Dixon asks federal court to oust Fr. Edwards

Robert Stowe England | 25 June 2001

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Fr. Samuel Edwards, rector of Christ Church Accokeek, today received a summons and a complaint filed by Washington's Acting Bishop Jane Dixon in the Federal District Court in Baltimore.

Claiming to be the ex-officio rector of the parish, Dixon seeks a declaratory judgment against Fr. Edwards to oust him from the parish, make null and void the contract he has signed with the vestry and oust him from the rectory, according to Charles Nalls, an attorney representing the vestry of the parish.

Fr. Edwards says he received service at 6:10 pm in his office. "The process server (who never identified himself) just walked in, said something like, 'sorry to drop this on you,' gave me the papers and left," says Fr. Edwards, who then called Nalls to notify him that he had been served." Then I went on to the church to celebrate the Eucharist for the Nativity of St John the Baptist," says Fr. Edwards.

The lawsuit claims that the vestry acted beyond the scope of its powers when it signed a contract with Fr. Edwards says Nalls, who was read the summons and complaint and had not seen a copy of it.

This summons and complaint were filed within minutes of a statement being issued by Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold that he was unable to work out a compromise. He had been in discussions with Fort Worth Bishop Jack L. Iker, who had declared pastoral oversight of the parish on May 27, and Dixon.

Dixon reportedly was willing to agree that Fr. Edwards be priest-in-charge for the term of his contract, meaning his tenure would temporary.

The outlook is mixed for the chances that Dixon would be successful with this lawsuit in ousting Fr. Edwards, as the parish followed the procedures required in his call. Dixon's rejection of his call came long after the 30-day time limit in which bishops have to review a parish's call a rector. Further, Dixon has undermined her own claim that Fr. Edwards is not a duly qualified priest by offering to have him serve as priest-in-charge.

When asked why the diocese would launch a costly lawsuit when the chances of success were not particularly compelling, Nalls replied: "It seems like a real reach to try to hurt them, scare them and bleed them."

This means that even if the suit does not have real merit, it would be a way to wear down the vestry and Fr. Edwards and force them to compromise or capitulate.

The suit was signed by four attorneys from the high-priced white-shoe law firm of Crowell & Moring, including JoAnn MacBeth, diocesan chancellor, and David Schnorrenberg, a parishioner and vestry member at St. Paul's K Street, an Anglo-Catholic parish subject to Dixon's forced visitations.

The filing of the lawsuit is likely to lead to demands from some in the diocese for an accounting of its potential cost. Said one observer, "It is unlikely Crowell & Moring is doing this pro bono."

Nalls noted that the lawsuit also "follows on her intention to punish Ascension & St. Anges and St. Luke's Bladensburg." Dixon has notified the parishes she intends to visit them in the coming months, even though, in the case of Ascension & St. Agnes in Washington, D.C., Assisting Bishop Allen Bartlett only a few weeks ago visited the parish and did confirmations. Sources in the parish say they view the planned visit of November 18 as an act of harassment and persecution. Visits from the bishops of the diocese to one of the 96 congregations are usually space about two years apart.

Dixon has engaged in forced visitations since 1996 at parishes that do not recognize women's ordination even though she promised when a candidate for Suffragan Bishop that she would not make such visitations and even though she has been criticized for doing so by a gathering of the world's 850 Anglican bishops at the Lambeth Conference in Canterbury in 1998. Many view the visits as acts of persecution designed to drive away those who oppose women's ordination.

Nalls says that the vestry and Fr. Edwards will respond to the lawsuit in due time and indicated that a lawsuit against Dixon and the diocese was "a possibility."