Synod court says sessions 'responsible' for per capita By John H. Adams The Layman Online Thursday, December 12, 2002 A regional court of the Presbyterian Church (USA) has upheld a policy adopted by the Presbytery of Scioto Valley that requires sessions of local congregations to pay their per-capita apportionments unless they are excused by the presbytery. Complainants in the case argued that the presbytery's policy was unconstitutional because it countermanded church law and court interpretations that have historically affirmed the absolute right of sessions to withhold or redirect per-capita assignments. But the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of the Covenant ruled against the complainants, the Rev. John C. Minihan of First Presbyterian Church in Newark, Ohio, and elder-lawyer J. Randall Richards of Liberty Presbyterian Church in Delaware, Ohio, in an order that was dated Dec. 11. Minihan and Richards have not said whether they will appeal the decision. "We want to read it carefully," Minihan told The Layman Online. Before approving its current policy on Feb. 2, 2002, the Presbytery of Scioto Valley had submitted an overture to the 213th General Assembly in 2001 that was essentially the same as that policy. The General Assembly defeated the overture, affirming the historical right of sessions to determine how tithes and offerings are spent. "Per capita is one of the sinews of our covenantal relationship," the General Assembly said in response to the Scioto overture. "We believe that relationship is voluntary rather than mandatory." The presbytery's per-capita statement "establishes a responsibility on the part of sessions, as governing bodies of the church, to raise and timely transmit per-capita funds to the presbytery, unless a the presbytery excuses a session from doing so." Complainants said that policy, by describing per-capita payments as the "responsibility" of sessions, was tantamount to a mandate. Furthermore, they argued that the presbytery had established no guidelines for excusing sessions from payment of per-capita apportionments. But the synod court said the use of the word "responsibility" did not rise to the level of a "mandate" or a "legal obligation." The court noted that, in one precedent-setting case, Session of Central Presbyterian Church v. Presbytery of Long Island (1992), the highest court in the Presbyterian Church (USA) had ruled unconstitutional a presbytery policy that described per-capita payments as an "obligation." That ruling also said, "A church may neither be compelled to pay nor punished for failure to pay any amounts persuant to such a [per-capita] plan." The synod court used definitions of the terms "responsibility" and "obligation" to conclude that there was a difference. "Obligation usually applies to a specific restraint arising from a particular clause," the court said. "Responsibility stresses accountability for the fulfillment of an obligation … and not a legally enforceable debt implied by the word 'obligation." In their briefs, both the complainants and the presbytery affirmed that sessions have a moral responsibility for raising and transmitting per-capita funds to the presbytery, although the complaintants added that such action "remains a discretionary decision, wholly vested in the session, which may not be coerced by a higher governing body." The complainants expressed concern that the presbytery might deal arbitrarily and coercively with sessions seeking to be excused from payment of per capita, whether because of a shortage of money or a decision to withhold or redirect payment as a moral protest against the actions of higher governing bodies. But the synod court did not spell out any conditions by which a presbytery could excuse a session from making per-capita payments that support the work of presbyteries, synods and the General Assembly. "It is our opinion that part of a session's moral responsibility is to seek relief from presbytery if the session finds that it is unable to remit its per-capita apportionment," the court said. "In turn, part of the moral responsibility of the presbytery is to lovingly and caringly work with a session that finds itself in this situation."

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