Rev. 'Howdy' White, one of the accused in St. George School sex-abuse scandal, removed from Episcopal priesthood

By Karen Lee Ziner
Providence Journal
October 11, 2016

https://goo.gl/4GRvof

The Rev. Howard "Howdy" White Jr., one of a half dozen named perpetrators in the sex-abuse scandal that embroiled St. George's School in Middletown this year, was removed from the Episcopal priesthood on Monday.

Bishop Audrey Scanlan of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania issued a statement Monday evening. White, who lives in Bedford, Pennsylvania, could not be reached for comment. Now retired, he had been serving there as a fill-in priest at St. James Episcopal Church.

White's removal — after an ecclesiastical investigation — may be the first formal action taken against any of the named perpetrators (one is deceased) since the scandal broke last December at the elite Episcopal prep school.

An independent investigation found that least 61 students were sexually abused in the 1970s and '80s at the school: the Sept. 1 report of that investigation named six former staff or faculty (one of whom is deceased), and nine credible reports of student-on-student assaults.

White, 75, remains under criminal investigation in Waynesville, North Carolina, based on allegations brought early this year. One accuser says White raped and abused him when he was a boy in the mid-1980s, when social services placed him with White at a Waynesville church. The other accuser is a former female parishioner.

"We are committed to keeping God’s children safe, and we are heartbroken when we fail," Scanlan said. "My hope is that the appalling events documented at St. George’s School will lead our church to intensify its efforts to protect young people in every setting, and continue our commitment to preventing abuse with thorough training for clergy, staff and volunteers who work with children."

St. George’s School quietly fired White, then associate chaplain, in 1974 after he admitted sexual misconduct, but did not report him to authorities despite a mandatory reporting law.

A Providence Journal investigation published in May found that those two accusers are among others, in multiple states, who alleged that White abused them during his four decades as an Episcopal priest. They include a godson who sued White and the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina for an incident in the 1960s; a former St. George's student said White raped and molested him in Boston hotels and while camping in Nova Scotia.

White accepted the notice that he is no longer a priest, which the church refers to as a "deposition," but did not admit guilt, Scanlan said.