How Can We Call It Robbery?
The Rt. Rev. Maurice M. Benitez
Rt. Rev. William C. Wantland
11/18/2007

Many of those on the liberal side of The Episcopal Church (TEC) have called those who have chosen to depart from TEC, and who feel they have some right to retain their property, to be “robbers,” and that their actions amount to “thievery” and “stealing.” We wish to make the case that those who feel that TEC has moved on and left them, because this church has departed in significant ways from the doctrines of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, are not bad people. They are not criminals, nor any worse sinners than the rest of us. They have been our brothers and sisters, and we need to let them go graciously.

We still believe that reasonable and godly folk can find equitable solutions to these kinds of problems that are fair to TEC, to bishops and dioceses, to those congregations that are separating to another Anglican jurisdiction, as well as to those who are staying where they are.

We begin by asking how can it be robbery for those congregations to retain their property in cases where the congregations have full title to the property, if neither their dioceses nor TEC have ever invested anything in the purchase of the real property of those congregations and in the construction and maintenance of the improvements on the property? Even in those cases where their dioceses have title to the properties, a case can be made that the congregations that built the buildings and maintained them over the years have at least some rightful interest in the property. the rest

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