RHODE ISLAND
Providence Journal
By Karen Lee Ziner
Journal Staff Writer
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.
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