That the Episcopal Church breezes along unimpeded on the road to perdition, despite precipitous drops in membership due to death and desertion, owes in large part to a substantial endowment, dating from the days long ago when the rich still gave the Church money. Still, all those lawsuits don't come cheap and concern has been expressed that even the well-to-do Episcopal Church, feeling the pinch, is raiding trust funds intended for other purposes to pay the legal bills.
The financial meltdown this week has whacked just about everyone including, no doubt, the Episcopal Church and her portfolio. Real estate values are tanking. What surely is not tanking are the billable hours and fee schedules of Chancellor Beers and his crew of litigators. A time will come (maybe it has already) when the expenses wresting property from departing parishes exceeds the cumulative worth of those properties.
The Episcopal Church, in most cases, is unable to muster up worshipers to replace those who leave so properties seized from exiting parishioners are usually put up for sale. I wonder if anyone at 815 Second Avenue, in this time of financial collapse, has determined whether it makes economic sense to spend millions from dwindling endowments suing parishes for their properties, only to sell them later at a loss. Or is it, as I suspect, the powers at 815 are so blindly committed to their innovations they would sooner take down the entire institution than see one square foot of property remain in the hands of the traditionalists they so despise?
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