Update: Susan Elzey, adultery, perjury, and clergy sexual abuse

We recently noticed some interesting conversations on other blogs concerning Susan Elzey’s role in the meltdown at Tenth Presbyterian. Much of the conversation focused on two key points:

• There’s no “proof” that Susan and Liam were engaged in sex in a Lancaster public park.
• It’s appropriate that Philadelphia Presbytery did not pursue adultery charges against Liam, on the basis that his CSA of Susan Elzey was more than adequate to address the issue of adultery.

On both scores, we are calling BS.

Proof of Susan Elzey’s sexual activity

As to the issue of sexual activity, here are screen caps of the actual police reports, courtesy of Barbara Roberts:

Note that both the Elzey and Goligher reports expressly say “engaging in sexual activity” in the back seating areas of Pavilion 21, a popular location in Lancaster’s Central Park with public bathrooms and parking. Here’s a photo:

So, unless the argument is that the Lancaster County officials didn’t know sexual activity when they saw it, and that both Liam Goligher and Susan Elzey lied by pleading guilty to the related criminal charges, spare us.

Relatedly, the pavilion, located in the middle of Lancaster Central Park, is a high-traffic area due to the extensive parking and public bathrooms in the facility. Thus, there is a disconcerting thread of exhibitionism involved in this situation.

In other words, it’s not the sort of thing normal people do. Thus, we would not be surprised to learn that this is not the first trip around the block for either Susan Elzey or Liam Goligher when it comes to sexual misconduct.

Adultery versus adult clergy sexual abuse

We also take issue with the notion that finding Liam Goligher guilty of adult clergy sexual abuse absolves him of responsibility for adultery. Indeed, no one seems terribly concerned about Christine Goligher’s views on this matter, which is troubling indeed.

To be clear: Clergy are always and everywhere responsible for maintaining boundaries. No excuses. No exceptions. No explanations.

Thus, Susan Elzey is clearly a victim of adult clergy sexual abuse (ACSA).

But as we’ve said before, more than one thing can be true in situations such as this. Specifically:

1. By virtue of their ordination vows, clergy have sworn to uphold a higher standard. While we recognize that clergy frequently are held to a lower standard or no standard at all, Goligher can and should be held responsible for both ACSA and adultery.
2. As we evaluate Goligher’s adulterous behavior, it does not matter what the nature of his relationship is with his extramarital sexual partner. In other words, it’s adultery when it comes to Goligher and his marriage, whether the sexual encounter involves clergy sexual abuse, a consensual affair, a rape, or something else. The specifics don’t matter. Goligher was unfaithful to his wife, full stop. And yes, it’s this group of “woke” quasi-Episcopalians calling spade a spade on this topic.

Susan Elzey’s conduct

We also note an appalling tendency to treat Susan Elzey as the primary victim of Liam Goligher’s spiritual abuse, which is a bunch of bull. If nothing else, there are plenty of other victims — enough to fill GRACE’s 144-page report, despite some glaring omissions in identifying both perpetrators and victims.

Indeed, the fact that Susan Elzey is the victim of adult clergy sexual abuse does not grant her carte blanche to engage in other bad behavior. And there’s plenty of the latter to go around.

Specifically:

1. We are mindful of a guest comment on this blog, which we removed during moderation, posted from a location in Haddonfield, NJ (where the Golighers and Elzeys live), that claimed that Phil Snyder was responsible for the sexual encounter between Elzey and Goliger. As we said sarcastically at the time, “So what? Phil tied them up, drove them to Lancaster, and forced them to have sex? Spare us.” For the record, we have strong evidence to suggest Susan Elzey was the author of that comment. And manipulative lies that blame others for Susan’s conduct don’t go over well with us.
2. Susan Elzey’s testimony in the Phil Snyder civil case, in which she looked the judge in the eye, lied, and claimed that Phil threatened her, remains profoundly offensive to us. In addition to that little matter of the Ninth Commandment (you know, the one about bearing false witness), Elzey’s testimony constitutes perjury, which is a third-degree felony in Pennsylvania. As such, perjury is punishable by up to seven years in prison and a $15,000 fine. And Elzey’s claiming that to be a Christian who loves God deeply? If that’s her definition of love, no thanks. She can keep it.
3. Moreover, the body cam footage, the transcript from the hearing, interviews with third-party witnesses, and other evidence consistently reveal that Elzey’s testimony was perjurious. And no, “the Devil my pastor made me do it” is not a defense under Pennsylvania law to Elzey’s perjury.
4. We are also mindful of a second guest comment, which we also suppressed, in which someone took us to task for mentioning the Elzeys’ kids. Again, the poster was almost certainly Susan Elzey, as evinced by the geolocation of the post, the diction, the IP address, and other evidence. And while the poster raises a fair point, at this juncture, we’re more concerned about the damage Susan caused to Phil Snyder than the potentially bruised feelings of her children, all of whom are, to our knowledge, adults.
5. Susan’s guilty plea before the Lancaster County Courts raises some interesting points. Yes, we get that people who are abused can and often do make bad decisions, but getting arrested for sex in a public park should have been a clear warning to all involved that something was seriously wrong. Whether your drinking lands you a DUI, or your sex with your pastor results in criminal charges, when the courts have to get involved, it’s time to ask yourself tough questions. That theme—a consistent lack of introspection—seems to be a recurring one when dealing with Susan Elzey.

