In its analysis, the Judicial Council noted that although the Discipline is silent on the issue, this collection of church law includes a prohibition barring immediate family members of a pastor or staff member from serving on a pastor-parish committee in a local church. The church's current practice of beginning salaries for new bishops on Sept. 1 is constitutional, the Judicial Council said in a declaratory decision issued at the same time. The church's finance agency had asked for a finding on the constitutionality, meaning and effect of instruction in the denomination's Discipline having to do with the date newly elected bishops begin receiving salary from the Episcopal Fund. The September date for newly elected bishops to begin their duties and Aug. 31 for retiring bishops to cease their activities are included in the current Discipline. Sixteen will be elected in 1996.
Conferences have the same power to set the time and place of consecration of the bishops they elect.
Oral arguments in the case were presented April 13 by retired Bishop Jack Tuell for the Council of Bishops and Mary K. Logan for the Council on Finance and Administration. A Judicial Council member, the Rev. Theodore H. Walter, recused himself and did not participate in the discussion. His name has been mentioned as a potential candidate for the episcopacy in the Southeastern Jurisdiction.