The lawsuit said that Parry submitted to psychological testing in 2000.

“The results of this testing revealed that Fr. Parry was a sexual abuser who had the proclivity to reoffend with minors,” the lawsuit said, adding that the results were provided to the abbey, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Las Vegas and the Diocese of Nevada. Parry began working as music director at All Saints in 2000. Jefferts Schori was consecrated Bishop of Nevada in 2001.

Parry said he felt called back to priestly ministry when an opening arose at All Saints’ Church.

“I talked to the bishop, and she accepted me,” he told The Kansas City Star. “And I told her at the time that there was an incident of sexual misconduct at Conception Abbey in ’87. The Episcopal Church doesn’t have a ‘one strike and you’re out’ policy, so it didn’t seem like I was any particular threat. She said she’d have to check the canons, and she did.”
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If Schori were a Roman Catholic bishop, there would be outrage.  Are progressive bishops beyond judgment simply because they are progressive?  I do not understand how anyone, let alone a bishop, can knowingly install someone who is a known child molester, not least when their psychological profile states that they have ‘the proclivity to reoffend with minors’.

It does seem rather odd also that Parry told the *Kansas City Star* that there were multiple incidents, while he told KJS that there was only one.

I agree that there would be outrage if, say, Archbishop Timothy Dolan, the President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, were revealed to have engaged in this sort of behavior. But it has always seemed to me that there is unequal treatment concerning news of sexual abuse, depending on which denomination it happened in. Frankly, it often seems as if the RCC takes the flak for everyone else, while you rarely hear about such cases in the Protestant churches, despite the fact that there is a higher percentage of child abuse among Protestant clergy (I’ll have to look up the study which showed this one).

Talking to the Kansas City Star isn’t so strange as, well, all things Kansas are great.

However, I do find it a bit odd that he claims that “The Episcopal Church doesn’t have a ‘one strike and you’re out’ policy,” as my experience doing youth ministry was one in which “one strike and you’re out” was very much stressed (along with the necessary, ensuing legal consequences) - and rightfully so, I should add!

This sort of appointment is a flagrant violation of pastoral trust.  Are there really no canons that address this sort of thing?

If it happened while he was a clergyman in the Episcopal Church, it would fall under a number of Title IV, Canon 1, Section 1’s list of potential offences, such as crime, immorality, violation of Ordination vows, etc. Parry would have undergone an ecclesiastical trial or received disciplinary measures.  Canon 2, involving the voluntary submission of the offender to ecclesiastical discipline, allows the Bishop to make a sentence of their own sentence.

I think the main issue falls elsewhere, though. Parry’s situation doesn’t fall under the disciplinary canons because it was an offense in the past, under another authority, in which case it would probably fall under Title III, Canon 10 “On Reception of Clergy from other Churches.” And here’s where the rub is with Parry. He would run aground on nearly every part of the canon, which requires: a background check, a current medical and psychological examination, evidence of training regarding the prevention of sexual misconduct and training about civil requirements for reporting abuse, the certification by the Bishop of the Diocese (i.e. KJS) that the person has exhibited a “moral and godly character”, certification by two Presbyters that the person did not leave their previous communion because of “any circumstance unfavorable to moral and religious character,” and so on. 

I think the thing to note is this: what was done wasn’t necessarily in violation of the canons since the evaluation of all of these documents and processes is left to the discretion of the Bishop and, perhaps, a Commission on Ministry (I’d have to check Nevada’s canons for more details). Essentially, all of this evidence would eventually have to have been evaluated, or swept under the rug, by KJS herself.

And I’d be interested to hear the reasoning behind it.

I guess one of my points, which I didn’t clarify totally, is that Parry’s *is* technically right when he says we don’t have a “one strike” policy. However, that point is a little misleading.

