Supreme Court of Texas
                             ══════════
                              No. 23-0703
                             ══════════

         Southern Methodist University and Paul J. Ward,
                               Petitioners,

                                    v.

South Central Jurisdictional Conference of the United Methodist
               Church and Bishop Scott Jones,
                              Respondents

   ═══════════════════════════════════════
              On Petition for Review from the
       Court of Appeals for the Fifth District of Texas
   ═══════════════════════════════════════

        JUSTICE YOUNG, joined by Justice Devine and Justice Sullivan in
full, and by Chief Justice Blacklock as to Parts I, III, and IV, concurring.

      The Court gets today’s case right. SMU’s articles of incorporation
clearly state that SMU is “to be forever owned, maintained and controlled
by the South Central Jurisdictional Conference of The United Methodist
Church,” whose predecessor created SMU as part of its religious mission.
Among the forms of “control[]” that the articles expressly reserve to the
Conference is that “[n]o amendment to these Articles of Incorporation
shall ever be made” unless the Conference “affirmatively authorize[s] and
approve[s]” the amendment.
      But in 2019, SMU attempted to amend those articles of
incorporation without the Conference’s consent. They were not just any
old amendments, either. Instead, they purported to eliminate all the
Conference’s authority and indeed all reference to the Conference. SMU
sought to do to the Conference what Pharaoh (according to Cecil B.
DeMille, at least) sought to do to Moses: “Let the name of Moses be
stricken from every book and tablet, stricken from all pylons and obelisks,
stricken from every monument of Egypt.” The Ten Commandments
(Paramount Pictures 1956).
      The Court holds today that Texas law allows the Conference—and
any religious organization that creates a corporation to achieve its
mission—to protect its rights and petition a Texas court to determine
whether the corporation’s articles of incorporation were lawfully
amended. And if they were not, the result will be to restore a religious
organization’s authority and autonomy.
      Multiple paths lead to today’s judgment. The clearest and most
basic, as the Court describes, is found in § 22.207 of the Business
Organizations Code. That statute’s text focuses exclusively on religious
organizations’ authority to control nonprofit corporations—the exact
circumstance of this case. The statute does very little, if anything, if it
does not manifest authority for religious organizations to defend that
control even in the face of more generic statutory rules, such as the general
limitation on lawsuits in § 20.002 of the Business Organizations Code.
      Beyond its correctness as a matter of pure statutory interpretation,
the Court’s approach prevents us from having to formally address a
different path to the same outcome: the church-autonomy doctrine. It is
always preferable to resolve a case on nonconstitutional grounds when




                                     2
possible. But that constitutional doctrine still looms over the dispute, in
part because § 22.207 codifies some of its principles. I therefore gladly
join the Court’s opinion but write separately for three distinct reasons.
      First, as the Court observes, its reading of § 22.207 would flow from
the doctrine of constitutional avoidance even if there were doubt about
whether § 22.207 authorizes declaratory-judgment actions. Ante at 18.
In fact, even absent § 22.207, this Court may have read § 20.002 in favor
of religious autonomy; with § 22.207, we face no such difficult choice.
Through that provision, the legislature has lifted a regulation that would
otherwise burden religious self-governance.
      Second, the church-autonomy doctrine, which underlies § 22.207,
is a constitutional principle of literally transcendent importance.
Reaching any result other than the one the Court reaches today would
pose grave concerns under the doctrine because it would threaten
religious organizations’ authority to govern themselves. This Court has
had only a handful of opportunities to address the church-autonomy
doctrine (which, of course, protects religious entities of any faith despite
the “church” shorthand). Significant questions about its scope and
application remain, as illustrated by the dueling briefs of the two amici
curiae in this case, First Liberty Institute and the Becket Fund for
Religious Liberty. Their briefs share many foundational premises and
express a common goal, yet they reach diametrically opposed outcomes.
I hope that these amici and others will continue examining the church-
autonomy doctrine so that in future cases, the risk of error on the Court’s
part will be reduced.
      Third, and relatedly, I write to call attention to the need to examine




                                     3
the Texas church-autonomy doctrine. Our cases thus far have turned only
on federal constitutional law. Federal principles, of course, are binding—
but they are not necessarily limiting. The Texas Constitution’s text is
markedly different in ways that, I suspect, may materially affect how
Texas courts analyzing church-autonomy disputes will react.              Our
Constitution strikes me as even more protective of the autonomy of
religious organizations. Texans have never purported to “grant” religious
freedom to anyone; they instead have always acknowledged it as an
inalienable right that government should protect.                The Texas
Constitution’s church-autonomy doctrine reflects our People’s deep
humility in affirmatively disclaiming any power, much less any intention,
to interfere in the relationship between God and man. Mapping our
Constitution’s distinct contours based on its original public meaning will,
again, require assistance from amici, the bar, the public, litigating parties,
and our colleagues on the lower courts.

                                      I

       Business Organizations Code § 22.207 makes this an easy case. It
does not just permit a board to be “elected” by a religious organization but
to be “controlled” by one. Without that statute, the Conference would
have to overcome Business Organizations Code § 20.002, which SMU
compellingly argues forecloses the Conference’s ability to challenge the
validity of the amendments to SMU’s articles of incorporation. SMU
likewise persuasively argues that articles of incorporation generally
cannot be the foundation for a breach-of-contract claim.
       As the Court today observes, the doctrine of constitutional
avoidance demands that we harmonize § 22.207 and § 20.002, thereby




                                      4
safeguarding constitutional protections enjoyed by religious organizations.
It is possible, in fact, that § 20.002 would not apply to entities like the
Conference even if § 22.207 did not exist. The U.S. Supreme Court’s
decision in NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago, 

 (1979),
shows why that might be so.
      In Catholic Bishop, the Court confronted the NLRB’s assertion of
authority to subject parochial schools to its jurisdiction under the
National Labor Relations Act. 

. If the Act in fact authorized
such jurisdiction, the Court would need “to resolve difficult and sensitive
questions arising out of the guarantees of the First Amendment Religion
Clauses.” 

