ACCtoo calls Anglican Church of Canada to repent for mishandling abuse allegations

(RNS) — In 2021, Cydney Proctor had spent greater than a decade looking for justice for the repeated sexual misconduct she alleges she skilled by the hands of three leaders within the Anglican Church of Canada within the dioceses of Brandon, Ontario, and Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island starting when she was 17. For years, she tried to undergo formal church channels, reporting the allegations to a number of bishops and ACC leaders, however had gotten nowhere.

“I didn’t want to call names, however I needed to do one thing in my energy to vary the damaged insurance policies throughout the church and its disciplinary system,” mentioned Proctor, now 31 and residing in Nova Scotia.

In January 2021, Proctor started talks with the Anglican Journal — the ACC’s nationwide newspaper — about an article that may share how the church had mishandled her allegations, in addition to the allegations of two different survivors.

Not lengthy after, a draft of the story was leaked to the establishments and dioceses implicated within the survivors’ tales.

The breach of belief sparked the creation of ACCtoo, a bunch of anti-abuse advocates who had been stirred by Proctor’s story to take up her trigger. On Feb. 17, 2022, ACCtoo printed an open letter to ACC leaders asking the church to repent for harming Proctor and the opposite survivors and requested for signatures. As of Wednesday (March 2), 228 people, together with a bishop, three archdeacons and a major variety of different ACC clergy, had signed the letter.

The Rev. Heather Liddell, rector at St. Peter’s Anglican Church in Edmonton, Alberta, informed Faith Information Service that her ordination vows meant that not signing the letter wasn’t an possibility. She pointed to the Anglican Church in Canada’s historical past of repentance for its Indigenous residential faculties as proof that the ACC is able to real repentance for wrongdoing.  

“We’re a church that repents and that turns again to God,” mentioned Liddell. “I want us to nonetheless be that.”

“With out transparency and accountability, the credibility of the Anglican Church of Canada and the Anglican Journal can’t be repaired,” the letter says.

The Anglican Church of Canada, rooted within the Church of England, was till 1832 the established church of the nation. At present its 30 dioceses, which embody roughly 360,000 members, in line with 2017 data, are a part of the worldwide Anglican Communion’s 44 church buildings. The ACC has lengthy supported the ordination of ladies, and a few of its dioceses have acknowledged same-sex marriage.

In spring 2021, preparation of the Anglican Journal article was going in line with plan. To guard survivors from backlash, Anglican Journal workers agreed that the article wouldn’t title the folks or establishments implicated of their tales and would use pseudonyms for 2 of the three survivors. The newspaper additionally informed survivors they may overview the story earlier than publication.

Matthew Townsend was editor of the Anglican Journal on the time. “I assumed that we may very well be of service to church and to victims of sexual misconduct and violence,” he informed RNS.

As journalist Joelle Kidd drafted the story, Townsend was on parental go away for the start of his daughter. It wasn’t till he returned to the workplace on Could 10 that he realized one thing had gone fallacious.

“It seems that sooner or later, administration determined that it was finest to fact-check the doc by sending it out to those establishments that successfully had been accused of mishandling sexual misconduct allegations,” Townsend mentioned. Somebody within the ACC’s Common Synod — the workers that operates the nationwide church and convenes its legislative conferences — circulated a draft of the story earlier than it had been permitted by survivors, all, to Townsend’s data, with out the permission of Anglican Journal workers.

ACCtoo’s open letter, which was drafted with the enter of the survivors, says that the circulated draft “was in an unfinished state, and included private particulars and e mail excerpts that they had supplied as background info that weren’t for publication.” It additionally says that info within the draft — along with the record of establishments that acquired it — “made it potential for the establishments to determine the survivors.”

The Anglican Church of Canada emblem. Courtesy picture

It had all the time been a on condition that the Common Synod would be capable of overview a draft of the story, in line with Townsend, due to a 2019 choice that made Common Synod the Anglican Journal’s writer and put the ACC director of communications in control of the journal’s editor.

Proctor mentioned Townsend knowledgeable her that the draft may very well be reviewed by members of the Common Synod. “What we didn’t anticipate was that the draft, with out something again from anyone in any respect, could be circulated to the bishops in control of the perpetrators … the authorized illustration of the dioceses that had been concerned, the college that was concerned,” mentioned Proctor.

Months earlier, a member of the Common Synod communications staff emailed Tali Folkins, then-acting editor of the Anglican Journal, asking for the names of the dioceses and establishments concerned within the story. Later that day, that very same communications staff member promised Folkins that the article wouldn’t be shared outdoors the Common Synod. Redacted variations of those emails had been shared with RNS.

In line with a number of sources, members of the Anglican Journal workers felt pressured to share the record of dioceses and establishments with the Common Synod, however solely did so with the understanding that the story draft wouldn’t be shared outdoors of Common Synod.

In early June, each Townsend and Kidd, the creator of the story, resigned. “I felt it had grow to be mandatory to point that I used to be so involved in regards to the state of affairs, that as the daddy of a 2-month-old and with a partner on maternity go away, I’d give up my job,” mentioned Townsend. “So I did.”

In some unspecified time in the future, the ACC employed an investigator to overview how the draft was shared, however little has been made public in regards to the investigation. Whereas Townsend participated within the investigation and skim the ultimate report, he has said he discovered the report “largely unsatisfactory.”

Proctor informed RNS she was requested to supply enter into who was main the investigation however was by no means informed who was chosen, wasn’t invited to take part and has not seen the ultimate report.  

A social media banner for #ACCtoo. Courtesy picture

By late summer time 2021, Michael Buttrey and Carolyn Mackie, two doctoral candidates on the Toronto College of Theology, had caught wind of what occurred, they usually based ACCtoo in response. Their open letter, written with the survivors’ enter, was posted on the ACCtoo’s web site on Feb. 17. The letter asks that ACC leaders launch the investigative report back to a consultant of the survivors’ selecting, require the resignation of the ACC official answerable for circulating the draft and publish an apology within the Anglican Journal.

The primate and archbishop of the ACC, the Most Rev. Linda Nicholls, responded in a letter on Feb. 18. Nicholls wrote that the “state of affairs” was “primarily a systemic situation” and never the duty of any single particular person. Nicholls apologized that the “course of that unfolded via our actions as a company didn’t meet your expectations or the dedication of the reporter.” She provided to satisfy with survivors to “make clear misrepresentations within the ‘open letter.’”

The primate and the ACC director of communications, Joseph Vecsi, declined to talk with RNS for this story.

Townsend informed RNS that in his view, the ACCtoo letter is an correct description of what occurred. “As an Anglican, I’m very involved to see the primate of our church reference misrepresentations made by individuals who have survived trauma with none clarification on that or any rationalization,” he mentioned.

Regardless of the ACC’s betrayal, Proctor’s attraction to the Anglican Journal could have had its supposed impact. “We’ve already had different folks attain out to us with their tales,” mentioned ACCtoo co-founder Mackie, “so it’s a a lot broader situation within the Anglican Church of Canada.”

RELATED: ACNA moves forward with investigation amid concerns from survivors and advocates

One other clergyperson who signed the letter, the Rev. Martha Tatarnic, rector at St. George’s Anglican Church in St. Catharines, Ontario, informed RNS that she signed for 2 causes: She believes Christians are known as to face in solidarity with survivors, and she or he believes in a church of repentance.

“It was out of affection for the church, too, that I signed the letter. I need to see a church that learns, adjustments, grows and responds,” she mentioned.

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