Retreat center lawsuit: sad

TWhat is happening here is a legal Hail Mary, the football kind, not the Edmund’s Retreat kind.

ypical NIMBYs — “Not In My Back Yard!” — consist of a group of residents who see a proposed development as a threat to their serene way of life. Think shopping center, apartment housing, utilities or highway construction.

A group of affluent homeowners on Masons Island in Stonington is, however, taking NIMBY to a new level, targeting an institution that predates them and has as its primary function saving souls. Oh, the horror! Seems these folks don’t like the St. Edmund’s Retreat Center on Enders Island — or at least the activities that are going on there — because the visitors who access the island by bridge first have to drive past their beautiful homes on Masons Island. Can you imagine?

A visit to the center’s website shows a bereavement retreat was held this past week to help individuals obtain spiritual healing after the death of a loved one. This coming week there is a priest retreat, and later this month a sacred art open house, where participants can learn the techniques of creating religious icons.

It doesn’t appear loud music is the issue.

Another function of the Diocese of Norwich institution is recovery from addiction.

“Recovery Retreats provide a unique opportunity for individuals to encounter and accompany one another as a recovery community seeking to live out the 12 steps, with particular emphasis on the 11th step,” states the programming notes. Step 11 involves prayer and meditation.

In a Superior Court lawsuit the plaintiffs — seven property owners — complain all this hullabaloo strays too far from the intentions of Alys E. Enders when, upon her death in 1954, she conveyed the property to the diocese for use as a novitiate and retreat for priests.

Let’s cut to the chase — this lawsuit is ridiculous.

It is doubtful whether these property owners even have legal standing. The deed defaults the property to Enders’ heirs if her stipulations are not complied with. The heirs are not suing.

What is happening here is a legal Hail Mary, the football kind, not the Edmund’s Retreat kind. Having failed to win a zoning complaint case — the center is a permissible nonconforming use that long predates zoning rules — some Masons islanders are turning to a judge with this newly concocted challenge.

What this will do, unfortunately, is force the defendant to spend money on combating the lawsuit, money it would instead have devoted its mission. How ignoble of the plaintiffs.