. The Court was able to avoid those constitutional
questions by observing that “[t]here is no clear expression of an
affirmative intention of Congress that teachers in church-operated
schools should be covered by the Act,” 

, and then refusing to
interpret the Act as conferring jurisdiction over schools operated by
churches “in the absence of a clear expression of Congress’ intent to” do
so, 

. In other words, even though the Act did not expressly
exclude parochial schools, the Court refused to read it as including them
unless Congress made that intent clear.
      Similarly, and especially in a State that likely privileges religious
self-governance more than the minimum required by the federal
Constitution, I would expect greater clarity from the legislature before
concluding that it had imposed the limitations of § 20.002 on religious
organizations like the Conference. Of course, the Court today does not
decide whether § 20.002 is insufficient on its own to foreclose a religious
organization’s recourse to court to vindicate its control over a nonprofit




                                    5
corporation, and I do not purport to do so either. But under the Catholic
Bishop approach, it is far from implausible that this Court would
interpret § 20.002 in favor of religious autonomy.
      Fortunately, our legislature has provided the further guidance that
was lacking in Catholic Bishop, which is where § 22.207 enters the scene.
Rather than supplying the “clear expression of an affirmative intention”
to subject religious organizations to § 20.002, what we find is § 22.207,
which pushes in exactly the opposite way. Far from confirming that
religious organizations may lose their control when § 20.002 would apply,
it resoundingly reaffirms their control, and “it is a permissible legislative
purpose to alleviate significant governmental interference with the
ability of religious organizations to define and carry out their religious
missions.” Corp. of Presiding Bishop v. Amos, 

 (1987).
      As the Court observes, see ante at 20–21, our State’s Constitution—
unlike the federal Constitution—has imposed a duty upon the legislature
to pass laws to ensure that religious entities are not stymied in carrying
out their “mode” of worship. Tex. Const. art. I, § 6. Section 22.207 is one
such law. It offers extra protection for religious organizations, and only
for them. By dispensing with the general requirements of § 20.002 in the
context of religious self-governance, § 22.207 “lift[s] a regulation” that
otherwise “burdens the [Conference’s] exercise of religion.” Amos, 

. In so doing, it prevents § 20.002 from becoming a tool that
would diminish religious organizations’ ability to control corporations
that help them “carry out their religious missions.” Id. at 335, 339.
      I thus agree with the Court that at the very least, § 22.207 must
be read as preserving religious organizations’ authority to seek recourse




                                     6
to the courts even when § 20.002 might drain that authority in other
contexts. In that way, § 22.207 is in part a manifestation of the church-
autonomy doctrine as enacted by the legislature.

                                    II

      Relevant to the Court’s invocation of constitutional avoidance is
the insistence from amici to apply the church-autonomy doctrine. That
doctrine is implicated here given the Conference’s efforts to preserve its
religious self-governance under Texas corporate-formation law.          As
Justice Thomas recently observed, religious organizations “do not exist
apart from the secular world.” Cath. Charities Bureau, Inc. v. Wis. Lab.
& Indus. Rev. Comm’n, ___ U.S. ___, ___, No. 24-154, 

,
at *11 (U.S. June 5, 2025) (Thomas, J., concurring). Even if they are not
of the world, they are still in it, and they must regularly engage in
mundane tasks like buying and selling property, hiring and paying staff,
forming contracts, and (alas) filing lawsuits. See 

 “These and other
considerations make the formation of corporate entities essential for
many religious institutions.” 

 And when they form corporations, “the
First Amendment . . . gives special solicitude to the rights of religious
organizations,” not lesser solicitude.      Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical
Lutheran Church & Sch. v. EEOC, 

 (2012).
      Section 22.207 is a law that affords such “special solicitude,” but
beyond that provision, the courts must protect religious autonomy by
upholding the lawful secular choices that religious organizations make.
Doing so is not always as easy as it sounds (or as easy as it is in today’s
case). There are impermissible lines that courts may not cross. Courts
may not consider, much less rule upon, disputed doctrinal questions. Nor




                                    7
may courts intervene in a church’s mode of self-governance or second-
guess the resulting decisions. A court doing so may well intend to defend
religious autonomy, but such a court would both exceed its authority and
undermine the very principles it hoped to advance.
      I turn first to the principles of the church-autonomy doctrine. I
only briefly sketch its central features, many of which are so well covered
in precedent and in scholarship as to warrant very little discussion here.
But other corners of the doctrine are somewhat less commonly recognized,
including why the church-autonomy doctrine can command the entire
government, including courts, whether affected parties invoke it or not. I
discuss those nuances at somewhat greater length. Second, I examine
how those principles apply here and conclude that but for our ability to rely
on § 22.207, and assuming we could not read § 20.002 as I hypothesized
above, the Court—and not just a concurring opinion—would have to
confront serious constitutional issues yet would reach the same result.
      One final prefatory note: the tentative nature of what follows. It
is hard to imagine a corner of the law that is more important (or more
challenging) for the courts to get right. My goal is to identify several
central issues that warrant further analysis, describe corresponding
principles that seem grounded in our constitutions’ religious-liberty
provisions, and invite future parties, amici, and others to take aim at my
conclusions. Further research and analysis may confirm my provisional
views; perhaps those views will be dislodged in whole or part, and if so,
nothing said today will commit me in a case tomorrow to any particular
position. Either way, any resulting assistance will benefit us by making it
more likely that when the Court must bind itself to some understanding—




                                     8
when, unlike in this case, we face a concrete yet unavoidable constitutional
conflict—the understanding we adopt will be sound.

                                     A

      The church-autonomy doctrine represents a commitment inherent
in the federal and Texas Constitutions’ protections of religious liberty to
affirm the inalienable right of religious organizations, and their individual
adherents, to their own beliefs and forms of self-governance. It is a
substantive commitment that raises jurisdictional obstacles by delineating
a zone of belief and practice into which the government may not enter.
Those obstacles apply to the entire government—not only in litigation.
When the church-autonomy doctrine does arise in that context, how a court
should respond depends on the nature of the issues raised, not merely on
whether religious organizations are involved. Sometimes a court must
decline to exercise jurisdiction over part or all of a case; sometimes the
exact opposite is true. In every instance, what matters is which action is
consistent with the overriding principle of church autonomy.

                                     1

      “[T]he jurisdictional line prohibiting civil courts from intruding on
ecclesiastical matters is an ancient one” that became “so entrenched in
English history that even [Sir Edward] Coke—the seventeenth century’s
fiercest champion of civil jurisdiction and the common law—respected it.”
McRaney v. N. Am. Mission Bd. of S. Baptist Convention, Inc., 

, 1077 (5th Cir. 2020) (Oldham, J., dissenting from denial of
rehearing en banc). Governments and courts in America have not always
plotted this line with perfect clarity or fidelity, to put it mildly. But the
basic contours of the autonomy principle have always been present in this




                                     9
country, including before the Constitution itself was ratified.
      In a striking and early example of the doctrine’s extrajudicial
force, a group of French Catholics in 1781 requested that Congress, then
operating under the Articles of Confederation, approve their appointment
of a bishop in America amid a political crisis with the French magisterium.
Carl H. Esbeck, Church Autonomy, Textualism, and Originalism:
SCOTUS’s Use of History to Give Definition to Church Autonomy
Doctrine, 108 Marq. L. Rev. (forthcoming June 2025) (manuscript at 144),
https://ssrn.com/abstract=5099688. In response, Benjamin Franklin was
instructed to notify the French minister that “the subject of his
application . . . being purely spiritual, it is without the jurisdiction and
powers of Congress.” 

