Excerpted from the Episcopal Church’s Diocese of Fort Worth, responding to the U.S. Supreme Court’s declining a case review on Monday:
Because the case was remanded in August 2013 by the Texas Supreme Court for further proceedings, that decision was “interlocutory” or non-final, which the U.S. Supreme Court rarely accepts for review. Thus, while the Episcopal Parties are disappointed not to have the faster resolution the U.S. Supreme Court could have offered, they look forward to filing their summary judgment papers and showing why the breakaway faction’s decades of commitments are enforceable under basic neutral principles of Texas law.
Denial of review of an interlocutory order does not set precedent on the issues raised, and the Episcopal Parties may still raise the legal issues from the interlocutory petition in the event the case is later appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, the Right Rev. Rayford B. High, Jr., reminds the Episcopalians in the diocese that, while this order and the consequent additional delay is disappointing, it does not change the mission and ministry of the many Episcopalians who continue to constitute the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth. “We continue the exciting work to be The Episcopal Church in this part of Texas and to be the local witnesses and prophetic voices of the Church as North Texans continue to search for spiritual wholeness.”
Image by Phil Roeder, via Wikimedia Commons
