THE Bishop of The Murray, in Australia, the Rt Revd Keith Dalby, has launched an appeal against the decision of the Episcopal Standards Board to depose him from Holy Orders.

The Board, which met last month, decided that Bishop Dalby was unfit to continue in Holy Orders on grounds of conduct breaching his ordination and consecration vows of “honesty, fidelity, and integrity”. The finding relates principally to his conduct concerning his relationship with, and later marriage to, a woman he ordained priest (News, 12 January 2024).

According to the Board’s findings, over about eight months, in 2023, Bishop Dalby, while “romantically involved” with Alison Dutton, took part in decisions involving her advancement in the diocese without disclosing his conflict of interest. Shortly after ordaining her priest, they were married in a civil ceremony outside the diocese, in “clandestine circumstances”; he did not disclose the marriage to the Diocesan Council for nearly four months.

The Board’s finding said that there was “active concealment of the relationship, rather than simply non-disclosure”, which “involved dishonesty, concealment, misleading and deceptive conduct and lies”. He was also accused of “bullying behaviour and spiritual abuse, threatening to remove or ‘punish’ those who disagreed with him”.

Bishop Dalby has been suspended since February 2024. In launching an appeal, which will be conducted by the Review Tribunal, Bishop Dalby has called the Board’s decision “harsh and disproportionate”.