The Breakaway Defendants have filed a motion to expedite the setting of the oral argument in our diocesan litigation pending before the Texas Supreme Court. The breakaway parties cited as reasons their declining membership and donations, the defection of several of their key breakaway leaders to the Roman Catholic Church, and the reported pending internal Church disciplinary proceedings under ecclesiastical canon law against the seven retired or current bishops who filed papers against the position of The Episcopal Church and the loyal Episcopal parties in our diocesan case.
While the loyal Episcopal parties preserved their objection to the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction over a direct appeal that bypasses the Court of Appeals, the Episcopal parties did not object to the breakaways’ request to hear oral argument on October 16, 2012, the same day that the Court will hear arguments in the related Masterson case. In Masterson, a San Angelo trial court and the Austin Court of Appeals both found that the breakaway parties had no right to take historic Episcopal Church property that they had sworn to protect, just as the Fort Worth trial court found in our diocesan case.