      Back in the judicial branch, the U.S. Supreme Court has outlined
the First Amendment’s protection of church autonomy in about a dozen
significant cases. Justice Alito recently summarized the substance and
scope of the Court’s church-autonomy precedents:
      As early as 1872, our church-autonomy cases explained that
      “civil courts exercise no jurisdiction” over matters involving
      “theological controversy, church discipline, ecclesiastical
      government, or the conformity of the members of the church
      to the standard of morals required of them.” Watson v.
      Jones, 

 (1872). That is so because the
      Constitution protects religious organizations “from secular
      control or manipulation.” Kedroff v. Saint Nicholas
      Cathedral of Russian Orthodox Church in North America,
      

 (1952). The religious organizations
      protected include churches, religious schools, and religious
      organizations engaged in charitable practices, like
      operating homeless shelters, hospitals, soup kitchens, and
      religious legal-aid clinics . . . among many others.
Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission v. Woods, 

, 1096 (2022)




                                    10
(statement of Alito, J., respecting the denial of certiorari).
      This Court, relying on the same line of cases, has similarly
emphasized that “[u]nder the First Amendment, . . . courts must abstain
from exercising civil jurisdiction over claims that require them to ‘resolve
a religious question’ or ‘impede the church’s authority to manage its own
affairs.’ ” In re Diocese of Lubbock, 

, 509 (Tex. 2021)
(quoting Westbrook v. Penley, 

 (Tex. 2007)). The case
law reflects two basic boundary lines separating religious authorities
from the civil government: questions of religious doctrine and matters of
religious self-governance.
      At its core, the church-autonomy doctrine is merely a formal
restatement of basic truths that the Constitution adopts. Specifically,
every individual has a preexisting and inalienable right to worship
according to his own conscience. That right encompasses associating with
others of like mind and includes each individual’s ability to join religious
institutions.   The autonomy of a religious organization within the
religious sphere is a necessary consequence and manifestation of
individual religious liberty. Whether for a massive, international church
or a tiny cluster of believers, application of the church-autonomy doctrine
respects that “different and higher plane” upon which ecclesiastical
relationships stand. Minton v. Leavell, 

 (Tex. Civ.
App.—Galveston 1927, writ ref’d).
      The government can avoid instructing citizens on matters of faith or
purporting to measure a church’s compliance with its own dogma without
being blind to the existence of religious practice. The federal and Texas
Constitutions require the government to protect religious liberty at least




                                     11
as thoroughly as other kinds. Thus, with respect to religious organizations’
self-governance, the government’s only (yet quite significant) role is to
vindicate an ecclesiastical community’s right to organizational and
doctrinal independence.     When a religious organization chooses the
corporate form for one part of its mission—a parish church, an entity
committed to community outreach, or a university—the government,
including the courts, must respect and uphold that choice.

                                     2

      It can be tempting to think of the church-autonomy doctrine as
mostly about judicial “subject-matter jurisdiction.” It obviously extends
to the judicial power, see infra Part II.A.3, but it unduly constrains the
doctrine to view it as applying in court while forgetting about the rest of
the government.
      Accordingly, I pause to emphasize that this Court has been clear
in stating that any “[g]overnment action that interferes with [religious]
autonomy or risks judicial entanglement with a church’s conclusions
regarding its own rules, customs, or laws is . . . prohibited by the First
Amendment.” Diocese of Lubbock, 624 S.W.3d at 513. The church-
autonomy doctrine “protect[s] the right of churches and other religious
institutions to decide matters of faith and doctrine without government
intrusion.” Our Lady of Guadalupe Sch. v. Morrissey-Berru, 

,
746 (2020) (emphasis added) (internal quotation marks omitted). That
means that any “[s]tate interference in that sphere would obviously violate
the free exercise of religion, and any attempt by government to dictate or
even to influence such matters would constitute” an unconstitutional
“intrusion.” 

 (emphases added).




                                    12
      This broad prohibition against the “government” in toto, see
Diocese of Lubbock, 624 S.W.3d at 512–13, is “a structural restraint,” see
Westbrook, 

, that commands each branch of government
to consistently measure its own conduct against the substantive principle
that religious organizations must govern themselves. That principle does
not merely confer rights, as important as they are; it also provides an
absolute boundary dividing civil governmental power from a wholly
different realm of sovereignty.
      And while religious organizations (and individual believers)
obviously benefit from the government’s refusal to meddle in matters of
religious doctrinal truth or self-governance, the civil government also
benefits. Steering clear of this forbidden area—resisting temptations and
even invitations to instruct any religious community about the contents of
its faith or the propriety of its internal governance—helps the government
preserve its own integrity.       In short, limitations from the church-
autonomy doctrine, like other fundamental restrictions on judicial power,
do not belong solely to the litigants in a case to invoke or not as they deem
fit. The doctrine is the common inheritance of every citizen, and because
it represents an exclusion of civil authority and not just the recognition of
private rights, it becomes the common duty of any state actor to respect
the doctrine’s core limits however (or whether) it is invoked.

                                      3

      With that foundation, I now turn to the narrower question of what
the church-autonomy doctrine requires specifically of the judicial
department. Church-autonomy litigation often involves the government,
but it also arises within purely private disputes about the contested




                                     13
ownership of property dedicated to religious use or, as in this case, about
corporate governance. Of course, a court’s initial obligation in any case is
to assess its own jurisdiction, and the church-autonomy doctrine can
specifically require courts to disclaim jurisdiction over part or all of a
lawsuit, even where the parties have not raised or may have arguably
forfeited the issue. By the same token, however, the church-autonomy
doctrine can require courts to exercise jurisdiction. I therefore proceed by
addressing the church-autonomy doctrine and (1) its relationship to the
doctrines of waiver and forfeiture, (2) its effects on courts’ jurisdiction,
and (3) its applicability to both public and private litigation.
       First, it is notable at the outset how the church-autonomy doctrine
first arose in this case. It was not the parties, but the court of appeals,
that identified the risks of treading on prohibited grounds. The question
thus arises: When parties fail to timely invoke the church-autonomy
doctrine, or perhaps when they affirmatively want the courts to adjudicate
religious disputes, do the usual waiver and forfeiture tests apply? In
other words, may courts disregard the church-autonomy doctrine when
the parties themselves fail to raise it or ask the courts to look past it?
       The court of appeals acted responsibly by addressing the matter
itself. Indeed, when a question is not merely one that implicates religious
rights but is altogether outside a court’s constitutional authority to answer,
such a limitation cannot be subject to ordinary invocations of waiver or
forfeiture. The ability to waive or forfeit an objection traditionally belongs
to the parties themselves, but as I have discussed, the church-autonomy
doctrine belongs to the People and applies as a structural limitation on
the government. When a religious organization fails to object to a court’s




                                     14
taking a constitutionally unauthorized step—or even if the organization
expressly invites it—the court remains duty-bound not to take actions or
decide questions forbidden by the church-autonomy doctrine.
       That duty is no less relevant than if the parties are willing for the
court to render judgment in a collusive suit, or to opine on a case that is
now moot or in which the plaintiff never had standing, or to render an
advisory opinion on a matter of great interest to the public, or to answer a
political question that is not susceptible to principled judicial decision-
making. In none of those circumstances do notions of waiver and forfeiture
matter. Cf. Tex. Disposal Sys. Landfill, Inc. v. Travis Cent. Appraisal Dist.,

