LONDONN (ENGLAND)
Catholic Herald
July 15, 2019
By Sohrab Ahmari
Trouble roils Manhattan’s Riverside Church, the neo-Gothic behemoth on the Upper West Side that serves as one of the enduring bastions of American liberal Protestantism. As the New York Post (where I serve as op-ed editor) first reported last week, the church and its pastor, the Rev Dr Amy Butler, mutually parted ways amid accusations that Butler, known as “Pastor Amy”, had taken underlings and a congregant on a sex toy shopping spree.
So much for liberal Catholics’ undying belief that ordaining women is the answer to our troubles.
While visiting Minneapolis for a homiletics festival in May, Pastor Amy allegedly took two junior ministers and a congregant to a sex shop called the Smitten Kitten, per the Post. There, she spent $200 for a “bunny-shaped blue vibrator called a Beaded Rabbit for one minister – a single mom of two who was celebrating her 40th birthday – as well as more pleasure gadgets for the congregant and herself.”
The alleged element of coercion – the junior ministers reportedly didn’t want to join Pastor Amy on the raunchy shopping trip but feared retaliation if they declined to go along – led to a formal harassment complaint days later and a third-party investigation. Eventually, Riverside and Pastor Amy concluded that the latter’s position was “untenable”, per the Post’s sources.
In an apparent attempt to forestall the Post’s exposé, Pastor Amy’s allies ran to the New York Times. The Grey Lady duly obliged with a story that painted the pastor as a victim of sexism and a progressive champion, who had written “in searing, and deeply personal, terms about her decision years ago to have a late-term abortion”.
The Times also politely alluded to the pastor’s “push for a substantial raise”, another point of contention with Riverside that predated the sex toy episode. But according to the Post, Pastor Amy was seeking $100,000 in additional compensation that would come on top of her $250,000 salary, plus a six-month housing allowance worth $48,000 and “annual retirement contributions of $59,000 for three years”.
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