Prayer and Fasting on Friday, October 2nd.

I am inviting everyone in the Diocese to join me in a morning of fasting and prayer this Friday, Oct. 2nd, as Judge John Chupp considers three motions we have put before him in the 141st District Court. The hearing begins at 9 a.m. on the fourth floor of the Family Law Center, located at 200 E. Weatherford Street (one block east of the old court house, on the south side of the street).

In the first motion the Diocese is asking leave to file a third-party petition against the persons elected as provisional bishop and as members of the Standing Committee at a meeting held on Feb. 7, 2009. This is to bring before the court those persons who have authorized the suit against the Diocese and the Corporation Trustees in order to determine the legitimacy of their election.

In the second motion the Diocese and the Corporation Trustees request that the Plaintiffs' Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (scheduled for Oct. 15) be postponed (in legal parlance, continued) until such time that all parties are in the suit and that a reasonable time for investigation of the facts has been established.

The last motion requests that the Court correct its Rule 12 ruling of Sept. 16 so that it will permit the local Plaintiff attorneys, Jonathan D. F. Nelson and Kathleen Wells, to represent only the people who have hired them, not the Diocese and the Diocesan Corporation.

Pray especially for wisdom and guidance for our attorney, Shelby Sharpe, and for clarity and truth in the decisions of the Court.

The Rt. Rev. Jack Leo Iker
Bishop of Fort Worth
Sept. 29, 2009
Feast of St. Michael and All Angels