Done and Left Undone: One Year since Husch Blackwell
On the evening of September 27, 2022, the Provincial Office of the ACNA released the Husch Blackwell investigation report, only to remove it from their website three days later after a public outcry over its inclusion of unredacted, graphic alleged details of a minor survivor’s sexual abuse.
After the Husch Blackwell report was pulled, ACNAtoo published a summary of abuse mishandling in the Diocese of the Upper Midwest, noting that very little had improved. One year later, that assessment still stands.
Anniversaries serve as important milestones that mark what has been done and what has been left undone. We offer a brief summary of some ongoing cases regarding abuse allegations and pending institutional response in the ACNA, each of which is tied up in a drawn-out canonical process with no end in sight. While ACNAtoo is privately tracking abuse allegations in 14 ACNA dioceses involving over 100 survivors, these are the cases that the reporting survivors have given us permission to speak to publicly at this time.
Note: we have updated the number of ACNA dioceses to 14 to reflect our latest information.
FALL 2022
On September 13, 2022, the Province issued its last public update regarding the ecclesiastical trial of Bp. Todd Atkinson. Allegations of misconduct were made against Via Apostolica Bp. Todd Atkinson in September 2021. A Provincial investigative team was formed in November 2021 and Bp. Atkinson was inhibited from ministry in June 2022. A Board of Inquiry determined a month later that an ecclesiastical trial was warranted for four violations by Bp. Atkinson of Canon IV.2.4. Over a year later, ACNA laity remain in the dark concerning the status of the canonical disciplinary process.
For 365 days, the Province has failed to release a properly redacted copy of the Husch Blackwell report into sexual abuse mishandling in the Diocese of the Upper Midwest (UMD), despite the ACNA’s contract with Husch Blackwell stipulating a full public report redacted to protect abuse survivors. The Province has also declined to address the concerns of survivors and advocates or provide any update to the public as to when the HB report might be re-released. (Per survivors’ requests, we redacted the report to protect their privacy and republished it here.)
Telios Law completed its investigation into matters of spiritual abuse in the Diocese of the Upper Midwest in the fall of 2022, but no further action steps have been made public despite the ACNA Province’s promise over a year ago that an update on the Telios investigation was forthcoming. In the meantime, numerous individuals interviewed by Telios have reported to ACNAtoo that they received individual summaries of their complaints from Telios that did not accurately reflect the content of their reports.
In December 2022, three ACNA bishops filed a presentment against UMD Bp. Stewart Ruch, apparently based on the contents of the Husch Blackwell investigation report. As of the last public update, this presentment is still under consideration by the Provincial Board of Inquiry.
SPRING 2023
In January 2023, Bp. Ruch challenged the first presentment via an appeal to the ACNA’s Tribunal and a subsequent amended petition, which was contested by Abp. Foley Beach in a document the Archbishop eventually made public on the ACNA website. The resulting rounds of debate between Bp. Ruch’s legal team and Abp. Beach’s legal team led to a list of proposed amendments to the ACNA Constitution and Canons, the first round of which were approved unanimously by the College of Bishops and the Provincial Council in June 2023.
In the spring of 2023, the Diocese of Christ our Hope launched its third investigation relating to abuse of power allegations against Fr. Dan Claire and the alleged subsequent mishandling by Bps. Steve Breedlove and Alan Hawkins. ACNAtoo previously published an open letter written by survivors in COH that decried diocesan mishandling following a year-long third-party investigation in 2021 of disclosed allegations of abuse committed by Fr. Dan Claire in 2020. The current investigation is reportedly paused due to complaints from Fr. Claire as to its validity. Like Bp. Ruch, Fr. Claire has also appealed to the ACNA’s Tribunal.
In March 2023, three members of the Provincial Response Team who resigned in protest in early 2022 reaffirmed their criticism of the Provincial process they had observed first hand throughout the second half of 2021. “Leaders seemed to see themselves as the vulnerable under attack,” they wrote, “and were more protective of each other than the truly vulnerable people in their care.”
SUMMER 2023
While the first presentment against Bp. Ruch was tied up in legal debates between the Bishop and the Archbishop, a grassroots group of laity and clergy from the UMD brought a second, independent presentment in June 2023. The allegations brought forward in this presentment are not public, but Religion News Service recently provided a summary that includes accusations of canonical misconduct from as recently as early 2023.
In July 2023, a Board of Inquiry found insufficient evidence to bring a bishop in a third diocese to trial. This ended a two-year process where clergy and laity sought to hold said bishop accountable for allegedly mishandling disclosures of abuse by clergy within his diocese. Two clergy have been inhibited from ministry in this case since 2021, but the diocesan discipline process has yet to conclude.
The second presentment against Bp. Ruch culminated in an August 15, 2023 announcement by the ACNA of an upcoming ecclesiastical trial. The ACNA Trial Court has provided no updates on what to expect during the trial process, and the ACNA Canons do not mandate any particular trial procedure.
During the past two years, ACNAtoo has received encouraging reports of churches taking concrete steps at the parish level to address policies and culture around abuse prevention and response. However, the ACNA has shown itself unwilling to address abuse effectively at the institutional level. Its decentralized governance structure and inadequate canons have not provided the authority needed for real accountability, particularly when allegations of abuse or mishandling are brought against ACNA bishops. Furthermore, insular relationships between clergy and bishops have repeatedly appeared to serve to protect clergy instead of abuse survivors.
If you are an ACNA member, we encourage you to educate yourself about all forms of abuse and abuse prevention. Learn how to safely and lovingly advocate for the vulnerable people around you. Study your diocese’s safeguarding, reporting, and disciplinary processes. Ask questions of your leadership and demand answers. You and your community are valuable and worthy of care.
Explore our Resources page, Survivor Stories, and the ACNAtoo Blog to educate yourself and your church on the dynamics of grooming, abuse, and institutional response to abuse allegations. Check out our Timeline for details on the case in the UMD that launched ACNAtoo, and see our News page for 2+ years worth of updates and commentary on abuse-related issues in the ACNA.