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	Truro Church Fires Priest, Another Employee for Accessing Pornography By Gregg MacDonald Fairfax Times January 11, 2011 http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/cms/story.php?id=2822 Two employees of Truro Anglican Church in Fairfax City, including a longtime priest, have been fired for surfing pornography on church computers, a church official said Friday. In addition, the priest has been suspended from his religious duties, according to an Anglican Bishop. The Rev. Marshall Brown, 57, who has served as a priest at the former Episcopal Church for more than a decade and was the associate rector of pastoral care, was let go Dec. 31 after church officials discovered he had been "accessing websites that could be considered as pornographic," according to Warren Thrasher, executive director for Truro. Thrasher, who joined the church in 2008, said Brown told church officials in 2005 that he had an Internet addiction problem, and then-Truro rector and current Anglican Bishop Martyn Minns arranged for Brown to seek treatment at that time. "There was a pastoral intervention and Brown sought treatment," Thrasher said Friday. But last month, Thrasher said Brown and a church counselor came into his office, where Brown confessed he was not cured of his addiction. Brown admitted to actions that were in violation of the church's "authorized use" policy, Thrasher said. "He had been accessing websites he shouldn't have, and sending some inappropriate e-mails," Thrasher said. "Church staff met and decided to terminate his employment as of Dec. 31." Reached at home this week by the Washington Post, Brown said he deeply regrets the way his tenure at Truro ended and the way his actions have affected his family and church. He declined to go into the specifics of what happened, but said, "The church, Bishop Minns, they've treated me fairly. If I were a denominational leader, I would do exactly the same thing," according to the Washington Post. "We contract out our computer support and one of the first things I did after Brown's confession was to have our IT people do a sweep of our system," Thrasher said Friday. The sweep turned up a second church employee's computer that Thrasher said "contained a significant amount of pornography." That employee, who has not been named, also has been fired from the church, according to Thrasher. Fairfax City police currently are in possession of the unidentified employee's computer and have opened an investigation, but no criminal charges have been filed. "We were told by the church's computer company that the computer contains many images of a pornographic nature, and we are investigating to see if any crime has been committed," said Sgt. Dan Grimm of the City of Fairfax Police on Saturday. Brown's computer was not seized by police. Nine Northern Virginia churches, including Truro, broke away from the Episcopal Church in early 2007 to join the more conservative Anglican Church, after they asserted Episcopal leadership was not following a proper reading of Scripture, particularly on the issue of homosexuality. Minns went on to become a bishop of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, the organization overseeing the breakaway churches as they undergo litigation, along with the Episcopal Diocese, to determine the owners of the breakaway church properties, estimated to be collectively valued at as much as $40 million. "All of us are broken people in need of God's mercy and grace, but CANA takes very seriously the role of clergy to be a wholesome example to the entire flock of Christ and above reproach," said Minns in a prepared statement on Monday. Contact: gmacdonald@fairfaxtimes.com
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