v. Jackson, (CA Ct. App., June 9, 2009), a California appellate court held that the Episcopal Church and its Diocese of Los Angeles are the owners of the property of St. Luke's parish. The congregants of St. Luke's voted in 2006 to break away from the Episcopal Church and affiliate with the more conservative Anglican Church of Uganda. Applying "neutral principles" of law (as required by a recent California Supreme Court decision), the court found that St. Luke's had agreed to be bound by the governing documents of the Episcopal church, and this includes Canon I.7.4 which provides that all parish property is held in trust for the national church and its diocese:

as a matter of law that when defendants voted for disaffiliation, they denounced their prior promises to be subject to the governing documents of the national church and the diocese, abandoned their membership in the corporation, and lost the power and authority to be directors of the corporation, as they were no longer members in good standing of the Episcopal Church. Thus, their purported amendment of the articles of incorporation and bylaws to make the corporation part of the Anglican Church were a legal nullity, or ultra vires.

The determining factor here, under neutral principles of law, was that the St Luke's bylaws said explicitly that the parish held its property in trust for the national church and its diocese. This, of course, is the Episcopal Church's Dennis Canon, adopted in the wake of the first St Mary of the Angels case, in which the court held that the St Mary's bylaws, which explicitly reserve property ownership to the parish, were the operative document.

In other words, neutral principles of law call for different outcomes in the St Mary of the Angels case and the St Luke's case. Mr Glazer of TroyGould argued in front of the appeals court precisely this: the so-called "Episcopal Church cases" in fact support St Mary of the Angels's claim to own its property outright.

An attempt misleadingly to cite Huber v Jackson in support of his case is another indication that Mr Lancaster recognizes its weakness. My expereince watching Judge Strobel is that she does not take well to this sort of thing.

I'm told just now that Judge Strobel is not likely to issue a "tentative" for the two sides to engage over yet again. She indicated to them that she would issue a written ruling, and deliver it probably by mail. I would say that this is consistent with my perception that she would like to come to a clear resolution of the case and avoid further legal quagmires.

Rector, Wardens, and Vestry Retrial -- Day 3

In the morning session, which I did not attend because I rightly understood it would be more of the same, the final elected vestry witness was on the stand for an additional hour and 15 minutes, following 45 minutes or so the previous afternoon. Nothing new was covered. Mr Anastasia had a habit of asking long questions in compound-sentence form, so that it was hard to tell when his question was over. He would pause before finishing his question, but grammatically, the question appeared complete. As a result, witness after witness would answer when he paused, whereupon Mr Anastasia would angrily demand, "Let me finish my question, please!" I'm told this pattern continued, to the point that Mr Anastasia finally demanded of Mr Lengyel-Leahu, "Please instruct your client to let me finish my questions!!" Mr Lengyel-Leahu's instruction to his client was not reported to me.

This afternoon was for concluding arguments. Since the elected vestry was designated the plaintiff in the various connected cases, its attorney presented the first concluding argument, the defendant, Mr Lancaster, would present his concluding argument, and the plaintiff's attorney would present a rebuttal. Judge Strobel asked the attorneys to address two issues in their concluding arguments: the factual findings of the California appeals court in the case, in particular whether the elected vestry had addressed the questions about the eligible voters in the August 6, 2012 election; and the question of how far this trial court could deviate from the opinion in the appeals court's decision remanding the case for retrial.

Ms Rineer handled the concluding arguments for the elected vestry. She laid out the arithmetic facts of the balloting on August 6, as well as the documented procedure for developing the list of eligible voters. The total ballots sent out were 59. 40 were returned, with 1 disqualified for technical reasons. The total of "no" votes for revising the corporate bylaws varied depending on technical issues, but the standard calculations, from the appeals court hearing onward, resulted in a "yes" total in the range of 67% to 70%, all above the two-thirds supermajority required to amend the bylaws.

