The Diocese of Forth Worth has filed its response to the Episcopal Church’s Motion for Summary Judgment in the Texas property cases. In its brief, the diocese states that national church’s motion tortures the language of the Texas Supreme Court ruling that sent the dispute back to the Tarrant County court. “Plaintiffs often change the words of a quotation in a way that changes its meaning” and truncates quotations. “For example, Plaintiffs say the Court must defer to TEC because issues like who can be church members are ecclesiastical questions. To support this, they truncate a sentence from the Texas Supreme Court’s opinion in this case by cutting out the part that says just the opposite.” The diocesan brief further argues that under Texas law there are no express or constructive trusts in favor of the national church over the property, and that national church claims this dispute should be adjudicated by IRS rules or statutes governing Freemasons have no merit.
