BishopAccountability.org
	Tangled Webs Midwest Conservative Journal July 14, 2011 http://themcj.com/?p=22825 Once again, the Episcopal Church finds itself in the middle of a sexual abuse scandal, this one perhaps involving Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. For two reasons, I’ve been late to this story. I wanted to get all the facts and, since I have no dog in the Episcopal hunt anymore, I didn’t want to look like I was making points at TECs expense. And other people have been all over it; given his journalistic background, Jim Naughton’s coverage has been stellar. But the more I dig into this thing, the more questions keep popping up. If you’re not up to speed, here are selections from the original Kansas City Star report: A former Benedictine monk who directed a boys choir at a northwest Missouri abbey in the 1980s admitted on Thursday that he had inappropriate sexual relations with several members of the group. Bede Parry, who led the Abbey Boy Choir of Conception Abbey from 1982 to 1987, told The Kansas City Star that he had sexual contact with five or six of the choir members as well as a student at a Minnesota university. One of the former choir members filed a lawsuit on Thursday, contending that Parry molested him in 1987 during a summer camp at the abbey. The lawsuit, filed against Conception Abbey by a Missouri man under the name John Doe 181, alleges that the abbey knew that Parry had sexually abused other students prior to abusing him but covered it up. Parry is not a defendant in the lawsuit, which was filed in Maryville. Most of the inappropriate sexual contact was with males over 18, Parry said. Two of the encounters, he said, involved males ages 16 to 18. He said he has not had inappropriate sexual relations since the 1987 incident. Parry, 69, became a priest in the Episcopal church in 2004 and for the past 11 years had worked at All Saints Episcopal Church in Las Vegas, most recently holding the positions of organist, choir master and assisting priest. He resigned Thursday and said he’d also asked to be removed from the priesthood. Edwards said Parry did not have contact with children or youth in his ministry at All Saints. The plaintiff attended a residential choir camp at the abbey in summer 1987, when Parry directed the choir. Parry had sexual contact with him there, according to the lawsuit. The plaintiff called his parents and told them. They confronted the abbot, who told them that Parry had experienced a mental breakdown, for which he would be treated. But there was no mental breakdown, the lawsuit contends. “Instead, Fr. Parry was a known serial child predator who had sexually abused numerous students before Fr. Parry sexually abused the plaintiff,” it says. According to the lawsuit, the incident was the fifth report to abbey officials of sexual abuse involving Parry. In 2000, the lawsuit says, Parry underwent psychological testing because he was considering entering another Catholic monastery. “The results of this testing revealed that Fr. Parry was a sexual abuser who had the proclivity to reoffend with minors,” the lawsuit says. The results were provided to Conception Abbey, the Catholic Diocese of Las Vegas and the Episcopal bishop for the Diocese of Nevada, the lawsuit says. Yet from 2000 until Thursday, Parry was employed by All Saints Episcopal Church in Las Vegas. Who brought this guy on in Nevada? You guessed it. After serving about two years as the music director at All Saints, Parry noticed “they needed clergy, and I felt called. I talked to the bishop, and she accepted me. And I told her at the time that there was an incident of sexual misconduct at Conception Abbey in ’87. The Episcopal Church doesn’t have a ‘one strike and you’re out’ policy, so it didn’t seem like I was any particular threat. She said she’d have to check the canons, and she did.” To be fair to the Presiding Bishop, Parry basically lied to her. The bishop at the time was Katharine Jefferts Schori, now presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States. Parry said, however, that he did not tell her about the incidents before 1987 at Conception Abbey. Here’s where things begin to get interesting. Schori’s successor at Nevada, Bishop Dan Edwards, issued a statement on this matter and it would be hard to find worse spin about anything than this. For one thing, there’s Edwards’ peevish tone. First, what this story is not: This is not the horrifying story of a predatory pedophile priest who is passed from parish to parish so he can continue his predatory behavior. Far from it. For those who have the story of the predatory pedophile fixed in their minds, it will be difficult to hear and accept the actual facts. These facts will not fit their entrenched assumptions. But if we are to tell the truth, we must tell a different story. For nearly a decade since that decision, Fr. Bede has served faithfully, still without a hint of misconduct. Some in the blogosphere want to speculate that there have been ongoing depredations that have not come to light. I wish there were a way to reassure them, but since their imaginings are purely the fantasies of their own minds, there is nothing we can do to answer that. It is impossible to prove a negative. The facts are that for fifteen years before Fr. Bede became a priest and for over nine years since he became a priest, there has been no report, formal or informal, credible or incredible, no rumor or innuendo of any repetition of the incident that is alleged to have occurred in Missouri a quarter of a century ago. For another, Edwards makes some rather curious statements. Psychological evaluation? The Diocese never received a psychological evaluation. Besides, reliable testing wasn’t developed until twenty years after this event so we’re not even sure that such an evaluation even exists. It has been reported that there was a psychological examination showing that he was likely to repeat his offense. No such report was sent to the Diocese of Nevada and, to this day, we have no knowledge of its existence other than an assertion by the plaintiff’s personal injury lawyer in a John Doe lawsuit against the monastery. Reliable testing to predict such sexual abuse was not even developed until nearly two decades later, so the assertion in the John Doe complaint is dubious. The Diocese of Nevada, however, did have our own independent psychological evaluation done by a psychologist and it did not indicate any pathology or risk. Something with which George Conger takes issue. The bishop’s assertion that no test in 2000 could accurately gauge predilection towards abuse cannot be substantiated by reference to scientific literature. The September 1989 issue of the journal Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment reports the Multiphasic Sex Inventory (MSI I) “is also an excellent