233 Pa. 138 | Pa. | 1911
Opinion by
Either the deliverances of this court as reported in 221 Pa. 213, and 229 Pa. 47, with respect to the ownership of church property and congregational power in connection therewith, have been seriously misapprehended, or the present proceeding is a clear attempt to circumvent the law as we have there declared it. In the first of the cases referred to, Krauczunas v. Hoban, the effort was on the part of the ten lay members of the congregation, duly chosen trustees of the legal title to the church property, to compel a reconveyance to them of the title by Bishop Hoban who had previously been designated trustee of the title for a special purpose which had been fully accomplished. The effort of these trustees was resisted, not on the ground that the congregation was without statutory right to choose its own trustee or trustees for the purpose indicated, or that the election of these particular trustees was in any way irregular, but distinctly on the ground that any such election, except as it resulted in the choice of the bishop of the diocese in which the property was located, offended against the rules and regulations of the Catholic church. To make this clear it is only necessary to quote a single finding of fact, and the conclusion derived therefrom, on which the lower court rested its dismissal of the plaintiffs’ bill. The finding was as follows: “The Canons of the Roman Catholic Church provide and require that the title to the property of the Roman Catholic Congre
“ Now, therefore be it resolved, That all the property of said St. Joseph’s Lithuanian Catholic Congregation is, and is hereby declared, subject to the jurisdiction of the
“Resolved that Rt. Rev. Michael J. Hoban, Bishop of Scranton, be, and is hereby chosen and designated trustee for said St. Joseph’s Lithuanian Catholic Congregation of the city of Scranton, Pennsylvania, to hold as such trustee all the property of said Congregation, and the title thereto in accordance with the laws, rules and usages of the Catholic Church in the Diocese of Scranton and state of Pennsylvania.” The significance of the language here employed can be fully understood only as we recall what was said by this court in Krauczunas v. Hoban, supra, the language of the interdict of the bishop closely following upon our decision, and the rules and regulations of the Catholic church with respect to the property of the congregation as defined by Bishop Hoban in his testimony in the case. In the case referred to we distinctly held that the case was one involving the right of property, and that the law governing was not to be found in the rules and regulations of the general ecclesiastical system, but in the statute of April 26, 1855, P. L. 328, wherein it is declared that property “devised or conveyed to any ecclesiastical corporation, bishop, ecclesiastic or other person, for the uses of any church, congregation, or religious society for religious worship, or sepulture, or the maintenance of either, the same shall not be otherwise taken and held, or enure, than subject to the control and disposition of the lay members of such church, congregation or religious society, or such constituted officers or representatives thereof.” The contention of the bishop there was that he had a right to hold the title to the property under the Catholic system, virtute officii. This view having prevailed with the court below we sustained the appeal, and expressly held that the position taken “is in direct opposition to the law whose supremacy over all ecclesiastical rules and regulations, when the rights of property are concerned, is not to be questioned.” We further held that the conveyance to the appellees in that case constituted an
But suppose we are mistaken in attributing to the congregational meeting that elected Bishop Hoban a purpose to circumvent the law, it follows then that the election was made under a total misapprehension of the law regulating ownership of church property and the rights of the congregation therein. The fact of conflict between the rules and regulations of the Catholic church and the laws of the state in this regard, remains. It is idle to dispute such fact; it is too patent to be questioned, and further discussion of it would be but wasted effort. If in ignorance of its rights on the one hand, and the law’s restriction on the other, the congregation by a majority of votes took the action on which these appellees base their claim, should the court lend its aid to compel compliance? Were contractual rights involved we might feel constrained to do
It is urged that the decree from which the appeal is taken does not and cannot subject the church property to the control of the legal title. This is quite true; but the decree, except as it gives effect to the purpose of the congregation as expressed in the resolution which prevailed and which was the basis of its action, must be held extrajudicial, inasmuch as it substitutes for the will of the congregation in the matter of the selection of a trustee, the power of the court. The presumption may not be violent that the congregation would have elected Bishop Hoban trustee to hold under the law, but the court cannot presume that. That he was to hold it under the rules and regulations of the church, in view of what we have said, must be regarded as a condition of his election, which the court had no right to suppress or to ignore.
The eighth assignment of error was the refusal of the court to instruct in accordance with the ninth request for conclusions of law. The instruction asked for was as follows: “The action of the alleged meeting of June 8, 1908, eiinbodied in the resolution claiming to have been adopted