Brodeur had no information on when the actions might be formally initiated.

But whenever they come it will be "no surprise," said Bishop David Moyer, rector of Good Shepherd. Both he and the Rev. Eddie Rix, interim rector of All Saints', said they assumed that the Standing Committee had given Bennison permission to initiate legal action some time ago. The two clerics reported that the bishop had contacted their respective parish wardens to request meetings.

Both parishes are prepared for the property battle, which Good Shepherd's attorneys do not think Bennison can win, given other aspects of his current legal position. And whatever All Saints' prospects are, Rix said that Bennison can expect that that parish--though it places gospel concerns before any temporal ones--will steadfastly resist the property takeover.

The Standing Committee's okay for action to secure the parishes' property came less than a week after a controversial rite in which Fr. Moyer, recent president of Forward in Faith, North America, and Fr. David Chislett of FIF-Australia, were consecrated as bishops within the largest international Continuing Church body, but also linked to the Anglican Communion.

The two became prelates of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), a body in communion with FIF, but were additionally licensed as assisting bishops in the Anglican Church of Australia's Diocese of The Murray by its diocesan, Ross Davies. He was one of two Communion bishops who joined eight TAC prelates in consecrating the two men for a ministry within the TAC but also to dismayed orthodox Anglicans marooned in or leaving revisionist Communion jurisdictions. The consecrations, which follow other institutionally-unusual measures taken by orthodox church leaders in response to the Communion's current crisis, have spurred denunciations and threats from some liberal leaders and mixed reactions among conservatives.

More to the point for Bennison, perhaps, the consecrations took place at Good Shepherd, which is still juridically within ECUSA, and from which Bennison has been unable to eject Moyer since purporting to depose him in 2002, without benefit of trial. Following the widely-repudiated defrocking, Moyer was initially licensed as a priest by Pittsburgh Episcopal Bishop Robert Duncan, and then by the Archbishop of Central Africa, Bernard Malango, and has continued serving Good Shepherd, with the congregation's support.

But legal counsel for the parish thinks the odds are against any bid to take its property. First, Bennison has got other legal troubles to resolve.

Still pending are two lawsuits filed by Moyer, claiming that Bennison improperly deprived him of his status as an ECUSA priest, by alleging that he had abandoned his ECUSA ministry-which he had not-to depose him without trial. This, because Moyer had resisted attempts by the bishop-who holds revisionist views on Jesus Christ, scripture, sexuality and women's ordination--to visit Good Shepherd. Moyer said that one suit accuses Bennison of fraud, collusion and bad faith, the other of interference with employment and causing emotional distress.

Discovery in the cases has yielded evidence said to be very damaging to the liberal prelate and to Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold. As well, the diocesan insurers have sued Bennison for fraud, Moyer noted. Moyer's attorney, John H. Lewis Jr., said that there is no basis for pursuing control of Good Shepherd's property. First, the parish iself "has not taken any action that would justify this threat, and...reserves all its rights if this unfounded litgation is commenced," Lewis said.

Second, "David Moyer was illegally and fraudulently deprived of his status as an Episcopal priest of the Diocese of Pennsylvania. That issue is now before the Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County. Any bid to "'seize the property' would have to rest on the validity of the 'deposition'--but that is the subject of the lawsuit now pending," the attorney said..

And, according to Bennison, Good Shepherd's rector "has been a 'layperson' since [the bishop] 'deposed' him in 2002." No further action was taken against Moyer as he continued serving the parish. Lewis said it is "silly" for Bennison to claim now "that it is worse for a bishop to preside at Mass than for a 'layperson' to preside at Mass."

Finally, Lewis said that those considering an effort to claim Good Shepherd's property "should expect to be faced with counter-claims and third-party claims."

So Good Shepherd leaders are not shaken. "We're weathered soldiers here; we're prepared," Bishop Moyer told TCC. For Fr. Rix, Bennison is but another of the several obstacles he has had to contend with since first discerning a call to the priesthood. The orthodox priest said he was refused for ordination in five Anglican dioceses in his native Canada, primarily due to his theological objection to women's ordination.

The Zambian Diocese of Lusaka took him in, and Rix was ordained, served, and remains canonically resident there. He came to the Evangelical Catholic parish of All Saints' as youth minister in 1998, there joining his former Greek professor, the Rev. Richard U. Smith, who was then rector (but who has since gone to the Roman Catholic Church). Rix soon learned that Bennison, aside from being radically liberal, "seems to have no trustworthy fiber in him" and was prone to break agreements he had made--starting with his agreement to maintain the episcopal visitor arrangement his predecessor had allowed orthodox parishes in the diocese.

Rix said he resigned when Smith resigned, and the parish rehired him as interim rector. At the time, he indicated that he could not receive Bennison's episcopal visitations or communion from him, as that would put him out of communion with his home province of Central Africa. According to Rix, though the bishop produced a document agreeing that the cleric's work as interim rector would not be contingent on receiving him at All Saints', it was soon clear he would not abide by it, and the priest has had no license from Bennison since January 2002. An attempt to resolve matters with the mediation assistance of the Public Conversation Project was unilaterally ended by Bennison, Rix said.

Bennison has "no regard for his own word, no regard for the leadership of the Episcopal Church, or for the whole counsel of God," Rix maintained. "I don't know what Bennison does have regard for; I don't know what guides his conscience." He thought Bennison was likely eyeing All Saints' property now because, last spring, the parish hired another cleric canonically resident in Lusaka, Deacon Christopher Rodriguez, without approaching the bishop for a license. "We've always been prepared" for him to come after the building, Rix said. "We've made it eminently clear to [diocesan officials that] we'd prefer not to make considerations over property primary, because our focus is on trying to preach the gospel. But if they want to fight over the property...we will fight for [it]." He said the congregation is ready to spend down the parish endowment to do that--meaning that, if Bennison succeeds, he and the diocese will "inherit an empty building with no money."

"And at the end of the day," he added, "it won't destroy us as a fellowship of faithful Christians, where the word of God is faithfully preached and the sacraments duly administered. That's the Church." The congregation already has offers of worship space from other Christians in the area, he said.

END