Piecing It All Together:
Part 05, Breaking Point
“Abuse silences victims and renders them powerless.
Listening makes room for their voice and restores dignity.”
- Diane Langberg
*The following contains references to sexual assault and child sexual abuse and may be triggering to some readers.*
When communities listen to survivor stories, they empower and support survivors on their journey toward restored dignity. Listening to stories of abuse can be a challenging task for church communities. Bearing witness requires paying attention to details and tracking with a large cast of abusers, enablers, bystanders, and allies. In addition to the abuse itself, survivor stories often include countless other secondary and tertiary injuries that compound the initial trauma.
This fifth section of our timeline documents the final stage of the UMD mishandling of abuse allegations that led to the formation of ACNAtoo. Please read Part 01, Part 02, Part 03 and Part 04 of our timeline for reference. Where possible, we have included the primary source evidence alongside the events as alleged by survivors and witnesses.
Who’s Who, May 2021:
Mark Rivera: recent Christ Our Light catechist, former longtime member and volunteer leader at Church of the Resurrection
Stewart Ruch: Bishop of the Upper Midwest Diocese
Joanna Rudenborg: Mark Rivera’s former neighbor who alleges Mark sexually assaulted her on two separate occasions
Cherin Marie: mother of Mark Rivera’s nine-year-old victim, former Christ Our Light vestry member, and long-term Church of the Resurrection member
Eve Ahrens: licensed professional counselor and survivor advocate
Anne Kessler: Executive Director of Operations for the Upper Midwest Diocese
Brenda Dumper: Upper Midwest Diocese Lay Canon to the Ordinary (Bp. Stewart Ruch’s administrative assistant)
Helen Keuning: senior member of the Upper Midwest Diocese Bishop’s Council
Diocese of the Upper Midwest (UMD): one of 28 dioceses within the Anglican Church of North America
Church of the Resurrection (Rez): UMD headquarters in Wheaton, IL, where Cherin Marie, Mark Rivera, Christopher Lapeyre, and Rev. York attended since the mid 90’s
Christ Our Light Anglican Church (COLA): small church in Big Rock, IL that Cherin Marie and other longtime Church of the Resurrection members planted in 2013
MAY 2021
“Bp. Stewart Ruch writes a public letter to members of the Upper Midwest Diocese to inform them of the ongoing abuse situation involving COLA Catechist Mark Rivera. This will be the first time UMD leadership has told their congregations about the allegations against Mark since the first victim came forward about his abuses nearly two years prior.
Joanna Rudenborg, Cherin Marie, Eve Ahrens, and another advocate are notified of Bp. Ruch’s letter via email by Anne Kessler, UMD Executive Director of Operations.
Read Anne Kessler’s email here:
”
“After reading Bp. Stewart Ruch’s diocesan letter, Cherin Marie emails him expressing urgent concerns that his announcement contains inaccuracies and dangerous assumptions and that his assertions downplay the scope and seriousness of Mark Rivera’s abuse:
“I am concerned that the assertion you made about this creates a false picture and downplays the scope and seriousness of Mark’s behavior towards [Cherin’s daughter] and other victims at Rez and COLA. I also think it’s very important to clearly name the number of victims, what the actual allegations are, and expand on Mark’s involvement at Rez and with Rez families, so as not to minimize or downplay the gravity and seriousness of this situation, especially as it relates to Rez.”
Cherin then urges Bp. Ruch to remedy these misrepresentations and asks him directly whether he will commit to making the investigation’s findings public at its conclusion:
“A personal question I want to ask is whether you are willing to commit to making all investigation findings and reports public? If so, please express this to the congregation and the diocese, as this means an enormous amount to anyone who participates in the investigation.”
Cherin ends by providing Bp. Ruch with a more complete list of Mark Rivera’s various roles at Church of the Resurrection over decades (to the best of her knowledge), so congregants can be properly informed of Mark’s long-term access to youth and vulnerable adults within the church and diocese.
Read Cherin’s email to Bp. Ruch here:
Read Mark Rivera’s previous roles at Rez here:
”
Left to right: Christopher Lapeyre, Mark Rivera, Bp. Stewart Ruch, Rev. Rand York (photo via Facebook)
“Bp. Stewart Ruch responds within hours to Cherin Marie’s email, promising to work with his team on her requests but declining to commit to any specific course of action.
