Bishop Earl Bledsoe

Costs are in, implications still debated, in Bishop Bledsoe controversy

May 23, 2013 Posted by Sam Hodges, Managing Editor 4 Comments

The arguments go on about whether the victim in the failed effort to oust Bishop Earl Bledsoe was accountability for bishops or Bishop Bledsoe himself. What’s beyond dispute is that the episode came at a cost, including financial. The South Central Jurisdiction recently paid nearly $100,000 to cover legal fees and other expenses of Bishop Bledsoe, as ordered by the UMC’s Judicial Council, which reinstated him last November. That money comes from apportionment payments—in other words, from people in the pews across the South Central Jurisdiction. Highland Park UMC in [...]

Judicial Council rules in dispute between Western Pennsylvania, East Africa Conferences

April 22, 2013 Posted by Special Contributor Leave a Comment

By Neill Caldwell, for United Methodist News Service… SEATTLE — A 10-year financial dispute between the Western Pennsylvania Conference and the East Africa Conference that wound up before the UMC’s top court [...]

GC vies with Judicial Council as 2012’s biggest news-maker

December 28, 2012 Posted by Sam Hodges, Managing Editor Leave a Comment

Members of the Virginia Conference delegation huddled to discuss possible next steps after Judicial Council ruled agency restructuring legislation to be unconstitutional. The decision came on the afternoon of May 4, the last day of General Conference 2012 in Tampa, Fla., and led many to conclude the $9 million gathering had largely been a bust. UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE PHOTO BY MIKE DUBOSE

Summarizing a full year in the life of the sprawling, conflicted United Methodist Church is always a challenge. Every fourth year, it gets tougher. That’s because General Conference—the quadrennial gathering for setting church policy, law and finances—occurs and influences so much of church life. But the 2012 General Conference faced surprising competition as a news-maker. It came from the UMC’s Judicial Council, which overruled as unconstitutional two major pieces of legislation approved by General Conference delegates. If you were to put a pop song lyric to how things unfolded, it [...]

It’s official: Bishop Bledsoe assigned to Northwest Texas, New Mexico

December 19, 2012 Posted by Sam Hodges, Managing Editor Leave a Comment

Bishop Earl Bledsoe, involuntarily retired and then reinstated to active duty by the UMC’s Judicial Council, has been assigned to the Northwest Texas and New Mexico Conferences. The South Central Jurisdiction College of Bishops recently recommended that Bishop Bledsoe oversee the episcopal area encompassing those conferences, meaning he would be based in Albuquerque. The Council of Bishops made the assignment official in a decision announced Wednesday (Dec. 19). “The Council of Bishops supports Bishop Bledsoe through our prayers and through the collegial brother- and sisterhood, as he prepares to move [...]

Process on track to give Bishop Bledsoe an assignment by January

December 5, 2012 Posted by Sam Hodges, Managing Editor Leave a Comment

Bishop Janice Riggle Huie, president of the South Central Jurisdiction College of Bishops, said the process is on track to have reinstated Bishop Earl Bledsoe begin a new appointment in January.The only vacancy is in the episcopal area encompassing the Northwest Texas and New Mexico Conferences, and Bishop Huie has just wrapped up meetings with leaders of those. “The meetings were both thoughtful and productive,” she said in a press release. Bishop Huie said the next step would be a conference call with members of the South Central Jurisdiction’s episcopacy committee, something she [...]

Will it be revolution or strangulation for UMC?

December 4, 2012 Posted by Special Contributor 8 Comments

By Christy Thomas, Special Contributor… The United Methodist Church cannot be re-formed. It’s over for us with our current structure. The Judicial Council’s decision to revoke the involuntary retirement of Bishop Earl Bledsoe over issues of violation of procedural minutia found in the Book of Discipline (not over the question of his effectiveness, which was not being ruled upon) has forever made this clear. It is over. It’s easy to get frustrated with the Judicial Council for the rulings of the last few months. Their work has thoroughly reversed decisions [...]

College of Bishops hopes to have Bishop Bledsoe assigned by January

November 19, 2012 Posted by Sam Hodges, Managing Editor Leave a Comment

The College of Bishops of the South Central Jurisdiction will take the lead in getting Bishop Earl Bledsoe assigned to an episcopal area, and the goal is to have him in place by January. Bishop Bledsoe recently won an appeal of his involuntary retirement by the South Central Jurisdictional Episcopacy Committee. The jurisdiction has one vacancy, that of the Northwest Texas/New Mexico episcopal area, currently overseen on an interim basis by two retired bishops. Bishop Janice Riggle Huie, president of the College of Bishops, did not say in her Monday (Nov. 19) [...]

Bishop Bledsoe to be reassigned – but how?

November 13, 2012 Posted by Sam Hodges, Managing Editor 2 Comments

No doubt about it: the UMC’s Judicial Council has overturned Bishop Earl Bledsoe’s involuntary retirement and said he must immediately be given an episcopal area to oversee. But how is that assignment to be made? Head scratching could almost be heard around the South Central Jurisdiction. “The circumstances before us are new ground,” said Bishop Janice Huie, president of the South Central Jurisdiction College of Bishops, in a brief, carefully worded statement. The decision to retire Bishop Bledsoe involuntarily was made in July by the South Central Jurisdiction episcopacy committee, [...]

Council’s ruling could affect Bledsoe appeal

November 9, 2012 Posted by Special Contributor 1 Comment

By Neill Caldwell, United Methodist News Service… ELK GROVE VILLAGE, Ill.—A United Methodist bishop can be placed in involuntary retirement, the denomination’s Judicial Council has ruled. The ruling, in one of 18 cases considered during its Oct. 24-27 meeting here, could have implications for the forced early retirement of Bishop W. Earl Bledsoe, which the UMC’s Judicial Council will consider separately. The Judicial Council did not have the requisite number of votes to declare unconstitutional Paragraph 408.3(a) of the Book of Discipline. That church rule says a jurisdictional episcopacy committee, [...]

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Bishop Bledsoe, Bishop Earl Bledsoe, Judicial Counci, Neill Caldwell

Bledsoe episode calls us to talk about race, racism

September 21, 2012 Posted by Special Contributor 4 Comments

By Gilbert H. Caldwell, Special Contributor… As I read the Reporter article titled “Kind words, hugs and pain at event for Bishop Bledsoe,” I had two immediate reactions: First, I [...]