Presiding bishop ends disciplinary cases against former Florida Bishop John Howard

[Episcopal News Service] Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe has reached an agreement with former Florida Bishop John Howard to end the two Title IV cases against Howard without any disciplinary action and without Howard admitting any wrongdoing. Rowe said this would spare the church and the diocese the further pain and expense of taking the Diocese of Florida’s retired bishop to a disciplinary hearing next month on allegations of LGBTQ+ discrimination and financial improprieties.

Rowe’s agreement with Howard, known as an accord under The Episcopal Church’s Title IV disciplinary canons for clergy, required the authorization of the Disciplinary Board for Bishops, which voted to accept it late Sept. 30. Rowe informed the diocese of his decision to end the two cases in a letter that was released Oct. 1 by the diocese and the churchwide Office of Public Affairs.

“Whether this comes as welcome news or as a disappointment to you, I want you to understand my motivations for negotiating this accord,” Rowe said. “Your diocese’s continued healing and vitality is my highest value in this matter, and I believe that ending these Title IV processes is the best possible way for you to continue the extraordinary progress you have been making in fostering unity, transparency, and shared governance.”

Rowe’s message also said that the 74-year-old Howard, independent of their agreement to end the cases, informed Rowe after he’d signed the accord that he wished to be released and removed from ordained ministry. Rowe granted that request, meaning Howard is no longer a bishop or clergy in The Episcopal Church.

The two cases previously had been scheduled for a Nov. 10 hearing, similar to a civil trial, though church leaders had recently raised alarm that Howard had not been responsive to the process for most of this year.

“The matter has, in recent weeks, become a significant distraction to the good work you are doing to reinvigorate healthy systems and structures,” Rowe said. The two Title IV cases also have been costly, he noted. The church already had spent more than $100,000 investigating the allegations and preparing for the hearing, and church leaders anticipated even greater costs ahead, “money that would not have been available for other mission and ministry,” Rowe said.

“The goals of Title IV include healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation, and I grieve that at this stage, we cannot achieve those goals with your former bishop,” Rowe said in a message to the Diocese of Florida. “My hope is in Christ, and I will not stop praying that John may be reconciled to you.”

Howard served the Jacksonville-based Diocese of Florida for 20 years until his retirement in October 2023, after reaching the church’s mandatory clergy retirement age of 72. One of the two cases filed under the church’s Title IV canons alleged that the diocese, under Howard’s leadership, engaged in a pattern of discrimination against LGBTQ+ clergy and aspirants to ordained ministry, as well as their supporters. The second case was unrelated and centered on three diocesan financial matters during his time as bishop.

Howard submitted written responses to these allegations in August 2024. He affirmed many of the underlying facts but denied all wrongdoing. Episcopal News Service has been unable to reach him for a more recent response.

The Episcopal Church’s Title IV disciplinary canons apply to all clergy, though cases involving bishops follow a separate process from those at the diocesan level. Early on, Rowe had been in conversation with Howard on a possible accord, but in February 2025, Rowe announced that the cases would proceed to a hearing panel, marking a more public phase of the process.

“As the hearing panel processes have gained momentum, the pain of these last several years has been compounded by the human and financial toll of preparing for them,” Rowe said in his Oct. 1 letter to the diocese.

“Even as the costs have mounted, it has become increasingly clear that any restrictions imposed by a hearing panel would have had little practical effect,” Rowe said. Because Howard had reached the church’s retirement age, he was “unlikely ever to have sought or to have been granted leave to exercise active episcopal ministry again.”

“John was your bishop for 20 years, and I acknowledge with gratitude his struggle in the early years of his episcopacy to keep the Diocese of Florida in The Episcopal Church during a time of schism and dissension over matters of human sexuality. I am also mindful that in the ensuing decades, as The Episcopal Church has prayed, studied, and discerned the evidence of God’s blessing in the lives and love of LGBTQ+ siblings in Christ, John’s approach did not serve equally well all contexts of the diocese’s ministry and caused deep pain for many.

“For those painful years and the harm that came from them, I offer my deep and heartfelt apology to the LGBTQ+ community and its allies in the Diocese of Florida and across The Episcopal Church, and to all who have been harmed by the last several years of unrest and division in the diocese.”

The Diocese of Florida has been without a diocesan bishop for the two years since Howard’s retirement. In 2022, the diocese twice tried to elect Howard’s successor, but both times the elections were successfully blocked by objections filed by some Florida clergy and lay leaders, leaving Florida unable to consecrate a new bishop.

In the meantime, the diocese hired former El Camino Real Bishop Mary Gray-Reeves, who is trained in conflict mediation, to lead and facilitate a period of healing and discernment among members of the diocese involving a series of conversations across difference. The process was not intended specifically to enable a new bishop election, though diocesan leaders previously indicated healing would be necessary before a new election could be held.

In March 2025, the Diocese of Florida Standing Committee announced it was launching a new bishop search. The standing committee’s tentative timeline would allow for an election in late summer or early fall 2026 and the bishop-elect’s consecration in early 2027. Central Florida Bishop Justin Holcomb and Southwest Bishop Douglas Scharf are assisting the Diocese of Florida during its leadership transition.

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.