Church letter addresses sexual harassment involving former priest

By Meghan Morelli
Up North Live
January 11, 2016

http://upnorthlive.com/news/local/church-letter-addresses-sexual-harassment-involving-former-priest

WPBN/WGTU — Eight years later, a Traverse City church is trying to address a sexual harassment situation involving a former interim priest and several church members.

7&4 News received an anonymous email on Monday that contained a letter from Grace Episcopal Church. The letter is dated for January 6th. Church spokesperson, John Strickler, says the letter was recently sent out to the entire congregation.

"Dear People of Grace," the letter begins.

It's followed by a bible passage, and continues on with, "It is with a heavy heart that we send this letter to you. But we know it is the right thing to do."

The letter goes on revealing that three members of the church "were sexually harassed by The Rev. Bry Dennison, during his tenure as {the} interim priest in 2008-2009."

Strickler says that to his knowledge, the harassment included violating personal space, unwelcome embraces, "brush-bys and things of that nature."

The church is only aware of three victims at this time, including one now former church staff member, and two congregation members.

After several months of investigation following the harassment, Strickler says that Dennison agreed to undergo psychoanalysis, counseling, and was stripped of his pastoral duties until July 2015.

Strickler says Dennison has been restored as a priest in good standing with the Diocese of Michigan, but he is prohibited by their Bishop to have any pastoral duties in the Diocese of Western Michigan.

Strickler doesn't know the details of the investigation or whether or not Dennison admitted to the harassment.

"From my understanding he did voluntarily agree to the sanctions that were imposed on him by his Bishop," said Strickler.

Despite the investigation within the church, the congregation was never made aware about any of this and the church, "did not offer counseling or support to the three victims who came forward," the letter says.

"One of the people who was harassed was a staff member who recently left employment at the church, and it became obvious to her and also at least one other member of our congregation who had been subjected to this situation that they had not healed," Strickler said.

That was about eight weeks ago, when the church decided to get in front of the situation so that they could help those three victims and anyone else who may have also been a victim.

"I think there were probably some concerns about privacy and not exposing those who had been sexually harassed to embarrassment or exposure," said Strickler. "In retrospect probably that was not the right decision to make so we are trying to move forward and do what is right both in terms of our congregation and in terms of the people who were victimized by this situation."

The church has scheduled a parish meeting for Monday January 18 at 7 pm "to address the misconduct that occurred under Dennison's tenure."

Members of the Diocese of Western Michigan will be attending and are also organizing a Pastoral Care Response Team to be at the church for the meeting that night, according to the letter.

As stated in the letter, the church plans to "gather and pray, introduce the team, review situation facts, break into discussion groups, and come back to review next steps for moving forward."

The church encourages anyone who believes they were a victim of this situation to come forward and let them know.

Grace Episcopal Church has offered to help pay for counseling to others who need it, according to Strickler.