Ms Rineer's concluding argument also noted that Mrs Bush had, by her own testimony, said she had become the senior warden of a competing "vestry" not recognized as the elected vestry by the appeals court, and had voluntarily stopped attending either regular or special elected vestry meetings. Ms Rineer also pointed out that the California corporation code does not require any type of vestry or board approval for a vote to amend bylaws, so that any problem with a vestry meeting resulting from Mrs Bush not attending or not receiving notice of the meeting was irrelevant.

Mr Lancaster handled the dissident-ACA concluding arguments. He argued, in response to Judge Strobel's charge, that the appeals court opinion allowed the ACA the latitude to present arguments of any sort regarding the validity of the August 6, 2012 vote. The opinion requires that evidence be found in vestry meeting minutes of the criteria used to develop a list of eligible voters. He did not feel that the evidence supported this requirement.

He argued that the vestry that developed the eligible voter list was invalid, for numerous reasons, especially the lack of required notice to Mrs Bush of special meetings. He argued that the presence of Fr Kelley, who had been inhibited by the ACA, at the meetings meant he was not a valid member. In addition, two other members, who had been excommunicated by Anthony Morello following his questionable appointment as Rector, also rendered them unqualified.

Adding the presence of unqualified members on the vestry to violation of meeting notice rules for Mrs Bush made any action by the vestry regarding the August 6 election invalid. Judge Strobel interrupted to ask if Mr Lancaster had raised these issues in the initial trial under Judge Linfield. Mr Lancaster said he hadn't. She asked him if he'd raised them with the appeals court. He said he hadn't.

He then went on to raise a California case, Huber v Jackson, in which individuals who had disavowed membership in a particular denomination had been found by the court to have validly violated the denomination's bylaws and thus been successfully excluded as members in good standing.

Judge Strobel noted that the instructions of the California appeals court in this case were specific as to which voter list to use in retrial, and this limited her ability to consider his arguments. Rightly or wrongly, the appeals court specified that the January 2012 eligible voter list was to be used in the retrial.

In rebuttal, Ms Rineer pointed out that the appeals court had also specifically rejected the idea that the list of eligible voters was something fluid, subject to constant updates, and it had specified the January 2012 list be used. In addition, she pointed out again that the corporation code does not require any type of vestry vote or authorization for a vote by members to amend bylaws. Whether notice to Mrs Bush, made or not, of any vestry meeting made the meeting invalid had no bearing on the validity of the vote.

Ms Rineer pointed out that Huber v Jackson covered a different set of circumstances, in which adherents to a particular denomination vowed eternal fealty to the denomination. In disavowing eternal fealty, the court found certain members had violated a particular provision of the group's bylaws, which did not apply in the case of St Mary of the Angels. (I may look into this apparently bizarre case myself.)

Judge Strobel said she would take the matter under advisement. It is likely that she will take some time to make her decision. I'll post some additional reflections on the trial this weekend.

Rector, Wardens, and Vestry Retrial -- Day 2

The pace and tone of the trial continued today, with Messrs Lancaster and Anastasia taking up most of the time on plodding, highly repetitious examination of witnesses. I had a slight optimism yesterday that if Mr Anastasia were to take over from Mr Lancaster, there might be some improvement. In fact, Mr Anastasia did take over this morning, but his style and technique were simply a clone of Mr Lancaster's, with vague, repetitious questions, misspeakings, errors in identifying exhibits, and so forth.

Mr Lengyel-Leahu. the lead counsel for the elected vestry, does appear to have scored two tactical victories over Messrs Lancaster and Anastasia. In the first, he called Mrs Bush as a witness. Mr Lancaster strenuously objected to this, saying that Mrs Bush was a witness for his side, and he hadn't decided whether to call her himself. The judge ruled that Mrs Bush was on the joint witness list, and either side could call her; Mr Lengyel-Leahu could treat her as an adverse witness.

Mrs Bush's testimony resulted in at least one additional tactical win: Mr Lengyel-Leahu began to elicit testimony from her on how the dissidents, at her direction, had changed the locks on the parish, prevented the elected vestry from receiving mail at the parish, and otherwise denied the elected vestry use or control of the facilities. Mr Lancaster objected that this testimony was irrelevant. Mr Lengyel-Leahu responded that part of the case the appeals court had remanded for retrial was the issue of forcible detainer, and Mrs Bush, by her testimony, was establishing her intent to deny the legitimate owners the use and control of the property.

