Episode 11

Transcript

“Bishop Ruch has knowingly and silently welcomed—without informing congregants (and that part is important)—church members whose past actions included violence and abuse. And by preventing the accountability that would result from communal knowledge, he has transformed what should be—of all spaces—a sanctuary for the most vulnerable into a target for predation.”

“Don't just do the bare minimum. Be a leader, make our churches actually safe, and actually safe haven for sheep and for the vulnerable. Blaze the trail and lead the way. You know, have an imagination for how we can solve this problem and actually lead the way on it. Why is that not everyone's vision? It's some people's vision, but why is it not the heartbeat of every single leader in the ACNA? I think it should be.”

This is the Wall of Silence podcast, the ACNAtoo story, an account of church abuse and cover-up in the Anglican Church of North America. Of things done and left undone and why we should care about it. This is Episode 11: The Presentment of Bishop Stewart Ruch, Part 1, The Evidence.

A disclaimer: this episode contains general references to sexual abuse, the sexual and physical abuse of children, as well as domestic violence. And a second disclaimer: the views and accounts expressed in this podcast do not represent the Diocese of Quincy or the views of the Bishop of the Diocese of Quincy.

Up to now, our previous episodes have almost exclusively covered the sexual abuse case of former lay church minister Mark Rivera. This included how Stewart Ruch, bishop of the Diocese of the Upper Midwest, his chancellor Charlie Philbrick, and other leadership in the diocese and at Church of the Resurrection in Wheaton, Illinois handled Rivera’s case. In this next set of episodes we now widen the picture and look at other abuse cases and the mishandling of abuse cases that happened under Bishop Ruch’s leadership. These were all detailed in a presentment made against him in June of 2023 by a number of current and former lay church members in his diocese. For those listening outside of Anglicanism or other mainline denominations, a lay person is someone who has not been ordained to church ministry, that is, the plain old regular Christians. Another presentment against Ruch was made in December of 2022 by three ACNA bishops. The presentment trial, which is an ecclesial or church trial, combining both presentments, is set to begin on July 14, 2025.

With this in mind, I’m going to do something I’ve never done on this podcast before: offer a third disclaimer, which is this: if you have a conflict of interest regarding Bishop Ruch’s trial you should not listen to this episode until after the trial is completed, as doing so, as far as I understand it, would be a conflict of interest. This specifically applies to those on the provincial tribunal, the court for the trial of a bishop, or if you are working with the trial in any related capacity. If this description fits you I recommend you stop listening now.

I offer this disclaimer because one of the main reasons my bishop, Alberto Morales, ordered that I stop or indefinitely pause the Wall of Silence podcast in our July 2024 meeting, is it created a conflict of interest between myself and those in my diocese who have a role in Bishop Ruch’s trial. His assertion was the podcast itself put Ruch’s trial in jeopardy. To my knowledge, those in my diocese who have a role in the trial would include, Bishop Morales himself, being in the council of bishops, and Chancellor Tad Brenner, lawyer for the Diocese of Quincy, who is also on the provincial tribunal. During the meeting with my bishop it was not exactly made clear to me how the podcast creates a conflict of interest for myself or those in my diocese, and, as I was just being introduced to the idea of this potential issue, I did not fully understand it or agree with it as an issue.

To hear my full explanation regarding this supposed conflict of interest—and why I don’t think it is one—you can listen to the episode that will be released on Patreon for supporters of the podcast. This includes a section of the letter I wrote to my bishop and addresses other conflicts of interest for Ruch’s trial, such as the roles of Bishops Julian Dobbs, Clark Lowenfield, and Phil Ashey, and how former Archbishop Foley Beach raised concerns about them at one point and then apparently decided to let go and move on from them. Again, you can find that bonus episode on Patreon.

Now, let’s focus on the evidence laid out in the presentment itself. The primary voices you’ll hear in this episode, Audrey Luhmann of ACNAtoo and Megan Tucker, who attends a former Diocese of the Upper Midwest church in Minnesota, are both authors and signers of the lay-led presentment. Of the episodes released so far, this is the first where we present information that has not already been widely released to the public. There is risk involved in this which I, along with members of ACNAtoo, and Megan Tucker take very seriously. 

I included some of Megan’s incisive audio in the trailer and early episodes of the podcast, so I’m happy to finally be able share my full interview with her over these next episodes, along with some bonus material on Patreon, for those who support the podcast.

As stated earlier, it’s important to remember there was already a previous presentment made against Ruch by three ACNA bishops. Ruch and his lawyers challenged the presentment, claiming it was submitted illegitimately and by the time the lay-led presentment was brought forth there was a good chance the first presentment trial was never going to take place at all. My interview with Audrey Luhmann took place in July of 2023, shortly after the lay presentment was submitted. A month later, the ACNA’s Board of Inquiry announced their ruling that a trial was warranted. In November, the Board of Inquiry announced that the presentment brought by the three bishops also qualified for a trial. Yet it was not until September 2024, ten months later — and after a new Archbishop, Steve Wood, had been installed — that the ACNA released a schedule for the ecclesiastical trial. Since then, there has been no update, even though Archbishop Steve Wood explained in his provincial letter last September that the Trial Court had agreed to give public updates as motions are ruled upon. Is the trial on schedule? We don’t know. 

After Ruch returned from his leave of absence in October 2022, some UMD lay members felt abandoned by the larger ACNA province and decided to reach out to ACNAtoo for help and guidance. Eventually, in the midst of the ongoing silence, and with Ruch back in leadership, they decided to write their own presentment. But what would the provincial leaders take seriously? Which cases of abuse would rise to a level of clear canonical violation? In correspondence with me they said quote “an alarming pattern emerged” in their process of research. Ultimately they settled on seven key cases of abuse and mishandling, but there were 67 cases of spiritual abuse that aren’t even in the presentment! To them it was clear many had suffered under Ruch’s leadership.

For the sake of context, it’s helpful to remember you will hear the Husch-Blackwell report referenced a few times. A legal firm, Husch-Blackwell was commissioned by the ACNA itself to investigate Ruch’s handling of the Rivera abuse case. The report was released in September of 2022 but was taken down by the ACNA a day later because, according to an ACNAtoo article, it was discovered “that Husch Blackwell failed to redact graphic alleged details of a minor survivor’s sexual abuse in the public version of the report.” ACNAtoo has since published their redacted version of the report, which is available on their website, but ACNA leaders, up to the present day, have never re-published a redacted version.

Regarding Ruch’s upcoming trial, as of the recording of this episode the signers of the presentment have informed me they still do not know basic details surrounding the trial, such as: will it be in person, virtual, or mail-in? Who will be called on to testify, and will they be cross-examined? How will survivors be protected from Ruch potentially counter-suing in a civil court? Has the prosecution gathered evidence and will they protect sensitive information from being released? What level of publicity will the trial itself have? We also do not know if Bishop Ruch has denied responsibility for the seven cases we are going to outline in this episode, or if he is simply arguing that his involvement and alleged missteps in these seven cases don’t constitute canonical violations. All of these questions remain currently unanswered in the spring of 2025 to the presentment authors going into July’s trial.

