Episcopal Church in Colorado lifts Title IV restrictions on priest Broderick Greer, despite allegedly engaging in a decade of predatory sexual abuse. Meanwhile, we’re left asking: Why did the church allegedly think it was okay to threaten one of Greer’s victims?

One of the amazing things about the Episcopal Church is that, every time we think the Title IV clergy disciplinary system can’t get any more dysfunctional, along comes another case that demonstrates that we are, in fact, optimists. And so it is with the debacle involving the Rev. Broderick Greer and allegations of decades-long sexually predatory behavior.

In this matter, the Episcopal Church in Colorado and the national church have set a new low for knowingly mishandling a Title IV case, and we are both shocked and appalled.

Background

This sordid saga begins with two boys growing up in the Church of Christ, an uber-conservative denomination that strenuously opposes LGBTQ+ equality. The two boys, Ben Griffith (Ben) and Broderick Greer (Greer), were friends and attended a Church of Christ summer camp together, where they served as youth preachers.

As they grew into adulthood, Ben and Greer began to question the Church of Christ’s conservative views. Eventually, through the ministry of Rev. Sean Ferrell, they left the Church of Christ and joined an Episcopal parish.

From there, Ben and Greer pursued separate career paths: Ben became an attorney, while Greer became an Episcopal priest.

Over time, Ben discovered a troubling aspect to their friendship, which was Greer repeatedly pressuring him for sexually explicit photos and more, even after Greer was ordained.

Greer’s behavior was disturbing for Ben, but for a long time, he brushed aside these requests, even as he dismissed his negative reaction as latent homophobia from his days in the Church of Christ.

Eventually, however, Ben had had enough. In 2020, he complained to his former mentor, Sean Ferrell. And while the result was total silence from the church, Greer seemingly disappeared from cyberspace, leading Ben to conclude that the church was taking the matter seriously.

But, as Ben later discovered, the result was underwhelming at best, with Greer being “put on a short leash” by his bishop — despite the express Title IV provision requiring clergy who receive allegations that may be actionable under Title IV to refer them to a Title IV intake officer. In addition, the bishop diocesan has canonical and moral obligations to provide a pastoral response to the complainant.

None of this happened.

Greer returns to cyberspace

Then, in 2025, Ben noticed that Greer had returned to cyberspace and began, rightly, to ask tough questions of the Diocese of Colorado and others.

In every instance, he got brushed off or ignored altogether. Indeed, his initial complaint was to Sean Ferrell, who allegedly told him that him that Greer’s bishop “had him on a short leash.”

But, as Ben dug deeper, he discovered that even the bit about Greer being on a “short leash” was the result of nothing more than an inquiry to Greer himself, and that Ferrell did not forward the complaint to an intake officer, as he is ostensibly required to do under Title IV.

Hardly helpful.

Ben’s Title IV complaint

As church officials played games with Ben, he became increasingly frustrated and ultimately filed a Title IV complaint with the Diocese of Colorado, where Greer was canonically resident at the time of filing. (Alarmingly, he served as a canon at the cathedral, where he was responsible for ministry to 20- and 30-somethings. Perhaps we’ve been at this for too long, but that access to young people immediately sets off alarm bells.)

We’ve reviewed the complaint, which is extremely well done and reflects Ben’s background as an attorney. Specifically, the complaint:

Identifies and cites verbatim the relevant Title IV provisions.
Identifies more than a decade of sexually explicit behavior and provides concrete examples.
Identifies a second victim, which can be helpful, as judicatories love to brush off single-victim complaints as “personality conflicts” — proof that any excuse will do.
Alleges that Greer shared details of his sexploits and actions, which Ben recounts as “orgies, hook-ups, threesomes, fetishes.” This suggests that Greer was routinely engaging in casual sex with random partners, per se violations of Title IV.
Is accompanied by a staggering amount of documentation.
Is flawlessly edited.
Offers a compelling level of insight, candor and vulnerability that adds to the complaint’s underlying vulnerability.
Rightly terms the church’s response as “passive institutional violence.”

In other words, this is a Title IV complaint that, both substantively and procedurally, should have been taken with the utmost seriousness.

Painfully broken Title IV process

Yet, despite Ben’s excellent Title IV complaint, the Title IV process was facially defective, due to the obvious reluctance of Colorado judicatories to actually get involved.

Indeed, the issues are so deep and broad that we cannot possibly begin to cover all of them, even if we were to do a series of posts on this situation. That said, we want to highlight a number of issues in the case:

True to form, the intake officer decided not to stay in their lane, instead opining as to the adequacy of the evidence and more. This conduct is a per se violation of Title IV.
The intake officer made facially false statements in the intake report, including claiming a “paucity of information” and that the complainant was unresponsive.
The intake officer failed to correct these fabrications.
Repeated passive-aggressive silences by the Diocese in response to the written requests by the complainant that the Diocese comply with the provisions of Title IV.
A thin pastoral response coordinated by the intake officer, which is a per se violation of Title IV. (Amendments at the last General Convention prohibit the intake officer from acting in this role. But then, who among our bishops actually bothers with the canons?)
Myriad efforts to slow-walk Ben’s complaint and to give him the runaround.
An apparent threat by former mentor the Rev Sean Ferrell, who allegedly said, “You, a white heterosexual man are claiming to be a victim of a homosexual African American man. That’s obviously possible, but I think you had better be sure and confirm with others that what you experienced rises to the level of abuse… Trust and verify is the way it works… Be prepared.” To be clear: Ferrell is the first person to whom Ben reported the abuse in 2020, yet he did not comply with the Title IV requirement that he report the matter to an intake officer. That is unacceptable, and we provide a copy of the Title IV complaint against Ferrell at the end of this post. Moreover, his comments are a prime example of the victim-blaming that goes on within the Episcopal Church. Nor is playing the race card cool.