instrument for differentiating between deniers and non-deniers of abuse.” The second edition of the test, MSI II, was released in 2000 and has been used in over 50,000 cases to identify and plan treatment regimes for sexual abusers. When Parry was accepted, claims Edwards, he was told not to have contact with minors and the reasons why were conveyed to his superiors. Based on the known facts and interviews with Fr. Bede, lay and clergy church representatives agreed that he should be received as a priest. The record shows no dissent. Nonetheless, the bishop added the restriction that he should not have contact with minors. This was to add double protection and prevent even the appearance of any threat to minors. This restriction and the reasons for it were conveyed by the bishop to people who supervised Fr. Bede’s work. Further, the bishop, in consultation with the diocesan attorney, recommended abuse awareness workshops. But Parry’s rector, reports Conger, doesn’t seem to have gotten the word. In an apparent contradiction to the bishop’s claim that restrictions were placed on Fr. Parry’s ministry and the “reasons for it conveyed” by Bishop Jefferts Schori to his supervisors, Fr. [Eldwin] Lovelady said he “never had even the smallest hint of any kind of inappropriate behavior, or any inclination to such. I was not aware of anything in his past and now that I’ve been made aware of these allegations, I have not changed my opinion about Bede in any way and if I were still in the diocese of Nevada, I would be supporting him.” Then there is the matter of the canons. Edwards insists that every I was dotted and every T was crossed. How did the Diocese of Nevada decide to ordain Bede Parry to the priesthood? In the Episcopal Church it is not possible for a bishop, acting alone, to receive a priest from another denomination. It was a multi-level decision which meticulously followed the applicable canons. Title III Canon 11 Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church (2,000). When Fr. Bede applied to be received as an Episcopal priest, that request had to be judged by several levels of church governance – each with both clergy and lay people participating in the decision. The process of considering his application began in 2002 culminating in his being received two years later in October, 2004. The Commission on Ministry (made up of both clergy and laity) knew everything the bishop knew about Bede Parry. These good people did not decide to put children at risk. By accepting Fr. Bede as a priest, they were determining that he was not a threat to children. The Anglican Curmudgeon reminds Edwards of a few canons Bishop Schori seems to have overlooked. For example, there’s section 1 of Canon III.11 Sec. 1 (a) When a Priest or Deacon ordained in a Church by a Bishop of the Historic Episcopate but not in communion with this Church desires to be received as a Member of the Clergy in this Church, the person shall apply in writing to a Bishop, attaching the following: (1) Evidence that the person is a confirmed adult communicant in good standing in a Congregation of this Church; (2) Evidence of previous Ministry and that all other credentials are valid and authentic; (3) Evidence of moral and godly character; and that the person is free from any vows or other engagements inconsistent with the exercise of Holy Orders in this Church; (4) Transcripts of all relevant academic and theological studies; (5) A certificate from at least two Presbyters of this Church stating that, from personal examination or from satisfactory evidence presented to them, they believe that the departure of the person from the Communion to which the person has belonged has not arisen from any circumstance unfavorable to moral or religious character, or on account of which it may not be expedient to admit the person to Holy Orders in this Church; (6) Certificates in the forms provided in Canon III.8.6 and III.8.7 [attesting that the candidate meets all the requirements to be a deacon and a priest, respectively] from the Rector or Member of the Clergy in charge and Vestry of a Parish of this Church; and (7) A statement of the reasons for seeking to enter Holy Orders in this Church. Might the Presiding Bishop be brought up on charges over all this? If Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem Bishop Paul Marshall is any indication, the idea might not be as far-fetched as it sounds. Now let’s be serious. When 815-level lawyers threaten and cajole diocesan bishops not to reveal multiple sex-abuse cover-ups at the highest level lest former leaders be embarrassed, what can we expect and we do we look down on the RCC? Serious and credentialled invesigative reporters can contact me. As a rector, I had to follow a priest who was simply passed along by another bishshop, and as a bishop have had the same experience with a staff member who was protected by his bishop, with catastrophic results here. On paper, we are a one-strike church, but in reality, too many people are walked. 815 refused comment on this story with principled-sounding obfuscation, which essentially tells all, doesn’t it? There is no more transparency at 815 than previously, as some commentators above know to their pain. The cover-up, they say, is always worse than the crime. The moment this story broke, the Presiding Bishop should have issued a statement saying something to the effect that yes, mistakes were made, we were deceived by this man and for all that, I am truly sorry. Instead, her successor Dan Edwards issues a defensive and contradictory statement that raises more questions than it answers. A man was brought into the ministry in Nevada but told to stay away from kids. And that didn’t raise a red flag with somone? All Parry’s superiors were informed of this restriction. Except his rector. We never saw the psychological evaluation of this guy. Anyway, we doubt there even is one since a reliable psychological test hadn’t been developed yet. Not counting the one described twenty-two years ago. We followed procedures to the letter. Except for the stuff we left out. You get the idea. Will Bishop Schori be brought up on charges for all this? If Bishop Marshall’s comment is any indication, I certainly wouldn’t rule it out. She should be; she certainly has a great many questions that need answering. One caveat: if you’re thinking of Charles Bennison right now, stop because the situations aren’t comparable. After all, Charles Bennison’s brother actually did something(or someone) while nothing vile seems to have taken place in Nevada. So I seriously doubt that much of anything will come out of all this. Going after a symbol like Katharine Jefferts Schori is too risky a move and would split the Episcopal Church apart. I think 815 will elect to ride out the storm.
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