Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 7, 1993 TAG: 9304070231
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
CHARGES DROPPED; CHURCH RIFT ISN'T
In all her 74 years, Pauline Richardson had never heard of such a thing: Someone being charged with trespassing at her own church.But that's just what happened to Richardson and her 82-year-old husband, Harvey, on a recent Sunday at Calvary Baptist Church in Salem.
Church officials decided the Richardsons - members for 39 years - were no longer welcome after they had missed church for eight months.
When the Richardsons showed up for services the morning of Feb. 28, after having been told not to come back, the deacons called police and had them charged with trespassing.
Just as the case was to be heard Tuesday in Salem General District Court, church officials offered to drop the misdemeanor charges in exchange for the Richardsons' agreeing to stay away from the church.
That suited them fine. "This is apparently not the kind of Christian fellowship they've been accustomed to," said Charlie Phillips, a Salem lawyer who represented the Richardsons.
A month before the charges were filed, a rift between older and newer members of the congregation widened to a chasm when the Richardsons attended a church meeting called to vote on a new pastor. They were told they could not cast votes because their attendance had not been faithful.
"No one was trying to run them out," said Deacon Michael Wetherington. "They simply did not meet the requirement to vote."
In order to vote on church business,a member must have attended services "regularly and faithfully" for six weeks prior to the meeting, he said.
What happened next depends on whom you ask.
According to Wetherington, Pauline Richardson "stood up and started casting aspersions and becoming very belligerent."
To make things worse, he said, Harvey Richardson was shaking his cane at whoever got close to him.
The way the Richardsons tell it, however, they were almost physically removed from the building. When someone took Pauline Richardson by the arm, she told them: "Don't you touch me, or I'll get a warrant for you."
It was the church that later threatened to take out warrants if the Richardsons ever came back.
"I was just bullheaded enough to go back and see if they would arrest us," Richardson said of their decision to attend services Feb. 28.
"I had no idea they'd pull a trick like that. I never heard tell of something like that."
After first being greeted by the pastor, the Richardsons were told minutes later they would have to leave.
"I said: `We came in here to hear God's word today, and we're going to stay.' " Richardson said.
" `Oh, no, you're not,' they said."
Salem police were called to the sanctuary, and Richardson still shakes her head at what happened next: "They arrested us for trespassing at our own church."
Had anyone asked them, the Richardsons said, they would have explained that illness and surgery had kept them away from church for eight months. "When you get old, you can't always go," Richardson said.
"If the church had an outreach program, they would have known that," Phillips chimed in during an interview outside the courtroom minutes after the case had been dismissed. Close to a dozen church members who have sided with the Richardsons also attended the hearing.
In asking Judge George Harris to dismiss the charges at the agreement of both parties, Salem Commonwealth's Attorney Fred King said it was unfortunate that arrests ever had been made.
Wetherington said he, too, is sorry about the way things turned out. He called it a "blight to the cause of Christ, to have come to what we've seen today."
But the dispute may not be over, based on a question Pauline Richardson had for her attorney as they left the courthouse.
"Can we sue them now?" she asked.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***