Basic HTML Version
PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, July 3, 1980
Page 4
"The implications that flow from this theory are mind-boggling. Their
inimitable flavor can be savored fully only in the actual words of the
attorney general's representatives as recorded in the court transcripts.
The Attorney General of the State of California, and his deputies,
have not only the power, but the duty, at any time to investigate
all the books and records, 100 per cent of the books and records of
any charitable, religious or educational organization because...
[the organization] derives its position, its existence, from the
State of California.
Now those records do not belong..• to Mr. Armstrong. There are no
privileges, constitutional or otherwise, of a charitable foundation
against investigation by the Attorney General.
...for 700 years, Your Honor,
America that charitable funds
in the custody of the court.
all church funds....
it has been the law in England and
are public funds. They are perpetually
The court is the ultimate custodian of
Your Honor has the power and the discretion to safeguard and preserve
those assets and the duty to do so. But the church, as a charitable
trust, has no interest to protect here. It has no client. It is the
court's funds, and the court may remove and replace and substitute
trustees at its pleasure.
"His Honor not only fell in with this spacious (and specious) characteriza
tion of his powers, but went on to inform the church's attorneys, when they
protested that members knew what Herbert Armstrong was doing with their
contributions and wished him to continue to manage the church as he saw
fit, that 'their wishes are immaterial.'
He also felt quite confident of
his ability to distinguish between the temporal and the spiritual aspects
of the church, and to safeguard the former without interfering with the
latter:
'I just don't think ecclesiastical matters have anything to do
with the financial aspects of the operation out there.'
"The court was not deterred by the remonstrations of the church's counsel,
who tried their best to draw the court's attention to the rather clearly
settled law of the United States: that the government may not entangle
itself excessively in the internal affairs of churches, as by inspecting
their records to determine what is religious and what is secular; that it
may not interfere in the free exercise of religion unless it shows not just
a rational but a compelling interest and one that can be served in no
other way; that a showing must be made that there is probable cause to
believe that a crime has been committed before the law-enforcement author
ities can intervene, and no such showing had been made, or even offered,
by the attorney general; that even the compelled disclosure of church
financial records is probably an invasion of religious liberty (Surinach
v. deBusquets, First Circuit Court of Appeals, 1979) ....
"The attorney general seems somewhat perplexed and offended that the
Worldwide Church of God is kicking up such a fuss over what he probably
considers a regrettable but routine inquiry. His minions have been heard
to observe in court that this case is becoming much more expensive to the
state than had been anticipated, and that other religious corporations had
submitted to the attorney general's inspection without such resistance.
Both he and the court seem to be resisting the distraction--like a plowman
brushing away a fly--of references to the First Amendment.