Judicial Council to Rule on Modified Traditional Plan

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CORRECTED VERSION:

In a surprising development that could have an effect on General Conference deliberations, the Judicial Council has accepted the Council of Bishops' request to determine consider the constitutionality of two petitions, one of which contains a significant aspect of the Modified Traditional Plan.

Just before the morning prayer session broke for lunch, General Conference Secretary Gary Graves announced the Judicial Council's decision to review the two petitions.

One petition from Lonnie Brooks of Alaska, Petition 90052, would do away with the option to have supervisory or "just resolution" responses to complaints against clergy. This would take away bishops' power to avoid a clergy trial.

However, the other petition, 90078, contains the proposal for a Global Episcopacy Committee in Modified Traditional Plan as presented by the Rev. Maxie Dunnam of the Confessing Movement. In the United States, the Jurisdictional Episcopacy Committee assigns bishops and evaluates their performance. In theory, a Global Episcopacy Committee would be able to appoint conservative bishops from anywhere in the worldwide denomination to U.S. jurisdiction, presumably to enforce the MTP' most punitive actions against clergy who perform same-gender weddings or conferences that ordained gay clergy.

The Judicial Council has set 3 p.m. today as the deadline to receive response briefs from the petitioners and 5 p.m. as the deadline to receive amicus curiae briefs. When the Council will hold closed-door deliberations and render its ruling is not known as of 12 p.m. Feb. 23.