In a hearing…[yesterday] Judge Ralph Walton granted three motions favoring St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Fort Worth, as well as the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth and the Corporation of the Diocese. At issue in the case is payment of a bequest made to St. Andrew’s in 2002 by a longtime parishioner. As he had done in past hearings on earlier motions, Judge Walton dismissed attempts by representatives of the national leadership of The Episcopal Church (TEC) to bring issues from a case pending in Tarrant County into the trust case before the Hood County court.

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A local group representing the national Episcopal Church has hit a legal snag in its attempt to take control of the property of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth.

The 2nd Court of Appeals ruled Friday that the group’s attorneys, who filed a lawsuit on behalf of “The Corporation” and “The Fort Worth Diocese,” cannot represent those entities because the entities are also associated with Bishop Jack Iker, the defendant in the lawsuit.

The appellate court noted that there is only one corporation and diocese, which both sides are staking claim to.

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The Court’s opinion and order represent an unqualified victory for the Diocese and Corporation headed by the Rt. Rev. Jack L. Iker, which were both established in 1983. Here is the essential quote from the Court of Appeals’ opinion:

It is undisputed that there is only one Corporation and only one Fort Worth Diocese, regardless of how those entities are named or characterized in the underlying suit – whether as entities, as individuals “holding themselves out” as those entities, or as individuals “associated with” one or the other Bishop. There is a single Fort Worth Diocese and Corporation, which both a majority and a minority faction claim to control. The attorneys whose authority is challenged are either authorized to represent those two entities or they are not. But the trial court has barred them from representing only the Corporation and the Fort Worth Diocese associated with the Iker Group. We are aware of no statute or common law rule allowing attorneys to prosecute a suit in the name of a corporation or other entity on behalf of only one faction or part of that corporation or entity against another part or faction.

…

Thus, the Court of Appeals has soundly rejected ECUSA’s Machiavellian strategy…. Although ECUSA’s own complaint (and motion for summary adjudication) will stand for the time being, Bishop Gulick and his five “trustees” will have all their pleadings stricken, and so will have to start from scratch. They will have to admit this time that the entities they claim to represent were newly organized in 2009, and that will undermine ECUSA’s position as argued in its motion as well. So my guess is that if this decision stands (and there is every reason to expect that it will, since it is so straightforward), ECUSA will have to refile its motion for summary adjudication also. Given the appellate court’s ruling as quoted above, ECUSA cannot go forward on its preferred theory that “dioceses never leave, only people do.” That is why this decision is such a huge victory for Bishop Iker and the true Diocese of Fort Worth.

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Read the opinion here (20 page pdf).

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However, unlike the case in San Joaquin, there is now a date that has been set for oral argument in the Court of Appeal — and it will occur in the same week that oral arguments have been set in the Supreme Court of Virginia on the litigation between ECUSA, the Diocese of Virginia, and the Anglican District of Virginia. (The latter Court has not yet published a specific date and time for argument, but has announced only that arguments will occur sometime during its session meeting from April 12 to 16.)

The Court of Appeals for the Second District of Texas, which hears appeals from Fort Worth, has announced that it will hear oral argument on the writ sought by the Episcopal Diocese and Bishop Jack Iker on Wednesday, April 14, beginning at 1:30 p.m.

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It is Mr. [Simon] Sarmiento who misled the members of General Synod, not Ms. Ashworth. Notice first of all that he evaded Ms. Ashworth’s point. She asserted that the Church’s lawsuits named individual vestry members as defendants, and he responded that such defendants are “generally covered” by insurance. (That has not been my experience in any church litigation with which I have been associated; only the largest Episcopal parishes can afford to budget for such insurance.) He does not deny that individual vestry members are named, but claims that no damages are sought against them.