Tenth’s “Investigation” and its relevance to Susan Elzey

And while we’ve heard people at Tenth say that the church’s investigation into the situation rightly resulted in no charges against Susan Elzey, that’s problematic from multiple perspectives:

1. We believe Susan should face both church discipline and criminal charges for her fabrications about Phil Snyder. Indeed, here is a screen cap of one of Susan’s lengthy diatribes against Phil, which she posted on The Wartburg Watch. 

As to Elzey’s courtroom perjury, Phil Snyder describes it well on his blog, with the relevant parts here. (And yes, for the record, we have watched every second of the appropriate body cam footage, had it professionally analyzed, and more. We have zero doubt that Susan Elzey is a liar and a perjurer. To reiterate: “Liam made me do it” doesn’t cut it when it comes to criminal conduct. Just ask Patty Hearst.

2. Relatedly, Tenth Presbyterian and the Philadelphia Presbytery have less than no credibility, so having them say Susan did nothing wrong is, itself, a damning indictment. Indeed, Tenth’s Session has repeatedly lied to parishioners about abuse in the church–something Elzey denies in writing in her comments, posted above.

Further, the GRACE report on abuse at Tenth Presbyterian identifies myriad victims of sexual, emotional, relational, and spiritual abuse at Tenth. (Amusingly, Session wanted to deep-six the report, but Susan Elzey’s effort to trash Phil Snyder to the GRACE investigators led to GRACE releasing a copy to Phil. As they said during WWII: “Loose lips sink ships.”)

Meanwhile, several of the perpetrators remain involved at Tenth, including George McFarland, who also proffered perjurious testimony against Snyder.

Meanwhile, the church has done everything in its power to cover things up, slow-walk things, blame everything on Liam, and more. Indeed, even now, with Session saying it will resign at the end of the year, it’s a case of too little, too late, and done only because members are leaving over the church’s lack of accountability.

3. There’s a disturbingly predatory aspect to Susan Elzey that we cannot ignore. Whether it’s the venemous tone of her post on The Wartburg Watch, her manipulative apparent efforts to convince us that her liaison with Goligher was all somehow Phil’s doing, her claims that she pled guilty to sexual activity in a public park against her own free will, or the lack of concern for Christine Goligher or other victims of abuse, we see a conspicuous lack of repentance, accountability, or concern for others. 

Indeed, in Susan’s comments, re-posted above, she claims Phil Snyder has a mental illness and believes his own fabrications, even as she asserts that “Tenth is a place that defends the weak.”

Um, okay. Whatev, Susan. 

So what next?

That raises the question, “Where do we go from here?”

The answer, we think, starts with the recognition that multiple things can be true. In Susan’s case, we see her as both a victim of abuse and an abuser, with the latter including spiritual abuse and the felony of perjury. (And yes, Susan’s comments on the Wartburg Watch are spiritually and emotionally abusive and devoid of any concern for Phil, not to mention likely defamatory.)

What will it take for our view to shift?

For starters, Susan needs to come clean on her perjury. Folks can talk all they want to about how Susan loves God, how she’s working to recover from abuse, and more.

But until she owns up to her perjury and makes restitution to Phil Snyder, she has not repented of her sin. And the same goes for Tenth itself, George McFarland, and the rest of that motley crowd. Unless that happens, all of this is nothing more than badly done impression management. And Susan needs to come clean — Tenth is NOT a safe church, by any measure, despite her claims to the contrary.

Relatedly, we’ve seen zero concern from Susan or Guy Elzey (or anyone else in this sordid mess) for Christine Goligher, Phil Snyder, or the numerous victims identified in the GRACE report. Thus, we need to see a whole lot less narcissism and a whole lot more concern for others — concepts that are, or should be, at the core of the Christian faith.

And to be clear: Tenth is a church that has failed to care for its own by ignoring even the most basic aspects of sexual misconduct prevention for years.

An example:

Background checks of key personnel are, for example, remarkably ineffective at identifying sexual predators, since the vast majority of cases go unreported. Yet they are a valuable starting point, if for no other reason than they make people aware that they will face scrutiny.

Despite these factors Session voted against even this most basic precaution — and we’re pretty sure we know why, given that Goligher and Elzey’s criminal records were there for all the world to see.

Meanwhile, Goligher has repeatedly lied, been “contumacious,” equivocated, bullied, and more. And Tenth has appointed a pastoral care committee for him? Ever hear the admonition against casting one’s pearls before swine?

Tenth would be far better off spending its fast-dwindling resources on caring for victims of abuse, establishing protocols to prevent future abuse, and taking accountability for its bad behavior, versus proclaiming itself to be a victim.

And the same goes for Susan Elzey–yes, she is a victim of abuse, but her behavior is pretty damned shabby, by any definition, irrespective of abuse. 

Finally—and we will have more to say on this soon—we have written directly to Tenth’s leadership about its obligation to make reparations to Phil Snyder. You already know how that turned out.

And yes, Susan, to steal a line from your disastrously dishonest post on The Wartburg Watch, for the lawyers, this is all alleged.