Complaint sets in motion a 'healing' process

By Karen Lee Ziner
Providence Journal
February 06, 2016

http://www.providencejournal.com/article/20160206/NEWS/160209468

When a complaint is filed with a diocesan "intake officer" about a member of the Episcopal clergy, the church launches a "Title IV" ecclesiastical disciplinary process.

That process seeks to support everyone involved or affected — from the clergy member in question, to those who may have been harmed, to the larger community. It also seeks to resolve conflicts, whether through "healing, repentance, forgiveness," or restitution, justice, reconciliation, or someone's agreement to change behavior.

"This is not a matter of what punishment can a person get. It’s how can we best act to heal all the brokenness and woundedness for everybody who is impacted," said Robin Hammeal-Urban, canon for mission integrity and training for the Episcopal Church in Connecticut.

Prior to July 1, 2011, the process in the Episcopal Church was based on a military code of justice, she said. "The question was, what sentence should be imposed on the clergy person? That, at this point, has been rejected."

"The difference between restorative justice and retribution is making sure we've taken care of everybody. In the case of the accused or convicted person, 'Yes, you've done something very bad, you've sinned, but you can be redeemed.' It doesn't mean there aren't consequences," she said.

Hammeal-Urban, who lectures and does training nationally on the Title IV process, wrote the book "Wholeness After Betrayal: Restoring Trust in the Wake of Misconduct."

For the affected community, she said, "it's supporting people in their fears. And part of the real struggle is that it's such a deep betrayal of trust when an ordained leader or a lay leader acts in their own self-interests rather than putting the appropriate needs of the communities, and others to whom they minister, first."

For the accused person, she said she wants to be sure that they have a strong support system. "Some have taken their lives. That's certainly not the outcome that anybody would hope for," she said.

Two former employees of St. George's School, a private Episcopal boarding school in Middletown embroiled in a sex-abuse scandal, are facing Title IV disciplinary processes.

One is the Rev. Howard W. White Jr., currently on administrative leave from St. James Episcopal Church in Bedford, Pennsylvania. A former assistant chaplain at St. George's, he faces sexual-abuse allegations involving at least three former St. George's students in the 1970s. He has never been criminally charged.

The Rev. George E. Andrews II, St. George's headmaster from 1984-1988, faces a Title IV process in Florida for allegedly failing to report the school's former choirmaster, Franklin Coleman, to child-protection authorities. The school fired Coleman in 1988 after Coleman admitted to sexual misconduct with male students.

Bishop Peter Eaton, of the Diocese of Southern Florida, said a Title IV reference panel convened recently in the Andrews matter and opted to delay proceedings until the Rhode Island State Police and an outside investigator for St. George's conclude their reviews.

Andrews, now retired, runs G.E. Andrews & Associates, a for-profit placement company for chaplains, according to public record.

Once the process starts, the diocesan intake officer writes a report based on the complaint. A reference panel reviews the report, and any other available information, then decides how to proceed.

That may simply involve pastoral care to all involved, said Hammeal-Urban, or it may involve a discipline that is agreed upon by the bishop and the priest. The panel could also call for an investigation.

"At the extreme end of the spectrum, if they can't come to a resolution, it can go to a hearing panel," similar to a trial, she said.

Ultimately, a priest can be "deposed," which means removing them from the priesthood.