, 760 (Tex. 2024) (“[P]arties cannot confer jurisdiction by
agreement.”). Parties and counsel must identify plausible jurisdictional
objections as soon as they are aware of them. See, e.g., Tex. Right to Life
v. Van Stean, 

, 356 (Tex. 2024). But whether they comply
with this obligation or not, what matters in each situation is that the
courts protect their own integrity as institutions exercising only judicial
power. The same is true here. Courts lack authority to opine on the true
meaning of religious doctrine or to inject themselves into a religious
organization’s self-governance regardless of the parties’ litigation conduct.
       Second, it may be tempting to develop a jurisdictional “rule” that,
like a drop of arsenic in a glass, is fatal to justiciability whenever a
dispute is of religious significance to the parties. That circumstance
should alert judges to the potential for serious constitutional limitations,
but if religiosity automatically defeated subject-matter jurisdiction,
religious organizations would have fewer rights than everyone else.
       The correct test derives from the doctrine’s substantive principles:




                                     15
If a court cannot resolve an otherwise-proper claim without second-
guessing religious organizations’ modes of self-governance or purporting to
settle disputed questions of faith or doctrine, the court lacks jurisdiction
to act or answer. “ ‘Jurisdiction,’ it has been observed, ‘is a word of many,
too many, meanings’ . . . .” Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 

 (1998) (quoting United States v. Vanness, 

, 663 n.2 (D.C.
Cir. 1996)). Jurisdiction here bears its truest and rawest meaning: power.
Courts are not “divested” of jurisdiction in some formalistic sense—they
simply lack any power in the first place to opine as to religious truth or to
meddle in the inner-workings of religious entities.
       The U.S. Supreme Court confronted a clear invitation to transgress
this boundary in Presbyterian Church in the United States v. Mary
Elizabeth Blue Hull Memorial Presbyterian Church, 

 (1969).
A local church sought to emancipate itself from the larger denomination,
and under Georgia law, “the right to [its real] property” depended on a
“jury decision as to whether the [larger] church abandoned or departed
from the tenets of faith and practice it held at the time the local churches
affiliated with it.” 

. The Supreme Court made clear that
awarding rights to property based on how a civil court assesses the
meaning and importance of religious doctrine is always impermissible.

. Instead, “civil courts [must] decide church property disputes
without resolving underlying controversies over religious doctrine.” 

       Because of that limitation, a case that raises only purely religious
issues must be dismissed. Courts lack the power to resolve such issues.
But cases that seem to invite such religious assessment, at least at first
blush, may yet be justiciable. In Presbyterian Church, for example, the




                                      16
dispute was religiously motivated but could be (and on remand to the
Georgia Supreme Court was) disposed of without resolving ecclesiastical
questions. See id.; see also Presbyterian Church in U.S. v. E. Heights
Presbyterian Church, 

, 659–60 (Ga. 1969). Other examples
arise where courts exercise authority strictly to protect church autonomy
without ever addressing any religious issue. The issue in any case is how
to avoid red lines. Above all, the court may do nothing more than use
secular tools to recognize (and not actually itself make) decisions that the
religious entity alone can reach. See Presbyterian Church, 

 (noting the “severely circumscribe[d] role” of the courts).
      This area is not the only one that presents significant difficulty for
courts, of course. The separation-of-powers context provides a useful
analogue. Some questions are beyond the courts’ capacity or authority to
address at all—particularly those that are expressly left to another branch
of government. But resolving separation-of-powers disputes is a core
judicial function—the courts do not themselves answer the underlying
issue, but they can identify the correct entity to do so and enforce whatever
decision that entity makes. See, e.g., Zivotofsky v. Clinton, 

,
196–97, 201 (2012) (noting that the courts could not “decide the political
status of Jerusalem” but that they could decide which political actor
could make that choice); In re Tex. House of Representatives, 

, 334 (Tex. 2024) (recognizing the Court’s inability to resolve the
underlying criminal-law dispute but addressing “the important but
unresolved separation-of-powers question presented” that asked “how
the People of Texas have structured their government and to which
governmental entities they have allocated specific kinds of authority”).




                                     17
      Just as courts may vindicate the authority of a properly authorized
branch of government to make decisions that the courts themselves may
not make, courts may vindicate property rights or the like even in cases
with obvious “religious implications.” Using civil tools to determine who
is authorized to make a decision that is binding in a civil court is—and
must be—wholly distinct from the court itself making such a choice,
which can be motivated by religious considerations.         Assessing the
religious propriety of the choice goes beyond the courts’ authority, just as
resolving separation-of-powers disputes does not depend on the political
propriety of a choice belonging to another branch of government.
      None of this is to say that it will always be easy for courts to use
secular tools to resolve disputes involving religious entities. The exercise
is fraught with peril, and courts must constantly guard against inadvertent
slippage into unauthorized terrain—to mistakenly slide from vindicating
church autonomy into supplanting it.
      Compounding this difficulty is the important point that
jurisdictional limitations are granular; they are not necessarily case-level
decisions. The solution in Presbyterian Church was not dismissal—it was
for the Georgia courts to apply a standard that did not require them “to
resolve ecclesiastical questions.” 

.
      The jurisdictional question, therefore, is not binary. Perhaps the
most famous church-autonomy case of them all is Watson v. Jones, which
involved another dispute among Presbyterian churches that heatedly
debated each other’s religious bona fides. 

 (1871).
The Supreme Court declared that the theological controversy was
“strictly and purely ecclesiastical in its character” and thus beyond the




                                    18
jurisdiction of civil courts to adjudicate. 

. But that did not mean
that the Court treated the case as failing to clear a genuine jurisdictional
bar, which would have required dismissal. Rather, it affirmed the circuit
court’s decree on the merits, which had in turn deferred to the governing
assembly’s decision as to who was properly authorized to constitute the
Presbyterian church in question.          

.   The case was
justiciable, even though the underlying religious controversy was not.
Watson provides enduring guidance to courts resolving property disputes
that arise amid religious quagmires.
      This Court followed Watson when confronted with a similar fact
pattern. We did not declare the case nonjusticiable; we explained that
Watson “shows conclusively that the determination of an ecclesiastical
court as to its jurisdiction over a given question is as conclusive upon the
civil courts as is its decision of the question when made.” Brown v. Clark,

 (Tex. 1909). We lacked jurisdiction to reopen an
ecclesiastical decision on a matter of doctrine, even where that doctrinal
decision in turn compelled a particular result for property ownership. 

Rather than requiring dismissal, we were required to reinstate the trial
court’s judgment, which had awarded the property consistent with the
church body’s decision, and even to assess costs against the plaintiffs in
error. 