As we listen to Audrey’s account of the evidence contained in the presentment, I want to offer a thought of great weight and conviction I’ve wrestled with as I prepared this episode. For me, this is not about taking some kind of enjoyment or schadenfreude in the character assassination of Stewart Ruch. It’s not about being out to get him or about bringing him down. Instead, it’s about asking the paramount question that if all the evidence being given is true, why is Bishop Ruch still acting in his role as a shepherd of God’s people? After taking a sober look at the convoluted web of his action and inaction are we able to honestly conclude he should no longer be in his position for the sake of the Church?

Audrey begins her overview of the presentment by first defining what one is and then describing the work that went into compiling the information in it and completing it for submission.

So a presentment in the Anglican Church in North America is the highest charge made against a member of the clergy, including bishops. It can be found in the canon and constitutions, title four, and there is a disciplinary process that should be walked out. There are two ways that these presentment charges may be brought forward. The first is with three bishops’ signatures. Three bishops may come forward, and they can say, we have these accusations against another bishop in the denomination. Or the second option is 10 individuals. There need to be two clergy, and one of the clergy has to be from the diocese of the bishop being presented, and then eight other lay members in good standing, six of whom have to be from the dioceses of the bishop being presented. So there's these two different options. Then there are, I believe, 12 canonical violations that that can be chosen from categorized. So the accusations brought forward, they can't be just something simple like, well, this bishop votes Democratic, or votes Republican, or, you know, he spends too much money like it. It has to fall, it has to fall within these categories once those are presented. As of right now, currently, the presentment charges can be submitted to the archbishop or to the entire college of bishops, and that is all of the bishops from each of the dioceses in the denomination. Once those are received there, the Archbishop should appoint, according to the Canons and Constitutions, a board of inquiry. That's 10 individuals, five clergy, five priests and five lay members, who will then look through these presentment charges and evidentiary documentation provided and decide whether it warrants a trial of a bishop. If they decide that it does, there is already a bishop's trial and ecclesiastical court standing and ready. These people serve. I think it's like three or four year terms through the ACNA, and the archbishop would then, I think at that point, if the Board of Inquiry decides that it goes to trial or should go to trial, that's when they will publicize to the entire denomination and say, Look, this bishop has been presented. The Board of Inquiry was chosen, they evaluated the material, decided that, yes, a trial is warranted, and the bishop is given the choice, does he want to go forward with the trial, or would he prefer to resign quietly? And then the trial goes forward and the outcome is reached, and that can be anything from a godly admonition, which is kind of a wrist slap and a correction, all the way to losing one's position as bishop and even being defrocked as a priest and holy orders taken away. That is the process as laid out in the ACNA.

This was an endeavor that had to be done meticulously in the same way that when we publish stories on ACNAtoo we have to back up every single fact. We know full well that we could be sued for libel and slander for the smallest thing, so we have to make sure that everything we say is backed up by fact in the same way with a presentment charge. We have to the same thing and at the same time, be doing right by the victims. If a survivor wants to protect their identity, we must do that if they want a part of their story held, because they don't trust how it will be handled within leadership, or maybe if it would get released. You know, publicly, we can't control that once we submit, then it must be held. We had to be working very carefully with victims, very closely. Before we submitted, I had somebody reach out from the UMD in February, who said, “I'm very concerned. I'm not getting any answers, really, any any sufficient information from my Rector, and I'm very concerned about what's happening. They had heard that Bishop Stewart was going to be visiting. Bishop Stewart was going to be visiting Minnesota in mid-February, so they just mentioned that to me and said, I'm signing up for meeting. I'm gonna go have a 20-minute session asking him questions.” And they did, and then they called or emailed again and said that was horrible, and I've had it, and a friend of mine has had it, and another friend has had it. So these three individuals were like, “We have to leave our churches if he stays in power, and nobody seems to be doing anything.” And they were very frustrated because they felt like they had poured a lot into their communities and they didn't want to leave their communities. They felt hijacked, for lack of a better word, and they said, “This isn't fair, that nobody seems to be taking action, and yet we are called to just sit tight with no change, as he is in power and seeming to go about business as usual.”

Meghan Tucker was one of those three frustrated and concerned UMD churchgoers. Here's how she introduces her part in the story.

My name is Meghan Tucker. And I attend an ACNA church in Minnesota, and I am a fundraiser for an elder care nonprofit, that's my day job. I was one of the instigators of the presentment against Bishop Stewart Ruch.

I grew up in a pastor's family, and so I grew up in a Christian context. I was on a long journey out of the IFB, spent a few years in an Evangelical Free Church, and in our mid 20s or so, that had kind of brought us to the point of being really, really shaky, a lot of church hurt and confusion, and we're just not really even sure about church and everything. We decided we were gonna give it a go, and we were gonna church shop and try again, and we meant to be really slow and intentional and not rush into anything. But then we kind of stumbled into this church, and instead, we committed like immediately, because it was the first time in my life that it felt like it added up. And it felt like when these people say they follow Jesus, then it actually makes sense to me. We just really fell in love with it right away.

I kind of assumed that, because my church was so wonderful, that all of the ACNA must be wonderful. And then I remember in June of 2021, the amount, like all of the abuse stuff in the dioceses of the Upper Midwest came to light, and we learned that Stewart was going to go on a leave of absence, and our priest announced all of that to us, communicated all of that to us. It felt like a lot of transparent communication right away at that point, which I appreciated and responded well to. And then I kind of it kind of it kind of fell off my radar for a while. Kind of forgot about it, sadly.

But again, I just like, there was, you know, people started talking, then at that point, about bishops and diocesan provinces, and I didn't even know what most of these things meant at that point. But I also started got involved with our children's programming at that point, and and I took over leading, uh, one of our classes, so I was on our children's leadership team, or the CLT. There came a point where our children's pastor, she should give me a call, and she would, kind of, she'd be talking about about stuff, kind of as if I maybe knew what she was talking about, and I didn't have a clue what she was talking about. It was connected to the abuse stuff. But she would come but she would kind of be referencing things as if I might know. And I was like, I have no idea what you're talking about. And I was really confused for a while, and I finally realized that the reason I was so confused is that I had heard people talking about ACNAtoo, but I can be a bit of an old soul with technology sometimes, and I just assumed that that was like a hashtag, and that's all I thought it was, was that's like a hashtag on Twitter or something, and I don't even know how to go look at Twitter, and so on one of these phone calls with our children's pastor, I finally, we was asking clarifying questions, and finally realized that it was actually like a website I could go look at and that there were all these people like in an organized advocating group that they were ACNAtoo. So that made everything make a lot more sense at that point. And when I finally realized that after we got off the phone, I went and found that website.

