I wonder if each person gets half the congregation as
well.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071117/ap_on_fe_st/odd_church_as_asset;_ylt=AiDuaGmUNLp9eIZjvtKzzFGhOrgF
Pastor's wife: Church is a divorce asset
MINEOLA, N.Y. - The estranged wife of a pastor claims her husband
blended his professional and personal finances so thoroughly that
his church should be counted as an asset in their divorce.
A judge agreed in a decision published this week to hear arguments
on the claim, and he ordered a financial appraisal of the church.
Lawyers said it could represent the first time anyone in New York
state has tried to treat a religious institution as a marital
asset.
The wife argues that her husband of 31 years used his Brooklyn
church as a "personal piggy bank," setting his own income, spending
the congregation's tithes as he pleased and running a catering
business from the building, according to the decision by state
Supreme Court Judge Arthur M. Diamond. The couple's names were
redacted from the decision.
The wife said $50,000 of the couple's money went into starting the
church, and that the church property is partly hers.
"That church is no different than any other business he might have
opened," said the wife's lawyer, Robert Pollack.
The pastor maintains he is simply a church employee, and the
institution's funds should not be considered his, according to
Diamond's decision.
"My client can't own the church," said the minister's lawyer,
Eleanor Gery.
A message left at the church was not immediately returned early
Friday. 