You have to hand it to the Episcopal Church: it may be a tiny denomination, but it generates heroic volumes of paper. Mountains. Heaps. Rivers of paper. But buried deep within this year’s Blue Book are the results of a survey on abuse towards LGBTQ+ persons that is both alarming and appalling. The study is part of an effort… Read More »
Episcopal priest James Patrick Morgan was sentenced in 2015 to ten years in prison for unlawful sexual contact with a female minor. Morgan is a Church Divinity School of the Pacific graduate in 1981. He was a US Navy chaplain from 1983 to 1996. Morgan was one of the first Episcopal priests to serve in Evangelical Lutheran Church in… Read More »
In May 2005, Holy Spirit Episcopal School teacher Christopher Williams pleaded guilty to receipt and possession of more than 1,000 child pornography images. In December 2003, Texas charges of sexual assault of children at Holy Spirit Episcopal were filed against Williams. The same month, Las Vegas FBI agents searched his home and computers. Williams was arrested in January… Read More »
Title IV is the canonical framework for clergy discipline in the Episcopal Church. And while it’s constantly being tweaked and re-tweaked, there is a fundamental problem with Title IV. Simply put, the problem is that it does not fully appreciate the importance of disclosure and truth-telling, and leaves victims of clergy abuse open to retaliation. That is the… Read More »
Over the past year or so, we’ve seen the Roman Catholic Church suffer a devastating hit due to its handling of sexual misconduct. Similarly, the Southern Baptist Convention has had its own scandal, resulting in declining trust and plummeting membership. And the Church of England has been rocked to its very core by the recent IICSA and Whitney… Read More »
It’s taken me much longer than expected to write this post. To those who have been waiting for it, I am sorry. My struggle has been to find words adequate to express my dismay and disappointment in the Church of England and its hierarchy. – Editor In recent weeks, the Church of England (CoE) has been reeling from the… Read More »
During the 2015 General Convention (GC) of The Episcopal Church, two measures were passed that addressed abuse in the church. Measure 2015-A073 authorized the updating of Model Policies for the Protection of Children, while Measure 2015-A074 called for the update of the Safe Church Training Materials. The work was done by a GC-appointed task farce spearheaded by the eminently capable… Read More »
Shannon MacVean-Brown, the newly elected bishop for the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont, recently spoke to National Public Radio (NPR) about the challenges facing The Episcopal Church (TEC) particularly in a region where relatively few attend any church, and where TEC has a small footprint. Her comments on inclusion are noteworthy, particularly as they pertain to abuse. “If the… Read More »
Years ago, activists within The Episcopal Church began clamoring for the development of programs to prevent and address sexual misconduct. The move came at a time when the church was struggling to find ways to include those who historically had been marginalized on the basis of gender, national origin, sexual orientation, and other criteria. Many among those groups… Read More »