And then I sat down and I read for hours and hours and hours. And that was actually right at the time where Helen Keuning had just posted some posts which were really a wild ride. I think that was in like April of 2022 maybe. So from that point on then I was tracking and I was really tuned in and trying to pay attention, and then I just grew more uneasy and confused about how it was being communicated and what was happening and not happening throughout all of this, our leadership were always so ready and available for a heart to heart, for, like a one on one, heart to heart. And I think I appreciate that, and it's so beautiful that they would really make themselves available, and they really care.

After I spent all that time reading, and I realized that she, you know, what she was kind of doing was was trying to communicate with us and process with us, because she assumed I was tracking everything beforehand. Anyway, when I when I put the pieces together, I immediately asked, “Why couldn’t we talk about it as a group? Could we talk about it as a CLT?” And they were like, “oh yeah, we can. We can do that.” And so we had a conversation with our little children's team and our priest and children's pastor his wife, and that was a really good conversation. And I just really appreciate the opportunity to like make sense and meaning as a group and it, but it felt like every single time we'd interact about it, it felt siloing. They were always still willing to talk, but basically they were always willing to talk one on one. And there was not ever a broader communicating, and there was not ever a broader like church family conversation, really, and that just I was really, I grew more and more unsettled about that.

I have this belief that it sucks that abuse is such a problem in our churches. But I do believe that Jesus is big enough to handle this, right? And any ideas of like, we don't want to like necessarily talk about it, because that'll make Jesus look bad, or the church look bad or something. I just think that's nonsense, and that we, the church, needs to be super transparent and talk about these things

For well over a year. I just, I just stayed in conversation with them, and kind of kept asking and questioning and kind of trying to be like, Why don't we, why don't we talk about this more fully? And they were always like, that was made me feel really heard. But then we didn't agree, I guess is what it came down to when we when we first started going to our church, it was this teeny, tiny, little church plant that met in a gym. And now today, we commonly break 400 people on Sunday, which is really crazy, and we have like a zillion children, which is really cool and fun. And then there was, like, COVID in there and all that. And only it's only a couple years ago did our church roll out a membership, actual membership for church. And I remember in the membership meeting in class, or whatever, our priest, he had a one-liner that he did say about about everything, and he mentioned that our bishop was on leave, and just kind of alluded very high level to the stuff. And then he offered to answer any questions and there were no questions in that moment. And I think there was an offer to like, “feel free to ask me questions at any time” that that did not sit well with me, because there was this common refrain over and over about, you know, “feel free to ask questions.”

You can ask questions, but it all of this has been so messy and overwhelming and convoluted. People didn't even know where to begin. Like me, I didn't even know their web was a website at one point that I could go read stuff. I was like, This is so overwhelming and complicated, and people have no idea where to start, and people are really busy. If you don't spoon-feed them some things, they won't realize this is really, really big deal, and you should take the time to understand it. How do they know? They might have questions if they don't even know what's going on. So I tried to explain to them, like if I didn't already know anything, and I was sitting in that membership class and I heard that, I would be like, Oh, Huh, interesting. And then I would leave it at that, not realizing how serious it was. And then later on, if you know, if I learned more, I would be pissed, because I would feel like they weren't forthcoming enough.

This all kind of went on and escalated and to the point of, we're all waiting for the province to do something, to say something. You know, we're like, Bishop Stewart's being investigated. He's been being investigated for an eternity, it feels like, and the province is supposed to do something, and we're just waiting on that, and they just continue to not do anything, until there was the was the whole Husch Blackwell absolute debacle and then after that point, I think my leadership was still like, okay, they're gonna do something now. They're gonna say something now. And like, you know, have a final word on all of this for us.

And they just continued to not and then bishops too are just bulldozed back on in without any consequence or word from the province, really beyond, I think the archbishop was like, “He's coming back.” That just was maddening at the times my husband and I kind of barely, barely hung on through that part, because it just is so mind-blowing that somebody could fail to that degree, but then just get to do whatever they want without even a comment. The hierarchy of Anglicanism that I originally assumed must be so great I am now, you know, highly dubious that it's anything besides just ineffective nonsense.

Eventually, he wanted to come, Stewart, wanted to come to visit the Minnesota churches. And I think there was communication at that point from Church of the Resurrection about, you know, how wonderful it is that he is back, and he's doing all these things. He's visiting all the churches and stuff. And I think he did some more, like public gatherings at sister churches around but he did not get to do that in our Minnesota deanery. And instead, we could sign up to talk to him for 20 minutes.

And so I put my husband and I down for our 20-minute slot throughout all of this, like, you know, to ad nauseam, people would talk about, trust the process. There's a process, and we just got to trust the process. I mean, from the get-go, that was repeated constantly. And so I was like, Okay, there's a process. So I guess, you know, I eventually I went and I found some things and tried to wrap my head around them, which is the ACNA Constitutions and Canons, and I started reading the liturgy for the consecration and ordination of a bishop. And so I started to try to wrap my head around, you know, the process that everybody keeps talking about. And so I, at some point, I learned the word presentment, and that that was a thing, and that so that had started to to percolate a bit. But, you know, I read, when I read through in the Book of Common Prayer, that service for the bishop, and it's beautiful, it's so beautiful, and also Stewart has so obviously not lived up to that. So I sat down and I manuscripted everything that I wanted to say to him.

And I had, you know, I had a lot of questions, but I also I was like, How is it even possible that this man hasn't resigned? And so ultimately, that's mostly what I just wanted to communicate to him, but I and I, but I put a lot of questions in there. And yeah, kind of just really called him out.

Meghan was able to sit down with Bishop Ruch and read him her letter, the contents of which letter will feature in our second presentment episode for now. Audrey continues with how the decision to bring a presentment came together.

So these conversations with these individuals continued, and in early to middle of March, they reached out again, and they said, “we've decided to write our own presentment charges. We believe that's possible. Tell us what you know.” So I was walking them through those two different possibilities, and I said, you know, I have heard that three bishops already did presentments, but the province is saying nothing. We know now that the province was under a gag order that was released in June when Archbishop Foley Beach went public with what was happening behind closed doors, that was from about December or January until early June. So Ruch had made this request to cease or stop the presentment charges that had been brought forward by the three bishops, and in effect, he won, and everything was ceased. We didn't know that at the time. So this is, like, middle of March, and these individuals are like, “we're gonna write them, but we need help. We don't know how to write canonical charges. We don't know how to contact some of these victims, and we don't have the dates and the times and the like, first-hand correspondence needed for the evidentiary documentation.”

I talked to another member of ACNAtoo and said, “Hey, you're really good at Canons. You know, some of the victims want to partner with me to help provide this information to them and help help this team write present and charges. They're ready to go, and they have the motivation and passion to do this.” So that was March. We worked through April and May and part of June, and we put together, I think it's like 24-25 page document that are lay-led presentment charges against UMD Bishop Stewart Ruch.

