An open letter to Bishop Mark Stevenson and Trinity Upperville leadership

The following reader submission was lightly edited for mechanics

I’m writing this open letter as a lifelong member of Trinity Upperville whose family has deep ties to the parish. My grandparents started attending the church roughly 60 years ago. They were buried from the church and rest nearby. My parents were married at the church, raised their children in the parish, and I raised my children at Trinity.

Today, I am appalled at the situation at my beloved church and have stopped attending. The problems are deep and extend to Bishop Mark Stevenson, Trinity’s leadership, and the church’s dwindling Episcopal identity.

So, it is with a heavy but angry heart that I call on all involved to drain the swamp. Not a year from now, not via a new rector who will deliver vague sermons about kindness and healing. Now.

Many of us knew, from the day Fr. Jonathan showed up, that he was a mistake. His theology is not Episcopal, but instead a weird blend of evangelical ideas, narcissism, clericalism, and more.

Fr. Jonathan also spent zero time caring for the spiritual needs of the parish, instead endlessly lobbying for his own self-interests. Like many narcissists, he’s a master shape-shifter. So, if he sizes you up and concludes that, for example, you’re a conservative, suddenly he’s talking you up, telling you how he’s a true conservative, values your conservative credentials, and more.

On the other hand, if Fr. Jonathan concludes you’re a liberal, he instantly is a card-carrying ACLU member, a progressive Democrat, the whole deal.

In other words, no one should conclude they know Fr. Jonathan, because it’s all a lie, and there is no real Fr. Jonathan. Just a self-absorbed, soulless, Machiavellian jerk.

That creates problems for the parish, because everyone thinks they know the “real” Fr. Jonathan, resulting in needless division and conflict.

Speaking of Machiavellianism, we all need to be on the same page about his conduct: There is zero doubt that he lied about being exonerated. Neither the police nor the Diocese exonerated him of anything, although there was no meaningful diocesan investigation.

Nor were people oblivious to Fr. Jonathan’s disturbing interactions with certain boys. While he maintained appropriate boundaries with most, there were some towards whom he was weirdly aggressive. This situation was obvious early on, and those who didn’t see it were either clueless or knowingly indifferent.

All of this raises the question: Why are the wardens still running interference for this guy? Do they actually support someone who seems to be a pedophile? Is this what our church has become?

Relatedly, why are we using church funds to provide Fr. Jonathan a “sabbatical,” which looks to many, myself included, like a pedophile severance package?

The vestry should terminate Fr. Jonathan’s employment immediately and order him to leave his home within 30 days, and stop paying him. He has betrayed our trust on multiple levels, and we need to cut ties. As for those who might whine about “being mean” to Fr. Jonathan, I have two comebacks: 1) Get a spine, and 2) If you love the guy (and his alleged pedophile tendencies) so much, you can write him a check. Don’t spend our money on this guy.

As for those who are running around, claiming that all of this is an attack from Satan and otherwise making stupid comments, please resign from your leadership positions. You neither represent this parish nor mediate Jesus when you act like this.

There also needs to be truth-telling.

As documented in several recent media stories, not even a week ago, parish employees were repeating the lie that Fr. Jonathan had been exonerated. This was certainly not the case, and the parish leadership needs to retract these lies publicly.

Now, we need to turn to the Diocese’s role in all of this.

Over the past week, I’ve done a lot of research on this, and what I learned is damning.

Perhaps the biggest issue is that +Stevenson, as he often does, tried to resolve the Title IV complaint against Fr. Jonathan almost exclusively behind the scenes. In doing so, he ignored one of the most important parts of our Title IV clergy disciplinary canons: caring for those hurt by misconduct.

Had +Stevenson actually bothered, he would have learned that Trinity was already in a bad way, that Fr. Jonathan was a mistake, that the church was increasingly not Episcopal in its theology and worldview, and that Fr. Jonathan had integrity issues. Plus, he would have learned that Fr. Jonathan almost certainly is, clinically speaking, a narcissist and a sociopath.

In other words, instead of making quiet arrangements behind the scenes to bring Fr. Jonathan back, the parish needed two things: 1) disclosure sufficient for us, as a parish, to decide if he should come back and, 2) a facilitated discussion about these issues. Additionally, as someone else on this publication noted, +Stevenson was required under the canons to conduct a professional pastoral care assessment, which did not happen.

To be crystal clear: No priest with credible allegations of sexual misconduct, including grooming, should ever be returned to ministry, full stop. To do so is to put our children and other vulnerable persons at risk. The same goes for allegations of criminal conduct; such cases must not hinge on whether a court finds the clergyperson in question guilty.

Title IV is an independent, ecclesiastical process that is neither criminal nor civil in nature, but rather one focused on the church’s mission, which is health and wholeness. In this regard, we need to be clear: The courts often deal badly, or not at all, with clergy misconduct. It therefore is the role of the Diocese and the larger church to act with integrity.

