Last year it was announced that the Internal Revenue Service was investigating All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California, over whether an antiwar sermon, delivered two days before the 2004 presidential election, by guest speaker Rev. George F. Regas went beyond permissible bounds for a tax-exempt organization. Last Friday, according to the Los Angeles Times, the IRS issued a summons to the church demanding that it produce extensive information regarding Rev. Regas' appearance at the church, church policies regarding guest preachers, as well as all written and oral communications from or distributed at the church in 2004 that identify candidates for public office (other than mention of individuals in traditional prayers). The formal summons was a reformulation of broader requests that had been in an earlier letter from the IRS, to which the Church had objected.
The Church has issued a Release regarding the summons and another one that ordered the church's rector, Rev. Ed Bacon, to appear before the IRS in October. In a sermon yesterday to an overflow congregation, Bacon said: "Our faith mandates that always stopping short of endorsing or opposing political candidates, the church can neither be silent nor indifferent when there are public policies causing detriment to the least of these." Bacon said that he would consult with attorneys, but that he felt most congregants wanted to resist the summons. (See prior posting.) [Thanks to Steven H. Sholk for the lead.]
