Attorneys to appeal ruling on Church documents - Worldwide News Staff - September 10, 1979

Worldwide News Staff

PASADENA - In an hour-long hearing at the Los Angeles, Calif. County Court house Aug. 29, 1979. Superior Court Judge Thomas T. Johnson heard Church attorney Allan Browne outline a seven-point argument against the State of California's amended complaint requiring that all Church documents, whether "financial, physical or ecclesiastical, including those in the possession of former members or employees of the Church, be given to the State. Mr. Browne borrowed from a July 25 unanimous ruling by judges of the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals in a case involving an examination of the costs of running a Roman Catholic school. That court maintained that the gathering of information does amount to entanglement" in a church's ecclesiastical affairs, Mr. Browne pointed out, adding that, "it is impossible to separate the way a church spends its money and [how it conducts its] religious practices." - Information Supplied By: Herbert W Armstrong Library