Date: May 28, 2021
From: Cherin Marie
To: Stewart Ruch
Cc: Joanna Rudenborg, Eve Ahrens, [Redacted], Anne Kessler, Brenda Dumper, Eirik Olsen, Steve Williamson, Helen Keuning

Bishop  Stewart,

I appreciate you asking whether you can share my email with GRS. I’m honestly very upset that no one has been willing to promise me that I will be allowed to read the final GRS report. Were I to share this personal and sensitive story with the investigators, without being allowed to read the final report, I would never get to know how they used the details of my story. That is exactly what happened to my family with the Greenhouse review – to this day I have no idea what Father Snyder included in his report, how he portrayed our story, or whether he left any parts out that especially implicated COLA, Greenhouse, or leaders in the diocese. I am definitely not willing to hand over any of my personal story to GRS without assurance that I will be able to see how they stewarded my words, and without having some way to hold them accountable if they get the facts wrong, minimize what church leaders have done, or leave any parts out altogether.   

When I told all of you, twenty days ago, that I could not support or take part in the GRS investigation and that I could no longer continue collaborating with the diocese, this was because I am vehemently opposed to what the diocese is doing right now. You all told us that you wanted to learn from us and that you desired to do right by victims, and further that you wanted us to be a part of this process and have a say in who the diocese hired to investigate this. It became apparent very quickly that the diocese, with Anne in charge, was moving in a direction that we, as victims, could not follow. We asked numerous questions that were never answered and sent many carefully worded emails to try to stop this from happening.

My email to all of you back in February, begging you not to hire this kind of investigative firm and asking you to please hire GRACE, when it was safe to do so, was my desperate final attempt to get the diocese to change course.

Stewart, I don’t even know what to say about GRS. Anne cut us out of the conversation and then hired them without even telling us. If we had been a part of that conversation we could have told you all what it took us less than 24 hours to find out – that GRS had recently done an investigation at Moody Bible Institute, that their investigative process and techniques were sloppy and unprofessional, and that their investigation left victims at Moody extremely hurt and angry. We also could have told you that GRS is not at all qualified for this kind of investigation, [redacted identifying information]. If we had been a part of that conversation I could have had my phone call with Cherie (the lead investigator at GRS) BEFORE the diocese signed a contract with them, and could have told all of you about the many ways that GRS was quite literally the opposite of a safe independent investigative firm.

Anne initially told us that she could not answer even our basic questions about this investigation because doing so would be contrary to the independence of the investigation. Later on, she admitted that our input had been making it too hard for her to make an independent decision on who to hire. You all had every right to go and hire whoever you wanted, and to do this your own way; you had no right to expect us to be okay with that, or to believe that you were in any way honoring and supporting victims by cutting us out of the process and hiring a firm that went completely against the fundamental goals we were fighting so hard for.

You did what we begged you, through numerous emotionally exhausting emails, NOT to do. We sent the diocese many examples and articles of other churches who did this the wrong way, and who caused enormous pain and retraumatization to victims in the process. We carefully outlined a great example of how the church could walk through this in a way that honored and supported victims, in our very first email to you, and you chose not to follow that example.

Anne seemed to think at one point that our issues with all of this were some kind of misunderstanding and told us that “things in her emails were not having the intention they were meant to have”. This is not an issue of us misunderstanding intentions. I have zero doubt about any of your intentions – I am looking at the actions that have been taken (and not taken). Stewart, you have been quick to respond to our emails with all the right words, many times, but then you failed over and over to follow through on what you said you would do. You did not follow up on the things you said you would, you failed to answer our many questions, and you never updated your announcement to the diocese. We told you that starting the GRS investigation without professional support and education in place was dangerous, that changes were needed, and that the things we named were time sensitive and critical; it has been nearly a month without any of that being addressed.

I realize that you have asked to share my email with the investigators because you are counting on GRS to help the church understand what they did wrong and may need to change. You are NOT going to get the story that you actually need to hear from this investigation. GRS is not equipped to do this, they do not have the understanding or experience that is necessary, and their process for gathering information is woefully inadequate and will not provide even a fraction of what you need to hear, in order to actually understand the things that are desperately broken in your church and diocese.

The GRS process of gathering information is so ineffective right now that a mom at Rez, whose daughter was intentionally groomed and pressured by Mark while he was released on bond last year, thought her daughter’s story did not qualify as relevant to this investigation, specifically because of the language in your announcement to the diocese. She also thought that GRS would be reaching out to anyone they wanted to talk to and did not know that she needed to contact GRS directly in order to share her daughter’s story. I have spoken to moms at Rez who have information and insight about how the gossip about [Cherin’s daughter] and my family was spreading around Rez early on, and who can speak extensively to the culture that allowed for a 9-year-old abuse victim to be blamed and her abuser protected within your church and diocese. But those moms are not speaking up right now, because parishioners in the church and diocese do not even know that GRS is investigating how the church handled this - because no one has told them.

The problematic and minimizing language in your announcement to the diocese, the fact that GRS is not intentionally trying to reach out even to known victims of Mark, and the failure to alert Rez to the extensive access Mark has had to their children over the years is LITERALLY SILENCING VICTIMS!!!! Stewart, this is so bad and is so wrong!! We have tried to tell all of you this so many times, in so many ways, and you just don’t seem to get it. This is why I don’t feel safe meeting with you and Katherine – because we are fundamentally on such different pages about what is going on here that I don’t even know where to start. I know I’ll either end up yelling at you or I will just break down weeping, if I try to explain this to you and Katherine in-person and still cannot get you to understand how horrible this is. I don’t know what else to say, other than to beg you to hire [redacted], the professional resource Eve recommended to you, and allow her to take charge of this process and to direct the diocese on how to proceed. You have already hired GRS and there is potentially a lot of harm being done right now by how this situation has been minimized and by how poorly the investigation is being carried out – this needs an outside expert, with no connection to the diocese or to GRS, to come in and help minimize the potential for additional damage.  I cannot make you do this, but I have now said this as clearly and forcefully as I know how to. I honestly have nothing more to say to you while the diocese continues on this trajectory.