; see also Masterson v. Diocese of Nw. Tex., 

, 605–06 (Tex. 2013) (observing that Brown, properly understood,
adopted a “neutral principles” approach to church-property disputes).
      The lack of civil jurisdiction over religious questions, therefore,
does not necessarily entail a lack of jurisdiction over the entire dispute.
Courts should maintain their focus on whether, in resolving an otherwise




                                     19
justiciable controversy, they must cross one of the red lines that the
Supreme Court’s and this Court’s cases have identified. If so, they may
not take that step; if they can resolve the dispute in a way that does not
so trespass, then their jurisdiction is not threatened.
      The same principle, however, can generate the contrary outcome—
where courts must exercise jurisdiction, at least so long as all other
jurisdictional prerequisites are met. In such circumstances, failing to
exercise jurisdiction would undermine and even violate the doctrine.
Consider the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Kedroff, in which rival
factions of the Russian Orthodox Church contested who was in control of
the cathedral and the church’s functions in New York—that is to say, who
was the true archbishop. See 

. The New York legislature
passed a law that had the effect of transferring this authority to one
faction. 

 at 97–99. Unsurprisingly, the Supreme Court held that the
statute violated the Constitution. 

. The “controversy
concerning the right to use St. Nicholas Cathedral [was] strictly a matter
of ecclesiastical government,” implicating a power clearly lodged in the
mother church and certainly not susceptible to change by governmental
fiat. 

. Accordingly, exercising jurisdiction was necessary to
vindicate the relevant religious community’s allocation of authority.
      Vindicating church autonomy is sometimes possible, in other
words, only when a court exercises subject-matter jurisdiction, which can
ensure that the substantive constitutional principle is not honored in
name while defiled in practice. This can require deeming governmental
actions invalid in some cases or restoring the status quo ante if private
parties seek to drain a religious entity of its control. In no instance may




                                    20
a court become an arbiter of religious doctrine or the proper inner-
workings of a religious entity, but dismissing a case asking a court to
protect the religious entity’s authority to make those very choices for itself
would jeopardize the “spirit of freedom for religious organizations, an
independence from secular control or manipulation, in short, power to
decide for themselves, free from state interference, matters of church
government as well as those of faith and doctrine.” 

 at 115–116 (citing
Watson, 

). Taken to its extreme, a talismanic dismissal of
cases for “lack of subject-matter jurisdiction” risks closing the courthouse
doors to religious organizations, rendering them helpless to protect their
constitutional rights and achieving the exact opposite of the religious-
liberty aspirations of our constitutions.
       In proper circumstances, therefore, the church-autonomy doctrine
may require a court to exercise jurisdiction and rule for the religious
entity on the merits—not because of any religious inquiry but because of
the church-autonomy doctrine’s substantive reach. In Hosanna-Tabor
and Morrissey-Berru, the U.S. Supreme Court again applied the church-
autonomy doctrine’s substantive principles, concluding in both cases
that the religious organizations (specifically, the religious schools) won
because of the substantive promise that the government will not second-
guess how a religious organization undertakes the fundamental task of
choosing its leaders. Hosanna-Tabor, 

; Morrissy-Berru,
591 U.S. at 762.
       Such a win is on the merits. It does not depend on scrutinizing
religious choices, beliefs, or self-governance. The merits decisions did not
turn on whether the church’s reasons for terminating the teachers’ jobs




                                     21
were sufficiently grounded in the faith—or whether they turned on
religious reasons at all.     Instead, regardless of the reason, “it is
impermissible for the government to contradict a church’s determination
of who can act as its ministers.” Hosanna-Tabor, 

. The
church-autonomy doctrine’s breadth, in other words, can allow courts to
respect and vindicate the interests of religious organizations on the
merits and without crossing any impermissible red line.
       Beyond cases in which the courts are facially deprived of
jurisdiction (i.e., when they are affirmatively asked to opine as to religious
truth) or cases in which the courts must exercise jurisdiction (i.e., when
doing so would vindicate a religious organization’s autonomy), there may
be a third variant. Specifically, dismissal may be inevitable for cases in
which it is impossible to impose general secular law against a religious
organization without affecting its internal governance, even if the court
does not formally address any question of doctrine.          Several of our
precedents fit in this category, at least from my perspective.
       Take the defamation and intentional-infliction-of-emotional-
distress claims in Diocese of Lubbock. We explained that “[a]lthough
tort law imposes a duty not to defame or intentionally inflict emotional
distress upon others, a civil suit that is inextricably intertwined with a
church’s directive to investigate its clergy cannot proceed in the courts.”
Diocese of Lubbock, 624 S.W.3d at 517 (internal citation omitted). The
principle, we said, was that “courts are prohibited from risking judicial
entanglement with ecclesiastical matters.” Id. at 514 (citing Morrissey-
Berru, 591 U.S. at 761). We concluded that “to the extent [the] suit
directly challenges the Diocese’s application of Canon Law in its internal




                                     22
governance process, the court lacks jurisdiction.”      Id. at 516.   The
particular red line was that the suit was “ ‘inextricably intertwined’ with
the Diocese’s decision to investigate its own clergy, judicial review of
which would impermissibly interfere with a church’s ability to regulate
the character and conduct of its leaders,” and “exercising jurisdiction
would invade the Diocese’s internal management decision to investigate
its clergy consistent with its own norms and policies.” Id. at 516–18.
      Likewise, in Westbrook v. Penley, we considered a legislatively
mandated duty of confidentiality for professional counselors as issued in
a state regulation. 231 S.W.3d at 402–03. “But however highly we might
rate the importance of that interest, it is by no means absolute when
impingement on free-exercise rights results.” Id. In that case, the same
defendant was a minister and a licensed counselor, and he revealed to his
congregation that the plaintiff had engaged in an affair and was thus to
be subjected to church discipline, to which she had agreed. Id. at 391.
There was no way to hold the defendant to his secular duties without
penalizing him for following the ecclesiastical process that the church had
mandated. Id. at 400.
      Just as I described above the risk of courts too quickly dismissing
cases that should be adjudicated despite the initial appearance of serious
religious disputes, the converse risk also exists. We ultimately “must
carefully scrutinize the circumstances so as not to become entangled in
a religious dispute.” Pleasant Glade Assembly of God v. Schubert, 

 (Tex. 2008). In other words, we look hard to ensure that
what seems to be secular is not a mere stalking horse—intentional or
otherwise—for subjugating a religious organization to civil authority for




                                    23
matters that actually are ecclesiastical.
       Third, and finally, it is worth reiterating that while the church-
autonomy doctrine is one that limits the government, it also plays a
significant role in private litigation. What is more, many cases applying
the doctrine involve private litigation in which the courts must render
judgment rather than dismiss, thus vindicating religious autonomy. The
U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese v.
Milivojevich, 

 (1976), provides one good example. There, the
private lawsuit subjected a church to extensive judicial scrutiny about its
compliance with its internal canon law, which resulted in the
reinstatement of a particular bishop as the “Diocesan Bishop.” 

;
see also 

 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (observing that the litigation
was purely private). The Supreme Court rejected this extraordinary
intrusion, but it did not demand dismissal for want of jurisdiction—it
instead required the state courts to accept the binding determination of
the “mother church,” which in turn determined the ownership of certain
property. 

 (majority opinion).