The actual petition for the trial in Missouri provides a fuller list of relevant accusations. http://andersonadvocates.com/Files/497/Petition-John-Doe-181-V-Conception-Abbey-INCpdf

p. 3: “Fr. Parry was a known serial child predator who had sexually abused numerous students before Fr. Parry sexually abused the Plaintiff.”

p. 4 - 5: “In 2000, Fr. Parry underwent psychological testing relating to the possibility of entering another monastery. The results of this testing revealed that Fr. Pany was a sexual abuser who had the proclivity to reoffend with minors. The results of this testing were provided to the Abbey, the Catholic Diocese of Las Vegas and the Episcopal Bishop for the Diocese of Nevada.”

p. 5: “From 2000 through 2011, Fr. Parry has been and continues to be employed by All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Las Vegas, Nevada.”

The hope for the Church resides in the secular law courts, which do not tolerate illegal and destructive behavior to the extent that the Church does, and in the secular classroom, which has a far higher (if imperfect) level of academic integrity.

And now the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests is quite rightly involved:

http://geoconger.wordpress.com/2011/06/29/lawsuit-charges-us-presiding-bishop-knowingly-ordained-a-paedophile-the-church-of-england-newspaper-june-29-2011/

The headline is incorrect to this article: she received, but did not ordain, Fr. Parry.  The interesting bits from the article are:

On June 23, members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, held a rally outside of All Saints Church to demand the Episcopal Church “come clean about why they hired [Parry] despite clear ‘red flags’ in his past,” and to “aggressively seek out others he hurt and prod them to call police and prosecutors.”

“The reason that this is so horrific is that the Episcopal Church authorities knew about Father Parry’s history, and yet they still allowed him to come and work here,” SNAP president Barbara Blaine told reporters.

Joelle Casteix, the western regional director of SNAP asked church officials not to “split hairs, make excuses, and be silent.”

“Shepherds have a duty to protect [their] flock, help law enforcement, warn unsuspecting families and work hard to find and help others who’ve been wounded,” she said.

Asked to comment on the allegations, a spokesman for the Presiding Bishop told The Church of England Newspaper, “We do not comment on lawsuits or allegations” and referred questions to the Diocese of Nevada.  The Diocese of Nevada did not respond to questions as of our going to press.

In comments on the initial press accounts of the lawsuit printed on the liberal church blog, Episcopal Café, hitherto stalwart supporters of the Presiding Bishop urged her to explain her actions.

The Bishop of Bethlehem, (Pennsylvania), the Rt. Rev. Paul Marshall, was not surprised by the church’s response.  When lawyers for the national church “threaten and cajole diocesan bishops not to reveal multiple sex-abuse cover-ups at the highest level lest former leaders be embarrassed, what can we expect?” he wrote on the Episcopal Café website.

“On paper, we are a one-strike church, but in reality, too many people are walked. [The national church] refused comment on this story with principled-sounding obfuscation, which essentially tells it all, doesn’t it?” Bishop Marshall said.

Benjamin Guyer - 30 June 2011 09:55 AM

The Bishop of Bethlehem, (Pennsylvania), the Rt. Rev. Paul Marshall, was not surprised by the church’s response.  When lawyers for the national church “threaten and cajole diocesan bishops not to reveal multiple sex-abuse cover-ups at the highest level lest former leaders be embarrassed, what can we expect?” he wrote on the Episcopal Café website.

“On paper, we are a one-strike church, but in reality, too many people are walked. [The national church] refused comment on this story with principled-sounding obfuscation, which essentially tells it all, doesn’t it?” Bishop Marshall said.

Marshall’s statement is rather stunning. Though, to be honest, I first started wondering about what was going on in our church regarding sexual abuse as soon as I saw the section of coverage in our diocesan insurance policy which is for litigation related to sexual abuse. It’s massive.

Makes TEC’s action against the Bishop of Pennsylvania seem hypocritical.

The KC Star article:

http://www.kansascity.com/2011/06/23/2971390/former-leader-of-boys-choir-at.html