Judge Strobel then proposed to Mr Lancaster that if he would stipulate that Mr Lengyel-Leahu had proved the elements of forcible detainer, Mrs Bush's further testimony on this issue was unnecessary. Thus Mr Lancaster had a bad choice: either allow continued testimony on how Mrs Bush was preventing the elected vestry from accessing the parish, or stipulate that Mrs Bush and the ACA had in fact met the criteria for forcible detainer. Mr Lancaster elected to stipulate. Should Judge Strobel's opinion eventually go against him, her job would be simplified in resolving the case.

The trial then reverted to the prior day's pattern of plodding, repetitious questioning of each elected vestry member. Mr Anastasia did most of this today. Each member was subjected to 30 to 45 minutes of questioning on whether their signature on a particular document was their own, whether they understood they were signing under penalty of perjury, and so forth, over and over for perhaps half a dozen documents for each witness.

My wife, a retired attorney, was with me today, and we're both true crime and trial buffs. Neither of us could understand where this line of repetitious questioning was supposed to lead. Neither, apparently, could Judge Strobel: her facial expressions during these periods seemed to range from boredom to impatience to barely concealed rage. My wife thinks it may have been Mr Lancaster's goal to expose minor inadvertencies in preparation of this or that set of meeting minutes or agendas that could be exploited to show that one or another action by the elected vestry was invalid. Another object may have been to frighten witnesses into uncertainty over their testimony in prior declarations to make them recant or disagree with other witnesses. This did not happen.

However, the effect of repeated questioning of elected vestry witnesses seemed, as far as my wife and I could see, to draw a picture of sincere and generally capable individuals who were doing the best they could under difficult circumstances created, by and large, by Mrs Bush and the ACA. The body language of Mr Lengyel-Leahu and Mmes Greer and Rineer suggested they are confident in their case.

Mr Anastasia will finish up his session with a final elected vestry member tomorrow morning, and final arguments are scheduled for 2:00 PM.

Rector, Wardens, and Vestry Retrial -- Day 1

The counsel for the elected vestry opted not to make an opening statement, saying that this was contained in the trial brief submitted to the judge. As a result, I don't have a completely clear view of the elected vestry's trial strategy.

The attorneys for Mrs Bush and the ACA, Messrs Lancaster and Anastasia, did on the other hand make an opening statement. Their strategy appears to be threefold:

1. Insist that the August 6, 2012 vote by the parish to dissociate from the ACA was invalid due to insufficient notice to Mrs Bush of vestry meetings at which the vote was planned. Their position appears to be that this was based on an effort to exclude Mrs Bush from the vestry.
2. In case this doesn't work, to claim that of 66 potential parishioners who could have received ballots in the August 6, 2012 vote, 7 were improperly excluded from the eligible voter list, although of the 7, 4 had become Catholic (and therefore had ceased to be members in good standing of the Anglican parish), 2 had been absent for extended periods as specified in the bylaws, and one was deceased.
3. In case this doesn't work, to revert to the earlier argument that the ACA continues to be the ecclesiastical authority over the parish, in spite of the fact that the appeals court had ordered that the retrial not consider this issue.

The actual story of Mrs Bush's relationship to the vestry came out in bits and pieces during testimony. After she was elected to the vestry in February 2012, she attended only two regular vestry meetings, the organizational meeting in February and the meeting in March. On April 9, 2012, during an attempted takeover of the parish by Anthony Morello, St Mary's dissidents, and members of the neighboring ACA parish All Saints Fountain Valley, Mrs Bush loudly announced in the parish courtyard her intention to dissociate herself from the elected vestry and cast her lot with the ACA.

Since she did not attend regular vestry meetings thereafter, although she knew the times and places, and since no members of the elected vestry tried to keep her away, it was assumed that she had voluntarily left her position on the vestry, and the vestry declared a vacancy in her position after the number of absences specified in the bylaws.