“Thank you for this very important email. I greatly appreciate you taking the time to outline with great detail and care the greater scope and seriousness of Mark’s actions, and I can understand why you would make the requests you are making.
I will work on this with our team as soon as possible. It may take some days before I can get back to you only because I need to gather team members and also fulfill some key family commitments this weekend. But I will start working on this tomorrow! And I will read your email through a few times more—and I will be praying.”
Read Bp. Ruch’s email to Cherin here:
”
“Eve Ahrens emails Bp. Stewart Ruch, echoing Cherin’s concerns and highlighting her own, specifically the extreme urgency of providing high quality educational resources to UMD parents who may already be talking to their kids to determine whether they were ever groomed or abused.
“My concern is closer to the one discussed in our zoom call about how reticent parents already are to check in with their own children and how insufficient those conversations often are. I worry that minimization of his involvement at Rez and spaces filled with Rez families may contribute to that.
Denial and wishful thinking are a common gravitational pull for a parent faced with a potentially tragic and life altering incident for their child, especially one that can so easily be swept away by silence. A framing that allows anyone but those who attended youth group for a brief window to breathe a sigh of relief and sweep away a discomfort that could have been their child’s saving grace would be crushing.”
Read Eve’s email to Bp. Ruch here:
”
“Bp. Stewart Ruch responds to Eve Ahrens similarly to how he responded to Cherin: with appreciation for her feedback and promises to “work on all of this important input.”
“Thank you for reaching out and thank you for the great input. It is very helpful.
We are beginning to dig in with the investigator. Also, I have called a leadership meeting to talk through Cherin’s and your good emails to us and how we will work with all of this important input alongside the investigative process that is now underway.”
Read Bp. Ruch’s email to Eve here:
”
“Joanna Rudenborg becomes the third member of the survivor/advocate team to voice urgent concerns regarding Bp. Stewart Ruch’s public letter to the Diocese of the Upper Midwest.
“The four of us read your letter thoroughly and acknowledged many things we deeply appreciated about it. We have a handful of factual corrections and comments to share in response to it, but I realize you are fielding quite a lot this week, so I’ll only share Sunday-announcement-relevant thoughts at the moment.”
Joanna specifically asks if Stewart is willing to commit to making a public announcement at Church of the Resurrection’s next Sunday morning services in order to explain the investigation (including information missing from the online announcement) and to encourage members to participate.
Echoing a request the survivors have been making since mid-January, Joanna also asks Bp. Ruch to please commit to making the investigator’s final report available to the public.
Read Joanna’s email to Bp. Ruch here:
”
Bishop Stewart Ruch (photo via Facebook)
“Bp. Stewart Ruch responds to Joanna Rudenborg’s email, thanking her for her input, and states that the upcoming announcement in church will focus on pointing people to his May 4 announcement, rather than giving them more detailed information.
Bp. Ruch promises that he will forward Joanna’s suggestions to GRS and that his team will be working closely with GRS on whatever next steps they take.
Read Bp. Ruch’s response to Joanna here:
”
Despite Bp. Stewart Ruch’s assurances to Cherin, Eve, and Joanna that he would immediately begin working on this, no updates or addendums have ever been made to address the misinformation or omissions in his May 4, 2021 letter.
“Cherin Marie speaks on the phone with Cherie Scricca, head of the Grand River Solutions investigation, and learns that GRS does not employ the best practices standards essential to a safe, effective investigation.
Note that Joanna, Cherin, Eve, and another advocate had previously researched and carefully explained to Bp. Ruch and his team the crucial importance of securing an investigative firm that operates under these best practices (please read Timeline part 04 for reference).
Instead, GRS has:
* No safeguards to protect active criminal cases.
* No guarantee of survivor anonymity from the diocese
* No apparent concern for safeguarding survivor identities and stories
* No active outreach to potential survivors
Cherin is also informed that “the client” (the UMD) determines what is included and what is withheld in the final GRS report. She also learns that GRS will only deliver the final report to the client, not to participating survivors or the public.
These policies and procedures are the opposite of the investigative best practices Joanna, Eve, Cherin, and another advocate have been fighting for since mid-January, and Cherin is distraught and devastated.
Read Cherin’s notes from her call with GRS here:
”
“After her phone call with Cherie Scricca, Cherin Marie realizes it is potentially unsafe for survivors to participate in the GRS investigation.