Okay, so what is in the presentment charges, before going into each case, Audrey first explains how the authors of the presentment believe their charges are legitimate based on the ACNA Canons and Constitution, that is, the document establishing the governance and laws for the denomination

We chose the canonical violations number three, four and nine. So in in the Constitution and Canons of the Anglican Church in North America, Title IV, Canon 2, section, or I don't know if it's section, but number three, four and nine. Number three is “violation of ordination vows.” Number four is “conduct giving just cause for scandal and offense, including the abuse of ecclesiastical power.” Number nine is “disobedience or willful contravention of the Canons of this church or the Constitution or Canons of the diocesan which the bishop holds office.”

I can break those down a little bit so violation of ordination vows in our presentment charges. We explained the vows that a priest takes at ordination and that a bishop takes upon his consecration. And the wording in those ordinations for a priest, they are being exhorted. It says like, if the church or any of her members is hurt or hindered by your negligence, you must know both the gravity of your fault and the grievous judgment that will result. They are charged with the care of the flock that's in the ordination vows and exhortation and charge given to a priest to a bishop. They are either asked, “Will You Be faithful in examining, confirming, ordaining and sending the people of God.” There's a prayer that's read over the bishop saying, “grant that your servant will use the authority given to him not for destruction but for salvation, not to hurt, but to help.” And then in the charge, it says, “Be to the flock of Christ, a shepherd, not a wolf, feed them. Do not devour them. Hold up the weak, heal the sick, bind up the broken, bring back the laps and seek the loss. Do not confuse mercy with indifference so minister discipline that you forget not mercy.”

So that is given to every bishop in the ACNA when they are consecrated, going along with number nine, the contravention of the canons of the church. The ACNA Constitution and Canons, talking about the bishop's role, says “every bishop shall take care that he admit no person into holy orders, but such that he knows, either by himself or by sufficient testimony to be, among other qualities, a wholesome example and pattern to the entire flock of Christ.” That's from Title III, Canon 2, Section 1 of the ACNA Canons, the Upper Midwest diocesan Canons in Title II, Canon 5, Cection 1, says “clergy and laity of this diocese are called to be exemplary in all spheres of morality.” This is a condition of being appointed to or remaining in a position or office of leadership. So what we were charging in that number nine was that Bp. Ruch ordained in one of the cases that we present in our documentation, he ordained a man that he knew had a criminal background of predatory behavior went on to ordain him to the priesthood without informing anybody and and allowed him to then exercise authority over people, which goes against both the ACNA Canons and the UMD Canons. A bishop who fails to conduct and responsibly act on due diligence regarding the character of postulants of Holy Order would be in violation of both of these Canons. So that's what we were charging him.

One of our thesis statements was that Bp. Ruch’s pattern and practice of knowingly welcoming and elevating individuals who could prey on his congregations has continued beyond the events of 2019 that compelled the ACNA province to initiate third-party investigations.

This pretends that devastating harm could be repeated in that diocese, as you know, in history, back in 2019 allegations of child sex abuse were disclosed to Bp. Ruch, he worked through that having a crisis response team. One of the individuals on that response team he already knew had a record of predatory behavior and still placed him over Mark Rivera. Anyway, that's 2019-2020, 2021, in July, Bp. Ruch takes a leave of absence, and the province steps in. But here we are in 2023 four years later, and we're saying, Look, everybody, further events have happened beyond 2019 that need your attention. This. This shows that he didn't learn and isn't going to change the way he responded back in 2019 we wrote that we believe that Bp. Ruch has hindered Christ's sheep by his negligence and hurt them, that his conduct is a cause for egregious scandal and offense.

Another part of our thesis statement was that Bishop Ruch has knowingly and silently welcomed without informing congregants, and that part is important church members whose past actions included violence or abuse, and by preventing the accountability that would result from communal knowledge, he has transformed what should be of all spaces, a sanctuary for the most vulnerable into a target for predation. So that was what we were bringing in the presentment, charges to the ACNA bishops and Archbishop, we believe strongly that when the sheep under his care suffer from his poor shepherding, the entire flock suffers, and that the entire denomination is going to suffer from his negligence, from his poor leadership and poor guidance.

One case that did not make the news and has not been dealt with by the Husch Blackwell report is that of Josh Moon. He was a priest in the Minnesota deanery within the Upper Midwest Diocese. Back in 2013, Josh Moon was a Presbyterian pastor in Minneapolis. He was arrested for attempting to solicit a prostitute. September 11 of 2013 he was convicted and sentenced about five months later in February, served 90 days in a correctional facility, and then, within 11 months, was assigned to preach in UMD churches. So the earliest we have on record and have proof of is April of 2015.

Bp. Ruch ordained him in October of 2020 and made him Rector of a new church plant, Resurrection Anglican in the north suburbs of Minneapolis in 2021 and then in 2022 he was found guilty of violating UMD canon constitution and Canons Title IV, Canon 2, section 1, the just cause for scandal. And the wording that they used is as follows. They said there were serious lapses of judgment and failure to maintain boundaries which violated acceptable and expected pastoral and personal behavior applicable to an ordained presbyter that's a priest in this church, a rector in this diocesan trusted with the pastoral care of God's people and a married man. So we don't know exactly what happened, and UMD leadership would never tell, not even the congregants of that church.

But as a result, Josh Moon was suspended from pastoral ministry for life, but his ordination remained, and Moon can, according to their sentencing, kind of if you will, he may petition the bishop to terminate or shorten that suspension, and he can still preach at the bishop's discretion, and has permission to serve as an educator under proper supervision. So we're looking at somebody who lost his job as a priest in a different denomination following a conviction, then is undergoing some kind of healing or transformation, and is ordained then as a priest in the ACNA, has some kind of undisclosed moral failure violation, and then doesn't get defrocked again. This is where we pull out number nine, the contravention of the Constitution and Canons of the church. Joshua never should have been ordained. He is under that authority, he is a danger to himself and others. So that was one individual that we highlighted that did not make it into the Husch Blackwell report.

Here's Megan explaining how Josh Moon's actions affected her and people close to her:

I didn't go to that church plant, but my husband and I have a couple who have been some of our closest friends, and we met years ago at an Evangelical Free Church that we all went to, and we had gone our way into Anglicanism. We'd found our way to our church, and we were just loving it. It was so good, and it was so beautiful, and we just couldn't stop telling them how wonderful it was. And we we were all excited and assumed that they would come on over and come to church with us. But then that was right at the time this new church plant happened, and Josh Moon planted his church, and that happened to be, like, right in their backyard. So they ended up going to church there. And we were kind of bummed about that, because, selfishly, we were so excited to go to church for them. But, you know, for about a year it was so beautiful, and they loved it. They loved it so much. They couldn't stop saying how wonderful it was. And you know, my friend who for so long had felt like she couldn't find Jesus anywhere, now she feels like she's like seeing Jesus again. And then it all came to light and blew up, and now they're not doing so great. They were ended up being like collateral damage, you know, and just the fact that, like, he was their rector, he was their priest, and, you know, they had developed a pretty close relationship with him and everybody was just having such a great time at this little church plant, and things were so great and beautiful. They were collateral damage just being in the church family. They tried to stick it out for a little while and they tried to make sense of things. And the interim priest is kowtowing and buying in to the nonsense, you know, the messaging that Stewart gives them. So when our church, like officially left, changed to a new diocese. At that time, there was, you know, messaging from that interim about how wonderful it is to have Stewart around, and you know, how bright the future is, and just the wild contrast there, they decided to officially leave. And, you know, let they do now kind of come to our church sometimes when they can handle it. You know, that one feels really, really close. That was a huge one of the many reasons that I wanted to do something.

