FORT WORTH: Continuing diocese has right to sue breakaway group, judge rules
Episcopal News Service. September 17, 2009 [091709-02]
Pat McCaughan
A Texas judge's September 16 ruling established that attorneys for The Episcopal Church and the continuing Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth have a right to sue to determine who and what constitutes the legitimate Fort Worth diocese and for an accounting of church property and assets held by a breakaway group.
It was the only ruling issued by the Hon. John Chupp of the 141st District Court of Tarrant County during Wednesday's hearing, according to Katie Sherrod, spokesperson for the continuing diocese.
The judge also set an October 15 date to hear additional arguments in what Bishop Edwin F. Gulick Jr. of Kentucky and provisional bishop of Fort Worth has called "a ministry of the recovery of identity and resources after the storm of schism."
Sherrod said that Chupp's ruling essentially sets the stage for attorneys for The Episcopal Church and the continuing diocese to present arguments that as a hierarchical church, diocesan property and assets are held in trust for the mission and ministry of the wider Episcopal Church.
"Essentially, the court … ruled that we had the right to continue to sue the defendants and establish our right to seek declarative judgment," according to Sherrod. "The defendants lost on their main argument that we should not be able to sue the defendants because they are the rightful diocese. The court left that determination for a later hearing."
The defendants include former diocesan leadership as well as former Bishop Jack Iker who, citing longstanding theological differences over the ordination of women and gays, in November 2008 disaffiliated from The Episcopal Church. He attempted to realign the diocese with the Argentina-based Anglican Province of the Southern Cone but refused to relinquish property or assets, including St. Vincent's Cathedral in Bedford, a Fort Worth suburb.
The continuing diocese reorganized, electing Gulick and other diocesan leadership at a February 2009 special meeting of the diocesan convention convened by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.
After Gulick's request for a peaceful and orderly transition of property and assets was ignored, attorneys for The Episcopal Church and the continuing diocese in April sued to recover them.
At Wednesday's hearing, Chupp denied a motion "by Bishop Iker's attorneys to remove the diocese and the corporation from the lawsuit filed April 14, 2009," Sherrod said.
Chupp also said continuing diocesan chancellor Kathleen Wells and attorney Jon Nelson are not authorized to represent the diocese or the corporation that are associated with Iker -- a statement hailed as a victory Wednesday by the former bishop.
"We are pleased that Judge Chupp has recognized the legitimacy of the vote of our Diocesan Convention in November 2008 to withdraw from the General Convention of the Episcopal Church and has ruled that we had the legal right to amend our Constitution in order to do so," Iker said in a statement released to the media. "This is a positive step in support of the position we have taken."
But Sherrod disputed that interpretation, saying that Wells and Nelson never claimed to represent Iker. "The judge did comment quite a bit and asked questions, but he made no other rulings. We now await the October 15 hearing."
The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth was organized in 1982 as a constituent member of The Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion.