Where's ROC?

Where’s ROC?

Have you ever tried to find Waldo in one of those crazy puzzles? Well if that drives you nuts, try finding information about the Relief of Conscience process on the Board of Pensions website. First, try finding the Board of Pensions Website. Nope, it’s not on the PC(USA) main site. In fact if you do a search for Board of Pensions it will not result in the URL for the actual Board of Pensions website. That site is separate at www.pensions.org .

Anyway, once you find that site and do a search for Relief of Conscience you will turn up several listings to dead links. You can click on publications and look through the categories. I found the “Relief of Conscience Letter,” a pdf version of the letter sent to congregations about the Relief of Conscience program soon after the GA approved it in 1998. It describes how relief of conscience works but does not tell a church how to apply for it. It simply says a church may request relief and the presbytery grants relief.

You can also look for publications under the alphabetical listings—nope it’s not under ‘R’ for “relief of conscience”. If you look under “h” for Healthcare Coverage 2007 – Affiliated Benefits Program you will find a reference to relief of conscience in the description of abortion coverage on pages 22-23. Or if you look under “b” for Benefits Administrative Handbook (p. 42) you will find another maddeningly uninformative reference to Relief of Conscience.

In the end your best bet is to get PPL’s booklet, Abortion and the Medical Benefits Plan of the Presbyterian Church (USA), which actually addresses how to apply by sending a letter or overture to your presbytery (see response form, p. 7). Or, you could call the Board of Pensions at 1-800-773-7752 (800-PRESPLAN) for information.

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