This is yet another piece of bad news for the dissidents and the ACA. It's fairly plain that Lancaster and Anastasia were never prepared to argue the case based on neutral principles of law, since the facts are all on the elected vestry's side. After January 2012, the ACA never had jurisdiction to inhibit or depose Fr Kelley, remove or appoint vestry members, or seize the parish building, since it had dissolved the Patrimony of the Primate, and the parish membership voted several times by required supermajorities to leave the ACA. (It never had legal or canonical authority to remove or appoint vestry at all.)
The problem for the ACA and the Bush "vestry" is that they have a tiger by the tail. I think it's a safe bet that whenever the elected vestry gains physical access to the building, it will immediately be plain that assets have been removed, and it will be a problematic issue ever to locate or recover them. Access to financial records will pose similar problems. The informed speculation by the Armchair Detective on the Freedom for St Mary site suggests a criminal conspiracy is not out of the question.
While it would normally be a prudent move for the dissidents and the ACA to begin looking toward a settlement, I don't think this can happen, because it's simply too late for them to put things back before anyone can ask the wrong sorts of questions. A settlement would be negotiated on the assumption that parish resources, less legal fees and ordinary expenses, have been conserved. I frankly don't think that's what's been done.
If I were Bishop Grundorf of the APA, I'd be slow-walking negotiations with the ACA over merger. Give it another year and Marsh and Strawn will be out of the picture, and a good many ACA parishes will simply go over to the APA of their own accord.
