I’m in the ACNA, too. I didn’t know about that scandal. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I don’t follow closely the news from the high levels of the denomination. I’ll ask my pastor and a couple of folks I know who are more involved in denominational issues than myself about it.
I looked up the controversy. Your diocese is in South Carolina? Also is he accused of anything more than trying to kiss a woman and paying her off? I saw a reference to an unidentified woman who said he pressured her into uncomfortable situations but I'm not sure whether that means inappropriate comments or groping or something more? I think we should take all of it seriously, but there is something much graver about rape than about an inappropriate kiss.
It’s the Diocese of the Carolinas. (Not to be confused with the Diocese of South Carolina…make it make sense. 😂)
The scandal by itself is fairly bad—a long period of inappropriate comments/favoritism that made the woman and witnesses uncomfortable, culminating in an attempt at a kiss. What would be very inappropriate behavior for a layperson is much worse for a bishop. But of course, countless other clergy members have done worse.
But I think the bigger scandal is the other bishops’ reaction to it. It took a concerted effort of priests and laity to get the ecclesial charges filed, because the bishops brushed them off and wouldn’t do their jobs.
There will always be bad apples—we can’t entirely prevent that. But it’s egregious that they were reluctant to hold him accountable, and that the ACNA does not have adequate procedures for accountability.
Yeah honestly that’s what I’m most worried about - when the reaction of those in church leadership is to downplay or not take it seriously. It’s easiest to head off problems before they become big, and having accountability as soon as you discover a minor problem is much better than trying to cover it up and waiting for it to become a massive scandal like in the Catholic Church and the SBC. You want to have an institutional habit of taking responsibility, not an institutional habit of coverup because someday something is going to happen and you want to have the right habits to be ready for it.
I appreciate your care in writing this article. Especially what you wrote about the asymmetry of responsibility is well taken. I was raised in a sect that used all these tactics to suppress and push responsibility on families and victims rather than leaders. Scripture was used to guilt survivors for their activity (causing godly men to fail was a big one, yuck) or push them to forgive and reconcile. When victims went to the internet they were condemned for not “going to their brother” first. I think it is huge to point out that Paul’s sexual ethic, like Jesus, was protective of the vulnerable first.
I recently had a thought that in God’s kingdom the vulnerable are covered and power that exploits the vulnerable is exposed. When that is inverted, especially in church circles, it is operating like a worldly kingdom.
Catherine, I think you have been kept in the dark. Your estimation of how well the church has responded to sex trafficking is based on misinformation and myths that are widespread in church circles.
Carya is a survivor of Satanist ritual abuse. She told her story over several episodes of the Safe to Hope podcast (Season 6, 2025).
“Technically, my dad was a religious hypocrite, meaning that he pretended to believe something that he really did not. But he was not merely a hypocrite, someone who went to church on Sunday but then didn’t follow it up with his actions or take it seriously. Rather, he was a religious deceiver. He used church and Christianity for his purposes. Technically, my dad is sexually aroused by children, which means he is a pedophile. But again, he is not merely a pedophile. What turns him on is turning things upside down. Making things the opposite of the way they’re supposed to be. There isn’t much more upside down than incest, trafficking, sadism, and highly deviant sexual abuse of children, especially your own children. And the more upside down it was, the more pleasure he derived from it. But even that explanation could make it sound like my father’s problem was that he had what psychologists might call disordered sexual desires. Of course, his desires certainly were disordered, to put it mildly, and that was certainly a huge problem. But for my father and other men who were key figures in my abuse, it wasn’t just that perversion and sadism stoked their sexual libidos. In fact, as much as they liked it, the sex itself wasn’t even the main point. For them, the real point was religious. They did what they did as a horrendously twisted form of worship. They turned things upside down, not because they happen to get aroused by flouting social norms, but because they loved what God hates and they hated what God loves.
“The people who were most significant in my abuse were all, quote, ‘church people’. This is why my dad wanted to go to church, even though he didn’t believe any of it. Churches were places where he could find other men like himself, and where he could gain access to other children besides me, the satanic commitments of my family meant that they could think of no better home for their activities than church.”
Hi Catherine, chattel slavery may be legislatively forbidden, but it is still being practised under the radar by the elite. I know of many cases. Two examples.
Families that practise satanic ritual abuse do chattel slavery a LOT: they breed (and kidnap) children for this purpose, they use torture-based mind control to train the children to be sexual slaves to the elite. I know of many such cases.
I’m commenting as I’m reading your post, rather than putting all my responses in one comment after reading the whole thing.
There are certainly many people being kept in various forms of modern day slavery, and it’s terrible.
I don’t think we can call it chattel slavery, because my understanding is that is a technical term that requires a legal designation—the enslaved is the legal, socially acknowledged personal property of the enslaver. So that’s why I phrased that sentence the way I did.
But of course slavery itself isn’t gone; it’s morphed.
I’m in the ACNA, too. I didn’t know about that scandal. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I don’t follow closely the news from the high levels of the denomination. I’ll ask my pastor and a couple of folks I know who are more involved in denominational issues than myself about it.
I’m in the archbishop’s diocese, so he is, unfortunately, my bishop.