Cherin then emails Anne Kessler and the rest of Bp. Ruch’s response team to formally withdraw from the collaborative process with the diocese and to explain why.
“I communicated to all of you in February that I had serious concerns over whether anyone other than GRACE could safely carry out this type of investigation, which led to me specifically urging the diocese to hire GRACE, when they were safely able to investigate Mark. I also explained that hiring someone other than GRACE would likely mean I could no longer participate in this process, as it would make it inherently unsafe for me to do so.
Sadly, my conversation with Cherie confirmed that the GRS investigation is not at all what we were asking or hoping for. Parts of it are actually the opposite of what we carefully outlined to the diocese as essential and non-negotiable components of a safe, independent investigation.”
Read Cherin’s email to Anne Kessler here:
”
“Shortly after Cherin Marie’s email, Joanna Rudenborg also sends an email to Anne Kessler and UMD leaders to formally end her collaborative efforts with the diocese.
Read Joanna’s email to Anne Kessler here:
”
“UMD Cathedral Dean Steve Williamson makes an in-church announcement to Church of the Resurrection members, directing parishioners to Bp. Ruch’s May 4 announcement.
Dean Williamson’s announcement neglects to take into account Joanna’s, Cherin’s, and Eve’s previously documented concerns about what to include in a church-wide announcement.”
Church of the Resurrection Dean Steve Williamson (photo via Facebook)
“Helen Keuning (member of the UMD Bishop’s Council and Bp. Ruch’s response team) emails Cherin Marie and Joanna Rudenborg (cc’ing Bp. Ruch and his administrative assistant, Brenda Dumper) to express sadness over the end of their collaborative efforts with the diocese and to offer an opportunity for ongoing discussion through a face-to-face Zoom call.
Excerpts from Helen’s email:
“I am reaching out to you both to express my sadness over each of your stated withdrawal from ‘participating in collaborative efforts with the diocese.’
“When I read your most recent emails, I hear disappointment and a sense of futility and frustration over the choices that we have made, particularly with regard to our hiring of GRS.”
“I am hoping that I can set up a Zoom call with one or both of you (along with anyone else you care to invite) in order to have a true conversation — not just an email exchange. And I am hoping that this might be an ongoing dialogue via Zoom, where we can see one another’s faces and hear one another’s intonations.”
”
“Joanna responds to Helen’s email to explain her lack of trust in Bp. Ruch’s response team, based on the events of the previous four months.
Excerpts from Joanna’s email to Helen:
“My team has always been at the complete mercy of the Diocese. I have never had any option except to hope that this inherently lopsided dynamic somehow nevertheless would produce some sort of satisfactory result.”
“I did not have any choice, given my position of relative powerlessness with relation to the Diocese, the last several months, except to hope against hope that you would all rise to the occasion. But I never assumed this. By virtue of my situation, I was always in a position of begging, and I begged with as much dignity as I knew how, given the obvious vast power differential between the Bishop’s team and my own.”
”
“Eve Ahrens, following up on her recent email exchange with Bp. Stewart Ruch, writes him again to recommend a qualified trauma professional with whom the UMD could consult as it moves forward with the GRS investigation.
Read Eve’s email to Bp. Ruch here:
”
“Bp. Stewart Ruch responds to Eve Ahrens’ email by saying that he will pass on her recommended resource to the children’s pastor at Rez:
”Annemarie [Eve] ,
Thank you for this information. Brenda, would you please pass this on to Kevin Sheehan? Kevin is our children’s pastor and he is a key leader to understanding these dynamics. Thank you for this reference, Annemarie; it is really appreciated.
+Stewart” ”
“Eve Ahrens responds to Bp. Stewart Ruch to clarify that, while the trauma consultant would likely have many helpful resources to offer the Rez children’s program, Eve was recommending her services specifically for Bp. Ruch and his response team.
Excerpt from Eve’s email:
“I was also following up on and referencing my previous email about the announcement and investigation, that without proper framing or education could not only not reach victims but may actually do harm to victims who are not approached appropriately or who are not referred to qualified care. I haven’t seen what resources GRS has given for this, and it is time sensitive, so I hope you would consider [Redacted] as an expert resource for you and the investigative team on why this is important and how to go about it.”