And you know, God is bigger than this, and they're going to be okay, but wow, like, there's just that hurt, and I feel like, you know, church hurt is so bad across the board, but I mean, it just really, really messes with you, when this person that you feel like is showing you Jesus in this incredible, profound way, then turns out to be such a predator, makes you feel really crazy. That's their story, right? But I have so much grief over that, just because the pain of like we walked with them for years, and then that's how it turned out.

Audrey continues with the next case into presentment.

Another is Nephtali Matta, who is currently serving on the Rez staff as a pastoral resident. Nephtali Matta was a pastor in Springfield, Illinois about little over a decade ago, and in 2011 he was charged with, among other charges, second degree attempted murder, injury with a deadly weapon, assault and other charges against his spouse. He took a plea deal in June of 2012 for felony menacing and then served a prison sentence. He was released and moved back to Illinois. I think he was in Colorado at that time, moved back to Illinois, and then, like I said, in at least late fall of 2022 that's when his bio appeared on the Rez website staff page.

He was made a pastoral resident. He's been featured in numerous services as at Rez services as the leader of their Alpha course, which is designed specifically for those interested in or new to Christianity. Congregants at Rez have not been informed of Matta’s past criminal history violence, and this case is particularly jarring because Matta had already served in church leadership just like Moon prior to his arrest and conviction. So this seems to demonstrate a pattern of Ruch’s belief that he can take fallen leaders and restore them and then place them in positions of ecclesial authority without informing the congregants who would be under them. That case also did not make Husch Blackwell report.

In December of 2017, Nephtali Matta was interviewed on the Holy Post podcast by host Phil Vischer and Skye Jethani about Koinonia, the post-prison ministry he worked at that time, while also going into his own backstory, specifically regarding his marriage and history of abuse. Here are some segments from the interview edited together for the sake of time.

So I was homeschooled, grew up in the church all my life. Can't remember a time in my life without Jesus. In about early college, I felt I called a vocational ministry and wanted to do multicultural, multiethnic, church-based ministry. I went to seminary in Denver, Colorado.

We started having issues. They started small at first, and I was just like, well, you know, love has to just push through these things, and I'm going to figure it out and work hard. That's what I do. And I clearly love Jesus, so prayer and Jesus, and I'll fix it. It got worse. The fights got worse and and the short version of the story is we actually started getting into really destructive fights verbally at first, and then it kept escalating. And then eventually I got bad enough where the police got involved.

And, you know, I'm thinking, How did I get here? And so I know something's wrong, but I am making excuses like, well, I'm under a lot of stress, and I'm not having a lot of relational support, and all these other things. And I doubled down. Instead of saying, You know what, we should separate and figure this out, I doubled down. I eloped and got married, and it happened again couple months later. And the first time it happened, I had already stepped down from my ministry position, and my church was putting me on a restoration path, and—

“It” in this case is domestic violence?

Yes, exactly. It got worse. And so when that happened the second time, it actually made the local police blotter.

So everybody knew then, like the leadership of the church knew, and few other key people in my life knew at that time, but that wasn't public knowledge, and then that made it public knowledge. And I'm just, you would think by then I would have learned my lesson, but I'm really stubborn, and I don't learn lessons very quickly. So I was like, well, she's my wife. I got to fix this and and eventually I moved back to Denver, Colorado, because I'm like, well, at least my life was good there. I have family support out there. Let me figure it out there.

And with your wife—

I told her I'm going, whether you come or not, okay? And she decided to come with me, because I made a pitch, a pretty convincing one, that this will never happen again. And here's why we moved out to Denver.

It worked for like, eight months, sort of, kind of, and then we had a horrible fight, like it was bad enough where the direction that fight was going, someone would have ended up in a body bag or the ICU by or and by God's grace, it didn't get that far. I really felt like, God let me see my own depravity at one point, and I felt like the Holy Spirit grabbing me back from the edge. I wish I could say like I had like, this moment where it's like, oh, everything's fixed. It was just that it literally was like, Okay, I've gone too far. And I that night, I remember feeling sick, and so I called my church. I said, this is what happened. I told him everything. I called one of my best friends. I said, this is what happened. I told him everything. A couple weeks later, the police came. My church had got my wife out to a safe place.

The police came and they asked me, you know why we're here? I said, Yes, I do. Can we talk? I said, Sure, and I'm legally naive at this point, so I tell them everything. Now we'll give the police credit. They keep their promises. They do use everything they can against you in a court of law.

Did they give you your Miranda rights? Were you arrested?

The first conversation, it was just a conversation where I was at that point in time was like, I know I messed up. Yeah, I need to own this, or else I'm not gonna heal. I need to own it. So I got questioned like three times. I didn't ask for a lawyer to be present, because I'm thinking legally speaking, I'm not understanding how bad this could be. And I think the third round of questioning, they asked me something to the effect of, why'd you do this? And I said something to the effect of, I guess I wanted her dead, and so when they finally arrested me, so you were essentially using the police as your confessor? Yeah, I'd already confessed to my pastors as well, but I was still in confession mode, right?

Yep, yep. And I'm thinking like a Christian, like, Well, clearly, like, this is where it would have went. So something deep in me must have the legal system is not quite as merciful, no, as no, a church community, no, yeah, no. It was not. What happened next. I can still remember this point, so the police officer that was doing the investigating slapped the cuffs on me, and he read me my charges, attempted second degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon. That deadly weapon being my hands, and before you ask, no no military training, no martial arts training. Third degree assault all with domestic violence, tapped on all those things, and I remember him after reading that, I'm not kidding you, he said, but I know you're a good guy.

And I remember going, I don't feel like a good guy. And so I ended up spending 16 months in jail while I was fighting my case. The part about the legally naive thing is my lawyer came to me and he said, Mr. Matta, I've never had a client like you. I already have 13 letters of character reference speaking to your character before I've even met you. He's like, that never happens. And he's like, based off this and based off of the reports I got, I can tell what happened here. You're a man of integrity. You want to own your mistakes. That's great. That was the worst thing you could have done. And I was like, Oh, great. So he's like, if you said nothing, they had nothing on you, you just would have maybe got a misdemeanor in and done some counseling.

And so I just feel destroyed everything I had built my self-worth on, which I believe I was really a Christian. I grew up in the faith. I love Jesus, but somewhere along the line, I didn't. I thought Grace got you in the door, but after that, you just got to prove yourself. And I didn't mean to be living that way, but that's what I did, and I and if you had asked me the question, I would have answered it correctly on a test. That's not how this works, but that's not how it was living,

What happened with your marriage?