This is, as I say, highly misleading. Any individual named in a lawsuit can be held liable for costs if he or she ends up losing; such costs in protracted cases (such as the Dennis Canon ones usually are) can run into the many thousands of dollars. And for an example where ECUSA sought $500,000 plus additional damages from a church’s law firm, one needs look no further than this earlier post. (The pseudo-diocese of San Joaquin has carried on the tradition by naming the individual vestry members and rector of St. John’s Anglican parish in Turlock as defendants in its latest lawsuit. The plaintiff Bishop Lamb made a point of telling his flock that it “is not a suit against any individuals.” But the story about the suit linked earlier has a copy of the complaint which you may download, and see for yourself that the defendants named [scroll down to page 5] include the rector and nine vestry members, who are sued “as individuals”. Those individuals still need to pay an attorney to defend them [no insurance is applicable], and there is always, as I say, individual liability for court costs if they lose [see paragraph H. of the prayer for relief on page 24 of the complaint (page 28 of the document)].)

But now we have a different kind of response to ECUSA’s bullying tactics — one might even say that ECUSA has sued one vestry member too many. For one such vestry member whom the Church named in a lawsuit to recover a parish’s property in San Angelo, Texas is also an attorney: his name is Mark Brown. And in his capacity as an attorney, Mark Brown has filed an amicus brief in the writ proceeding currently pending before the Court of Appeals in Fort Worth.

It is a brilliant brief, and may do far more damage to ECUSA’s claims in that case than ECUSA has been able to do to Mr. Brown.

Read it carefully and make sure to download and read the whole document by Mark Brown also.

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Jack Iker, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, was tired of fighting his church. As a conservative and traditionalist, he had long disagreed with its practice of ordaining women priests. He was deeply dismayed by its more recent consecration of a gay bishop, its policy of blessing same-sex unions, and its movement away from the Biblical teaching that salvation comes only through Jesus Christ. These changes, he felt, were all proof that his denomination had lost its way. And so, on November 15, 2008, after fifteen years as a bishop, Iker left the Episcopal Church.

But he did not leave alone. He took most of the Diocese of Fort Worth with him: 48 churches, 15,000 parishioners, and more than 58 clergy. The loyalist minority who did not follow him made up only 8 churches. And in a startling assertion of temporal power against a centuries-old establishment, Iker announced that he and his flock would be keeping their assets””hundreds of millions of dollars of real estate, buildings, and investments””the legacy of a century and a half of worship. He was leaving, in other words, but he wasn’t going anywhere.

Read it carefully and read it all.

When reviewing the major religion news stories in the Fort Worth area over the past year, one subject kept rising to the top ”” the Episcopalian split.

Two groups of Episcopalians ”” the breakaway group led by Bishop Jack Iker and the other that voted to stay in the national Episcopal Church ”” went separate ways, each claiming the title Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth.

Members of Iker’s group voted to leave the Episcopal Church, saying it has strayed from biblical principles in many ways, including ordaining an openly gay man, Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

Area Episcopalians who stayed in the national church reorganized the Fort Worth diocese, naming a provisional bishop, now the Right Rev. C. Wallis Ohl, to replace Iker. Also, they, along with the national church, filed suit in Tarrant County’s 141st District Court, seeking that Iker’s group give up all church property in the 24-county diocese.

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Forty seven parishes and missions of the diocese have filed a Plea in Intervention in the lawsuit against the diocese that is currently before the 141st District Court. Collectively, the 47 churches are termed the “Intervening Congregations.”

The plea asks the court to acknowledge through a declaratory judgment that, “in accordance with the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, the title to the real property being occupied and subject to the control of Intervening Congregations is held by the Corporation of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth in trust for the use and benefit of each Intervening Congregation” and that this trust relationship is superior to any other claims.

Read it all and check the pdf linked at the bottom also.

Now that the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth and the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth (Southern Cone) are separate entities, they are both reporting unanimous decisions by their respective legislative bodies. The decisions move the dioceses away from one another and toward their respective theological commitments.

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The Fort Worth Court of Appeals has ordered the suspension of further proceedings in a suit brought against the diocese last April. The stay was issued late on Monday, Nov. 16, in response to a Petition for Writ of Mandamus filed by the diocese on Friday, Nov. 13. The suit is pending before the 141st District Court. The Hon. John P. Chupp is the trial judge.