                                      B

       The Conference alleges a wrongful divestiture of its control over
SMU. Given the church-autonomy doctrine, the outcome that the Court
reaches today seems inevitable—if not under § 22.207, then under the
constitutional principles described above. I proceed in three brief steps.
First, there is sufficient governmental involvement here to implicate the
doctrine, although I doubt that any particular state action is even needed.
Second, litigating corporate articles and litigating property disputes are
materially indistinguishable for these purposes—both are delicate, but




                                     24
both are doable. And third, this case does not come close to crossing any
of the red lines that would require dismissal rather than vindication of a
religious organization’s claim. Allowing the Conference to make its case
cannot possibly violate the church-autonomy doctrine, but denying it that
chance likely would.

                                      1

       First, SMU downplays the church-autonomy issue by depicting the
case as purely private, simply “requir[ing] resolution of settled, neutral
principles of law” to prevent what it depicts as a complete outsider—the
Conference—from wresting control of the university. (The Conference
likewise regards the case as simple, but it casts the board of trustees rather
than itself as the interloper.) Assuming that any particular state action
is needed, it is easy enough to find. To the extent the State is involved, it
was because SMU’s board asked the secretary of state to accept amended
articles that, if effective, would emancipate SMU from the Conference.
       The days have long passed in Texas when corporate formation
required an express act of the legislature.           See, e.g., Paxton v.
Annunciation House, Inc., ___ S.W.3d ___, 

, at *4–5
(Tex. May 30, 2025). It remains true, however, that corporations are
legally created and altered “dependent upon the consent of the sovereign
power.” A. B. Frank Co. v. Latham, 

 (Tex. 1946)
(citation omitted). Both parties agree that the secretary of state’s role
here, although ministerial, was legally decisive and indispensable.
Regardless of whether the board ought to have filed the amended articles
with the secretary, in other words, everyone agrees that her acceptance
of the filing is what makes it legally enforceable. By contrast, merely




                                     25
deleting references to the Conference in some internal memo would have
had no force; removing any mention of the Conference from SMU’s
articles and then filing them with the State is what does. Such recourse
to state authority supplies sufficient connection to government to
implicate the church-autonomy doctrine, despite the involvement being
passive and the State’s lack of any interest in whether, under properly
amended articles, the Conference retains or relinquishes its control.
       SMU was apparently left free, if its students and staff disagreed
with any doctrine of the larger United Methodist Church, to distance itself
from those doctrinal stances. SMU did so in numerous ways even as this
litigation was unfolding, assuring students that the university disagreed
with the church’s (now abandoned) “Traditional Plan,” that the university
would still provide the inclusive learning environment the plan
purportedly threatened, and that the university would continue to comply
with federal civil-rights guidance on sexual orientation notwithstanding
any (apparently illusory) contrary guidance from the church. Whatever
authority the Conference may have had to countermand any of these steps,
it seemingly chose restraint. And whatever else SMU might be able to do
to signal its own distinct views, it could not (1) demand that the State join
in by engineering an amendment that entirely ousts the Conference from
its position of control and then (2) prevent scrutiny either via a declaratory
action or under the church-autonomy doctrine. Texas’s constitutional
guarantee that “no human authority” will improperly interfere in
religious matters, Tex. Const. art. I, § 6, may not be so easily evaded.
       In any event, as I discussed in Part II.A.3, supra, whether against
the government, purely private, or some hybrid, at least in some cases




                                     26
the exercise of judicial power itself may amply implicate the church-
autonomy doctrine. See, e.g., Milivojevich, 

. Here, SMU
purported to unilaterally secede from the Conference despite being
subject to its control. SMU could have brought a declaratory action
before filing the amendments to obtain judicial approbation of its
contested authority to do so. Instead of turning to the courts, however,
SMU turned to the secretary of state, filing revised articles of
incorporation that deleted the Conference’s role and authority without
its consent, and by doing so, it purported to free itself of the Conference’s
preexisting control. Can it really be that the church-autonomy doctrine—
a fundamental precept of federal and Texas constitutional law, central
to our very identity, providing a defining limit to the structure of our
government, and imparting a core basis for the protection of religious
self-governance—has such a gaping loophole that its evasion requires
nothing more than a surreptitious filing of revisions to articles of
incorporation? Can it possibly be true that what a litigator could never
achieve, a transactional lawyer can do with a mere filing in the secretary
of state’s office? Religious liberty would be fragile indeed if SMU could
so easily deprive the Conference of any way to protect its substantial rights.
       The overriding question is always whether the government will
protect church autonomy or whether the government will allow that
autonomy to be drained away. I see no real reason why this dispute, like
other cases in which private religious entities asserted conflicting secular
rights, see supra Part II.A.3, requires any additional “government”
involvement to implicate the doctrine.




                                     27
                                     2

      One reason for that result is that this case shares the material
features of a property dispute, which everyone agrees requires no distinct
government involvement for civil courts to resolve. We have repeatedly
stated that “courts are to apply neutral principles of law to issues such as
land titles, trusts, and corporate formation, governance, and dissolution,
even when religious entities are involved.” Episcopal Diocese of Fort
Worth v Episcopal Church, 

, 424 (Tex. 2020) (emphasis
added) (quoting Masterson, 

). We added that “specific,
lawful provisions in a corporation’s articles of incorporation or bylaws”
will govern how a corporation, including one set up for religious purposes,
“can change its articles of incorporation.” 

 at 432 (quoting Masterson,

). The authority to make such amendments presents
“secular, not ecclesiastical, matters” unless the documents provide
otherwise. 

 (quoting Masterson, 

).
      These statements, arising from cases that turned on scrutinizing
documents including articles of incorporation, are surely right. How is a
dispute among religious entities about which has the right to use real
property meaningfully different from a dispute about which has the right
to amend (or forbid amendment of ) a corporation’s articles? Someone
must have title to church property; the articles of incorporation of a Texas
corporation either were validly amended, or they were not. These are not
the kinds of cases that the church-autonomy doctrine bars at the
courthouse door.
      Of course, religious organizations are free to make any of these
rights turn on religious questions that civil courts may not themselves




                                    28
answer. When they do—such as by vesting title in a congregation on the
condition that it remains true to a particular doctrine—the courts’ work
becomes more complicated.        But even then, that work does not
impermissibly extend to resolving the disputed religious questions; it
only looks to the proper authority to provide the binding answer. In that
sense, the “neutral principles” approach collapses into “deference,” as in
this Court’s seminal decision in Brown. If neutral principles—i.e.,
reading secular documents as they are usually read—themselves point to
a result predicated on religious determinations, then the issue becomes
ensuring that deference is properly yielded. That may sound hard, and
sometimes it is. But if it can be done in a property-rights context, then
I see no reason why it could not happen in a corporate-formation or
corporate-governance context.
      Happily, there will be no such difficulty in this case. The articles
of incorporation simply state that SMU is “forever” part of the
Conference’s mission and under its control; they expressly forbid any
amendment to the articles absent the Conference’s consent. How the
Conference chooses to exercise that control or grant that consent, or
whether its decisions reflect true and pure Methodism, is wholly beside
the point—those are ecclesiastical matters. The text tells us everything
that civil courts need to know to assess the amendments’ validity. By
contrast, if the articles stated that the Conference remained in control
of SMU only so long as it remained true to John Wesley’s teachings, we
would obviously be unable to adjudicate a challenge on the grounds that
it has departed from that doctrine. Here, however, there are no religious
questions to answer—only religious rights to vindicate.




