01:00 AM EDT on Saturday, June 25, 2005
BY RICHARD C. DUJARDIN
Journal Religion Writer
You might say that the Rev. Charles P. Barnes is no stranger to difficult and even messy issues.
In one early assignment, in Gloucester, Mass., in the 1970s, he arrived after the church had burned down and the congregation had become severely divided over issues related to the fire and to the rebuilding.
Years later, he became senior pastor to a large church in Melrose, Mass., in the midst of an identity crisis. Having lost much of their original congregation, members were no longer sure what kind of church they wanted to be.
But the 57-year-old preacher's son, who last month was officially installed as the new conference minister for the 34 churches making up the Rhode Island Conference of the United Church of Christ, says there are probably few tasks that are as painful as those involving helping a church torn apart by clergy misconduct. ...
Since then, however, Mr. Barnes has found through experience that clergy misconduct can take many forms.
"It could be anything from a very sad, unhappily married pastor who has an affair, to a pastor who is fiscally under stress and who has just been given some money to take back to the church," he said in his first wide-ranging interview since his being installed here in May.
He observed that he had to deal with one particularly messy situation in Kentucky-Indiana where the male spouse of the conference minister, himself an ordained minister, was accused of sexually harassing some of the women clergy and staff.
He thinks the UCC now does a good job in its handling of clergy who "mess up."