Monday’s order, issued by the Court of Appeals for the Second District of Texas, says, “The court has considered relators’ [the diocese’s] petition for writ of madamus and motion for stay and is of the tentative opinion that relators are entitled to relief or that a serious question concerning the relief requires further consideration.” The order sets a deadline of 5 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 30, for any response to be filed by parties of interest, who could include Judge Chupp and attorneys Jonathan Nelson and Kathleen Wells. The stay is in effect until the Court of Appeals issues a decision.

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Kneeling during an ancient laying-on-of-hands ritual, the Rev. Susan Slaughter on Sunday became the first woman ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth.

Among a sea of friends, relatives and colleagues gathered at St. Luke’s in the Meadow Episcopal Church, Slaughter was ordained by the Right Rev. Edwin F. “Ted” Gulick Jr., bishop of the Diocese of Kentucky, who has also been serving as provisional bishop of the Fort Worth Diocese.

A letter of congratulations from Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori read by Gulick said: “I give thanks to God for this sign of the resurrection of the Diocese of Fort Worth. Susan, may his light shine through you. May the widow’s gifts spread throughout your diocese.”

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What a joy and delight it was to participate in our diocesan convention this past weekend! I can tell you that after 35 years of ordained ministry, having attended annual conventions year after year, both here and in two other dioceses, seldom can they be described as joyful or delightful! Too often they are contentious, boring, and frustrating! But let the record show that this one was indeed very different! It was a great experience, and I think that everyone who attended will agree.

All six resolutions were adopted unanimously and without dissension! Gone were the contentious debates of the past between opposing sides! We spoke with one mind and one voice. Likewise, everyone was in agreement about the need for the proposed amendments to the diocesan Constitution and Canons. We even agreed on the adoption of a budget of over $1,981,000 and parish assessments to support it, without one dissenting vote!

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For three decades, a succession of conservative bishops here barred women from being ordained as priests in the Episcopal Church.

But the conservatives went their own way last fall, forming the Anglican Church in North America. And so on Sunday, exactly one year after that schism, Susan Slaughter will become the first woman in the Episcopal Church’s Forth Worth diocese to don a red stole for ordination to the priesthood.

“God works in mysterious ways,” Ms. Slaughter said, “and this is one of those.”

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As two former Episcopal dioceses hold conventions this weekend, they are beginning to incorporate congregations from across the nation.

The Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh will vote on welcoming Harvest Anglican Church, Homer City, Pa.; Church of the Transfiguration, Cleveland, Ohio; HolyTrinityChurch, Raleigh, N.C.; and St. James Church, San Jose, Calif.

The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth (Southern Cone) plans to receive St. Gabriel’s Anglican Church, Springdale, Ark., as a new mission station. It also will welcome two existing parishes: St. Matthias’ Anglican Church, Dallas; and Church of the Holy Spirit, Tulsa, Okla.

On Oct. 30, the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee went to court against St. Andrew’s Church, Nashville, which left the Episcopal Church in 2006 and has since announced its affiliation with the Diocese of Quincy (Ill.).

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Five new Congregations will be welcomed into the Diocese, with seat, voice, and vote, at our Annual Convention on November 6 and 7. The Church of Christ the Redeemer in Fort Worth will be recognized as a new mission church, with Fr. Christopher Culpepper as vicar. St.Francis Church in Dallas will be received as a new parish of the diocese; their rector in Fr. David Allen. The Bishop will introduce St. Gabriel’s Anglican Church in Springdale, Arkansas, as a new mission station, under the leadership of their rector, Fr. John Slavin. And then two parishes will be welcomed and seated under a new Parish Affiliation Agreement, authorized by the Bishop, Standing Committee, and Corporation of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth. They are St. Matthias’ Anglican Church in Dallas, Fr. Dwight Duncan, rector; and the Church of the Holy Spirit, Tulsa, Oklahoma, whose rector is Fr. Briane Turley.

