The legal counsel of the Rev. Canon Edward R. Monk, S.S.C., in oral arguments before the Episcopal Church’s Court of Review on December 10, said he was not given the ability to defend the embattled priest and that the Diocese of Dallas hearing panel that found him guilty earlier this year of “conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy” was biased.
Monk is accused of siphoning hundreds of thousands of dollars from St. John’s Church in Corsicana, Texas—an hour from Dallas—which he served as rector for 21 years. He allegedly transferred funds meant for the church across seven accounts under his name, and those of his wife and children. A diocesan investigator also found he wrote checks to himself.
He was charged last year with six Title IV counts of fraud and financial mismanagement. In August 2024, he was placed on administrative leave from St. John’s and resigned from his position as chairman of the board of trustees at Nashotah House Theological Seminary.
After being indicted by a grand jury for three felonies—theft of over $300,000, fraud in the third degree, and credit card abuse—he was arrested by the Navarro County Sheriff’s Office in December 2024 and later released on bail.
He is now appealing a possible removal from the priesthood.
Barry Black, Monk’s lawyer, described several obstacles his legal team encountered in defending Monk. “The discovery process against the backdrop of criminal proceedings turned out to be a vicious cycle of secrecy, obfuscation, and the inability of my client literally to defend himself,” Black said.
He said the Diocese of Dallas panel struck most of the team’s requests for depositions. “We wanted to take the depositions of accountants and others, but they were all struck. We were only granted two depositions, that of the senior warden and the treasurer,” he said. Black also cited procedural hurdles during the trial in which his client “was being deprived of his right to counsel.”
Black described having a life-threatening medical emergency two days before the proceedings and being “sick as a dog” when he appeared virtually at the trial. He said he asked the hearing panel to “have mercy and grant me an adjournment,” which was denied. He also took issue with the panel not providing technical assistance and dismissing his concern about being unable to hear the church attorney’s opening remarks.
After conferring with Monk, the two of them left the proceedings “because I didn’t want a record to purport to be one where the respondent and his lawyer were present because, effectively, I was not present.” Black said he learned about much of the hearing through a transcript, which he described as “bogus.”
“An entire trial can hang on one word,” he said. There was no court reporter during the trial, and the transcript—in which over 300 words or statements were marked as inaudible— was produced from iPhone recordings of various individuals present.
Both Black and the Diocese of Dallas’ church attorney, George Carlton, were given 30 minutes each for oral arguments.
Reading from the Title IV canons, Carlton addressed Monk’s lack of participation in the hearings: “Respondent who fails or refuses without good cause to participate and continue to participate during the whole Title IV process does not only forgo their opportunity to present their side of the case, or cross-examine witnesses, or object to procedural decisions of the hearing panel; they also undermine the broader ecclesiastical goals of the proceeding and further harm to all involved by limiting the possibilities of a resolution.”
Carlton questioned Black’s claim that he left the proceedings because he was ill or denied an adjournment. Quoting Black’s words to the panel, he said: “In light of a whole bunch of surprises that have been flung even this morning, including information I’m hearing thirdhand because I was unable to hear Mr. Carlton’s statement, I have instructed my client to no longer participate in proceedings.”
Addressing concerns about discovery, Carlton said, “All they had to do was to go ask the district attorney” of Navarro County. “All they had to do was go ask the accountant. All they had to do was go ask anybody involved in it … and do the discovery that way, and then take deposition,” he said.
Earlier, Black had argued that Monk’s office—“where any shreds, any iotas of defense documents would exist, whether it’s in physical documents, whether it’s access to his computer”—was sealed by the vestry. According to Carlton, that issue was irrelevant to the panel’s work. The rector’s office was sealed because the district attorney was conducting an independent criminal investigation, he said.
Carlton also said the defense had “admitted that there’s nothing wrong with the evidence against their client, which clearly shows he stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from the people [of] St. John’s Church with no remorse, no regret, nothing.”
Carlton further claimed that Black never asserted Monk’s innocence. “He never mentioned that. He never had mentioned it through the entire procedure of over a year and a half now.”
After oral arguments, the court recessed for 30 minutes before reconvening. Several members of the court questioned the church attorney about the procedural issues raised by the defense, particularly the lack of a court reporter. Carlton said the members would need to ask the diocese those questions.
The Court of Review consists of three bishops, six clergy, and six lay persons. Laura Russell of the Diocese of Newark is its president. The body may dismiss the appeal, reverse, or affirm in part or whole the order of the hearing panel, or grant a new hearing before the hearing panel. There is no prescribed timetable for the Court of Review’s decision.
Caleb Maglaya Galaraga is The Living Church’s Episcopal Church reporter. His work has also appeared in Christianity Today, Broadview Magazine, and Presbyterian Outlook, among other publications.