                                   29
       Thus, I again see no real difference from property cases. The
church-autonomy doctrine, at least sometimes, represents “an invitation
to churches, where they deem it appropriate, to ask courts to assist them
in resolving certain church property disputes.” McRaney, 980 F.3d at
1071 (Ho, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc) (describing the
principles articulated in Jones v. Wolf, 

, 602–04 (1979)). I
agree. That “invitation” is presumably open for the defense of other kinds
of rights besides claims to Blackacre.

                                      3

       The church-autonomy doctrine requires courts to act to protect
church autonomy subject to the now-familiar red lines—that a “court may
exercise jurisdiction over a controversy if it can apply neutral principles of
law that will not require inquiry into religious doctrine, interference with
the free-exercise rights of believers, or meddling in church government.”
Diocese of Lubbock, 624 S.W.3d at 513 (citing Westbrook, 231 S.W.3d at
398–400). These red lines are not at issue here, which is why the church-
autonomy doctrine does not bar consideration of the Conference’s claim.
The only question for a civil court will be whether the Conference in fact
has the authority that the articles of incorporation state or if, for some
other lawful reason that does not offend the church-autonomy doctrine,
SMU can nonetheless dislodge it. What will play no role is whether
SMU’s motivation for attempting to discard the Conference’s authority
was noble or base, was informed by the purest religious motives or the
least creditable, or was altogether uninfluenced by matters of faith.
       To confirm all this, first consider whether the Conference’s case
against SMU requires ruling on a religious question. Though SMU’s




                                     30
break with the Conference may have grown from a dispute over
Methodist ethics (despite the university’s protests to the contrary),
resolving the validity of the articles’ stated ownership or control of SMU
does not require selecting one exegetical approach over another, nor does
it require elevating one set of beliefs over another. No court will adjudge
one view of any religious question true or false.
      Next ask whether resolving the case will threaten church authority
to manage internal affairs. Another easy no. All parties agree that the
Conference (a religious entity) owned SMU at one point in time. The
merits question is whether, in light of SMU’s unilateral attempt to break
away from the Conference, the Conference has any recourse to maintain
control over SMU. From that view of the facts and arguments, I see no
way in which reaching the merits question could “impede the church’s
authority to manage its own affairs.” Diocese of Lubbock, 624 S.W.3d at
509 (emphasis added). The opposite is true.
      The case law draws a line between disputes that simply involve a
religious entity and those that threaten “government interference with an
internal church decision that affects the faith and mission of the church
itself.” Id. at 517 (citing Hosanna-Tabor, 

 (emphasis
added)).   The Court is therefore right to recognize that, “far from
interfering with ecclesiastical matters,” the exercise of our jurisdiction
“respects and enforces” the Conference’s choice to structure SMU under
Texas corporate law. Ante at 10. That simple recognition makes this case
unlike, say, Diocese of Lubbock, where civil-court second-guessing of
internal church investigative procedures over clergy could have ended
with a hefty monetary judgment against the Diocese and in turn imposed




                                    31
civil coercion on it regarding how it dealt with internal disciplinary
matters. Diocese of Lubbock, 624 S.W.3d at 517.
                           * * *
      While courts should always approach questions that even
implicate religious practice with great humility and self-doubt, this case
is an example of when judicial inaction would undermine the larger
principle of church autonomy. Because a court will not need to answer
any religious question to decide the dispute, nor threaten to otherwise
interfere with church self-governance by hearing it at all, the church-
autonomy doctrine does not require dismissal. Dismissal is what would
jeopardize church autonomy. Refusing to recognize the Conference’s
authority over SMU—or, more precisely, refusing to allow the Conference
to try to prove that authority—would turn church autonomy on its head.

                                   III

      Finally, and briefly, I turn to the question that in the end may
prove most consequential: Given the Texas Constitution’s distinct
language and history, is its church-autonomy doctrine meaningfully
different from its federal counterpart?      As with other important
constitutional guarantees, the answer is: “We still do not really know,
even as we approach the sesquicentennial of our current Constitution.”
Tex. Dep’t of State Health Servs. v. Crown Distrib. LLC, 

,
664 (Tex. 2022) (Young, J., concurring).
      Like the due-course clause in § 19 of the Bill of Rights at issue in
Crown Distributing, the freedom-of-worship provision in § 6 remains
unchanged since February 15, 1876, when the Constitution took effect.
Yet our church-autonomy cases are exclusively federal in character, with




                                   32
only occasional references to our own Constitution.          Chief Justice
Blacklock, for example, has observed that “[b]oth the Texas Constitution
and the United States Constitution compel judges to acknowledge that
there are places where our imperfect judicial system does not belong,
places where earthly judges have no power.” Diocese of Lubbock, 624
S.W.3d at 520 (Blacklock, J., concurring). That case did not offer the Court
any opportunity to explore how those two constitutions might differ.
      Chief Justice Phillips has explained why our understanding of the
Texas Constitution’s religious-liberty provisions remains underdeveloped:
      Because [the relator] has not argued persuasively for a
      different application of the provisions of the First
      Amendment and Article I, Section 6 as they pertain to the
      free exercise of religion, we assume without deciding that
      the state and federal free exercise guarantees are
      coextensive with respect to his particular claims . . . . While
      interesting developments are occurring in state religion
      clauses in other jurisdictions, we are reluctant to decide an
      issue as important as the scope of the Texas Constitution’s
      free exercise guarantee under these circumstances.
Tilton v. Marshall, 

, 677 n.6 (Tex. 1996) (citing Neil
McCabe, The State and Federal Religion Clauses: Differences of Degree and
Kind, 

 (1992)). Nearly thirty years later, those
“circumstances” are unchanged. We have not had litigants accept Chief
Justice Phillips’s implied invitation—one that I extend again today.
      To the varying extent that the parties and amici in this case have
discussed church autonomy, they (as in past cases) have proceeded as
though federal law and state law are identical in their potential to protect
the Conference’s religious autonomy from interference. And our cases
have uniformly and exclusively talked about “the First Amendment” in




                                    33
church-autonomy contexts. See, e.g., Diocese of Lubbock, 624 S.W.3d at
509, 512–14, 516–19 & n.3; Episcopal Diocese, 602 S.W.3d at 420, 424,
426–29, 431, 435; Masterson, 