Initial Title IV outcomes

In the end, it appears the Diocese of Colorado decided to shut Ben up with a performative, illusory Title IV accord between the bishop and Greer. The accord itself (also provided at the end of this post) is as brief as it is meaningless; Greer agreed to “minimal presence on social media platforms (sic) no inappropriate communications via text messaging or email (sic), and no contact with the complainant.”

Additionally, the accord appears to have imposed a 60-day suspension from ministry; we suspect there was, behind the scenes, an agreement to get mental health care.

Is this a solution?

To be clear, the accord is hugely problematic and for multiple reasons beyond being a facially obvious effort to shut the complainant up. Specifically:

A 60-day suspension and a slap on the wrist are appropriate outcomes for a one-time, impulsive boundary violation. They are not suitable outcomes for a decade-long pattern of sexual abuse and harassment.
On this score, we want to be crystal clear: Sexual harassment should be a zero-tolerance offense, and doubly so when it involves a decade of sordid behavior.
Greer appears to be a sexual predator. As in, the Diocese of Colorado doesn’t appear to recognize sexually predatory behavior when it sees it. Specifically, the duration of the misconduct makes clear that the underlying issue far transcends boundary violations. And there’s one other victim involved, and we suspect many more.
The victim expressly did not consent to the accord, and rightly so. Indeed, its provisions appear expressly intended to minimize the seriousness of Greer’s alleged conduct.
We’re really tired of the Episcopal Church’s double standard when it comes to the sexual abuse of straight men. (And we say that as an organization in which 100 percent of our small team are sexual minorities.) As in the case of Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, the denomination appears incapable of understanding that straight, cisgender male individuals can and often are the victims of sexual harassment and abuse. And to be clear: We applaud men in this situation for having the integrity and the spine to come forward. Moreover, we want to be absolutely clear: All persons, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression, are entitled to be believed when they come forward and to be treated with respect, kindness, and compassion. (We doubly applaud Ben for being willing to use his name.)
Relatedly, we have to question whether a decade of sexual harassment involving a female victim would result in a similar response. We hope the answer is no, but then, given the mess that is Title IV, we’re not going to bet the family farm on it.

Intake officer for bishops Barb Kempf gets involved

In a meltdown like this, no doubt you suspected that the incompetent and feckless intake officer for bishops, Barb Kempf, would show up somewhere in the story, and if you did, you’re spot on.

At one point in the Title IV process, Ben rightly became so frustrated with the fun and games of the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado that he filed a separate Title IV complaint against Bishop Diocesan Kym Lucas.

The outcome?

You guessed it. Barb Kempf saw no canonical violation in Bishop Kym’s ignoring of the provisions of Title IV. After all, as we have said before, Title IV may claim to be canon law, but the reality is its nothing more than a series of suggestions, which, per Barb Kempf and Sean Rowe, bishops are free to ignore.

Where things stand now

So where do things stand now?

It appears that Greer is back to active ministry, and we see no signs that any of the various judicatories share our concerns that he is a sexual predator. Indeed, as the late Maya Angelou said:

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. They know themselves much better than you do.

Yet no one seems to recognize that Greer seemingly HAS told us who he is.

Thus, we suspect that the facially thin Title IV process in this matter has resulted in just one thing, which is Greer taking his sexploits underground. Indeed, we’re willing to bet that, if we ask around, we’ll find he’s still hard at it, just being a bit more careful about his choice of victims.

Meanwhile, we don’t need to speculation about the trauma this situation has caused the victim. Indeed, the depth of that trauma underscores the fact that a badly handled Title IV complaint often causes irreparable harm to all parties involved. Yet, intake officers and other judicatories typically proceed without even bothering to follow the most basic aspects of Title IV. And nowhere in this situation do we see love, care, or concern for Ben.

What next?

We have no insight as to Ben’s next steps. That said, many of the statements made by diocesan officials in the course of the Title IV process could qualify as defamatory. Thus, we hope he consults with appropriate local legal counsel.

We also note that Colorado has the dubious distinction of being the site of the landmark 1993 lawsuit, Moses v. Episcopal Diocese of Colorado (863 P.2d 310 (Colo. 1993)), in which the state Supreme Court held that the Episcopal Church can be held legally liable for civil torts despite First Amendment claims of immunity. That case really provided, at least in theory, an impetus for the Episcopal Church to take abuse seriously, although, as we have said many times, there is a huge gap between theory and practice in the denomination.

We also note that the fact that the plaintiff in the Moses case even had to go to court in the first place bespeaks corruption in the denomination. And from where we sit, it doesn’t appear that much has changed — even as another sexual abuse lawsuit wends its way through state courts. (Tellingly, the priest in the current lawsuit, Jerry McKenzie, recently died and apparently was a priest in good standing at the time of his death. Why?)

Whatever ultimately happens in this case, we hope that the church officials involved eventually realize that the important thing was NOT returning Greer to active ministry. Nor was it avoiding scandal or protecting the organization. Rather, the most important aspect of this whole situation caring for the victims of Greer’s conduct. In that regard, this case is a catastrophic failure in every way.

And for the love of the Almighty, folks, this group of LGBTQ+ and African-American bloggers urges church officials to drop the whole “You’re complaining about a gay person of color” routine and start focusing instead on the trauma of victims.

Finally, we reiterate our admiration and respect for Ben in having the courage and integrity to be a truth-teller. And we add our inevitable reminder to put the word “allegedly” in front of each sentence in this post. That said, we believe Ben, and we stand with him.

Title IV complaint, accord, and lifting of restrictions