The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Friday that a trial court in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania will permit an Episcopal priest to sue his bishop in state court for removing him from the priesthood. The long-running dispute (background documents) pits Rev. David Moyer, rector of Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Rosemont, Pennsylvania against Bishop Charles E. Bennison Jr. who removed Moyer from the priesthood without granting him an ecclesiastical hearing.
Moyer is a conservative who opposes Bishop Bennison's feminist and gay rights views. After Moyer refused to permit the bishop to preach in his church, the bishop prohibited Moyer from dispensing the sacraments. Moyer then affiliated with the breakaway Anglican Church in America. Focusing on that move, Bennison invoked a little-know provision of church law that permits a bishop to summarily remove a priest who joins another faith. This avoided the public forum that Moyer wanted to use to accuse Bennison and others in the Episcopal hierarchy of disregard for the scriptures. Also reporting on the case, The Living Church Foundation quotes Moyer as taking the position that he did not abandon the Communion of the Church, so that the "abandonment canon" allowing removal without a trial was wrongly applied to him.
The trial court's decision is a surprising one in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's 1976 holding in Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese v. Milivojevich, that cast doubt on whether there is an exception for "fraud, collusion or arbitrariness" to the First Amendment doctrine that precludes civil courts from examining decision by hierarchical churches regarding religious disputes. However the trial judge apparently agreed with arguments made by Moyer's attorneys that the priest had no other remedy because Bishop Bennison denied him due process by removing him without a church trial. They also claim Bennison fraudulently concealed relevant documents from the diocesan standing committee that approved the priest's removal.
The trial judge's exact rationale seems unclear because apparently he did not (at least yet) issue an opinion to accompany his ruling. The case has provoked extensive discussion on the Religionlaw listserv ("Landmark First Amendment Religion Litigation?" thread in archive). [Thanks to Aaron J. Stemplewicz and to James Maule via Religionlaw for the lead.]
