By Elaine Ayala, The San Antonio Express-News.
First Presbyterian Church, San Antonio, Texas
San Antonio’s oldest Protestant congregation will head to court Wednesday to plead that its property, including two valuable pieces of downtown real estate, be declared theirs and theirs alone — specifically not that of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) nor that of the Mission Presbytery, the denomination’s regional council.
Lawyers for First Presbyterian Church originally sought what’s called a “quiet title” to its property when it filed suit in May. But since then, a web of claims, counterclaims and requests for temporary restraining orders and injunctions have made the case anything but quiet.
A group of congregants have intervened against their own church. The case has churned up issues about denominational and state laws over church property.
And it has highlighted cultural tensions not mentioned in court documents that are part of what’s driving a conservative congregation away from the Louisville, Kentucky-based denomination’s gradual liberal turn, including its decision to allow pastors to officiate over same-sex marriages, said several Presbyterian leaders and observers.
Under Presbyterian law, a church’s assets are held in trust for the denomination. When a church decides to separate, a “tithe” of 10 percent of its assets must go to its presbytery, or regional council, in this case Mission Presbytery, which oversees about 150 flocks in South Central Texas.
The tithe could amount to a lot. Though no one involved would put a figure on church assets that include a historic building, financial accounts and other property, the Bexar County Appraisal District assessed the land alone at about $6.8 million. Market value could be much higher.
First Presbyterian cites church law allowing exemptions to the tithe requirement, and state law, in its bid to be “free of any claimed trust interest of any kind in favor of the Presbyterian Church USA.”
Absent injunctive relief, the suit says, Mission Presbytery would have the power to seize control of church property, a claim that one church member called “paranoid.”
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Is there any available estimate of how much it has cost PCUSA to legally dispute the church property issue with so many churches over these last few years & currently?
Texas law favors parting churches, like with 1st Pres Houston, this church should get a favorable ruling, but with so much property and money at stake, I’m sure the presbytery is looking longingly at Highland Park Pres’s settlement and hoping for the same results.
There is no national number as to the cost. I was told a few years ago by the Presbytery executive that the Synod of Southern California and Hawaii had spent 2.4 million dollars on property related legal claims. It is disgusting. This does not include what the local congregations have spent to defend themselves in legal matters, nor the time and energy and mission experiences that were lost in the distraction. It also does not include the millions paid after legal expenses to pay to prop up this dying organization.
In my humble opinion, the session of Highland Park completely mishandled their separation from the PCUSA, which resulted in enormous unnecessary costs.
Highland Park should not set a precedent for other congregations in Texas.
When will all of this stop?
Especially revolting that the disputes are initiated by the committee’s changing instructions that have existed for thousands of years.
It is such a clear case of internal subversion and takeover of assembly seats. The reformers should have been the ones to break away. But, of course, it was all diabolically orchestrated.
When Christ returns.
The story line is always the same; only the names change and it is not to identify or protect the innocent.
I am reminded of a comment I read years ago. “When the Lord returns, he will be surprised by how much property he owns.”
Don’t pay. It could not have come to me any plainer. Do not pay.