The United Methodist Church’s top court has declared unconstitutional a new funding structure for US bishops passed at the 2024 general conference.
At the same time, the Judicial Council upheld the general conference’s elimination of the membership-based formula long used to determine the number of bishops in each US jurisdiction.
At issue in the decision, released April 25, were revisions the general conference made to the provision in the Book of Discipline that governs the distribution of US bishops. The Judicial Council has struck down “as unconstitutional, null, and void” additions to the provision that allowed a jurisdiction to request additional bishops beyond the minimum of five as long as it would assume full financial responsibility and prove it could fund the additional bishops for four years.