Mrs Bush, born in 1930, has aged visibly since 2012 and appears frail.

Much of the day's time was taken in cross-examination of the elected vestry's witnesses by Mr Lancaster. One puzzle for me was that, although Lancaster and Anastasia both sat at the counsel table, Lancaster did all the cross-examination, and as the day wore on, he clearly became tired and increasingly misspoke and repeated himself. He was bearing down on the tiniest clerical inadvertencies in things like vestry meeting minutes, but his own ability to keep these straight was challenged as he grew more tired.

In fact, his plodding, repetitious style wore down everyone in the courtroom. Several times, Judge Strobel rolled her eyes and looked at the clock. "Things don't happen like in the movies," a counsel told me in the elevator. "I do this every day."

We'll see how things develop.

Final Status Conference For Rector, Wardens, and Vestry Retrial

I attended this at the Los Angeles Superior Court this morning. Mainly it gave some hints on which witnesses will be called. Those named include Mrs Bush (the most likely candidate under any circumstance), Andrew Bartus, Karen Valentine, and William Ledbetter. The last three are apparently based on the fact that they did not receive ballots in the August 6, 2012 election. My understanding is that all three became Catholic prior to the election and, ceasing to be Anglican, were no longer members in good standing of the parish.

Other than that, there was some dispute over whether Messrs Lancaster and Anastasia would stipulate that another member of the parish had passed away prior to the election, eliminating the need for the elected vestry's counsel to provide a certified copy of the death certificate. Judge Strobel strongly urged Lancaster and Anastasia to work things out without the death certificate. Lancaster and Anastasia also made a motion intended to forestall a putative threat by the elected vestry's counsel to seat the entire vestry at the counsel table during the trial. Counsel for the elected vestry said they never made any such threat, and the matter seems to have been dropped.

Other than that, the whole thing ended quickly, and the trial will start Wednesday, September 23. I plan to attend.

Data Point

During a homily at our diocesan parish yesterday, our pastor noted a rule of thumb for Catholic finance: the realistic minimum for a parish school to be self-sustaining is 180 students.

Does any current or proposed Ordinariate parish school have anything like that current or projected enrollment?

It would be great to hear other guideline numbers for parish viability.

Retrial Scheduled For September 23-25

I attended the scheduling conference for the retrial of the Rector, Wardens, and Vestry cases at the Los Angeles Superior Court yesterday. As it happens, Judge Mary Strobel, who had been serving on the California appeals court for several months, will be permanently transitioning out of her current position in October. She wasn't clear on where she would be going. She appears to be a thorough and fair judge.

The attorneys for both sides, given the choice to schedule the retrial as soon as possible under Judge Strobel or wait to schedule one much later under a different judge, expressed the desire to move on quickly. As a result, the retrial, estimated to last for three days, will begin on September 23, less than two weeks. It will be a trial before the judge, without a jury, but with witnesses being called. The attorneys will prepare a list of mutually agreed witnesses for the final status conference on September 18.

I expect to attend all these sessions.

Let's Revisit The Events Of 2011 And 2012 -- IV

Over the weekend, a visitor has provided some additional clarification to the chronology of events I outlined in last weeks post. The "clarification", though, actually raises more questions about who was in charge in both the ACA and the Ordinariate during this period.

First, Louis Falk's Wikipedia entry, which I'd relied on for his chronology, says Falk "retired as Primate of the Anglican Church in America and as Bishop Ordinary of the Diocese of the Missouri Valley. The church re-structured itself and decided not to have a primate, but instead a president of the House of Bishops. Falk was elected the first President of the House of Bishops."

My visitor tells me that George Langberg became President of the ACA House of Bishops at some point after Falk's 2005 election, but Falk resumed his post as President of the House of Bishops when Langberg resigned to pursue graduate studies about 2007-8, and he kept that post until April 26, 2011, when Brian Marsh succeeded him. This is not reflected in published sources. If anyone has additional information on some of these dates, I will greatly appreciate it.

