Hi all,
Some years
ago, Saint Stanislaus Kostka Church, a Roman Catholic parish church in
St. Louis, got into a dispute with the Catholic bishop in St.
Louis. the Bishop tried to assert his authority over Saint
Stanislaus, and when the folks running the church refused, the declared
them to be in schism. The fight ended up in the courts. Saint
Stanislaus, however, had an advantage that virtually no other
Catholic parish has -- (secular) title to its own property, a vestige of
a once-common 19th century form of organization for Catholic
churches. Last March, a trial judge in St. Louis ruled, remarkably,
against the Bishop and in favor of the local parish. The two sides
have now settled: Saint Stanislaus keeps its building and assets, but
agrees not to represent itself as affiliated with the Roman Catholic
Church. See
http://ncronline.org/news/faith-parish/st-louis-archdiocese-gives-fight-control-breakaway-parish
Does
anyone on this list happen to have a copy of the original March 2012
opinion (apparently in the neighborhood of 50 pages long) by Judge
Hettenbach? I assume he relied on a "neutral principles of
law" analysis, but I'd love to see the actual opinion. It
doesn't seem to be available on either Lexis or Westlaw, and as best as I
can tell the Missouri judicial web sites only post appellate
opinions.
Feel free
to reply privately. And apologies if this has been discussed
previously on the list.
Thanks.
Perry
_______________________________________________
To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see
http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw
Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private.
Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can
read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the
messages to others.
