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 (2894 notes).

Note 2894 by SUSAN PEEK on April 22, 1996 at 22:48 Eastern (2397 characters).

SEARCH:  Judicial Council, decisions, clergy, status

033 {2897}                                          April 22, 1996

General Conference '96

Judicial Council determines
cases involving clergy status 
 

     DENVER (UMNS) -- Four decisions released April 22 by the
Judicial Council of the United Methodist Church involved bishop's
rulings in cases from 1995 relating to various questions of clergy
status.

     They were concluded after additional information was received
by the council, the denomination's highest court.

     Reconsideration of a decision from the Judicial Council's
October 1995 meeting resulted in affirmation of Bishop Sharon
Brown Christopher's ruling that a clergy person who gave up the
ministerial office must follow the steps set forth for readmission
according to the rules of the church. 

     Another decision was related to the Iowa Conference board of
ordained ministry and Bishop Charles Wesley Jordan. With
additional documents requested in an earlier decision, the
Judicial Council ruled that suspension from clergy duties was
affirmed to the extent that the suspension was recommended by the
board of ordained ministry and the reference in the conference
journal constitutes consent to its continuation pending outcome of
a trial.

     In a case related to a former navy chaplain, the decision of
Bishop William W. Morris in the Alabama-West Florida Conference
was reversed at some points and modified at others.

     The Judicial Council ruled that the case, which originated in
1989 under another bishop, lacked a signed grievance and a
complaint specifying the chargeable offense in terms that
conformed to the requirements found in the Discipline.

     Without those "indispensable requirements" the matter could
not be referred correctly to the joint review committee, the
council's decision says. Since the clergy person in the case has
been given an appointment, many of the questions put to the bishop
for decisions of law were declared moot.

     The council affirmed Bishop Kenneth Carder's ruling at the
1995 Tennessee Annual Conference that the appointment of the Rev.
Amy Douglas-McVay as a staff physician at Charity Hospital in
Louisiana was not in compliance with the Discipline.
                               # # #
                                                 -- Joretta Purdue
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