Second, I had been relying on hearsay accounts from Patrick Omeirs and Msgr William Stetson on whether Louis Falk passed on the 40-page set of accusations against Fr Kelley to Cardinal Wuerl. A visitor tells me, "To the best of my knowledge and belief, Tony Morello was the one who sent it -- directly -- to Abp Gomez and Cardinal Wuerl, and to Msgr Steenson, after January 1, 2012."

It is entirely credible to me that Morello could have been claiming to act on behalf of Falk, but was in fact not authorized to do so. Exactly how influential this document was in actually stalling or delaying St Mary's reception into the Ordinariate is unclear. Msgr William Stetson, who has seen the document, though neither Fr Kelley nor anyone else connected with the elected vestry has seen it, has characterized it in discussion as "gossip". I am more and more inclined to discount its importance.

This brings me to the third issue, which is probably a better reason for the delay. I brought up a key problem in a recent post, that in order to change the parish bylaws, the members in good standing who would be qualified to vote would need to be Anglican. This leads to a paradox: if, prior to changing the bylaws to reflect the parish's admission to the Ordinariate, some or all members of the parish were received as Catholics, the members who were received would automatically cease to be members in good standing of the Anglican parish (the one legally still in existence) and would be ineligible to vote to change the bylaws!

My understanding is that Fr Kelley kept trying to explain this to both Msgr Stetson and Cardinal Wuerl in December 2011, but neither completely understood this before Cardinal Wuerl requested the second vote to join the Ordinariate for January 22, 2012. There seems to have been considerable confusion on the Wuerl-Stetson-Steenson side, which I understand that Msgr Stetson has acknowledged, as to how to proceed, which probably contributed to a perception that Fr Kelley was not cooperating with bylaw revisions.

This goes to my growing impression that poor management and poor planning for initiating the Ordinariate were responsible for the initial delays. The ACA, let's keep in mind, made two unsuccessful attempts to seize the parish, in January and April 2012, before obtaining the temporary restraining order in May. More decisive action in Houston could have forestalled this outcome.

Let's Revisit The Events Of 2011 And 2012 -- III

Between the disappearance of David Moyer in late January 2012 and the filing of the Third Lawsuit on behalf of the ACA on May 24 of that year, we have a puzzling and chaotic period. The most notable feature is that the Ordinariate backed off the assurances from Msgr Stetson that the parish would in fact be received promptly. Apparently Houston began to request revisions to the parish bylaws that Msgr Stetson had earlier told the parish could be deferred, and likewise, it began to request an audit that had not earlier been a precondition.

It appears that Houston added to the confusion by not insisting that contacts go via a single point (i.e, the rector and vestry), and they appear to have relied extensively on back-channel communications with Andy Bartus, who was a member of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth clique, while Fr Kelley and David Moyer were not. Houston's version of events appears to be that multiple versions of revised bylaws were submitted, but none was satisfactory. Fr Kelley's version of events is, as far as I can confirm, that he submitted only one set of revisions, and it's not clear whether that version was satisfactory.

The only conclusion I can draw is that too many people were involved in the process, and Houston, as the authority in the matter, managed it poorly. The effect, if not the intent, was to allow unauthorized parties at minimum to delay reception. This was of benefit to the dissident group, and it was of benefit to Andy Bartus, who appears to have wanted Fr Kelley knocked out of the running to be priest of the Ordinariate parish and needed time for matters to resolve themselves.

The matter that parties in the loop knew would resolve itself was the pending seizure of the parish by the IRS for a year's worth of unpaid payroll taxes, scheduled for April 2, 2012. The premature arrival of the notice, which was the only IRS correspondence that apparently hadn't been intercepted by parties in the parish office, prevented the ultimate fruition of this plan, and the parish accountant deflected it. Bartus's relation to the parish ended in the aftermath of this revelation.

