Anglican Watch gets feisty with intake officer for bishops Barb Kempf after she and the Title IV reference panel for bishops improperly dismisses allegations of sexual harassment/retaliation involving George Sumner

Anglican Watch ends 2025 much as it started, with folks here incredibly frustrated at the lack of integrity and accountability in the Title IV clergy disciplinary process, especially as it pertains to bishops. And much of our ire focuses on intake officer for bishops Barb Kempf, who is a priest, a registered nurse, an attorney and who claims to have prior experience with Title IV. Yet even with all these qualifications, Kempf doesn’t  understand the basics of how Title IV is supposed to work and routinely sandbags complaints, thus herself violating church canons and the trust placed in her and the episcopacy itself.

And so it is with the case of outgoing Dallas bishop George Sumner, whose tenure has been marked by allegations of narcissistic rages, bullying of LatinX parishes in the diocese, and retaliation against priest Rich Daly for opposing sexual harassment. And to be clear: We do not see dismissing complaints against Sumner as an effective way to resolve allegations of sexual harassment. Nor do the reasons in the decision comply with church canons.

In the Daly case, Kempf has now dismissed Title IV complaints twice.

In the first case, Kempf didn’t even bother to figure out the nature of the complaint, since she failed in her obligation as intake officer to interview the complainant and collect as much information as possible about the case.

In the second, Kempf interviewed a representative of Anglican Watch, since we were the complainant. And she at least had the integrity to not make any evidentiary rulings as intake officer, which she has done in the past, despite being expressly prohibited from doing so by Title IV.

Instead, Kempf pushed the evidentiary rulings up to the reference panel level, which isn’t supposed to be making evidentiary rulings, either.

So what is the role of the reference panel?

Under Title IV, the reference panel also must assume the matters complained of to be true and decide how best to refer the matter for resolution. But Kempf continues her old tricks, issuing rulings that, in this case, Daly retired (despite the fact that, in reality, it was an involuntary retirement), and that the complainant provided no evidence to support claims that Sumner sandbagged a related diocesan Title IV complaint.

To be clear, the church’s own Title IV training materials make clear that the Reference Panel does NOT have a role in making evidentiary findings. So why are Sean Rowe, Barb Kempf, and Nick Knisely violating the canons? And especially in a case involving allegations of sexual harassment and retaliation?

And, to be clear, here is the Notice of Dismissal as drafted by Barb Kempf, replete with evidentiary findings and a ruling that the allegations, if true, would not be violations of Title IV.

And here is our multi-part pushback against Kempf and her games:

And by the way, as we have said before, Kempf didn’t even get the name of the complainant correct. Anglican Watch filed the complaint as an organization, not our editor, Eric Bonetti.

Take-aways

Our recommendations at this point are simple:

1. In his role as president of the Disciplinary Board for Bishops, Nick Knisely needs to step up and take the role seriously, including exercising supervisory authority to ensure that the canons are followed in every instance. That includes not rubber-stamping materials from Barb Kempf.
2. Similarly, Chancellor Mary Kostel and Chief of Strategy Rebecca Wilson need to manage the Title IV process for bishops. As things stand, the process is doing more harm than good.
3. Barb Kempf either needs to do a 180 and clean up her act, or she needs to resign, effective immediately. Her fun and games with Title IV have gone on long enough that we can no longer conclude it’s based on a lack of training. After all, it’s not that hard to read the canons, especially for a lawyer; someone with this background will find the canons easy to follow. But in Kempf’s case, she continues to look for reasons to brush off legitimate complaints.
4. Sean Rowe needs to recognize that, as presiding bishop, the buck stops with him. After all, Kempf is part of his office. So if she’s not following the canons, it’s happening only because he allow her to do so.

As things stand, things really are no better than they were under corrupt Episcopal bishop Todd Ousley, although now complainants actually get a letter telling them to pound sand, where previously they were simply ignored.