Thus, the appropriate discussion would not have been about whether Fr. Jonathan is leaving, but rather, when and how he leaves.

There also are some issues of questionable veracity on the part of the Diocese. For example, d’Rue Hazel, the Canon to the Ordinary, told parishioners that the diocesan investigator had experience with Title IV investigations; this was not the case. Nor did he ever actually investigate — a second family came forward, and the investigator stopped work on the case at the Diocese’s request, before actually doing any work on the matter.

I also concur with the statement made by someone else in this publication that a letter to the parish was absolutely the wrong way to handle this mess. We need a chance to talk with +Stevenson directly, to ask questions, and get direct answers. Not +Stevenson’s carefully nuanced weasel-word responses, but real answers.

I’m also shocked and appalled that +Stevenson thought he could return Fr. Jonathan to our parish without even asking. Whatever happened to the idea of the Episcopal Church as a representative democracy? Surely we have a right to decide for ourselves whether we want an alleged pedophile as our priest.

Then, there’s the issue of the Accord between Fr. Jonathan and the Bishop. I spoke with several experts, all of whom agreed that the complainant was entitled to a copy of the Accord under church canons. Not just notice of the Accord, but an actual copy. Plus, we needed to see this because, without this information, we have no way of knowing if +Jonathan is adhering to the restrictions on his so-called “ministry.”

The fact that +Stevenson didn’t disclose the terms of the Accord tells me that this was a cover-up intended to quietly put an alleged pedophile back into ministry with minimal fuss.

As to +Stevenson’s bit about how bloggers and people disappointed in the outcome are responsible for this uproar, spare me. Maybe if Fr. Jonathan weren’t lying to us in writing about being fully exonerated, this would be a possibility, but people can and should speak up when confronted with such serious lies.

I also did some digging, and it sounds like Diocesan Chancellor JP Causey is a real piece of work and played a big part in this mess. I therefore believe it is time for him, and possibly Brad Davenport, to make themselves scarce. We need people in these roles whose focus is not on protecting the Diocese, but instead acting with integrity at all times.

So, what next?

First, +Stevenson needs to get his sorry backside out here and apologize to our faces. Again, none of his usual cautious weasel-words, careful nuance, and lowest-common-denominator “solutions.”

We need an apology and to understand how he’s going to fix this mess. Foisting it on a new priest is both unfair and unhelpful, and won’t fix the underlying problems anytime soon, if ever.

Second, +Stevenson needs Title IV training. I get that he’s part of the Court of Review and previously served as a Canon to the Ordinary, but that only underscores how serious the problems are with his training and the lasting harm he is causing. While he’s at it, he should take Dr. Hill, JP Causey, and Brad Davenport with him. In fact, all clergy in the diocese should be required to get Title IV training, including on the new provisions for addressing sexual misconduct. This training should come from someone who actually knows what they are doing — not some dunderhead like Barb Kempf in the Presiding Bishop’s office.

Third, we need a concerted push to build a culture of accountability and integrity, both at every level of the Diocese and here at Trinity.

On this front, I had high hopes when +Stevenson came in that we were moving away from the corruption and narcissism of the +Johnston years. Now, however, it looks more and more like more of the same, just with slightly better packaging. In fact, in some ways, +Stevenson is worse, because he creates the illusion of improvement, while +Johnston was pretty candid (if you caught him in the right circumstances) about the fact that he didn’t want to get involved in actually doing his job.

Relatedly, I concur that +Stevenson should invite feedback, with an emphasis on those hurt by the church. I know so many lifelong Episcopalians who have left in recent years after concluding they couldn’t deal with the church’s problems any more. But no one seems to actually care about why they left, how we might welcome them back, or how we might fix the problems that led them to leave in the first place.

Fourth — and this ties to my previous point — Stevenson needs to meet with the family who filed the Title IV complaint against Fr. Jonathan. I know +Stevenson’s conduct in this matter has caused them tremendous pain, and he needs to hear about this in a face-to-face meeting. He also needs to figure out how he’s going to make amends — and it will take a lot more than saying, “I’m sorry.”

As things stand, it’s time to drain the swamp, both here at Trinity and in the Diocese as a whole. If that doesn’t happen, many other long-term parishioners and I need to start looking for a new church home, probably one outside TEC and its awful inability to get its act together.

Bishop Stevenson, if you’re not prepared to make good on your commitment, made before you were elected bishop, to “stand in the difficult places,” it’s time for you to resign. As bishop, the buck stops with you, and you need to be accountable for what my grandkids would call this “shitshow.”

Finally, in case I wasn’t clear, the wardens and anyone else still running interference for Fr. Jonathan, or who support a severance package for him in the form of a sabbatical, need to resign immediately.

It is time to drain the swamp.

Sign me,

Furious in Upperville