Check them out.

The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth was long known as one of the most conservative in the Episcopal Church, and one measure was the refusal by its bishops to ordain women to the priesthood.

When a large majority of clergy and lay delegates of the diocese voted to follow Bishop Jack Iker’s recommendation and leave the Episcopal Church, that split the diocese into churches leaving the denomination (most of them) and those choosing to stay.

The group choosing to stay has long wanted to ordain women to the priesthood – and that will finally happen in Fort Worth this Sunday. Deacon Susan Slaughter will be the history-maker.

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But the provision for married clergy, which the Catholic church has made on a limited basis since at least the 1980s, remains a qualified one. Only unmarried men will be eligible to serve as bishops in the new dioceses, the Vatican said, consistent with a “long historical tradition” in both the Catholic and Orthodox churches.

Other details of the new rules remain unclear pending their still-unscheduled publication, but Cardinal William Levada, head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, suggested on Tuesday that the new dioceses will not ordain married men unless they have already started their preparation in Anglican seminaries, or permit unmarried priests to take wives after ordination.

For some potential converts, those qualifications are a deal breaker.

“I find the lack of a permanent provision for a married priesthood to be a serious obstacle to unity,” said Anglican Bishop Jack Iker of Fort Worth, who has considered joining the Catholic church in the past.

Read the whole article.

I have read with great interest various reports concerning today’s announcement from top officials in the Vatican about some new provisions being made whereby Anglicans may enter into full communion with the Holy See. For some time now I have understood that high-level discussions about this were taking place in Rome and that an announcement along these lines would be made before the end of the year. As today’s announcement indicates, a new Apostolic Constitution is soon to be released which will spell out Pope Benedict XVI’s response to Anglicans who wish to enter into full visible communion with the Roman Catholic Church.

Many Anglo-Catholics will welcome this development as a very generous and welcoming offer that enhances the Pastoral Provision that has been in place for several years for those seeking reunion with Rome. Other Anglicans who desire full communion with the See of Peter would prefer some sort of recognition of the validity of Anglican orders and the provision for inter-communion between Roman Catholics and Anglicans.

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The continuing diocese of the Episcopal Church in Forth Worth was reconstituted in February 2009 and is now led by Provisional Bishop The Right Rev. Edwin F. Gulick, Jr., Bishop of Kentucky. As a Bishop, Gulick already is a Trustee of the University; Kent Henning also is a Trustee from the continuing Ft. Worth Diocese and will continue in his appointment.

The Committee on Credentials recommended to the full Board that only the Trustees elected by the continuing Episcopal Diocese of Ft. Worth be seated on the University board.

“This action by the Board was carefully studied over a period of months and is consistent with the governance of the University as mandated by the Constitution and By-Laws,” Chancellor Parsley said.

The Constitution states that the University “must in all parts be under the sole and perpetual control of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America,” and represented in part by Trustees elected by the 28 dioceses that comprise the owning dioceses.

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The favorable ruling on the third-party motion, which has been before the court since its first hearing on Sept. 9, brings eight persons into the suit as third-party defendants: the Rt. Rev. Edwin F. Gulick, Margaret Mieuli, Walter Cabe, Anne T. Bass, the Rev. J. Frederick Barber, the Rev. Christopher Jambor, the Rev. David Madison, and Kathleen Wells. They are, respectively, the Provisional Bishop, Standing Committee, and Chancellor for the group of Episcopalians wishing to remain in The Episcopal Church following the diocese’s realignment at its November 2008 convention.

Shelby Sharpe, representing the diocese, argued for reconsideration of Judge Chupp’s previous Rule 12 order, which found that there are two dioceses and two corporations in the suit. In a memorandum submitted to the court on Oct. 1, he showed that the plaintiffs already had conceded in their original petition that there is only one Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, and he cited Texas case law requiring such admission to be binding.

