A legal magazine has an article on the recent court case between the Diocese of Huron and St. Aidan’s, Windsor. The whole article is worth reading but a few points stand out to me:

The costs judge in Delicata adopted the minority view from the litigation in Bentley and made a no-costs to promote harmony and because the litigants were moved by their conscience. The congregation of St. Aidan’s appealed the trial judge’s decision, and the Synod cross-appealed the decision over costs.

The Diocese of Huron had originally demanded over $400,000 in legal costs from St. Aidan’s. Not only did St. Aidan’s lose their appeal, but the judge overturned the original ruling that each side pay their own costs and ruled that St. Aidan’s pay $100,000 of the diocese’s legal costs – in addition to their own costs, of course. So it was a double loss for St. Aidan’s.

I’m sure those ruling in courts of appeal are largely devoid of a sense of humour, so the reasoning behind awarding $100k in costs to the diocese because there is “no evidentiary basis for the need to preserve harmony within the church” could not have been stated in jest. In the eyes of the courts, the Anglican Church of Canada has clearly sunk to such a state of irrelevance to the rest of society, that there is little reason to discourage its self-destruction through internal strife:

The Court of Appeal did reverse the decision on costs in finding that the justice system should not provide a safe harbour for spiritual or religious convictions, and there was no evidentiary basis for the need to preserve harmony within the church.

Also, the idea that “the justice system should not provide a safe harbour for spiritual or religious convictions” has an ominous ring for those with religious beliefs that are out of step with secular mores.