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Article: UMC minister loses pastoral standing. (United Methodist Church)
- Article from:
- The Christian Century
- Article date:
- November 17, 1993
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1993 The Christian Century Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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How far does the imperative of Christian unity stretch? Not far enough to allow an ordained United Methodist minister to be a member of the Roman Catholic Church according to the Protestant denomination's highest legal body. The United Methodist Church's Judicial Council has ruled that, a UMC cleric who joined the Roman Catholic Church as a layman gave up his pastoral standing in the Protestant, denomination. The council--United Methodisms Supreme Court--acting October 30 during a session in Atlanta, upheld a ruling by Bishop Bruce Blake of Dallas that William Farmer could not be both a UMG cleric and a lay Catholic.
In an earlier friend-of-the-court brief filed ...