September 10, 2009
By Pat McCaughan

A Texas judge continued until next week a September 9 hearing regarding an aspect in ongoing litigation between the Episcopal Church, the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, and a breakaway group seeking to challenge the authority of the attorneys and leaders of the reorganized diocese to institute the litigation.

The Hon. John P. Chupp set 2 p.m., Wednesday, September 16 as a new hearing date in Tarrant County's 141st District Court. Attorneys for the Fort Worth diocese and the breakaway group are expected to argue their group is the legitimate authority for the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth.

"We find ourselves in a ministry of the recovery of identity and resources after the storm of schism," according to a statement by Bishop Edwin F. Gulick Jr. of Kentucky, who was elected provisional bishop of Fort Worth during a February 2009 special meeting of the diocesan convention.

"It is stewardship work and we do it deliberately and prayerfully and with urgency so that we can be the most effective community we can be," said Gulick, who wrote about the litigation in "The Fall – Season of New Beginnings," a reflection posted on the diocesan website.

In motions filed September 3, attorneys for the Episcopal Church and the reorganized diocese cited both Texas law and the First Amendment in support of their argument that the property and assets of dioceses and congregations are held in trust for the mission and ministry of the wider Episcopal Church.

"Texas authority establishes that a constituent part of a hierarchical church is comprised of those remaining loyal to the hierarchical denomination," according to a statement released to the media September 4.

"The First Amendment requires the courts to defer to a church's own determinations concerning ecclesiastical issues, including the identity of its leaders and constituent parts," the statement said.

Additionally, an affidavit sworn to by Dr. Robert Bruce Mullin, a professor of church history at the General Theological Seminary in New York City, "lays out the history of the Episcopal Church and its Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, tracing a bright line of unqualified accession to the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church back to the establishment of the Missionary District of the Southwest by the Episcopal Church in 1838," according to the release.

Mullin's statement establishes "that a diocese cannot unilaterally leave the Episcopal Church," according to the press release.

In November 2008, former Fort Worth Bishop Jack Iker and other diocesan leadership, citing disagreements over the ordination of women and gays, realigned themselves with the Argentina-based Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. They refused to relinquish diocesan property and assets, including the Cathedral of St. Vincent in Bedford, a Fort Worth suburb.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori convened a special meeting of the diocesan convention in February 2009, which elected Gulick as provisional bishop along with other diocesan leadership, according to the press release.

Gulick's request for a peaceful and orderly transition of property and assets was ignored. In April, attorneys for the Episcopal Church and the continuing diocese sued Iker and former diocesan authorities to recover church properties and other assets still occupied or held by the breakaway group.

On August 27, attorneys for the former diocesan officials filed motions in Tarrant County's 141st District Court seeking to challenge the authority of Gulick and other officials of the continuing diocese.

"The first motion challenges the authority of the attorneys who have brought suit against the Diocese and the Trustees of the Diocesan Corporation to prove that they were hired by individuals who had the authority to hire them," Iker wrote in a statement on that diocese's website at http://www.fwepiscopal.org/.

"The second motion is one brought by the [breakaway diocese] asking the court for permission to bring into the suit those individuals who hired the attorneys who have brought the suit against us and our trustees. Those individuals claim to hold offices in the Diocese to which they have never been legally elected," according to Iker's statement.

In their September 3 motions, attorneys for the Episcopal Church and the reorganized diocese filed a motion asking the court for a partial summary judgment, or to issue a ruling without going to trial on undisputed facts of the case, contending that the Episcopal Church has a hierarchical structure and that under that structure dioceses are not permitted to disaffiliate from the Episcopal Church or take diocesan property.

Attorneys for the Episcopal Church and the reorganized Fort Worth diocese have also asked for an accounting of properties and assets held by Iker and other former diocesan leadership.

Episcopal News Service
The Rev. Pat McCaughan is Episcopal Life Media correspondent for Provinces VII and VIII and the House of Bishops. She is based in Los Angeles.