So I spent five years, six years fighting for it. I spent like, two years just trying to get my head screwed on straight after I got out so because I knew I could never do this again. So I went to counseling, pastoral and professional, and once I got myself solid enough, I started reaching out to her, and by that point in time, she had no interest in it. And eventually I was because I really didn't want to divorce, but because, what evangelical kid wants to be the divorced guy, especially when you're the divorced guy, because you are a domestic abuser, like, that's going to be great, like, that's just going to go swimmingly.

So I was had all these reasons why I didn't want to, but I also just genuinely still loved her. But my church came alongside me, and we spent a year fasting and praying together, and they said, You know what, she's asked for a divorce, but she won't do it. You need to give it to her. And so that got finalized this past, uh, June, so that was rough for me.

But you know what? One beautiful thing about all this is I recognize and I truly get God loves me. Jesus loves me no matter what I do. Yeah, and it's not anything I can do about I can't make him love me more, and I can't make him love me less. And that's been the most freeing thing in my life. It's, I don't know how I missed it, but when you grow up in it, it's easy to miss because we think Grace is like the baby step. I know. I know.

And how is your ex-wife doing today?

I don't know. No one knows where she's at, including her family and and no one knows why either, because I wasn't really close with her family. So you wouldn't have thought that was a problem like I said. There's a lot of layers to this, but the hardest thing in this divorce process for me was I had to call her dad and ask him if he knew where she was, even though I knew he didn't. But I was legally required to call and ask, because there's a special way you have to divorce someone if you can't get a hold of somebody. And he was like, I was surprised he even took my call, and he just asked me, Do you know where my baby girl is? And I'm like, I don't. That's why I was calling you. So last thing I knew she was a flight attendant somewhere. So she's pray for her, because I'm not. I know I was a tool of a lot of pain in her life, and yeah, I hope God can do something with it. I know he can. I hope he will.

So we will pray for her—

Thank you.

—and for you.

There is a lot more to this interview, much of it relevant to the question of whether or not Matta should be in a church ministry role. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, the interview has been taken down from YouTube and podcast streaming services. It's worth noting that Phil Vischer and Skye Jethani were tagged in the Twitter or X thread in January of 2024 asking them their perspective on the episode, and if they have any responses in light of the various abuse cases going on in the ACNA and general American church, they never responded to these questions. But at some point later on, in 2024 the Holy Post episode with Matta's interview was taken down without explanation.

If you are the type of person who wants to listen to an interview in full to make sure you understand the whole story and that none of the audio has been manipulated, I'm sorry that it's not currently available. As of the recording of this episode, the YouTube link to the holy post episode still remains on Nephtali Matta’s Church of the Resurrection staff page, even though it's a dead link.

Finally, it should be noted that by going through the Wayback Machine on web.archive.org it is apparent that church of the resurrection only put up a link to the interview after the lay presentment was submitted. I will be sharing another audio clip from the interview along with my reflections about it in the previously mentioned extra episode on Patreon.

But ACNAtoo member Abbi Nye had this to say about Phil vischer's and sky juthani responses during the interview, noting that the interview is, “such a good case study of how white Christian men sanitize knowingly or otherwise truly terrible behavior, which is kind of the theme of the presentment.” “Whether knowingly or not,” she says, “Stewart platformed awful people.”

Let's get back to Audrey's account of the presentment material with the next case they addressed.

There is another case that we use an abbreviation for the name just JG--that was at the request of the survivor--Bishop Ruch learned that a priest had mishandled a case of alleged sexual abuse by a Greenhouse Movement like catechist named JG against another colleague in October of 2019. Now Greenhouse Movement, that's a church planting organization that was begun under the authority of the Upper Midwest diocese, and until December, this last December, 2022 was one of the UMD for deaneries, although Greenhouse was led for years by William Beasley.

Bishop Ruch was in final authority over Greenhouse Movement as bishop of the Upper Midwest diocese. So upon disclosure, this lay catechist had been transferred to a daycare operated in the same building as Greenhouse’s headquarters, and was at times, assigned to teach in the classrooms. Again, no parents were informed. None of his past congregants were informed, and that informing didn't take place.

Once Bishop Ruch found out what had happened, he, with the consent of the victim, made this pastoral care plan well, and the victim proposed some of this, the alleged victim pastoral care plan that involved close monitoring and meeting with pastors, having therapy. And months later, the alleged survivor contacted leadership, and they weren't aware if he had fulfilled any of that. It hadn't been followed at all. So at that point she did initiate police reporting. That case is in the Husch Blackwell report a little bit.

Chris Lapeyre is another individual who attended both Church of the Resurrection as well as COLA (Christ our Light Anglican), which is where Mark Rivera was in attendance at the time of his child sex abuse allegations. Chris Lapeyre lost his job as a high school English teacher in 2015 after being investigated for an inappropriate relationship with a female student. He had already confessed to a UMD priest about inappropriate feelings for a different female student, and that student would later come forward to tell her story of being groomed for sex by Lapeyre. He did not disclose that sexual encounter, and we don't know exactly what time he spoke to this priest, but the priest was aware, was made aware, that he had these feelings, these inappropriate attraction to a student.

Even with this history, Ruch and Rez leadership would go on to give permission for Lapeyre to lead a writing camp for high schoolers on their church property two summers in a row, 2015 and 2016 right after he lost his job at the high school, he was also kept on the worship team at both Rez and cola course Anglican. Then this May 2019 crisis happens when we have the allegations of abuse arise about Mark Rivera and Ruch formed this crisis response team, and he put Father Randy York and Chris Lapeyre in charge of overseeing Rivera’s spiritual care and support. Then in November 2020, a disclosure letter was given by Joanna, that's the adult woman who alleged that Mark Rivera had raped her twice, and that letter named Lapeyre as knowing what Mark had done and that he had remained silent.

The Church and Ruch placed restrictions on Lapeyre, but no one in the congregation, again, was informed. In May of 2022 there was the publication of Ursa story that spoke of that 2011 and 2012 grooming and sexual encounter and Rez response. Their response was just to release a letter detailing his pastoral care plan. So Lapeyre does make an appearance in the Husch Blackwell report, but it is not one of the main highlights. Mark Rivera is the main highlight of the HuschBlackwell report.

There was another man, Timothy Blackman. He was the chaplain of Wheaton College, and was fired in May of 2020 for inappropriate comments and actions of a racial and sexual nature. These can be found--it's detailed in reports, news articles published in the Chicago Tribune, Ministry Watch, other news outlets. It became very public. He remained on Rez worship team for over a year. Then was hired to be head pastor of a church in Michigan, a non-ACNA church in August of 2022.

Ruch did attend that installation service, and he personally delivered a charge and gave a prayer of blessing over pastor Blackman, which is particularly sad because it shows that he's exercising questionable judgment in favor of a leader with a history of sexual impropriety, and in this case, improper sexually charged comments and actions. So he's platforming individuals that have already proven themselves to not be safe people.

