I was 16 years old in August 1967. I was the sophomore class president and sectional wrestling champion; I was still basking in the afterglow of participating in the state tournament. It had been the best year of my young life.
I had no way of knowing I was about to be swallowed alive by a terrible evil that I could never have imagined existed in this world.
No one had heard of sexual predators in those days. There were men who “liked boys” and some who molested young girls, but they were always somewhere else. They were in cities far away, never in our world of Holsteins and feeder pigs in the American Heartland – and certainly not in our little white-frame country church. It was unheard of and unthinkable. But, as we would all come to know, it was happening to thousands of boys and girls in country and city churches all around the world.
Yes I am a survivor of clergy sexual abuse. I always knew it but I didn’t feel the pain of it until I was 42 years old. When it broke – another story – I began the long process of recovery. Sharing what happened with my wife, Jo, and others close to me was the beginning of my healing. Therapy, weekly support-group meetings with other survivors and prayer have brought me to a good place in my life. For more than 30 years I’ve spoken out widely and written about the coverup of clergy sexual assaults.
The post-traumatic episodes I suffered for more than 10 years have ended. The nightmares have abated. I still see it in my dreams occasionally but there is no more terror. I am also at a point of full forgiveness. I can pray for the abuser and empathize with the pain in his life that led him to sexually assault me.
I do not, of course, excuse the behavior. I held the abuser publicly accountable. I reported him to the District Attorney in Richland County, Wisconsin.
Five of us adolescent boys, and probably more who never came forward, were assaulted in the late 1960s at the church office and parsonage in Ithaca, Wisconsin. My brother and I in 1969 reported what happened to the bishop of the Wisconsin Conference of the United Methodist Church. Neither of us was offered counseling. No one in our congregation or family was told of the crimes. The bishop asked us to keep it a secret to protect the pastor’s career and to save his family from public shame. He sent the abuser to therapy and reappointed him to another church 60 miles away.
It came to my attention in 1995 that the same pastor had assaulted three more adolescent boys in three other churches in Wisconsin. I wrote to church leaders in all the congregations where the pastor had served to inform them of the pattern of abuse and asking any victims to write to the bishop. I wrote to the new bishop asking her to remove the abuser from pastoral ministry and to make his history public. I was told his case had been properly adjudicated in 1969 and could not be opened again unless charges were brought by someone abused within the past three years.
Feeling a responsibility to protect others, three of us from Ithaca and one from another church wrote to the bishop describing the abuse we experienced and pleading for action. I held a news conference in Madison; five papers around the state published the story.
I received an excoriating letter from the bishop declaring, “The unrelenting disclosures have been very near abusive of colleagues, congregations, former supervisors and the denomination. Our Christian tradition and biblical understanding call for actions on your part which are less hurtful to others.”
But I persisted and in time the bishop relented. She and others convinced the perpetrator to retire. The following year at the annual meeting held May 30, 1996, of the Wisconsin Conference of the United Methodist Church, the bishop read a prepared statement to more than 300 of my clergy colleagues.
The statement concluded with, “As a representative of the United Methodist Church, I am very sorry the church could not protect Rev. Sumwalt many years ago. I salute his courage in telling his story then and now. I trust God will grant him healing and peace.”
Many survivors of clergy sexual abuse have never received an apology or any acknowledgement of the harm they suffered. But at the May 3, 2024, meeting of the General Conference of the worldwide United Methodist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, the following resolution of apology to all survivors and their families was approved.
“The United Methodist Church apologizes for the times we allowed our desire to protect the Church to outweigh our desire to care for victims and survivors of sexual misconduct. We have allowed polity and protection of the institutional Church to prevent us from holding persons accountable, thus perpetuating harm within our local churches and other ministry settings, and damaging the whole United Methodist connection.
“We apologize for the times we have not listened to you, doubted your stories, ignored your wounds, and have not tended to your pain. We believe this has contributed to allowing an unsafe culture to exist.
“An apology is worthless without a commitment to the challenging work which must follow. The United Methodist Church pledges to:
1. Apologize in every annual conference across the connection.
2. Educate Church leaders regarding sacred trust in ministerial relationships and power imbalance within those relationships.
3. Provide healing resources to all affected in accordance with Complaint Procedures.
4. Develop a trauma-informed response to complaints of sexual misconduct.
“This apology alone is insufficient for healing. The United Methodist Church accepts our responsibility and publicly states our commitment to carry out the steps named to do no more harm. May God’s blessing and never-ending love guide our work and see it through.”
The apology statement was read in its entirety during General Conference. Plus all United Methodist bishops around the world are to read the apology at their own upcoming annual conferences. Visit www.umsexualethics.org for resources to help people who are victims or survivors, and for information regarding the reporting process.
The United Methodist News Service reported, “Delegates and other attendees at General Conference gathered outdoors on a terrace at the Charlotte Convention Center to lament damage done by sexual abuse involving the institution and some of its officials. The 150-200 attendees to the first of two lamentation services placed flameless candles in front of crosses adorned with broken pieces of glass to honor those who had been victimized.”
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