Loose Canons
Conflicts of Interest in Upper Midwest’s Governing Documents
by the Rev. Aaron Harrison
Update: this piece has been edited to include information from laypeople in Upper Midwest about the membership of the Bishop’s Council.
A few days after reading Joanna Laurel’s first Twitter thread, I got an email from my diocese which let all churches know to whom to report sexual harassment or any other wrongdoing. I wondered, “Does the Diocese of the Upper Midwest have a reporting structure in place for abuse?” I started reading their Constitutions and Canons, and as I read, I grew more alarmed. I’ll explain why.
We know abuse always happens within a context, within a network of power relations, within structures. Oftentimes our cultural scripts around abuse push us to think about individuals and their misdeeds rather than systems. But this has happened too often, and too many survivors and experts have pointed it out for us to claim ignorance any longer. We have to look at systems, and for Anglicans, that means looking at how our diocesian governing documents.
Every Anglican diocese has Constitutions and Canons, documents that structure how the people of God share authority between the orders of Bishop, Priest, Deacon, and Laity. These documents lay out the rules whereby the diocese is governed, vocations are discerned, elections happen, and its mission is accomplished.
The Constitutions and Canons of the Upper Midwest Diocese show serious structural flaws when compared with other Constitutions and Canons of dioceses in the ACNA. This primarily stands out in the way power is structured around the bishop as the sole authority of the diocese, in the lack of proper checks and balances, and in lacking a conciliar spirit of ministry shared between bishop, priests, deacons, and laity. Instead, the Upper Midwest’s C&Cs structure a church culture around submission.
In a typical diocese, the Synod (a gathering of representatives from every parish in the diocese, along with the bishop) comes together to elect new officers to the Standing Committee, the board of directors for the diocese. The people elect them and they serve for a three year term.
A typical Standing Committee has a Chairperson, who is not the bishop, although the bishop has a seat on the committee. The Standing Committee consents to the Bishop’s appointment of major officers (Treasurer, Secretary, Registrar, and Chancellor) for the diocese.
The Standing Committee also might review the Bishop’s performance each year. If a bishop has a moral failing, or is absent from the diocese, it is the Standing Committee who keeps the diocese running.
The Upper Midwest Diocese deviates from this norm in concerning ways. Instead of an elected Standing Committee, they have a Bishop’s Council, made up of Deans and two elected lay people from within each deanery. The Bishop’s Council is the legal board of directors (Art. III), and is responsible for all major functions of the diocese. The Bishop chairs this council himself, meaning that he is the one who sets the agenda.
Since the Synod (Diocesan Assembly) isn’t involved in electing this board, the Bishop is granted exponentially more power regarding who gets a seat at the table. If a new deanery is formed (Art. IV), its leader is confirmed by the Bishop. The Bishop can also create new non-geographic Deans and Canons. He chooses who gets a seat at the table. As the Dean of his own deanery, it is unclear if he has two votes in the Council.
The Deans on the Bishop’s Council are all Bp. Ruch’s long-time ministry partners, some going back 30+ years. His brother is one of those Deans. It is unclear who the rest of the council are and the mechanisms for choosing them. Do they serve a typical three year term, or is it longer? Compared with other dioceses’ C&Cs, this board’s structure and membership look and feel “Anglican”, but lack sufficient distance from the Bishop.
The Bishop also appoints the majority of major officers in the diocese (Title 1, Canon 4). Normally, the Standing Committee consents to these appointments, but the Upper Midwest does not require this of the Bishop’s Council. The Bishop appoints the Chancellor, the Secretary, and the Registrar. Interestingly, the Bishop’s Council appoints the Treasurer (Title 1, Canon 4, Section 6), showing they are aware of this structural option and deliberately chose otherwise in the other cases.
The Upper Midwest's C&Cs state (Title I, Canon 4, Sect. 4, "The Chancellor"), "The Chancellor of the Diocese, appointed by the Bishop with the advice of the Bishop's Council..." This indicates that the Bishop has the sole authority to choose his own Chancellor.
Compare that with Gulf-Atlantic and Pittsburgh's C&Cs, which have identical language and state, "The Bishop of the Diocese, with the advice and consent of the Standing Committee, shall appoint a Chancellor..." (emphasis mine) The Standing Committee consents to the bishop's selected candidate, indicating they have the authority to reject a given individual.
You don’t need to be a lawyer to see the pattern. All authority in the diocese runs through the Bishop. There are no meaningful checks from other diocese officers, committees, or elected boards to balance his power. It is harder to think of a clearer example of conflicts of interest. Clearly, when everyone at the top is there to serve at the pleasure of the Bishop, no real accountability can take place.
So, what if you wanted to change these Constitutions and Canons from inside the diocese because they are clearly weighted in favor of the bishop? Well, too bad, because Art XIV says that every amendment must be reviewed by the Bishop’s Council, who then brings it to the Assembly for a 2/3rds vote, at two consecutive meetings. That’s probably why it hasn’t been updated since it was adopted in 2013.
It is clear that the Upper Midwest’s founding documents need immediate restructuring from outside the diocese to bring them into conformity with normative Anglican polity. To do less would be to risk real change and accountability.
You can have a conversation with your rector and bishop to learn more about how your diocese is structured. When we all take responsibility for ordering our common lives and particular vocations towards “the care of souls”, while also learning from survivors and advocates, we can take concrete steps in preventing future abuse.
Aaron Harrison is a priest in the ACNA and lives in the Wheaton area with his wife Whitney and their son.