wfn.org | Judicial Council issues decisions

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS" by SUSAN PEEK on Aug. 11, 1991 at 13:58 Eastern, about FULL TEXT RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST
NEWS SERVICE (2883 notes).

Note 2883 by SUSAN PEEK on April 20, 1996 at 11:36 Eastern (3739 characters).

SEARCH: Judicial Council, bishops, episcopal

021  {2885}
                                                    April 20, 1996
GENERAL CONFERENCE '96

Judicial Council issues decisions
bearing on episcopal spouses, pay 

     DENVER (UMNS) -- The Judicial Council, the highest court of
the United Methodist Church, has issued decisions that concern who
may serve on the committee that deals with the episcopacy and when
new bishops begin receiving salary.

     The Judicial Council began deliberation on several cases
April 12 and will continue to meet intermittently for the two
weeks General Conference is in session here. 

     In a case brought by the Pacific Northwest Conference seeking
a declaratory decision, the council found no disciplinary
provision prohibiting an otherwise qualified spouse of a bishop
from serving on a jurisdictional committee on episcopacy, but the
council sounded a strong cautionary note.

     "However," the decision warns, "it would appear unwise for
such spouse to serve on the Jurisdictional Committee on Episcopacy
as such service could present a real or potential conflict of
interest, or an appearance of impropriety."

     The Jurisdictional Committee on the Episcopacy has duties
that include assignment of bishops to an episcopal area, reviewing
their work, granting leave and terminating office.

     In its analysis, the Judicial Council noted that although the
Discipline is silent on the issue, this collection of church law
includes a prohibition barring immediate family members of a
pastor or staff member from serving on a pastor-parish committee
in a local church. Likewise, the Discipline provides that
immediate family members of the staff of any annual (regional)
conference agency from serving on the conference committee on
episcopacy.

     The church's current practice of beginning salaries for new
bishops on Sept. 1 is constitutional, the Judicial Council said in 
a declaratory decision issued at the same time.

     The church's finance agency had asked for a finding on the
constitutionality, meaning and effect of instruction in the
denomination's Discipline having to do with the date newly elected
bishops begin receiving salary from the Episcopal Fund.

     The September date for newly elected bishops to begin their
duties and Aug. 31 for retiring bishops to cease their activities
are included in the current Discipline. Bishops are elected, and
often consecrated, at jurisdictional gatherings held in mid-July
at four-year intervals. Sixteen will be elected in 1996.

     Central (outside the United States) Conferences have the same
power to set the time and place of consecration of the bishops
they elect.

     The period between election and consecration and Sept. 1, the
council said in its analysis, provides an opportunity for the
newly elected bishops "to conclude matters at the prior
appointment and make an orderly transition to assumption of the
duties of the episcopal area."

     The council said this process "is analogous to the way clergy
members of an annual conference receive new appointments at the
annual conference session but move to the new appointment at a
later date."

     Oral arguments in the case were presented April 13 by retired
Bishop Jack Tuell for the Council of Bishops and Mary K. Logan for
the Council on Finance and Administration.

     A Judicial Council member, the Rev. Theodore H. Walter,
recused himself and did not participate in the discussion. His
name has been mentioned as a potential candidate for the
episcopacy in the Southeastern Jurisdiction.

                               # # #

                                                 -- Joretta Purdue
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