There is finally a man, John Hays, who was a pastor in the Chicagoland area, and he was twice convicted in 2014 of two cases of sexual abuse of minor males. Rez only disclosed Hay's attendance and their pastoral care plan for him in December of 2022 after ACNAtoo published a text that a concerned congregant had sent to a number of Rez families after Rez leaders refused to inform the congregants themselves. So again, you have this fallen leader who is able to come mix and mingle with the congregation. Nobody else is informed. Part of the pastoral care plan was that he would have chaperones while he was on at least the church property, like inside the church building, but because nobody was informed of that, there is nothing to prevent him from grooming right there in plain sight. And he was told by Rez leadership that he should not have any contact with people went off of church property, but again, that's unenforceable when nobody knows the truth of what he has done.

So those are the individuals covered in the presentment, and they back the claims that we made when we said that Bishop Ruch confused mercy with indifference and by lavishly extending one he mistakenly heralded the other. So again, from that pattern and practice of knowing, knowingly welcoming and elevating numerous former criminal offenders or those credibly accused of serious wrongdoing to positions of either ecclesial authority in churches, or by welcoming them into membership, he's granting these former offenders unsupervised access to uninformed congregants, many who are women and children, and by not informing the congregants, he's again transforming what should be a place of sanctuary into a target for predation.

Although she does not get into Mark Rivera's abuse case in detail, she does have this to say regarding Ruch role in responding to it.

One example would be that from the outset, Bp. Ruch was trying to take a back seat, if you will, and say, “Look, this is an issue for the state. The state needs to investigate. I don't want to get involved. Also COLA (Christ Our Light Anglican), is a Greenhouse church.” We'll argue later that it's a Greenhouse church in the Upper Midwest diocese but at least in the Husch Blackwell report, Ruch is stated as saying, “Look, this was a Greenhouse church. This falls under the jurisdiction of Missioner General William Beasley, who heads greenhouse.” So he's saying, I really want to take a step back and not be leading the charge. But he didn't live up to his own vision, because we have a June 11, 2019, email that did make it into the Husch Blackwell report to various leaders at COLA and at Rez. This is his first direct known involvement with the situation where he describes his own role as a “supply line for legal guidance,” for personal support to all the “brothers on the front line.” That's Father York, that's Chris Lapeyr. He's saying, like these people should, and I quote, “provide the key pastoral and hands on leadership.” And for Mark Rivera, himself, Bishop Ruch did that and more like in that same email, he he stated that he attended Mark Rivera’s first bond hearing, and that he was very concerned that they needed to secure Rivera legal representation so that he would have fair representation in court. During that same exact time, he had yet to speak to the victim's family. He had not directed clergy to offer them a similar show of any funding, financial or spiritual support, it would be 43 days since first disclosure that he first met with the victim's family.

So when we say that he didn't show a proper recognition of the urgency of the moment, we are very serious about that. He waited two full years to disclose to the Church of the Resurrection congregation the allegations made against Mark Rivera. Yes, Mark Rivera was predominantly at COLA at the time of the disclosure, but he had been a member of Church of the Resurrection and had been held many voluntary leadership positions for two decades.

So he had had unsupervised access to children, to minors for a long time, and to wait two years to disclose this? Ruch multiple times in meetings, said that, well, he thought that the state's investigation would go faster, or he thought that they would take care of it and it would be over quicker. That doesn't justify sitting on it for two years, especially as more and more alleged victims came forward. When Ruch did come back off of his voluntary leave, he held some meetings to answer questions that people had, and he gave misleading and complete he had wrong information.

He claimed there was no connection organizationally between the UMD and Greenhouse. That is just simply untrue. He is the head, or was the head, of Greenhouse. Greenhouse was a deanery, one of the four deaneries within the UMD. So that's just false information. He asserted that the mother of the first child victim was encouraged by Father York to call the police. She vehemently denies this. He attempted to rationalize why there was no mandated reporting failure, and ACNAtoo has published why that that is false, and our presentment has a very long, extensive footnote proving why that is false at every angle of how it was disclosed. Every clergy member who heard this information was an Illinois, State of Illinois mandated reporter. The state of Illinois does not have a history of prosecuting mandated reporters who failed to report if the abuse was reported by somebody and was stopped. And so in the case of Mark Rivera’s first victim, the mother did make a phone call. So yeah, it's not going to be prosecuted. The state doesn't have the time and the energy and the resources to investigate and prosecute, but that doesn't make it legal. They still had from every angle you look at it, mandated reporting obligation.

Ruch ended up putting every leader back in power who was in power in 2019, when all of these events happened. So for example, his UMD Chancellor, Charlie Philbrick advised not reporting, explained why they didn't and assisted Rivera with finding legal representation. We would find out later that he also worked with Ruch to request that stay order, which was basically like a gag order against the initial bishops, presentment and the archbishop himself. So upon Ruch’s return in end of October 2022, he placed Chancellor, Charlie Philbrick, right back in power. And that just shows that his pattern and practice of protecting leaders within that inner circle is going to be at the expense of the people that he has vowed to serve the protect

And documentation does cite from the Husch Blackwell report. It also provides arrest records, court records, first hand documentation, and correspondence. In one case, there is audio that was legally recorded of Ruch meeting with congregants up in Minnesota, explaining that he did know about Josh Moon's criminal past when he decided to ordain him. So that's the kind of thing that they're going to have to sift through. They're going to have to read all of these emails, they're going to have to look at our citations in Husch Blackwell, listen to those audios. We have his charge and blessing given over. Reverend Blackmon in August of 2022 that is the presentment as best I can summarize it. We concluded our Mark Rivera section saying that, like former ACNA Bishop Jim Hobby, who was in the Diocese of Pittsburgh, Bishop Ruch has broken the bonds of trust with his people when he and I quote, “failed to act with urgency, transparency and timeliness, when an accusation of sexual misconduct by a member of the clergy was brought to his attention.” These actions tarnish the witness of the church. We should at all times demonstrate that exemplary commitment to the truth and the swift protection of the most vulnerable. Ruch didn't do that.

To conclude this episode, Megan shares her memories of completing the presentment, how her church community responded to it, and then offers some final challenges and lamentations about the state of the church when it comes to addressing abuse and wrongdoing.

