Part 1: Joanna’s Story
The Upper Midwest
Mishandling of Abuse Allegations
Content Warning: The following includes references to sexual abuse against children and adults.
On June 26th, 2021, Joanna Laurel posted a thread on Twitter with a brief overview of her concerns about the ongoing ways that the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) Diocese of the Upper Midwest and Church of the Resurrection in Wheaton, IL had mishandled church leader sexual abuse and assault allegations since 2019.
After you have finished reading this thread, please see Joanna’s July 3rd follow-up thread here providing further details of the diocese’s mishandling of the sexual abuse allegations under the leadership of Bishop Stewart Ruch III.
Key people and organizations discussed below include:
Joanna Laurel, a survivor of sexual assault & advocate for other survivors in the Diocese of the Upper Midwest. Joanna has shared her concerns about the mishandling of sexual abuse allegations by ACNA leaders. She is a former neighbor of Mark Rivera and has never been a member of an ACNA congregation.
Mark Rivera, a former catechist at Christ Our Light Anglican Church accused of sexual crimes against women and children.
The Anglican Diocese of the Upper Midwest of the Anglican Church of North America
The Rt Rev. Stewart Ruch III, bishop of the Diocese of the Upper Midwest
Church of the Resurrection, the largest parish and the diocesan headquarters of the Diocese of the Upper Midwest
Christ Our Light Anglican Church (COLA), a small parish of the Diocese of the Upper Midwest located in Big Rock, IL
Rev. Rand York, former rector at Christ Our Light Anglican and godfather of Joanna Laurel
Chris Lapeyre, the Senior Warden and worship pastor at Christ Our Light Anglican and close friend of Mark Rivera
The Anglican Church of North America (ACNA)
The Most Rev. Dr. Foley Beach, Archbishop of the Anglican Church of North America
Grand River Solutions, a firm hired by the Diocese of the Upper Midwest to conduct a third-party investigation of abuse allegations against Mark Rivera
The contents of the thread are pasted below with minimal modifications to increase clarity. The content from Joanna’s tweet about the relevant names and organizations has been expanded in the section above. Twitter handles have been removed and replaced with names of people and organizations. Links to websites have been included when available. Transcriptions provided by #ACNAtoo volunteers of some screenshots picturing the text of emails have also been included below along with the original screenshots.
————————————————————-
Twitter Thread begins:
My #ChurchToo story thread:
This is a brief overview of how the Diocese of the Upper Midwest and the Church of the Resurrection have mishandled church leader sexual abuse and assault allegations for two-plus years and counting.
I will write about my personal experience within the story in greater detail soon.
My neighbor Mark Rivera raped me twice, pressured me to keep this secret, and repeatedly propositioned me to have an affair. Mark was the catechist (lay pastor) at Christ Our Light Anglican. My godfather, Rand York, was the priest. COLA members were my neighbors and friends.
The consent lines weren’t blurry.
I was blacked out drunk. It’s possible Mark drugged me. Witnesses saw me incoherent. He walked me home each time and raped me there. Since I formed almost no memories, he spun a story that I’d seduced him. I was in shock.
I believed his lies.
Mark told his best friend, COLA’s senior warden and worship pastor Chris Lapeyre, about the first rape almost immediately.
Chris kept Mark’s secret indefinitely and would later (November 2020) try to shame me into continued silence when he realized I was coming forward.
The first rape was in 2018.
In 2019, a 9-year-old in Mark’s church told her mother Mark had been sexually assaulting her. A teenage girl also alleged assaults. Stories surfaced of predatory behavior spanning decades.
Mark said this was just Satan attacking the church.
The Anglican Diocese of the Upper Midwest removed Mark from leadership in 2019 (one of few appropriate actions to date). But it was his victim’s family that were forced out of the church. Church leaders and old friends at Christ Our Light Anglican Church and Church of the Resurrection rallied around Mark with financial, legal, and social cover.
The text of the above screenshot of an email by Mark Rivera to friends and supporters in the diocese dated June 4, 2019 is transcribed below:
June 4, 2019 at 11:02 PM
To: Mark Rivera Bcc: [NAMES REDACTED]
On the mountain of the Lord, it shall be provided.
My dearest people,
I have some good news to report. The lawyer of the Diocese had been looking for a pro bono lawyer for me. But a couple of you had pledged long term loans to cover legal fees, so the chancellor expanded his search to include better lawyers who would be willing to take the case on the cheap. He not only found a willing lawyer but he found us a very good one.
I am going to meet my lawyer tomorrow morning to discuss the case and set up my next meeting with the DCFS. My lawyer is none other than Jim Ryan, former Illinois Attorney General (two terms) and two time candidate for Governor. He is not only prestigious by name but he also is a very good lawyer. The kind you want on your side.
We are getting him for a bargain (but he won’t be cheap), special thanks to those of you loaning me the $ for this. It is my hope that he will get this investigation done with and get me back home to my family as soon as possible.
Please pray for my meeting tomorrow and the eventual meeting with DCFS?
Peace
Marko
A dozen+ allegations against Mark include unwanted touching, exposing teens to pornography, indecent exposure, sexual abuse, child sexual assault, attempted child sexual assault, and rape.
He’s now awaiting trial for child sexual assault and under police investigation for rape.
Mark is out on bond in Winfield, IL, living with his wife and two minor children.
He’s under court order not to have contact with minors who aren’t his kids, an order he’s repeatedly violated.
His wife, who disbelieves the minor victims’ allegations, is his default supervisor.
Mark served in numerous roles in two Diocese of the Upper Midwest churches over a span of twenty-plus years.
