The Fort Worth Episcopal Diocese last weekend voted to sever its ties with the national Episcopal Church.

The diocese is the fourth to break with the national church over the past year because of its drift away from doctrinal orthodoxy.

“The time has come for a new path,” Episcopal Bishop Jack Iker of Fort Worth said Nov. 15 at the diocese’s annual meeting, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. “The Episcopal Church you once knew no longer exists. It’s been hijacked.”

The Fort Worth diocese has temporarily associated itself with the more orthodox Anglican Province of the Southern Cone.

In a statement about the Fort Worth diocese’s decision, Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said, “The gospel work to which Jesus calls us demands the best efforts of faithful people from many theological and social perspectives, and the Episcopal Church will continue to welcome that diversity.”

In August, the Dallas Morning News reported that a delegation of Episcopal priests from the Fort Worth diocese had met with Catholic Bishop Kevin Vann of Fort Worth to discuss the possibility of coming into communion with the Church.

According to the Morning News, the delegation gave Bishop Vann a document that “states that the overwhelming majority of Episcopal clergy in the Fort Worth diocese favor pursuing an ‘active plan’ to bring the diocese into full communion with the Catholic Church.”

A spokesman for Bishop Vann confirmed to the Morning News that he had met with the delegation.

— Tom McFeely