PCUSA’s highest court will hear per-capita case
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, July 8, 2003
The highest court in the Presbyterian Church (USA) will hear and rule on a case this week in which an Ohio presbytery contends that local church sessions can be punished for failing or refusing to pay their per-capita allotments that support the denomination.
The General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission will hear arguments in the case involving the Presbytery of Scioto Valley and the sessions of two Ohio congregations – First Presbyterian Church in Newark and Liberty Presbyterian Church in Delaware.
The hearing will be held at 10 a.m. Friday in the Presbyterian Center in Louisville, Ky., the headquarters for the PCUSA. The court will mail participants in the case copies of its ruling before it leaves Louisville Sunday.
In February 2002, the presbytery approved a statement that requires all congregations to pay their per-capita apportionments unless they are specifically excused by the presbytery. That policy conflicts with long-standing church law, declarations by the General Assembly and church court rulings that say payment of per-capita is voluntary.
The two Ohio congregations challenged the presbytery’s policy, but the court of the Synod of the Covenant ruled against that challenge in an order that was dated Dec. 11, 2002.
The Presbytery of Scioto Valley seeks to accomplish what it failed to gain with an overture to the 213th General Assembly in 2001. That overture sought to make per-capita payment compulsory, but the General Assembly reaffirmed the historical right of sessions to determine how their congregations’ tithes and offerings are spent.
The Rev. John C. Minihan, pastor of the Newark congregation, and elder-lawyer J. Randall Richards of Liberty Presbyterian Church, will present the complainants’ case to the court when it meets in Louisville.
They have argued that the explicit language of the presbytery policy about per-capita – “a responsibility on the part of sessions” – is contrary to the church law.
The synod court ruled that the use of the word “responsibility” did not rise to the level of a “mandate” or a “legal obligation.”
Increasingly, some Presbyterian sessions are withholding per capita to support the denomination because they disagree with policies and/or actions of church leaders.
PCUSA budget-makers have forecast that withholding will increase to $400,000 in the 2004 budget year.