Bp. Ruch never replies to Eve’s email. Six weeks later (after Joanna posts her story publicly) Bp. Ruch texts Helen Keuning:
“Please reach out to Eve as soon as you’re able. And assure her that we do wanna continue learning… And I had hoped to discuss the very idea about [Redacted] when we can meet as a diocesan team… It’s just been very difficult to get that meeting together due to vacation schedules etc.””
“Bp. Ruch attends a court hearing for Mark Rivera’s criminal case, where Cherin Marie testifies under oath about her daughter’s May 2019 sexual abuse disclosure.
Later that day, Bp. Ruch emails Cherin to apologize for not having previously attended a court hearing to support her family:
Excerpt from Bp. Ruch’s email:
“I want to thank you again for being open to me attending the court hearing today. I also want to apologize again for not attending a court hearing on your behalf after I’d attended one for Mark. That should have happened, and it did not, and I’m very sorry.”
Cherin responds the following day, thanking Bp. Ruch for attending the hearing and extending forgiveness for his previous failure to show equal support in this specific way.
Excerpt from Cherin’s email to Bp. Ruch:
“Thank you so much for being there yesterday. I greatly appreciate your apology and forgive you completely for not attending a hearing on our behalf before.” ”
“Survivor advocate Eve Ahrens has a Zoom meeting with Bishop’s Council and Response Team member Helen Keuning and Rez Children’s Pastor Kevin Sheehan to discuss the loss of trust between the survivor-advocate team and Bp. Ruch’s response team.
Eve also outlines essential safety steps Rez should be taking in light of the ongoing GRS investigation.
During this meeting, Kevin takes detailed notes and Helen later writes an analysis of the meeting, both of which are provided to Bp. Ruch on May 28, 2021.
Excerpts from Helen’s analysis:
“We sort of invited them in and, subsequently, told them that this was “private” and “neutral” and they could not come in.”
“Lots and lots of vacuum + silence followed that group conversation-for many weeks. We never asked for any additional input or advice. We never reached out to have any follow-up conversations. We never truly explained what was happening on our end administratively.”
“Anne picked a group they never heard of and that doesn’t seem (on internet research) to have much expertise in Sexual Abuse matters. When they asked questions via email about why she picked this group, they were met with: “you cannot know” and “we cannot give you any information whatsoever” responses.”
“Based on our open expressions over Zoom initially and then our shutting-them-out-of-the entire-process in the months since then, I believe that J-Team lost confidence that we were listening to them at all …”
Read Helen’s analysis and Kevin’s notes here:
”
“Bp. Ruch emails Cherin Marie and asks if she will permit him to share her confidential May 1, 2021 email with the GRS investigators.
On her May 8, 2021 email to Anne Kessler, Cherin had cc’d Bp. Ruch to express her many concerns and objections to the GRS investigation. In addition, Cherin had explained that it would jeopardize her daughter’s ongoing criminal case for Cherin to participate in any way.
In light of this, Bp. Ruch’s request for her email to be sent to GRS investigators leaves Cherin feeling very upset and wondering whether Bp. Ruch has read her previous stated concerns about GRS.
”
“In response to Bp. Stewart Ruch’s emailed request for permission to share Cherin Marie’s confidential story with GRS investigators, Cherin sends Bp. Ruch and other diocesan leaders a response lamenting the path the UMD has chosen to take.
Excerpts from Cherin’s email to Bp. Ruch and other UMD leaders:
“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.”
“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.”
Read Cherin’s email to Bp. Ruch and his response team here:
”
Bishop Stewart Ruch (photo via Facebook)
JUNE 2021
“Cherin Marie does not receive any kind of response to her May 28 email until nearly a month later, when Bp. Ruch emails to assure her that he has read her email carefully and will not share her confidential story with the GRS investigators.
Excerpt from Bp. Ruch’s email:
“I will certainly honor your request and will not share your email about Deacon Val with GRS.
I am not sure what else I can say at this point. I can assure you that your email has been read carefully by me and everyone you copied on it. I can also assure you we will discuss this when we meet next as a team.”
Around an hour later, Bp. Ruch sends a follow-up email expressing his grief for this situation and his care for Cherin’s family:
“Dear Cherin:
Let me also add that I am so grieved about where we are right now. I do care so deeply for you and your family. I hesitated to say that in my previous email because I could understand how that may sound insincere to you! But I do mean it in all sincerity.
