wfn.org | CORRECTION - UMNS# 05067-Process for Stroud appeal begins

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

Editors: This version corrects the name of the annual conference in the
seventh paragraph. Please discard earlier version.

Process for Stroud appeal begins

Jan. 28, 2005	 News media contact:   Linda  Bloom * (646) 3693759*  New
York {05067}

NOTE:  A photograph of Irene Elizabeth "Beth" Stroud is available at
http://umns.umc.org.

A UMNS Report
By Linda Bloom*

The process for an appeal hearing has begun in the case of a former
United Methodist pastor in Philadelphia who was stripped of her
credentials.

The Rev. William "Scott" Campbell, chairman of the committee on appeal
for the denomination's Northeastern Jurisdiction, said he hopes to
announce a hearing date soon for the case involving Irene Elizabeth
"Beth" Stroud. Campbell is pastor of Heritage-Epworth United Methodist
Church in Cambridge, Mass.

On Dec. 2, a church trial court found Stroud, former associate pastor at
First United Methodist Church of Germantown, guilty of violating a
church law that forbids the participation of "self-avowed practicing
homosexuals" in the ordained ministry. In late December, she decided to
appeal that decision.

Campbell told United Methodist News Service that Stroud and her
attorneys have until Feb. 14 to submit their briefs. From that point,
counsel for the church then has another 30 days to submit papers.

According to the denomination's Book of Discipline, Paragraph 2715.7,
"the appellate body shall determine two questions only: (a) Does the
weight of the evidence sustain the charge or charges? (b) Were there
such errors of Church law as to vitiate the verdict and/or the penalty?"
Those questions will be determined by trial records and arguments from
counsel. The committee on appeal is not allowed to hear witnesses.

"There really is a limit to what the committee can do," Campbell said in
a Jan. 27 interview.

Because the denomination's Eastern Pennsylvania Annual (regional)
Conference conducted the trial, committee on appeal members from that
conference cannot participate in the case and are being replaced by
alternates, he said.

He believes the nine-member committee, which recently had an
organizational meeting in Binghamton, N.Y., "represents a broad section
of the jurisdiction."

Stroud, who is still employed at First United Methodist Church of
Germantown as a lay person, said that Alan Symonette - an attorney and
co-lay leader at the church who assisted in her trial - was coordinating
her response to the committee on appeal.

"We're in the process of putting together the materials that we need to
submit," she added.

# # #

*Bloom is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in New York.

News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or
newsdesk@umcom.org.

********************

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