Church and diocesan leaders knew of allegations against him two years ago and didn’t notify Church of the Resurrection Members.
Another victim and I came forward last November. They still didn’t notify them.
Mark’s roles included youth leader, small group leader, communion minister, prayer minister, and most recently catechist (a lay pastor who serves communion, preaches sermons, and officiates the service in the priest’s absence).
He also mentored many church youth in his home.
Mark hid in plain sight for years, grooming girls, women, and the entire community to accept physical boundary violations no other male adult could have gotten away with. Every girl / young woman in the following photos is the daughter of a fellow church leader:
Mark had a longstanding habit of formally and informally adopting “godchildren.” He bragged about being godfather to dozens of children in the community, some of whom are now among those alleging grooming and abuse.
After the November 2020 allegations, Bishop Stewart Ruch finally suspended Christ Our Light Anglican Church operations.
He offered various parties “pastoral care,” including Mark.
To date, the Anglican Diocese of the Upper Midwest will not pay for professional counseling for the 9-year-old child their catechist serially molested.
After the November allegations, Bishop Stewart also visited and prayed with Mark and his wife.
He also reportedly exorcised 10 demons from Mark, whose wife, we are told, then declared Mark much improved.
Then, nothing.
In January, a group of Mark’s victims and our advocates wrote Bishop Stewart begging him to enlist third-party help.
He assembled a committee from his staff and advisors to respond to us.
Two of the six members were himself and Canon Eirik Olsen, the Rev. Rand York’s (former rector of Christ our Light Anglican) superior and close friend.
Fr. Eirik, Bishop Stewart, Fr. Rand, Mark, and other leaders directly implicated in this scandal (including Fr. Rand’s superior until late 2020, Fr. William Beasley) have all been professionally and/or socially intertwined for decades.
The conflicts of interest are staggering.
We asked the Bishop for an independent investigation to
1) find and help other victims
2) report in detail how the hierarchy failed victims and the community
We sought truth, accountability, and for the church body to learn to address and prevent grooming and abuse.
Investigations are inherently skewed when the entity being investigated is the one paying the investigator.
So we painstakingly explained to the Anglican Diocese of the Upper Midwest what investigation parameters they needed to set to ensure actual third-party independence.
They ultimately ignored us.
Anglican Diocese of the Upper Midwest hired investigative firm Grand River Solutions on April 30th and announced the investigation launch online on May 4th. Here is that announcement, which contains multiple still-uncorrected factual inaccuracies and several as-yet-unfulfilled promises: https://midwestanglican.org/big-rock
The same victims whose advocacy led to this investigation have found ourselves forced to opt-out of participating in it. The Diocese of the Upper Midwest’s flagrant disregard for our most basic requests indicates we would end up like the victims Boz Tchividjian, founder of G.R.A.C.E. (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment) refers to here:
The investigation’s fatal flaws are too numerous to cover here, but they follow a predictable pattern. See attorney, abuse survivor, and advocate Rachael Denhollander’s recent critiques of the Southern Baptist Convention’s initial investigation proposal.
The Diocese of the Upper Midwest has drastically downplayed both their own two plus years of mishandling this and Mark’s long history with the Diocese. They also won’t :
1) commit to publish Grand River Solutions’ final report
2) set an adequate investigation scope
3) waive client confidentiality privileges
*See update below
Grand River Solutions has personally confirmed to us that the final report they compile will go to the Bishop, who will decide what to do with the information. Mark’s victims and the Diocese of the Upper Midwest’s congregations will only know what he chooses to tell us. This is not accountability.
The text of the above email from a representative of Grand River Solutions dated May 6, 2021 is transcribed below:
On Thu, May 6, 2021 at 8:05 PM Reports
<reports@grandriversolutions.com> wrote:
Dear [NAME REDACTED],
Thank you for reaching out. At this time, it is anticipated that the Bishop, as well as Anne Kessler, will read the report. I do not yet know if they plan to share the report with the community. However, please know that we are not including in the report the names of those who speak with us. I’m more than happy to answer other questions you may have as you process what information you would like to share.
*See update below
Grand River Solutions couldn’t guarantee us they will keep the names of victims who reach out confidential from the Diocese of the Upper Midwest.
Grand River Solutions also does no outreach. The Bishop’s online letter and a single vague in-church announcement are being relied on to find victims going back twenty-plus years.
Despite our pleas, the Diocese of the Upper Midwest has still not enlisted qualified professionals to assist victims who may come forward.
Parents have been given no guidance on how best to speak with children to discover possible abuse.
Nothing about this process is trauma-informed.
Thankfully, due to voices like investigative reporter and advocate Julie Roys of the Roys Report, Rachael Denhollander, G.R.A.C.E., and Boz Tchividjian, we survivors had excellent tools to identify a sham investigation. This is one. We’ve told the Diocese of the Upper Midwest so. They continue to shut us out while professing publicly to care about victims.
This thread doesn’t begin to address the institutional enabling, mandatory reporting failures, pressure not to contact authorities, severe pastoral care negligence, or absurd levels of spiritual bypassing we’ve experienced.
That information will come out in time.
End of twitter thread
*Update-The Rev. Dr. Esau McCauley contacted Bishop Ruch to advocate for the survivors shortly after Joanna published this thread on Twitter. Bishop Ruch subsequently made an announcement to make the results of Grand River Solution’s final report public. Bishop Ruch’s announcement was worded in such a way to give the impression that he had always intended to make the final report public despite repeatedly denying or ignoring requests from the survivors and their advocates.