Bishop Mutti, leader in AIDS fight, dies

Key points:

• Retired Bishop Albert Frederick “Fritz” Mutti led United Methodists in Kansas from 1992 until his retirement in 2004.
• Alongside his late wife, Etta Mae, he also helped with the establishment of the United Methodist Global AIDS Fund.
• The two also were tireless advocates for LGBTQ inclusion in the life of The United Methodist Church.
• That advocacy came out of seeing two sons die of AIDS in the early 1990s, and it continued until the end of their lives.

Retired Bishop Albert Frederick Mutti III, who helped lead The United Methodist Church to take up the fight against AIDS, died Sept. 1 at age 88.

Mutti, known throughout his life as “Fritz,” began his ministry in his native Missouri and served as bishop of the denomination’s Kansas East and Kansas West conferences from 1992 until his retirement in 2004.

He also was a leader in The United Methodist Church’s ecumenical and interfaith work. He helped push forward the 2012 Pan-Methodist full-communion agreement that strengthened ties between The United Methodist Church and five historically Black Methodist denominations.

“Bishop Mutti lived his ministry with a quiet strength and a generous spirit. He carried the love of Christ into every room he entered,” said Council of Bishops President Rubén Saenz Jr. in a statement. Saenz now leads the Horizon Texas Conference, but previously led the Great Plains Conference that now encompasses Kansas.

“His witness will continue to shape our church for generations.”

What many United Methodists will remember Mutti for most is his and late wife Etta Mae’s tireless advocacy for The United Methodist Church to both address the AIDS crisis and fully welcome LGBTQ people into church life.

The Muttis played a key role in encouraging the church to put money into the fight against AIDS. They were also part of the yearslong effort that eventually led to the momentous 2024 General Conference that opened the way for greater LGBTQ inclusion.

The couple’s advocacy came after great personal loss. Their oldest son, Tim, died of complications from AIDS in December 1990; their middle son, Fred, died of the disease in September 1991. Their youngest son, Marty, later died unexpectedly of a blood clot in his lung in 2018.

“They’ve endured more grief than any couple I’ve ever met,” said Missouri Conference Bishop Bob Farr, who has been friends with Bishop Mutti for some 40 years. Farr visited Mutti on Aug. 29, just three days before the older bishop’s death. Etta Mae Mutti preceded him in death in 2023.

Yet, amid their pain, Farr said, the couple continued to extend care to everyone around them.

“He was one of the most decent people I’ve ever met in my life. You’ll hear that from everybody. He was just kind,” Farr said. “He and Etta Mae were just a wonderful, kind couple.”

Farr added that the Muttis treated everyone like family. That was especially meaningful to LGBTQ United Methodists at a time the denomination still called the practice of homosexuality “incompatible with Christian teaching.” General Conference eliminated that stance in 2024.

“Fritz Mutti was a loving father and affirming pastor for many gay men and others in the LGBTQ+ community who didn’t find either at home or in their church,” said the Rev. David Meredith, the chair of the advocacy group Reconciling Ministries Network who himself faced complaints as an openly gay pastor.

“More than his supportive and encouraging words, his presence in the struggles to be gay in The UMC and the U.S. was a solace for wounded hearts. His devoted ministry to those living with HIV and AIDS was healing for threatened lives and loves. The loss felt by Reconciling Ministries Network is great; the gratitude we hold for Bishop Fritz and Etta Mae is larger.”

The Rev. Donald Messer, president emeritus of United Methodist-related Iliff School of Theology in Denver, worked with the Muttis in the early 2000s in establishing the United Methodist Global AIDS Committee and the Global AIDS Fund, that is now administered by the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries.

The bishop was the committee’s first chair, and the Muttis served as early coordinators of the United Methodist Global AIDS Fund. The committee still provides training and resources to fight the disease and the stigma HIV and AIDS carry around the world.

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Bishop Julius C. Trimble, one of Mutti’s successors as committee chair, is now the top executive of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society. He described Mutti using biblical scholar Eugene Peterson’s description of faithfulness: “a long obedience in the same direction.”

“So, when I think about Bishop Mutti, I think about a long obedience in his advocacy and his commitment — not just to HIV/AIDS support … but his long commitment to human dignity for all persons and for the prophetic voice of The United Methodist Church.”

Greater Northwest Area Bishop Cedrick D. Bridgeforth is the current chair of the Global AIDS Committee. He said that Bishop Mutti reached out to him before they ever met, offering Bridgeforth prayers for leading the committee.

