Marriage
New FRC Report Finds 162 Reasons to Marry
To celebrate National Marriage Week, Family Research Council's Marriage and ...
Opinion
Gay by Choice?
Are all homosexuals "born that way"? Not if you believe the testimony of a ...
Theology
10 Reasons to Believe in a Historical Adam
In recent years, several self-proclaimed evangelicals, or those associated with ...
Church & Ministries
Former Megachurch Pastor Goes Church Hopping as a Newcomer
When finally given the opportunity to simply attend, and not preside or preach ...
A group of churches in Texas that split from The Episcopal Church (TEC) is asking a civil court to dismiss a lawsuit that was filed against it last month by the U.S.-based church body and a diocese that shares its name.
In a 12-page motion, the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth asked the 141st District Court to take a “judicial notice,” arguing that a civil court lacks jurisdiction because in order to grant the plaintiffs’ requests it would be required to resolve an ecclesiastical dispute.
“If the legal and equitable relief sought from the Court can only be determined by deciding between competing interpretations of purely unambiguous ecclesiastical documents where plaintiffs seek to have the Court interpret ecclesiastical language, does the Court have subject-matter jurisdiction to grant the relief sought?” poses the motion filed Friday on behalf of the group.
Last month the smaller Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, along with representatives of TEC, filed a lawsuit against the five-person Board of Trustees for the Corporation of the larger Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth and the diocese’s bishop, Jack Iker, who voted along with the majority of the original Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth to withdraw from the denomination and realign with the more conservative Anglican Province of the Southern Cone.
In November 2008, the breakaway diocese had become the fourth to split from The Episcopal Church, the U.S. arm of the worldwide Anglican Communion, citing what they believe is the denomination's departure from Christian orthodoxy and Anglican tradition.
About 80 percent of clergy and parishioners had voted to sever ties. Others who did not vote in favor of leaving have since reorganized as a diocese. Both the breakaway diocese and the remaining one call themselves the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, the former calling the latter “newly formed” while the latter says it is merely a continuation of the one originally organized in 1982.
Like us on Facebook
The lawsuit, filed April 14, asks that the breakaway diocese to stop using the name, seal, and other intellectual property of the diocese, and to return “all property held by or for the Diocese ... for the Church and the Diocese.”
The breakaway group, however, insists that all claims alleged in the suit seek relief from the court that is outside its jurisdiction.
“Thus, the only valid and enforceable order the Court can sign is one of dismissal of all claims,” the response filed Friday states.
