Eight disciplinary cases filed in Calif. ordination
The Layman Online, March 27, 2002
Eight complaints by a Reston, Va., Presbyterian call for church trials of ministers and elders on charges of “willful and deliberate” violation of their ordination standards.
Paul Rolf Jensen, a lawyer, accused the Presbyterian officers of renouncing the jurisdiction of the Presbyterian Church (USA). If his charges are upheld by the church courts, disciplinary action could be as severe as ex-communication.
His complaints target the Rev. Kathleen “Katie” Morrison, leaders of the Presbytery of Redwoods in California, participants in her ordination and her father.
Since defeat of Amendment 01-A, which would have removed the “fidelity/chastity” ordination requirement from the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA), Jensen has filed 10 church court complaints.
His first two complaints called for disciplinary action against the ministers and session of Mount Auburn Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati after they made public declarations that they would not abide by the ordination standard.
Six of the current cases call for disciplinary action in the Presbytery of Redwoods. One targets the session of Pasadena Presbyterian Church and another was filed in the Presbytery of the Pacific.
Jensen wants Presbyterian courts to discipline:
1. Morrison, for “misleading, or in the alternative attempting to mislead, the presbytery during her examination as a candidate for ministry that she intended to obey the Constitution of the PCUSA when in fact she intended not to obey the constitution.” In effect, Jensen said, Morrison renounced the jurisdiction of the PCUSA by declaring that she would not submit to the constitution.
2. Rev. Mary Wright Gillespie, moderator of the Presbytery of Redwoods, for “conducting an irregular examination of Katie Morrison during the Redwoods Presbytery meeting of September 21, 2001.”
3. The Rev. Chandler Stokes, chairman of the Committee for Preparation on Ministry in the Redwoods Presbytery, for his role in securing the presbytery’s approval of Morrison as a candidate for the ministry and for his participation in Morrison’s ordination. Jensen said Stokes failed to heed objections raised at the presbytery meeting before Morrison’s ordination was approved.
4. The Rev. Yvette Flunder, a member of the Presbytery of San Francisco, for allegedly violating her ordination vows by participating in Morrison’s ordination service. He says Flunder “believed at the time that Morrison was a practicing homosexual” and knew that a remedial complaint had been filed to protest Morrison’s ordination by the Presbytery of Redwoods.
5. The Rev. Carolyn Osborn for her participation in the ordination of the Rev. Annie Petker at First Presbyterian Church of San Rafael, Calif., on Dec. 10, 2000, and later the ordination of Morrison. Jensen’s complaint says that Petker, at the time of her ordination, was in the part-time employ of “That All May Freely Serve,” an organization that seeks the ordination of homosexuals in the PCUSA.
6. The Rev. Ann Petker of the Presbytery of Redwoods, who “at all times relevant hereto since July 21, 2000, practice[d] without repentance the sin of homosexuality. As evidence of her defiance of the constitution, she has accepted employment by an advocacy group known as ‘That All May Freely Serve’ …”
7. The Rev. Barbara Rowe, for participating in Morrison’s ordination.
8. Steve Morrison, father of Kathleen Morrison and an elder at Pasadena Presbyterian Church, for participating in the ordination of his daughter. The complaint, filed as required with the Pasadena session of the Pasadena church, asked the session to recuse itself from deliberating the case.