The Texas Supreme Court today granted a petition for review to the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth in its litigation with the Episcopal Church over the property and assets of the diocese. Oral argument in the case “The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth v The Episcopal Church” on appeal from Tarrant County and the 2nd Court of Appeals District (02-15-00220-CV, 547 SW3d 353, 04-05-18) is scheduled for 5 December 2019. Each side will be granted 20 minutes to present their case.
The national Episcopal church’s attempt to take all the property from the diocese and its parishes is why this is in court.
It happens that TEC, before the Dennis Canon approval, in 1979, didn´t claimed property ownership of any diocese or church.
In fact, ACNA doesn`t claim property ownership. Any diocese or parish can leave with their properties anytime.
Frankly I wish they’d just walk away and leave TEC with empty buildings. But TEC would probably just sell them to the Muslims. When parishes began to leave, there were several instances of good-faith negotiation between parishes and the local ordinary. But Kathi put a stop to that. So ask her.
I assume that the parish you note left for the “Ordinatriate” (more likely its predecessor “Anglican Rite”) before 2006. Dennis Canon aside, virtually all authority over property remained with the local bishop until it was grasped away by Jefforts-Schori and her attorneys.
[…] Read it all. print […]
Let’s see…..
Granted, this is from memory on a holiday weekend….
The Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America divided from the Church of England by vote of a conference in 1787 and general convention of 1789, taking millions of dollars (in current dollars, into the billions) of property, without any compensation to the Church of England. Congregations left PECUSA to join Methodist, Presbyterian, and Congregationalist Churches in the late 18th and into the 19th century, taking property with them. The Reformed Episcopal Church broke away in the late 19th century, again keeping some parish property (one of the precedents in the state of Illinois that I believe came up in the multiple attempts by TEC to seize the diocese and parishes in Quincy). Some of the parishes that left to form what has become known as “the Continuum” in the 1970s kept their property – it was partially in response that the Dennis Canon was proposed in 1979. Since then, parishes leaving for Rome have been allowed to make a cash settlement for property. There have even been a few more or less amicable departures for ACNA where the local bishop was willing to ignore the standing orders from 815 that church buildings should be burnt to the ground rather than be sold to ACNA congregations. TEC also offered to sell to departing congregations if the congregation signed a contract that they would not join ACNA. I don’t know if any took them up on it.
Essentially, until the late 1990s, all but a few property disputes of this sort were handled relatively amicably. Between 2000 and 2010, TEC deposed more bishops and clergy, and initiated more lawsuits against parishes and dioceses, than in all its history before and since.