I've done a lot of reading, a lot of reading and learning and listening to podcasts and everything about abuse and abuse in the church and stuff, and I came to understand how churches, institutions, don't really do the right thing of their own accord, pretty much ever statistically, they don't really do the right thing until there's, you know, public pressure and or, you know, somebody suing them. That's kind of when they get it together. We didn't want to just do our quiet like quietly gather only the required number of signatures. We were like, Let's, let's get as many people to sign this as we possibly can. We didn't necessarily intend for it to be a petition, but it kind of has petition energy that way. I guess you should have looked to the south. I can't even remember how many signatures we had, in the end, I think it was like close to 50, maybe mostly, mostly folks across UMD, but some other dioceses too. That whole exercise of trying, of like, kind of trying to strategically share it with people, was really interesting, because I ended up making some connections through that that were really encouraging, and like getting connected with folks who did care, that was really beautiful and encouraging. But then there was also the other reaction, super common reaction, which I'd realized was common in these situations, but it still hurt, and honestly still hurts, like there were so many people in my church family who I who I shared this with, and they didn't even they never even acknowledged it, never said a word to me about it, but they'll cross paths with me on a Sunday morning, and like, you know, we can have a nice little exchange, but it's just crazy to me that folks can like that's an option. Like, your church, your family member, essentially, is, obviously, has, is like, this is a big deal. You don't even have the impulse to be like, Tell me more. Like, what's going on?

You know, yeah, two ends of the spectrum, a spectrum there so many of the people who were involved and, you know, at this point in, like, working on this, we had quite a few folks trying to figure out, like, what priest will sign this, you know, so I asked my priest if he would sign it, and he would not. And I don't know, I think there were complicated reasons going on that I do not fully understand to this day, but a huge one, a huge part of it. I think it was that by that time, he was definitely working very hard at getting things in place so that we could move dioceses. If he were to sign something like this when he's trying, he needed, you know, you have to have your current Bishop's kind of permission and blessing to go to a different diocese. And so obviously, understandably, he didn't want to be jeopardizing that by maybe signing a presentment like this.

And then, you know, other priests we asked also would not sign until there was an almost retired rector at a sister church who's older and, you know, mostly retired, but somebody was like, we should, we should ask him. And he said, Yes, which was really encouraging and beautiful. We actually ended up getting all of our signatures that we needed. And had to jump through all sorts of hoops. We ended up getting them notarized. And we only had 12 people or so, I think, actually go through the effort of notarizing their signatures, but we wanted to be, you know, extra prepared and official. So we did all that, and then we officially submitted it. So in the Constitution and Canons, I think there's, like, two different ways that they outline for how you can officially submit a presentment. I think one is just to, like, essentially hand it off to the archbishop, but it does say that you can also submit it to the entire college of bishops, and again, that's an okay way to go about it, via their official process. So why not do that so that there's actually awareness and eyes on this for what Anglicanism is supposed to be, any rate the strength of structure in the hierarchy is supposed to be.

I wish that, you know, not just the diocesan level, but the provincial level, like, why is this not everyone's top priority? And if I could just snap my fingers and have my utopian version of the ACNA, I would, I would expect that to be like all of the College of Bishops and the archbishop, and everybody gets it and gets how huge a reality and a problem abuses in the church, and reckons with the fact that is so anti Jesus. Because, you know, churches nowadays do the bare minimum. They do what they have to do for liability, which, like, cool, do what you got to do for legal protections and stuff. But my utopian vision of the ACNA and the church as a whole is, don't just do the bare minimum, like be a leader, make our churches actually safe and actually safe haven for sheep and for the vulnerable, blaze the trail and lead the way. You know, have an imagination for how we can solve this problem and actually lead the way on it. Why is that not everyone's vision? It's some people's vision. But why is it not the heartbeat of every single leader in the ACNA. I think it should be.

To be sure, at the ACNA’s 2024 provincial council there were a number of resolutions passed in the Constitution and Canons in an attempt to better protect children, women, and the vulnerable in ACNA churches. Most of these changes are to be implemented at the diocesan level, such as appointing Diocesan Reports Receivers and an Investigation Committee, the various processes for handling abuse reports, and that each diocese is to provide pastoral care for anyone who has made a report of abuse as well as for clergy who are accused in any report.

If you attend or serve in ministry at an ACNA church, I encourage to you to look at the articles and resources on the page titled “Safeguarding In Our Churches” on the AnglicanChurch.net website both to educate yourself on the changes, to compare them to similar recent responses to abuse in various church denominations, and so you can check in with your clergy or diocesan leadership to see what progress has been made, both in your diocese and at the local church level.

Like Megan has, perhaps you can take on the role of developing and implementing safeguarding practices for your own community. 

However, it should be noted ACNAtoo has concerns about the changes made in the Constitution and Canons. We may address these concerns at length in a future episode, but in a nutshell,  ACNAtoo has pointed out that there is no enforcement mechanism if dioceses decide to not comply with the requirement for having – and following –  safeguarding and disciplinary processes. The Title I changes will have no power in a canonical disciplinary process; all cases of alleged misconduct must still be sent through the current Title IV canonical disciplinary process, already proven to be faulty in its lack of specificity and detail.

As I noted in our previous episode there is much work to be done, and I know there are many who have been working in the background attempting to make changes in the ACNA.

At the same time, I think it’s important to remember that each of the cases listed in the presentment against Bishop Ruch are devastating. Every single one of them represents lives shattered and torn apart by church ministers, and in the wake of that, if they come to know that church leadership endorsed these abusers or that they looked away, pleading some kind of ignorance, how does this help them and those in our communities have any faith in the church?

I can’t help but think how so much pain and anger and all of the time involved in responding to this abuse and mishandling could have been avoided if we already had better safeguards in place and if the leaders involved could have humbly taken responsibility for themselves. But here we are, in the Anglican Church in North America, still dealing with it all these years later, and wondering what the outcome of this trial in July of 2025 will be. Can we trust our church leaders to make the right decision this time? Many, based on the patterns of behavior we have seen so far, have significant doubts about that.

A song that has come to mind numerous times as I’ve been doing interviews with those who have been affected by Bishop Ruch’s actions, those who attended Church of the Resurrection or a UMD Church is the song Wicked Web by the band Waterdeep, which was inspired by a poem from Sir Walter Scott.

We each have to be responsible for ourselves. At the same time, communities and systems can be complicit in sin, dysfunction, and abuse, so we should also be willing to take communal responsibility for the harm we’ve caused people, whether this is within our families, schools, churches, or the broader culture.

If a wicked, tangled web of lies, deception, and manipulation has been woven in our midst, how might we go about dismantling it together? And are we brave enough to do so? And do we have the conviction to see it through to the end?

Thanks for listening. I hope you join us for the next episode on the second episode of the Presentment of Bishop Stewart Ruch: The Letter, again with Megan Tucker.

If you believe in what the Wall of Silence podcast is trying to accomplish, please consider supporting us through our Patreon page at patreon.com/wallofsilencepodcast. I appreciate you helping to make this show a reality as we lift up the voices of church abuse survivors. 

The Wall of Silence podcast is produced and edited by me, Chris Marchand. Today's episode was also written in part by Audrey Luhmann and Abbi Nye. I also do the music and our artwork is by Alice Mitchlick. You can find her other work or commission a piece through her Instagram account, @mouthful.of.stars. Please rate and review the podcast on Apple, Spotify, or whatever podcast service you listen on. You can find a link to the transcript of this episode and through related links in the show notes. Thanks again for listening.