A last-minute attempt to block the sale of the Crystal Cathedral failed Monday.
Cathedral insiders asserted that the congregation has a 99-year lease on the landmark Garden Grove church, and they refused to give up the lease to allow a court-ordered sale to go forward.
But U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Kwan ordered the $57.5 million sale of the church to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange to proceed.
The sale probably will close in the next several days.
The diocese has promised that the congregation can continue to use the cathedral for three years before it becomes the diocese's spiritual home.
During an emergency hearing, no one from the congregation was able to prove that the 99-year lease exists.
James Dawson, a long-time member, testified about a 1987 meeting in which the congregation agreed to give the campus to Robert Schuller Ministries, predecessor of the now-bankrupt Crystal Cathedral Ministries, in return for a 99-year lease.
Attorneys for the ministries said they could find no record of a lease or lease payments.
Senior Pastor Sheila Schuller Coleman testified that the congregation paid the 99-year lease in full – all 99 years for the sum of $99.
Coleman, the daughter of founding pastor Robert H. Schuller, sits on the congregation and ministries boards.
She testified that she first learned of the lease the week of Jan. 9.
Attorneys for the cathedral's creditors pressed Coleman and her brother-in-law, Jim Penner, also a member of both boards, on why they did not encourage the congregation to bid for the cathedral.
Penner said both boards operated in secret, comparing his role to someone sitting on the boards of rival oil giants ExxonMobil and Texaco. If he had told the congregation what he knew from the ministry board, it would be like insider trading, he said.
But the bankruptcy plans to sell the cathedral were public knowledge, creditor attorney Todd Ringstad said. Wasn't it part of your duty as a board member to share knowledge with the congregation?, he asked Penner.
Penner replied, "I think I did my job as a Crystal Cathedral Consistory member poorly."
Jim McDonald, a congregation member, said he was happy the judge decided the sale would go through.
"If they don't sell the church, how do they expect to pay the creditors?" he said. "They don't have the money for that. I'd be pleased if we could have kept the church. But that did not happen. A deal's a deal."
Coleman said, "It's unclear what the outcome will be for the congregation."