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.
Sanity triumphant over mendacity, for once. I pray for more news like this. Mrs Schori’s greatest fear is that her organization will lose what little credibility remains to it by borrowing the (waning) legitimacy of the Anglican Communion and enforcing a unitary domestic structure. With one or both of these mirages dissipated where will she and her clique be? At the helm of a ship they took over with expectations of power and glory for themselves and their agenda which instead is sinking unmourned by few.
Folks really do need to be precise and careful when speaking of a court’s “ruling.” Looking to the four corner’s of the judge’s order, the only decision reached is that the two lawyers were barred from claiming to represent the either the diocese or the legal corporation “assoicated with Bishop Iker.” No more and no less. All of the remaining assertions about the judge’s rulings appear to be related to comments that the judge is reported to have made in connection with in court argument. Regardless of what the judge may have said about his assessment of the claims being asserted by either TEC, the “continuing diocese”, or the diocese and corporation associated with Bishop Iker, those comments are neither rulings, findings, orders nor a judgment of the court (at least not yet).
Joe Roberts
I agree with No 2. This is all just very preliminary stuff ironing out who can be called what for purposes of issuing pleadings and petitions. There is a long way to go before any of this has any legal or precedent value in Texas.
Although I do note with interest the terminology being used here, and that being a issue of so much talked about in the civil war: secession.
Preliminary or not, TEC will have to (for now) change a major legal strategy. They will simply not be able to reconstitute a diocese willy nilly, and then argue it is the real diocese, while the legally constituted and operating one remains just that, legally constituted and operating.
The article does not say the judge ruled that dioceses may withdraw, only the headline said that. The article said the judge stated dioceses may withdraw from the Episcopal Church.
Let us not be so fast on drawing long range conculsions about
informal and summary judgments in a minor court.
Mr. Conger, I think your article overstates what the Judge did. I agree with the earlier comments concerning the ruling.
Mr. Dedmon, I agree with the thrust of your comment, but if you could indulge my picking a terminological nit in your post. YOu refer to an “informal and summary judgment”, and I think that you probably mean a ruling on a preliminary motion before the court. A “summary judgment” is a major motion in a a case, in which the moving party argues, in essence, that even if all of the arguments and allegations made by the other party are true, there is not sufficient grounds for that other party to win. Granting a motion for summary judgment means that the side making the motion wins, and the case is over, at least at that level, and subject to appeals both on the granting of the summary judgment and/or the merits of the case. If Judge Chupp were to grant a summary judgment for either side this case, it would be a big deal.
Two points to keep in mind here.
First, the importance of a judicial decision is not just the procedural ruling, but the essential legal reasoning behind it. Extraneous reasoning is regarded as “dicta,” but essential reasoning is part of what is considered the “holding” of the decision. One can illustrate this point very simply by pointing to the common procedural “ruling” by an appellate court, “vacated and remanded.” Anyone who claimed that the opinion of the appellate court was irrelevant (“offhand remarks”) and that all that mattered was the four corners of the order would be seriously in error.
Second, in this case, while we have the text of the order issued by Judge Chupp, we do not (yet) have the transcript of his reasons for the order. We do have, however, second hand reports by both sides. Mr. Conger quotes very specific and detailed reports by Bp. Iker’s side. The other side is less specific: the judge made “offhand remarks” or as Jim Naughton put it “It can, perhaps, be argued that the judge in his comments (which are not part of and shouldn’t be confused with his ruling) and questions indicated a predisposition to the Iker-ites point of view.”
So, what is a reasonable interpretation of the judge’s order? The key language is as follows: “Upon conclusion of the hearing, the Court finds that the attorneys cited to appear have not discharged their burden of proof that they were hired by individuals holding positions at the time of the hiring within The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth and The Corporation of The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth that are associated with Bishop Iker.” The order then bars these lawyers from representing these entities. There are two interpretations of this language on offer.
The TEC loyalists claim it merely bars their lawyers from representing Bp. Iker, which they never claimed to do. But does anyone think the judge would issue such a nonsensical order? Everyone, including the judge, knows the TEC lawyers don’t represent Bp. Iker, and had no “burden of proof” to show they did. This interpretation is the equivalent of denying the defendants motion. If that was his intention, why did he sign the defendants’ order, instead of merely denying their motion? This interpretation also fails to explain the detailed quotes reported by Mr. Conger, but dismissed as offhand (and note: not denied) by the loyalists.
The other interpretation is that the judge ruled that The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth and The Corporation of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth [are] associated with Bishop Iker. The loyalist lawyers cannot represent these entities because these entities are associated with Bp. Iker and are represented by Shelby Sharpe. The loyalist lawyers could appear in the case on behalf of “New Diocese” but not the named diocese. (We all know that such a “New Diocese” could not make any remotely-plausible legal claim against The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, but the judge is not deciding that at this point.) This interpretation makes the best sense of the judge’s reported reasoning. And it also makes the most sense of the judge’s statement at the conclusion of week one’s hearing, which we can read firsthand, that “I have a real problem right now with them representing the Fort Worth Diocese, okay. I really do. I don’t think they can show me that — that the vote in November was something they couldn’t do. But I’m asking them to show me something in the canons or somewhere that says they can’t do that.”
We cannot know for sure until we read the transcript next week what the judge intended. And the judge could in any event reverse himself at a later point. But it should be emphasized that the interpretation of the ruling offered by the TEC loyalists turns the judge’s ruling into an absurdity.