wfn.org | Complaints against Bishop Talbert dismissed

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Aug. 30, 2000   News media contact: Tim Tanton·(615)742-5470·Nashville,
Tenn.     10-21-28-71B{389}

By United Methodist News Service

Complaints filed against United Methodist Bishop Melvin G. Talbert regarding
his handling of an investigation into possible clergy misconduct have been
dismissed.

A three-person committee led by Bishop William Dew of the Phoenix Area found
no substance to the complaints against Talbert, who will retire as head of
the church's San Francisco Area on Sept. 1. His area includes the
California-Nevada Annual (regional) Conference.

The complaints followed a controversial decision by the annual conference's
committee on investigation not to prosecute 67 pastors for their involvement
in a same-sex union service. The service was held for two Sacramento women
in January 1999 as an act of protest against the United Methodist Church's
prohibition of same-sex ceremonies. 

Talbert received complaints about the pastors following the ceremony. He
turned the complaints over to church counsel, who forwarded them to the
committee on investigation. After several months and a hearing, the
committee decided that grounds did not exist for putting the 67 pastors on
church trial. Talbert, who didn't serve on the committee, announced the
decision Feb. 11.

The committee's decision stirred criticism from people who believed that it
was contrary to the denomination's Book of Discipline. The critics were
further angered by a personal statement that Talbert made regarding his
opposition to the denomination's stand against same-sex services. 

The decision was followed by complaints filed against Talbert himself. Two
of the complainants cited the bishop's handling of the case involving the 67
pastors. The third accused him of lying, stating that Talbert said he had
upheld church law but at the same time had allowed clergy members to violate
that law by performing the Sacramento service.

The complaints against Talbert were sent to Bishop Dew, president of the
Western Jurisdiction College of Bishops. The chairperson of the
jurisdiction's episcopacy committee named a clergy member and a layperson -
both from outside Talbert's and Dew's annual conferences -- to work with the
bishop on resolving the complaints. The committee finished its work in late
July, and Dew wrote letters to the complainants in early August.

"I find no substance to the complaint against him and I find no fault with
Bishop Talbert's response to the events which culminated in the decision by
the Committee on Investigation on Feb. 8, 2000," Dew wrote on Aug. 3 to
Jacque Vance, an Orangevale, Calif., laywoman who filed the first complaint.
"Therefore, all complaints received concerning this matter are dismissed.

"While there may be disagreement about the prudence of Bishop Talbert's
remarks following the decision of the Committee on Investigation, he was
exercising his freedom of expression as he fulfilled his understanding as
bishop giving leadership in faithful exercise of paragraphs 414.1 and 414.3
of the Book of Discipline," Dew concluded.

Talbert was pleased with the outcome. "I believe that our church has a good
process for dealing with these kinds of situations," he said. "I am very
pleased that the process worked in my case.

"There was no question in my mind that this was the way it should have been,
but when a complaint is filed, you never know how it's going to turn out
until the appropriate authorities act," Talbert said Aug. 29. "But I feel
justified and vindicated."

Vance's pastor, the Rev. Mike Goodyear of First United Methodist Church in
Orangevale, said the system is not fair. "The way the system is functioning
now in the Western Jurisdiction, there is no justice," he said. "For us,
it's a justice issue."

Vance had complained that Talbert set aside initial complaints filed by
members of First Church following the Sacramento service. She also had said
that the bishop put his annual conference above church law. During his
remarks in February, Talbert had described the annual conference as a more
fundamental covenant that "has precedence over this one narrow focus of law"
in the Book of Discipline.

The dismissal of the complaints is final, Dew said. The church offers no
other recourse for appeals in this kind of case, he said.

"We did not have any information that would suggest that Bishop Talbert in
any way participated or interfered with the process of the committee on
investigation of the annual conference," Dew told United Methodist News
Service. "The committee did its job. Following the committee's decision,
Bishop Talbert made a public statement. ... (His) remarks had no bearing on
the decision of the committee on investigation because it followed their
decision-making process."

The complaint about lying, filed by Sacramento lay member Don Fleharty, also
was deemed groundless by Dew's committee. "What it amounts to is his opinion
that Bishop Talbert said something that's not true," Dew said regarding
Fleharty's complaint. " ... He basically said he didn't believe Mel Talbert.
That didn't make (the complaint) true." 

A third complaint was similar to the one filed by Vance, Dew said. In it,
the complainant accused Talbert of saying that the 60-plus ministers didn't
violate the Book of Discipline, but Dew noted that it was the committee on
investigation that decided the matter.

Vance was assisted in filing her complaint by the Coalition for United
Methodist Accountability, a new conservative-led organization. The Rev. Ira
Gallaway, chairman of CUMA's steering committee, said the group will discuss
what it can to do ensure accountability among bishops.

"Our accountability procedure which the General Conference has adopted is
not working, and somehow we've got to look at that very carefully at the
next General Conference to see that bishops do not protect each other," he
said Aug. 30. General Conference, which meets every four years, is the
church's top legislative body.

Gallaway said the bishop influenced the committee through his leadership and
the appointments he has made to it. "We feel that Bishop Talbert's
leadership has encouraged the action of the committee on investigation, and
his support of (its decision) is actually in direct conflict with the action
of General Conference."

The coalition's steering committee will meet soon to discuss the situation
in the California-Nevada Conference, including the recent departures of
evangelical pastors, Gallaway said.
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United Methodist News Service
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