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I am inviting everyone in the Diocese to join me in a morning of fasting and prayer this Friday, Oct. 2nd, as Judge John Chupp considers three motions we have put before him in the 141st District Court. The hearing begins at 9 a.m. on the fourth floor of the Family Law Center, located at 200 E. Weatherford Street (one block east of the old court house, on the south side of the street).

In the first motion the Diocese is asking leave to file a third-party petition against the persons elected as provisional bishop and as members of the Standing Committee at a meeting held on Feb. 7, 2009. This is to bring before the court those persons who have authorized the suit against the Diocese and the Corporation Trustees in order to determine the legitimacy of their election.

Read it carefully and read it all.

A member diocese of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) will consider a resolution that maintains the diocese’s ties with the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone.

The resolution is being proposed by the Diocese of Fort Worth’s standing committee. The diocese’s convention will meet on Nov. 6 and 7 in Arlington, Texas. The resolution commits the diocese to continued participation in the ACNA, but also “maintains its status as a member diocese in the Province of the Southern Cone while the formal process of recognition of [ACNA] continues in the Anglican Communion.”

“At this point, the Anglican Church in North America is not yet fully recognized as a province of the Anglican Communion,” the standing committee said in an explanation. “We are working towards that goal, but it is a lengthy process involving the primates, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Anglican Consultative Council.”

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And this is the fatal flaw that lies at the heart of ECUSA’s “winner-take-all” strategy. It tries to argue that a Diocese may never vote to leave, and that the only result of such a vote is that people leave, but the structure remains intact. But the people in question do not conveniently resign their positions, because in their view, they are leaving and taking the entire diocesan legal structure with them. So in their view, they are keeping their positions. Thus ECUSA has to come up with a way of claiming that those positions are in fact vacant. It goes through the charade of “deposing” the Bishop with far less than the required number of votes, but that does not solve the problem. The clergy deputies who voted for the amendment cannot be summarily removed without deposing them as well — a process that takes six months. And there is no mechanism whatsoever for summarily “deposing” or “removing” a lay deputy from office.

Without such resignations, and without any mechanism for removing lay Convention deputies, the very next “special meeting” of the Diocese which is called is null and void itself. For the duly elected deputies from the last Convention are the ones who should be seated, but they are barred from attending by the unconstitutional device of imposing a “loyalty oath”. And there cannot be a legal (one-third) quorum of loyalist clergy, because nearly nine-tenths of them went with Bishop Iker.

The problem of ECUSA and its remnant “Diocese” is that they just will not follow their own procedures to organize and become legitimate in the eyes of the law. Mr. Nelson, Bishop Gulick’s attorney, even (unwittingly) described his own clients to the court and spelled out what they ought to have done (id. at 57):

MR. NELSON: What I’m saying is that the body gets together, and then it must be approved by the general convention in order to be a valid diocese. It can get together and call itself a diocese, but until it’s approved and until that diocese agrees to accede to the constitution and canons of the Episcopal Church, it is not a diocese and cannot be a diocese.

Read it carefully and read it all.

As we reported last Wednesday, at the conclusion of its hearing the 141st Court granted partial relief in response to our Rule 12 Motion by amending the text of the motion.

In a Motion for Reconsideration (below), filed yesterday, the Diocese is asking the Court to grant full relief by declaring that, as a matter of law, there is only one Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth and one Corporation of the diocese. This would not prevent attorneys Jonathan Nelson and Kathleen Wells from representing the individuals who hired them, but they would not represent them as duly-elected officers of the Diocese or Corporation.

Read it all and carefully follow the links.

Check it out (58 page pdf).

There is nothing in the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church that prevents a diocese from seceding from the national church, a Texas judge declared on Sept 16.

On Wednesday Judge John Chupp of Texas’ 141st District Court handed the Episcopal Church a major setback in its campaign to seize the assets of breakaway dioceses, stating that of the two entities holding themselves out as the “Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth”—Bishop Jack Iker and his diocese affiliated with the Province of the Southern Cone and Bishop Edwin Gulick and his Episcopal Church-affiliated diocese—Bishop Iker’s diocese was the lawful holder of that name, corporate seal and property.

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