[T]he finding here that TEC and the Diocese have a contractual and proprietary interest in the property of these Episcopal churches is no more than a recognition that, while the CANA Congregations had an absolute right to depart from TEC and the Diocese, they had no right to take these seven Episcopal churches with them.
On January 6, 2012, the Texas Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction of the breakaway defendants’ appeal from Judge John P. Chupp’s February 8, 2011 partial summary judgment in favor of The Episcopal Church and the local officials and congregations of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth. The Texas Supreme Court will set a briefing schedule and date for oral argument.
Bishop Victoria Matthews asks for prayers as Christchurch, New Zealand suffers another major earthquake almost one year after a similar temblor struck the city and region.
Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge J. Mac Davis ordered the immediate return of the real and personal property of St. Edmund’s Episcopal Church in Elm Grove to its parishioners and the Diocese of Milwaukee. This order was issued at a hearing held Thursday, December 16 in Waukesha County Circuit Court.
Episcopal dioceses that have relationships with the Episcopal Church of Sudan have begun to respond to a letter recently released by Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul, in which he rescinded an invitation to Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori to visit with his church.
Lisa Miller’s recent story on Bishop Mariann Budde of the Diocese of Washington has kicked off some interesting conversation in the On Faith section of The Washington Post’s website.
With a transfer of keys, historic Christ Church on Johnson Square in Savannah came back into the possession of Christ Church Episcopal.
The provisional Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth issued a statement clarifying the position of the diocese regarding a breakaway parish and former Episcopal priest who wish to become Roman Catholic and the status of the Episcopal Church they worship in.
The bishops of the Episcopal Church’s Province IV have asked their colleague, Diocese of South Carolina Bishop Mark Lawrence, to meet with them “to have a clarifying conversation” about his decision to issue property deeds to each diocesan congregation.
The abandonment canon (Title IV, Canon16) is quite specific, designating only three courses of action by which a Bishop is to be found to have abandoned the church: first, “by an open renunciation of the Doctrine, Discipline or Worship of the Church”; second, “by formal admission into any religious body not in communion with” the Church; and, third, “by exercising Episcopal acts in and for a religious body other than the Church…