Saturday, July 22, 2006

Has the Dennis Canon EVER held up in a court of law?

One wonders. It has been swept aside in cases of departing parishes in California, looks from this like it may not hold up in New York. Does anyone know of a case where the Dennis canon was actually used effectively as anything more than a mere threat?

2 comments:

Texanglican (R.W. Foster+) said...

Didn' the diocese of South Carolina win in its suit against that parish in Pawley's Island that left for AMIA? (A sad case of orthodox Evangelicals fighting orthodox Evangelicals over property.) You might check the archives of Titusonenine on this one, Father.

Unknown said...

Here's the case mentioned:
http://titusonenine.classicalanglican.net/?p=11879

Here's an interesting excerpt regarding this case:
"Since Judge Cooper determined that the 1745 Trust Deed is an active charitable trust, the sixty acres and the buildings thereon are not subject to the Canons of the Diocese or ECUSA’s Dennis Canon."

Now, I'm not sure where things are now with this parish, or whether the settlement turned out to be worth the trouble for either side. But it does show that even in this case, the Dennis Canon did not have validity in court.