wfn.org | Ex-SFTS president is temporarily removed from ordained office

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>]

Note #5926 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

5-June-2000
00224

	Ex-SFTS president is temporarily removed from ordained office

	Sentence meted out for multiple extra-marital affairs

	by Jerry L. Van Marter

SAN ANSELMO, Calif. - The Rev. Donald L. McCullough, who resigned as
president of San Francisco Theological Seminary amid a sex scandal, has been
temporarily removed from the office of Minister of Word and Sacrament in the
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) by the Permanent Judicial Commission of San
Francisco Presbytery.

	McCullough, 51, was convicted by the presbytery court May 5 of two counts
of sexual abuse, stemming from two simultaneous extra-marital affairs while
he was pastor of Solana Beach Presbyterian Church near San Diego and between
his election as president of SFTS in May of 1994 and his inauguration later
that year.

	One of the women was a staff member at the Solana Beach church.  The other
is his current wife.

	McCullough and his first wife divorced  in December 1998 and he remarried
late last year.

	McCullough received the PC(USA)'s second severest degree of censure despite
his pleas for leniency.  He will be eligible for reinstatement in a year if
the court determines he has successfully completed a program of
church-supervised therapy, rehabilitation and restitution. His ordination
could have been permanently revoked.

	McCullough pleaded for "rebuke" - the mildest form of punishment. 
According to the "Marin Independent-Journal," he described himself at the
sentencing hearing as "a broken man."

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