The state’s highest court rejected a motion for Emergency Temporary Relief, allowing an earlier ruling against the mainline Protestant denomination to be implemented. As a result, The Episcopal Church has to surrender all financial accounts, property and records that it had removed from the diocesan properties that formerly were part of the denomination. “Today’s rejection is the third loss for Episcopal Church parties in the state Supreme Court and permits enforcement of the judgment to continue,” noted the Fort Worth Diocese in a statement.

The Texas Supreme Court has once again rejected an effort by The Episcopal Church to secure the property and assets of a diocese that broke away over theological differences.

For the past several years, the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth has been engaged in a legal battle against the Episcopal Church over the property and assets of the regional body.

In an order released Tuesday, the state’s highest court rejected a motion for Emergency Temporary Relief, allowing an earlier ruling against the mainline Protestant denomination to be implemented.

As a result, The Episcopal Church has to surrender all financial accounts, property and records that it had removed from the diocesan properties that formerly were part of the denomination.

“Today’s rejection is the third loss for Episcopal Church parties in the state Supreme Court and permits enforcement of the judgment to continue,” noted the Fort Worth Diocese in a statement.

In 2008, a majority of the Fort Worth Diocese voted to leave The Episcopal Church over the increasingly progressive theological views of the denomination, especially the ordination of the denomination’s first openly gay bishop, the Rev. Gene Robinson.

Read More