+Stewart”
”
“After exhausting all private advocacy efforts to secure a safe investigation on behalf of Cherin’s family and other survivors of Mark Rivera, Joanna decides to go public. Six months after her initial contact with the Upper Midwest Diocese, she posts a public Twitter thread outlining the situation in the UMD, to date.
Read Joanna’s Twitter thread through this link: ”
Bishop’s Council and response team member Helen Keuning reports that everyone on Bp. Ruch’s crisis response team was distressed by Joanna going public on Twitter: “There were many days of intense Zoom meetings and strategy sessions,” recalls Helen.
“Church of the Resurrection gives an in-church update announcement on the ongoing abuse situation.
Rez member Kelley Goewey is in attendance and later writes about her experience of hearing this announcement:
“The way this was mentioned also caused alarm bells to ring in my head: the word “Twitter” was mentioned with a faintly amused look and a rhetorical shrug that prompted a responding laugh from the congregation. The implication I received was clearly, can’t believe everything you read online, am I right?
I sat there, sick to my stomach. Apparently the desperation of taking to a public stage to reveal such a painful experience was, in the eyes of the clergy member, both funny and a little pathetic. Before I knew anything further about the situation, I saw myself in Joanna. That was the exact attitude I had received from every authority figure in my own abusive situation and subsequent struggle for justice.”
Read Kelley’s story through this link:”
Canon Rev. Stephen Gauthier (photo via Facebook)
“
Rev. Esau McCaulley publicly tweets that he has reached out to Bp. Stewart Ruch for a telephone conversation.”
“Bp. Stewart Ruch releases an update on the diocesan investigation and commits to making the final report for the investigation public.
”
“Joanna Rudenborg posts a second Twitter thread expressing her anger, heartbreak, and grief over the exhausting events that ultimately led to telling her story publicly.
Excerpts from Joanna’s Twitter thread:
“I never wanted to have to take to Twitter to beg for help because my fellow victims—-little girls and teenage girls and young adult women—-and I were not important enough to Bp. Stewart for him to honor the pleas some of us made to him politely, in private.”
“I wanted Bp. Stewart to honor the *literally hundreds of hours* of research, consulting, writing, and advocacy work that broken, traumatized people did in order to educate him on how to do right by us. This is what I wanted. This is what we all wanted.”
“Five different times in our email correspondence with the Bishop’s team we asked for the investigation’s final report to be made public. FIVE times. There may have been more. I do not have the emotional capacity to dig through more emails right now to check.””
Read Joanna’s Twitter thread through this link:
JULY 2021
“Upper Midwest Diocesan leaders contact attorney and abuse consultant Rachael Denhollander and later schedule a meeting with her for July 7, 2021. ”
“Joanna Rudenborg posts her third Twitter thread, outlining the extensive efforts she, Cherin Marie, Eve Ahrens, and another survivor-advocate went to in order to enlist a safe, independent, third-party investigation into Mark Rivera’s abuse and the subsequent mishandling by church and diocesan leaders.
“Bp. Ruch hosts two previously-unannounced after-church FAQ meetings at Church of the Resurrection.
Signs at the entrance prohibit any recording of either meeting, and church members in attendance are instructed to “keep this within the family.”
Multiple witnesses report that Rez members were misled in the following ways:
Bp. Ruch indicated that he learned of the allegations against Mark Rivera only after the abuse had already been reported to authorities:
This was untrue, as Bp. Ruch learned of abuse allegations at least a day before the victim’s mother reported them to the police, and UMD senior leaders learned of the allegations two days before the report was made.
Bp. Ruch told Rez members that counseling services had never been denied to anyone:
This was false, as Cherin Marie had emailed Bp. Ruch in May 2021 to explain her painful experience at Rez, including how she had never received promised financial assistance for counseling services. Additionally, an advocate had emailed Bp. Ruch and Dcn. Val McIntyre in Dec 2020 about counseling assistance for another Mark Rivera survivor and never received a response.
Bp. Ruch indicated that survivors were encouraged to contact the authorities whenever the church was made aware of abuse allegations:
This was untrue, because Cherin had informed two Rez leaders in June 2019 about several alleged survivors of Mark Rivera. Those survivors were never contacted by the church or encouraged to report their abuse by church leaders.