I looked up the controversy. Your diocese is in South Carolina? Also is he accused of anything more than trying to kiss a woman and paying her off? I saw a reference to an unidentified woman who said he pressured her into uncomfortable situations but I'm not sure whether that means inappropriate comments or groping or something more? I think we should take all of it seriously, but there is something much graver about rape than about an inappropriate kiss.
It’s the Diocese of the Carolinas. (Not to be confused with the Diocese of South Carolina…make it make sense. 😂)
The scandal by itself is fairly bad—a long period of inappropriate comments/favoritism that made the woman and witnesses uncomfortable, culminating in an attempt at a kiss. What would be very inappropriate behavior for a layperson is much worse for a bishop. But of course, countless other clergy members have done worse.
But I think the bigger scandal is the other bishops’ reaction to it. It took a concerted effort of priests and laity to get the ecclesial charges filed, because the bishops brushed them off and wouldn’t do their jobs.
There will always be bad apples—we can’t entirely prevent that. But it’s egregious that they were reluctant to hold him accountable, and that the ACNA does not have adequate procedures for accountability.
Yeah honestly that’s what I’m most worried about - when the reaction of those in church leadership is to downplay or not take it seriously. It’s easiest to head off problems before they become big, and having accountability as soon as you discover a minor problem is much better than trying to cover it up and waiting for it to become a massive scandal like in the Catholic Church and the SBC. You want to have an institutional habit of taking responsibility, not an institutional habit of coverup because someday something is going to happen and you want to have the right habits to be ready for it.
I appreciate your care in writing this article. Especially what you wrote about the asymmetry of responsibility is well taken. I was raised in a sect that used all these tactics to suppress and push responsibility on families and victims rather than leaders. Scripture was used to guilt survivors for their activity (causing godly men to fail was a big one, yuck) or push them to forgive and reconcile. When victims went to the internet they were condemned for not “going to their brother” first. I think it is huge to point out that Paul’s sexual ethic, like Jesus, was protective of the vulnerable first.
I recently had a thought that in God’s kingdom the vulnerable are covered and power that exploits the vulnerable is exposed. When that is inverted, especially in church circles, it is operating like a worldly kingdom.
Thank you for writing this one, friend.
AMEN. This series means so much to me; thank you.
Catherine, I think you have been kept in the dark. Your estimation of how well the church has responded to sex trafficking is based on misinformation and myths that are widespread in church circles.
Carya is a survivor of Satanist ritual abuse. She told her story over several episodes of the Safe to Hope podcast (Season 6, 2025).
At https://helpher.help/caryas-story-part-2/ Carya said:
“Technically, my dad was a religious hypocrite, meaning that he pretended to believe something that he really did not. But he was not merely a hypocrite, someone who went to church on Sunday but then didn’t follow it up with his actions or take it seriously. Rather, he was a religious deceiver. He used church and Christianity for his purposes. Technically, my dad is sexually aroused by children, which means he is a pedophile. But again, he is not merely a pedophile. What turns him on is turning things upside down. Making things the opposite of the way they’re supposed to be. There isn’t much more upside down than incest, trafficking, sadism, and highly deviant sexual abuse of children, especially your own children. And the more upside down it was, the more pleasure he derived from it. But even that explanation could make it sound like my father’s problem was that he had what psychologists might call disordered sexual desires. Of course, his desires certainly were disordered, to put it mildly, and that was certainly a huge problem. But for my father and other men who were key figures in my abuse, it wasn’t just that perversion and sadism stoked their sexual libidos. In fact, as much as they liked it, the sex itself wasn’t even the main point. For them, the real point was religious. They did what they did as a horrendously twisted form of worship. They turned things upside down, not because they happen to get aroused by flouting social norms, but because they loved what God hates and they hated what God loves.
“The people who were most significant in my abuse were all, quote, ‘church people’. This is why my dad wanted to go to church, even though he didn’t believe any of it. Churches were places where he could find other men like himself, and where he could gain access to other children besides me, the satanic commitments of my family meant that they could think of no better home for their activities than church.”
Other parts of Carya’s story:
https://helpher.help/caryas-story-part-3/
https://helpher.help/caryas-story-part-4/
https://helpher.help/caryas-story-part-5/
https://helpher.help/caryas-story-part-6/
Hi Catherine, chattel slavery may be legislatively forbidden, but it is still being practised under the radar by the elite. I know of many cases. Two examples.
In Australia a male barrister bought a 14 y old girl from her greedy abusive grandmother. See Barbara Biggs’s autobiography “In Moral Danger” https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Danger-Barbara-Biggs/dp/1843581213
Families that practise satanic ritual abuse do chattel slavery a LOT: they breed (and kidnap) children for this purpose, they use torture-based mind control to train the children to be sexual slaves to the elite. I know of many such cases.
I’m commenting as I’m reading your post, rather than putting all my responses in one comment after reading the whole thing.
There are certainly many people being kept in various forms of modern day slavery, and it’s terrible.
I don’t think we can call it chattel slavery, because my understanding is that is a technical term that requires a legal designation—the enslaved is the legal, socially acknowledged personal property of the enslaver. So that’s why I phrased that sentence the way I did.
But of course slavery itself isn’t gone; it’s morphed.
Thanks for pointing out the technical definition of chattel slavery.