Hi Clare, According to our understanding of Polity and Ethos and the Code of Ethics to which many of us subscribe, only the Moderator or General Secretary should reply to your question on behalf of the Church. Any other comments should be treated as personal opinion. With this in mind, anything that most of us might contribute (other than the Moderator or General Secretary) could conceivably be regarded as gossip.
With this in mind, I offer the following: There is often some confusion between "the Uniting Church" as it refers to a particular group in a particular place and "the Uniting Church in Australia" as it refers to the Movt or denomination. Clarification about this type of material is probably best sought from the Secretariat, rather than having us pool our ignorance. - Amelia -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Clare Pascoe Henderson Sent: Thursday, 4 November 2004 9:36 AM To: insights Subject: can someone explain this? This was in the news today, and puzzles me completely because I didn't think the UCA would (or indeed could) make a clergyperson resign because of divorce. I accept that there are conservative congregations who might not want him as their minister any more, but surely the Presbytery has final say? From the wording, it appears he was forced to leave a parish, rather than the UCA. Does anyone know the background? Was it reported accurately? Clare Minister caught with ecstasy in police club raid November 4, 2004 A 60-YEAR-old religious minister was caught with drugs at an inner-city nightclub after being shunned by his church because his wife left him. Kevin Arthur Caulton pleaded guilty at Downing Centre Local Court to one count of possessing a prohibited drug, an ecstasy tablet stamped with a yellow "smiley face". Caulton, a "repressed" Uniting Church minister and hospital chaplain, was at the Exchange Hotel's Phoenix Bar on Oxford St, Darlinghurst, on October 3 when it was raided by police with sniffer dogs at 1am. Caulton, of Engadine, turned to police when tapped on the shoulder and said, "I've got one ecstasy", court documents reveal. A 0.5g pill of MDMA in a small plastic bag was removed from his wallet. Caulton is a current minister of the Uniting Church, with parish and presbytery responsibilities in Sydney and the ACT, and also works as a pastor chaplain with Canberra hospital. A clinical psychologist's report tendered to the court detailed stress in Caulton's life since 1993, when he was forced to leave the Uniting Church, where he had ministered for 25 years. He was asked to resign when his wife left him for another man, taking their three children, because the church rejected divorce. "While his [drug-taking] behaviour appears somewhat erratic, it is behaviour that is consistent with an individual coming from a repressed background and never exploring the issues that other people usually explore much earlier in life," the report stated. In a written reference former colleague John McCaffey stated the offence was "completely uncharacteristic" of Caulton, who "knows the perils of substance abuse and other risk-taking behaviour", both as a minister and a single father. The offence was found proven but no conviction was recorded, and Caulton was ordered to pay court costs. The Daily Telegraph from http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,11280950%255E26462,00.html *************************************************** Clare Pascoe Henderson http://www.clergyabuseaustralia.org Clergy Sexual Abuse in Australia Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] *************************************************** ------------------------------------------------------ - You are subscribed to the mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put in the message body 'unsubscribe insights-l' (ell, not one (1)) See: http://nsw.uca.org.au/insights-l-information.htm ------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------ - You are subscribed to the mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put in the message body 'unsubscribe insights-l' (ell, not one (1)) See: http://nsw.uca.org.au/insights-l-information.htm ------------------------------------------------------
