wfn.org | Short docket offers Judicial Council wide range of topics

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

March 11, 2002  News media contact: Joretta Purdue7(202) 546-87227Washington
10-71B{093}

NOTE:  The Judicial Council's official Web site at
www.umc.org/churchlibrary/judicial/ contains the official docket, past
decisions and information about the council.

By United Methodist News Service

The United Methodist Church's highest judicial body will consider issues
related to such diverse topics as annual conference structure and
homosexuality when it meets in April.

The nine-member court will meet April 24-27 in Indianapolis for its spring
session.

The Judicial Council has approved a request for reconsidering Decision 920,
which the court rendered in October on a case involving self-avowed gay
ministers in the Pacific Northwest Annual (regional) Conference. Bishop
Elias Galvan is asking the court to reconsider the part of the decision that
orders a bishop to suspend a clergy person who is undergoing an
investigation or review through due process.

The case concerns a written statement by a pastor that she is "living in a
partnered, covenanted homosexual relationship with another woman." The
pastor, the Rev. Karen Dammann, disclosed the relationship in a letter early
last year to Galvan. The annual conference later asked the court to rule on
a possible conflict between two church laws, one requiring that clergy
members in good standing be assigned to a ministry and the other prohibiting
the assignment of practicing self-avowed homosexual clergy.

The court ruled in October that the rules are not contradictory and that
declaring involvement in a same-sex relationship was enough to warrant
review of a pastor's ministerial standing. However, the council also said
that a bishop cannot take unilateral action to deny an appointment but must
follow the "fair and due process" of a review proceeding. Such a process is
currently under way in Seattle for Dammann and another pastor, the Rev. Mark
Edward Williams.

Galvan and the Rev. Wes Stanton, Pacific Northwest Conference secretary,
have requested reconsideration of part of the decision, which stated that
the bishop, "with the recommendation of the executive committee of the Board
of Ordained Ministry, shall place the clergy person on suspension" during
the review process. In his request, Galvan stated that the Book of
Discipline uses the word "may" instead of "shall," placing the decision to
suspend or not suspend in the hands of the bishop. The Council of Bishops
has supported Galvan's request for reconsideration.

Three of the seven items on the Judicial Council's spring docket come from
the North Carolina Annual Conference.

In one, the Judicial Council will consider the legality of a resolution
encouraging local churches to study homosexuality using denominational
materials. The resolution is from the annual conference session in June
2000.  

The council will also consider two decisions of law made by Bishop Marion
Edwards in response to questions submitted during the North Carolina
Conference's business sessions last summer. One concerns expenditure of
funds by any United Methodist Church unit for any organization, institution,
group or caucus that allows any portion of its property to be used to
celebrate same-sex unions. The other relates to the resolution of a formal
complaint lodged against a clergy member of the conference.

All decisions of law that bishops make during annual conference sessions
automatically go to the Judicial Council for review.

Another docket item comes from Western Pennsylvania Annual Conference, where
Bishop Hae-Jong Kim rendered decisions of law in response to a series of
questions on annual conference structure.

The churchwide Commission on the General Conference has asked the council to
make a declaratory decision on the meaning of the phrase "any organization"
in Paragraph 507 of the 2000 Book of Discipline, the denomination's book of
rules and procedures. The paragraph specifies who may submit petitions to
the General Conference, the church's highest legislative body, and the
process that should be followed.

The North Central Jurisdiction's commission on archives and history has
requested a declaratory decision related to Paragraph 638 of the Book of
Discipline. The commission is asking about the necessity for annual
conference structures to have a means for handling archival and historical
matters.

# # #

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org