Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of South Carolina v. Episcopal Church

JUSTICE KITTREDGE:

Because I believe the proper application of “neutral principles of law,” as enunciated in Jones v. Wolf,30 demands that all thirty-six local parishes retain ownership and control of their property, I would affirm the trial court in result.31

*252This Court may—indeed, must—resolve this property dispute on the basis of civil law, without regard to religious doctrine or practice.32 I first address the twenty-eight local churches that acceded in writing to the 1979 Dennis Canon. Justice Toal presents a scholarly analysis of South Carolina trust law. I take no exception to her…