Opinion ID: 1250117
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: the trial court correctly applied guinn [40]

Text: In Guinn this court recognized a jurisdictional boundary limiting the powers of the ecclesiastical judicature. The church's jurisdiction exists as a result of the mutual agreement between that body and its member. All who unite themselves to such a body do so with an implied consent to this government, and are bound to submit to it. [41] That relationship may be severed freely by a member's positive act at any time. [42] Until it is so terminated, the church has authority to prescribe and follow disciplinary ordinances without fear of interference by the state. The First Amendment [43] will protect and shield the religious body from liability for the activities carried on pursuant to the exercise of church discipline. Within the context of ecclesiastical discipline, churches enjoy an absolute privilege from scrutiny by the secular authority. The church privilege extends in this case to activities or communications which occurred after excommunication if these may be termed as mere implementation [44] of previously pronounced ecclesiastical sanction which was valid when exercised  i.e., that it was declared when Church jurisdiction subsisted. Within the concept of protected implementation are not only the religious disciplinary proceeding's merits and procedure but also its end product  the expulsion sanction. While excommunication would put an end to jurisdiction over any further offense, it does not abrogate the consequences flowing from the previously announced Church judicature. [45] Parishioners admit that at no time during or after the proceedings at issue did they withdraw their Church membership. Thus the Church retained full subject matter and personal jurisdiction to adjudicate the two disciplinary cases against the parishioners. Upon excommunication, and while a parishioner remains under the church discipline, the ecclesiastical tribunal impliedly relinquishes the power of judicature over the parishioner for any other or future conduct, yet retains cognizance over the previously adjudicated matter for the purpose of implementing any extent ecclesiastical sanction. Guinn reaffirms ecclesiastical judicature. It also recognizes that parishioners must positively act to withdraw membership if they intend church jurisdiction to cease. [46] When the target of civil litigation is simply the church's implementation of its valid ecclesiastical judicature, the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment will afford a shield from interference by secular inquest. It is undisputed that in this case the parishioners never withdrew their membership from the Church. Thus in contemplation of law their consent to the Church's disciplinary action stood unaffected. They are hence unable to complain about lack of jurisdiction over the disciplinary actions taken in the ecclesiastical expulsion process.