ALAN RUNYAN OBJECTS
C. Alan Runyan, lead lawyer for the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina, has officially objected to the submission to the South Carolina Supreme Court of the proceedings of the diocesan convention of 1987. He sent a letter to the SCSC yesterday, 8 February 2022, that was posted on the sccourts website this morning. Runyan concluded:
In summary, the documentation [1987 journal] by counsel for Appellants was: 1) not admitted into evidence and is not in any appellate record; 2) expressly not referenced by Appellants as part of any argument to Judge Dickson to bind any parish; 3) was not an issue on appeal by Appellants of the rulings of Judge Dickson; and 4) the significance, if any, of its presence and then removal 2 years before the Respondents withdrew from TEC was not considered by Judge Goodstein or Judge Dickson on the issue of accession by any parish to a trust. For all these reasons, Plaintiffs-Respondents [ADSC] respectfully object to its consideration in this matter.
Thus, Runyan argues that the 1987 journal was not part of the record of the case and should not be introduced now.
One should wonder at the timing of the objection. Why did not Runyan object immediately instead of waiting until after TEC submitted the requested documentation?
The ADSC's goal in this case is to get the SCSC to affirm Judge Dickson's order that awarded all to the breakaway contingent.
We will see if the Episcopal Church side responds to Runyan's letter of objection.
Much of the discussion in the hearing of last 8 December in the SCSC centered on whether the parishes had acceded to the Dennis Canon. TEC argued that 29 of them had. ADSC countered that none of them had. So, the question of accession to the Dennis Canon is central to the case as framed by the justices two months ago.
Another layer of the case concerns whether the Episcopal Church is hierarchical. The majority of the SCSC justices ruled, in their 2017 opinion, that it was. Federal court judge Richard Gergel declared it was. (Even the Texas supreme court held TEC to be hierarchical as they handed over all to the breakaways.) If TEC is hierarchical, which is the near universal opinion, the national church has authority over the local dioceses and the diocese has authority over the local parishes.
If the Episcopal Church is hierarchical, the Dennis Canon is effective over all the church. It does not matter if a diocese, or a parish, accedes to the Canon because it is automatic. The Diocese of South Carolina bolstered the Canon when it adopted an explicit version of the Dennis Canon in 1987. The breakaways now claim that the diocese revoked its accession to the canons of the Episcopal Church by vote of the diocesan convention in 2010. If TEC is hierarchical, the diocese had no right to do that and its action was null and void. Likewise, a parish had no right to reject the 1987 canon.
Thus, if the SCSC justices are now trying to sort out who owns the local properties, it is entirely appropriate for them to consider all the evidence available. Ironically, it was the Anglican side that sought long and hard to get the case back to the SC Supreme Court. They succeeded. Therefore, it rings a bit hollow at this point for the ADSC lawyers to oppose the justices' request for documentation. Of course the material is detrimental to the ADSC side, but it is a bit late to cry foul.
