Ogden Standard-Examiner | 1920-04-13 | Page 3 | State to Join in Science Suit

" STATE T0J01N IN SCI BICE SUIT Massachusetts Attorney General Gen-eral Asks Leave to Intervene Inter-vene in Church Contest BOSTON, April 13. A petition for leave to intervene in the Christian Sci- ence church litigation was filed in th- supreme cour.t late, yesterday by J. Weston Allen, attorney general of Massachusetts. He says that the First Church of Christ Scientist "is a public pub-lic charitable trust devoted to the advancement ad-vancement of the religion of Christian Science for the benefit of its members and of the .public generally." and is an unincorporated association. He polnts out that the powers of the church directors have been limited by the report of the1 master in the litigation litiga-tion between the directors and trustees trus-tees of the Christian Science publishing publish-ing society .and that the binding force and cfect of the directors' acts have been questioned, if "not denied by thnt report. I Because of this, he says, the attorney attor-ney general, as reprefcn'.ing beneficiaries benefi-ciaries of this public charitable trust 10 a necessary parly to the litigation. :Ic asks leave to intervene aa a party! lefondant and to file an answer so ;that all questions regarding tho validi-i ly and elfect of the bylaws consliiut-f ing Hie church manual a ml s.uthorily of the directors may be determined. i The answer which the attorney general gen-eral asks leave to file was attached! to the petition. In it he :-ay? he be-1 ,liees appointments of the publishing; society trustees were valid. He avers 'that it was the purpose of Mrs. Mary (Baker G. Eddy, founder of the church, that all activities of the Christian Science Sci-ence religion should be subject to control con-trol of the motner church. The attorney general says th?t! through changes in the church man-i ual, by agreement of all parties .nter-1 csted, "the power to remove and tnere-. tnere-. I fort to control" the trustees was vest-. vest-. et; in the directors and that the directors' di-rectors' control over the editors and 1 1 policy of the official publication of the jchurch was acquiesced in by all parities par-ities until about the commencement of j the present litigation.