NEW YORK (NY)
Episcopal News Service

July 20, 2020

By Egan Millard

Connecticut diocese resolves case of abuse claims from 1984 against retired St. John the Divine dean

The Very Rev. James Kowalski, who served as the dean of New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine from 2002 to 2017, has reached an agreement with the Episcopal Church in Connecticut to end a clergy misconduct case involving sexual abuse allegations from 1984.

Kowalski was accused of engaging in “acts of sexual abuse and sexual exploitation” with a college freshman who had previously been a parishioner at a church he served in Newtown, Connecticut; the diocese did not specify her age except to say she was under 21 at the time, meaning there is no statute of limitations for making the allegation under the church’s Title IV disciplinary process. Kowalski, now 68 and retired, would have been…