“That gesture of encouragement made his legacy deeply personal for me: I understood that I was receiving not simply a leadership role, but a sacred trust carried forward across generations,” Bridgeforth said. “His witness on HIV and AIDS and his advocacy for the full inclusion of LGBTQ persons called the Church toward greater compassion, justice and courage. We honor him by carrying that work forward — through advocacy, healing, education and global partnership —until HIV and AIDS are ended in our lifetime.”

Messer said the Muttis chose kindness even as they faced animosity in Kansas, where Westboro Baptist members were increasingly confrontational in their anti-gay stance, and in their own church.

“They devoted their lives to helping others cope with not only the disease but also the ugly stigma and discrimination people faced,” Messer said. “They championed LGBTQ+ persons in a hostile church and faced vitriolic hatred from anti-gay and anti-AIDS organizations in Kansas. Often they were vilified in ways you cannot believe.”

With Messer’s encouragement, the Muttis wrote a book in 2001 about their experiences, titled “Dancing in a Wheelchair: One Family Faces HIV/AIDS.”

“Their lives are a study in courage,” retired Bishop Ann Sherer-Simpson said of the Muttis after Etta Mae died in 2023. “Read their book, and there is not an angry sentence in it. They kept walking and serving faithfully.”

Even as they showed grace, the Muttis also showed resolve of steel.

Bishop Mutti was one of the “Denver 15,” a group of 15 episcopal leaders who issued a statement during the 1996 General Conference in Colorado that opposed the denomination’s ban on ordination of “self-avowed practicing” gay clergy.

He also kept urging fellow bishops to stand in solidarity with LGBTQ people in the aftermath of the tumultuous 2019 special General Conference that saw the denomination strengthen bans on gay clergy and same-sex marriage.

During the bishops’ 2019 spring meeting, as the episcopal leaders debated how to respond to the General Conference’s decisions, Bishop Mutti stood up to pay tribute to his gay sons Tim and Fred.

“At this time, we want you to know we feel called to stand publicly in support of the LGBT community and we will continue to advocate for them,” he said.

Bishop Mutti was born in Hopkins, Missouri, near the Iowa border. He met Etta Mae McClurg while in high school and the two eventually married in 1959.

He earned a bachelor’s degree from Central Methodist College, a master’s degree from United Methodist-related Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary and a doctorate from United Methodist-related Saint Paul School of Theology.

He would go on to serve in various appointments in what were then the Missouri and Missouri West conferences, including as a conference staff member, before the South Central Jurisdiction elected him bishop in 1992 and assigned him to the Kansas Area.

Bishop David Wilson, who now leads the Great Plains Conference that includes Kansas, first met Mutti while serving in the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference. He said he also worked with him later on the South Central Jurisdiction Episcopacy Committee. Wilson said that his predecessor gave him stoles that he now uses.

“He was always an insightful and uplifting person,” Wilson told the Great Plains Conference. “He loved the people and places that he served as pastor and bishop. He certainly was a man of grace and he lived that daily. It was always good to hear from him as he was a great encourager of me as a pastor and later as a Bishop.”

The Rev. Larry Pickens got to know Mutti through their work with the United Methodist ecumenical arm, what was then called the General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns. Mutti was president of the commission’s board from 2000 to 2004 and later its interim top executive after Pickens stepped aside from that role.

“He had a way of breaking down barriers and building bridges, and I think that that spelled a really important element of who he was as a person and as an ecumenist,” said Pickens, who is now the executive director of the Pennsylvania Council of Churches.

Linda Bales Todd also worked closely with Mutti as a staff member of Church and Society when he was chair of the Global AIDS Committee. What struck her most about his ministry was his prayer life. She said Mutti would go on a walk every day, and he once told her that as he did, he would pray for people he had met.

“He lived what he preached,” she said. “He really loved God, and he believed in the Holy Spirit moving in people’s lives. And he prayed for people constantly. I just love Fritz for that, and now when I go on walks, I think about Fritz and pray.”

Bishop Gregory V. Palmer, who was elected bishop in 2000 and now serves as the Council of Bishops executive secretary, described Mutti as “a genuinely humble servant leader.”

“His life and ministry were generous in every way as witnessed in his commitment to the inclusion of all persons in the church and his ecumenical leadership,” Palmer said. “He embodied the ‘catholic spirit’ effortlessly.”

Hahn is assistant news editor for UM News. Contact her at (615) 742-5470 or [email protected]. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free Daily or Friday Digests.