, 601–03; Pleasant Glade
Assembly of God, 

, 5–8, 13 (citing § 6 without discussion);
Westbrook, 231 S.W.3d at 394–97 & n.6, 399, 400–05.
      It is not wrong, of course, to apply the First Amendment’s church-
autonomy doctrine, as our cases have done. The federal Constitution binds
the government of Texas, and its religious-liberty promises are fully
enforceable in our courts. But church autonomy is also an independent
principle arising from the Texas Constitution, and the federal Constitution
does not limit its scope so long as it violates no federal requirements.
      There is reason to think that, compared to its federal analogue, the
Texas church-autonomy doctrine is at least as robust—and potentially far
more rigorous. In relevant part, the First Amendment forbids Congress
from making a law “respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof.” U.S. Const. amend. I. The soaring text of the
Texas Constitution suggests an even more powerful commitment by our
People to leaving the high matters of religious self-governance and
doctrinal truth to religious communities:
      FREEDOM OF WORSHIP. All men have a natural and
      indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the
      dictates of their own consciences. No man shall be
      compelled to attend, erect or support any place of worship,
      or to maintain any ministry against his consent. No human
      authority ought, in any case whatever, to control or interfere
      with the rights of conscience in matters of religion, and no
      preference shall ever be given by law to any religious society
      or mode of worship. But it shall be the duty of the Legislature
      to pass such laws as may be necessary to protect equally every
      religious denomination in the peaceable enjoyment of its own




                                    34
      mode of public worship.
Tex. Const. art. I, § 6 (emphases added).
      Both with respect to prohibition (“No human authority”) and
affirmative protection (“the duty of the Legislature”), our Constitution
implies greater scope than its federal analogue. Moreover, our framers
were aware of the federal Constitution. Sometimes, as with the contracts
clause, they chose to copy its language almost verbatim. See City of
Baytown v. Schrock, 

, 183 (Tex. 2022) (Young, J.,
concurring).    Elsewhere, as with the takings clause, our framers
substantially expanded upon the federal language, presumably to generate
different results. 

 The freedom-of-worship clause in § 6 markedly
expands on its federal analogue, so it is at least plausible that the framers
and ratifiers of our Constitution anticipated substantially different and
more protective substantive outcomes. Particularly given that the First
Amendment had not yet been incorporated against the States by 1876, the
choice to not merely adopt the federal baseline but instead choose
ostensibly greater restrictions on government in the ecclesiastical sphere
should not be elided by reflexively conflating the First Amendment and § 6.
      One specific potential distinction may—and I emphasize may—lie
in the extent of the church-autonomy doctrine’s jurisdictional consequences.
In Hosanna-Tabor, for example, the Supreme Court emphasized that “the
Religion Clauses ensured that the new Federal Government—unlike the
English Crown—would have no role in filling ecclesiastical offices.” 

 (emphasis added). Yet in the same case, the Court described
the ministerial exception (i.e., the aspect of the church-autonomy doctrine
at issue) as “an affirmative defense to an otherwise cognizable claim, not




                                     35
a jurisdictional bar.” 

 at 194 n.4 (emphasis added). This Court has
stated that it will follow U.S. Supreme Court guidance with respect to
that question—although we have read that Court’s precedents more
aggressively than the Hosanna-Tabor Court itself might have,
emphasizing the clearly “jurisdiction[al]” holding in Watson instead. See
Diocese of Lubbock, 624 S.W.3d at 512 n.1.
      But we have not yet considered whether, wholly aside from
wherever the U.S. Supreme Court leads, some matters treated as
“affirmative defenses” under federal law might be “jurisdictional bars”
under the Texas Constitution’s more rigorous structural limitation. In
other words, compared with how the U.S. Supreme Court views the First
Amendment, our Constitution may more resolutely preclude courts from
engaging with litigation that would risk judicial tinkering with religious
decision-making. If so, there could be a heightened need for Texas courts
to guard against stepping into forbidden terrain even when the parties
treat it as within the civil court’s domain.
      Such a result would have at least two significant consequences.
First, it would mean that some cases may well turn out differently under
the Texas Constitution. And second, it would mean that the failure to
develop the full meaning of the Texas Constitution’s church-autonomy
doctrine may be preventing Texas courts from obeying their mandate.
While it is more than ideal for parties to develop Texas constitutional
arguments within the course of litigation, and at the earliest possible
stages, some requirements of our Constitution may constrain courts
whether parties invoke them or not. See supra Part II.A.3 (describing why
waiver and forfeiture are, at least in part, inapplicable in this context).




                                    36
       Given these possibilities, and looking to future cases, I therefore
hope that litigants will resist the “almost routine” pattern of assuming
that the protection afforded by federal and state constitutional provisions
must be coterminous. City of Baytown, 645 S.W.3d at 184 (Young, J.,
concurring). It is disquieting to think that the failure to consider the vivid
language in our own Constitution could lead courts to decide questions or
whole cases that are beyond their authority. The sooner we have high-
quality assistance, the better. I hope, therefore, that amici—like the two
excellent friends of the Court that have participated in this case, and
many others—along with the bar, the academy, and all other interested
parties on any side, will help us determine the church-autonomy contours
flowing from the original public meaning of § 6 of our Bill of Rights.
                                 * * *
       To be clear, I do not purport to resolve the extent of § 6’s possibly
unique protections. Suspicions aside, I can only speculate that the facial
textual differences between that provision and the First Amendment hint
at such a delta. I remain open to any possibilities, including that, in the
end, perhaps there will be no material differences between the two under
current law. If, for example, the U.S. Supreme Court’s religion-clause
jurisprudence has expanded the First Amendment’s church-autonomy
scope beyond what the framers of our Constitution would have expected,
then the practical gap between the two may have shrunk or even
disappeared. But it is not at all clear that this has happened or that they
are coterminous—even before taking newer provisions into account, such
as § 6-a’s religious-service provision, which the Court interpreted for the
first time earlier this month. See Perez v. City of San Antonio, ___ S.W.3d
___, 

, at *3–13 (Tex. June 13, 2025). With the benefit




                                     37
of comprehensive briefing in future cases, I expect to form a firmer view.

                                      IV

       As a formal matter, today’s decision returns the case to the lower
courts for further proceedings.      The Court holds only that § 22.207
allows the Conference to seek a judicial interpretation about the articles
of incorporation and, under the auspices of the same statute, to proceed
with its contract claim. In my view, the work of the courts on remand
will be quick, and I expect that the Conference’s rights will be fully
vindicated—if the case must proceed. In light of the Court’s clarifying
holding, however, I hope that it is not too late for these litigants to
reconsider. Must they settle what divides them in this way rather than
through some other kind of conciliation?
       As my opinion today makes clear, most of those matters go beyond
my authority as a judge; if the litigation must continue, so be it. I cannot
help but express hope, however, that divisions of this sort can be repaired
by those who once walked arm in arm in unity of purpose without
recourse to the civil courts—courts that have the power to resolve
disputes and vindicate rights, and that will do so to the best of the abilities
of those who staff them, but that in so doing cannot help but tarnish with
earthly grime what should be holy.




                                           Evan A. Young
                                           Justice

OPINION FILED: June 27, 2025




                                      38