Topic by Tiktaalik

26

Father denies children inheritance unless they quit Jehovah's Witnesses

by Tiktaalik in

jw
friends

an article in the sydney morning herald:.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/father-denies-children-inheritance-unless-they-quit-jehovahs-witnesses-and-become-catholics-20140810-102egl.html#ixzz39yziuuvf.

"from beyond the grave, father-of-four patrick carroll continued a five-decade crusade to steer his children away from being active jehovah's witnesses and into catholicism.. mr carroll wrote into his will that his adult children were not to receive any inheritance unless they met two conditions: attend his funeral and become catholics within three months of his death.. mr carroll died in april 2012. his children attended the funeral but they did not become catholics and challenged the condition in the nsw supreme court in a bid to still receive their share of his estate.. but justice francois kunc last week ruled that mr carroll was entitled to place such conditions on his will.. the court heard that mr carroll's motivation was not so much about imposing his own beliefs but rather the fact he never approved of his children becoming jehovah's witness.. the court heard that mr carroll did not raise his children as catholics, neither he or they had attended church services when they were young and he did not enroll them in catholic schools.. but when he split from their mother lillian in 1959 she became a jehovah's witness and over the next decade the couple's four children, robyn, paulene, anthony and susan, were baptised as jehovah's witnesses.. mr carroll never approved of "their adherence to that faith", the court heard.. "[lillian's] conversion to that faith enraged mr carroll, who for the rest of his life continued to express his very strong objections to lillian's and the children's member of that faith," justice kunc said in his judgement.. the court was told that all four of his children remain active members of their congregation.. in his will, written in december 2011, four months before he died, mr carroll left more than a third of his estate to his four children "dependent upon them becoming baptised into the catholic church within a period of three months from the date of my death and such gifts are also subject to and dependent my children attending my funeral.".