Discipline of Clergy
The consistory court can only become involved in the case of a priest or deacon who is accused of an offence (not involving matters of doctrine, ritual or ceremonial) after the bishop has given the complainant and the accused an opportunity of seeing him. The bishop may decide not to proceed, but if he does favour a trial, the matter is referred to an examiner with legal qualifications (who must be a communicant). If he decides that there is a case to answer, then the trial begins in the consistory court.
The rules under which the clergy can be disciplined are governed by the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure adopted by the Archbishops' Communion in 1963. Courts have only been convened three times for this purpose since then. The last discipline case to be heard by a Consistory Court was that of Brandon Jackson, the Dean of Lincoln, who was acquitted of sexual misconduct in 1995.
Read more about this topic: Consistory Court
Famous quotes containing the words discipline of, discipline and/or clergy:
“How happy is the one whom God reproves; therefore do not despise the discipline of the Almighty. For he wounds, but he binds up; he strikes, but his hands heal.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Job 5:17-18.
“The cycle of the machine is now coming to an end. Man has learned much in the hard discipline and the shrewd, unflinching grasp of practical possibilities that the machine has provided in the last three centuries: but we can no more continue to live in the world of the machine than we could live successfully on the barren surface of the moon.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“I never saw, heard, nor read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country. Nothing can render them popular, but some degree of persecution.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)