Any formal interest in receiving the parish from Houston also appears to have ended at this time. The US-Canadian Ordinariate has told the Los Angles Superior Court that it has no legal interest in the St Mary's parish. My understanding is that Msgr Stetson has maintained contact with the elected vestry throughout the subsequent legal process, but his association is with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, not the Ordinariate, and eventual intentions by the Archdiocese or the Ordinariate remain unclear.

Their position has been that they can take no action while the legal process works its way through, but neither did they take serious action between January and May of 2012, when they had the opportunity. There is, of course, nothing new in this.

Let's Revisit The Events Of 2011 And 2012 -- II

There's one figure in this story who suddenly disappears, David Moyer. Throughout 2011, he was the ordinary for the Patrimony of the Primate, the jurisdiction John Hepworth established to serve as a "holding tank" for TAC parishes in the US and Canada intending to enter the Catholic ordinariates to be set up under Anglicanorum coetibus. As the St Mary's ordinary, he was the focus for the various complaints and appeals that the dissidents and Andy Bartus were lodging against Fr Kelley.

He made a trip to Hollywood in June 2011, discussed in Mr Clark's statement on the Freedom for St Mary site, to try to resolve complaints about Fr Kelley from the dissidents and Bartus. Mr Clark, as an informed member of the vestry, felt that Moyer reviewed the complaints and determined they had no merit. I've heard via other channels that Moyer in fact reproved Bartus during the course of these meetings. However, according to Mr Clark's account, this outcome simply resulted in a redoubling of the dissidents' efforts to unseat Fr Kelley.

On December 21, 2011, Moyer made an additional visit to St Mary of the Angels to review demands from Bartus and the vestry that he inhibit Fr Kelley. Moyer again found the bill of particulars (included here) too vague and unsubstantiated for him to take action. However, by early December, according to a conversation I had with Patrick Omeirs, a key member of the dissident party, the dissidents had already intended to bypass Moyer and go to Louis Falk, who, retired from any position since 2005, had no authority in this matter. The dissidents do not appear ever to have approached the actual authority over Moyer, John Hepworth.

Meanwhile, Msgr William Stetson, representing Catholic authority to the parish, although at the time the identify of the Ordinary was still unknown, indicated to a meeting that the parish would be received into the Ordinariate on either the first or second Sundays of 2012. Nevertheless, based on later statements by Msgr Stetson to the parish, as well as my earlier discussion with Mr Omeirs, the dissidents had forwarded their accusations to Cardinal Donald Wuerl via Louis Falk, bypassing TAC authority.

The first and second Sundays of 2012 passed, despite Msgr Stetson's assurances, with no further word from Stetson himself or the newly designated Ordinary. In early January, the dissidents appear to have arranged a meeting with ACA Bishop Strawn, who had no authority over the parish. David Moyer warned Strawn away from the January 11, 2012 meeting when he told him "he had no Jurisdiction over, no interest in, nor business with St Mary of the Angels."

However, Moyer disappears from the story soon after this. It's plain that throughout his tenure, Moyer conscientiously followed his episcopal responsibility to shepherd and protect his flock. Even after January 1, 2012, when (in the view of the ACA House of Bishops) the Patrimony of the Primate was dissolved, and (according to the promise made by Msgr Stetson) the parish should have entered the US-Canadian Ordinariate, Moyer alone was for some brief period, perhaps just through force of personality, able to keep the ACA from interfering with the parish.

The next stage in the Moyer story is sometime prior to January 29, 2012, the date on which it was reported that

Moyer said he received a letter from Fr. Jeffrey Steenson, Ordinary for the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, informing him that Archbishop Charles Chaput (Philadelphia) has declined to give him his votum (a promise) to proceed toward ordination in the Roman Catholic Church. No specific reasons were stated.

The cause of Archbishop Chaput's decline of votum, and Msgr Steenson's possible involvement in that decision, have been the subject of much speculation, on which I can take no position. On the other hand, the decision to deny Moyer a votum took him completely out of the picture within weeks of his successful defense of the parish from the interference of the ACA. Whether deliberate or not, whether at the instigation of Msgr Steenson or not, that was the effect.