In July 2021 Stewart Ruch III, bishop of the Anglican Church in North America’s Upper Midwest Diocese, went on leave after making what he called “regrettable errors” in handling cases of abuse in the diocese.
By that time, many who attended the roughly 30 churches in Ruch’s diocese knew that the missteps Ruch was referring to had to do with his delay in informing them of the accusations against Mark Rivera, a volunteer leader at Christ Our Light Anglican, an Upper Midwest Diocese church in Big Rock, Illinois.
Rivera had been arrested in 2019 and later charged with felony sexual assault and predatory abuse of a victim under 13 years of age. Since then at least 9 others have made allegations against Rivera, who had previously been at Church of the Resurrection, where Ruch served as rector and then as bishop. Read More
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Mr. Jordan, do you still have a copy of the (public and redacted) Husch-Blackwell report? Have you read it thoroughly, along with the other pastoral letters and documents from Bishop Ruch? Thirdly, do you read between the lines of RNS stories and sift out facts which have support from named, relevant individuals, as opposed to unsupported assertions, vague or emotional statements from people who didn't witness any of the events, and anonymous allegations? Do you not then find the publicly known facts to be painfully few? I would not be offended if you answer in the negative because your interests lie in other directions. I'm just curious about your level of interest in the presentments. I'm posting this here because you seem to have no other means of contact, so if that's incorrect, I apologize.
ReplyDeleteI post whatever articles I find in my daily search of the internet primarily for my reader who are following developments in this case. In church disciplinary matters in most denominations (I cannot think of any exceptions offhand)the proceedings, testimony of witnesses, and other evidence are not a matter of public record. This may be disconcerting to individuals who have a personal interest in the case but church disciplinary bodies are not courts of civil or criminal law which are required to maintain a public record and they operate by whatever rules that a denomination establishes for them.
ReplyDeleteI am not a church lawyer but I have studied the disciplinary canons and regulations of a number of denominations, including those of the ACNA. You will find that I have posted a number of articles on the adequacy of the latter.
Child safeguarding is a major issue affecting the Church today, not just the various expressions of the Anglican Church but also the wider Church. It is my long-held opinion that ACNAers exhibited a naive attitude toward this issue from the outset, choosing to rely on "godly bishops" rather than proven child safeguarding measures to protect children in their churches. The former archbishop Bob Duncan promoted "we'll make them up as we go along" approach to the ACNA's governing documents and a heavy reliance upon the ACNA episcopate, a approach which was a disaster waiting to happen. We are now seeing the results of this approach playing out.