A second mother reports that she informed Katherine Ruch in June 2019 that her minor daughter had been groomed and sexually abused by Mark Rivera; this mother was never encouraged to report her daughter’s abuse and was never contacted by church leaders or offered any support or pastoral care for her daughter.
Bp. Ruch said that church leaders had contacted DCFS any time they were made aware of allegations involving a minor:
This was incorrect, as DCFS was never contacted by church leaders on behalf of Cherin’s daughter. Several additional allegations against Mark Rivera involving minor children were shared with Rez leaders in June 2019, and DCFS was not contacted at any point by church leaders on behalf of these alleged survivors.
Bp. Ruch stated that all known Mark Rivera survivors had been contacted by the church and encouraged to speak with GRS:
This has been proven false, as at least four survivors whose allegations were known by the church starting in June 2019 report never having been contacted by church leaders and never having been encouraged by the church to participate in the GRS investigation.
In addition to giving misleading statements, Bp. Ruch omitted relevant information. Rez members were not informed about church and diocesan leaders’ failure to fulfill their duties as mandatory reporters. Neither were they told that additional victims had alleged abuse against Mark Rivera, many of whose allegations were disclosed to Bp. Ruch as early as June 2019. ”
“Bp. Stewart Ruch emails Rachael Denhollander to inform Rachael that the UMD has identified some local trauma-informed consultants and that they would like to wait on their appointment with her, canceling the consultation which is scheduled for the following day.
Response team member Helen Keuning, who has been eagerly anticipating the scheduled meeting with Rachael Denhollander, is told that Rachael herself has canceled the appointment for an unknown reason.
During a response team Zoom meeting around this same date, Bp. Ruch reportedly theorizes about reasons why Rachael might have canceled her consultation with the UMD:
“I remember Bp. Stewart speculating that maybe Rachael had read enough of Joanna’s posts…or had some contact with the survivors…and that she might have felt uncomfortable being engaged by us to work on the UMD issues,” recalls Helen Keuning.
Read the objection we received for this entry through this link:”
“After learning of Bp. Ruch’s “in the family” FAQ meeting with Rez members and his selective portrayal of the ongoing abuse crisis, Cherin Marie feels further devastated and betrayed.
Reports from this FAQ meeting are the first time Cherin learns that UMD Chancellor Charles Philbrick had been an active part of Bp. Ruch’s response team. Despite the fact that Charles Philbrick is the lawyer who initially advised Fr. York that he didn’t need to report Cherin’s daughter’s abuse to the police, Bp. Ruch’s team has been receiving behind-the-scenes recommendations from Charles for months.
This painful discovery leads Cherin to post her first Twitter thread, via the ACNAtoo group Twitter account, which chronicles how her family was treated at Rez in the wake of her daughter’s abuse disclosure.”
Read Cherin’s Twitter thread through this link:
UMD Chancellor Charles Philbrick at Church of the Resurrection (photo via Facebook)
“Bp. Stewart Ruch formally announces that he will be taking a temporary leave of absence.
Excerpt from Bp. Ruch’s public letter:
“I want you to be able to trust me as your bishop and pastor. I feel like the best way to walk in integrity now is to step aside as this process moves forward and as efforts are made to serve any survivors of abuse. Therefore, I have requested permission from Archbishop Foley for a temporary leave of absence during the investigation, and he has granted that request, effective today.”
”
“ACNAtoo.org goes live.
”
Read the rest of the series:
Part 01, Accusation & Arrest
What happens when churches turn their backs on abuse survivors? This second section of our timeline highlights the ways that communities shun victims and support predators.
Read Part 1 of the Piecing it All Together series here.
Part 02, Ignored & Rejected
What happens when churches turn their backs on abuse survivors? This second section of our timeline highlights the ways that communities shun victims and support predators.
Read Part 2 of the Piecing it All Together series here.
Part 03, Incompetence & Malpractice
Survivors experience secondary trauma when church leaders exhibit incompetence and pastoral malpractice in response to abuse allegations. In this third section of our timeline, we lay out disturbing pastoral responses that followed the reports of abuse.
Read Part 3 of the Piecing it All Together series here.
Part 04, Official Channels
Survivors often face secondary trauma and exhaustion when navigating official channels. In this fourth section of our timeline, we document the futility of seeking help through institutions that are structured in a way that makes justice impossible.
Read Part 4 of the Piecing it All Together series here.