(RNS) — Amid mounting accusations of procedural misconduct in the church trial of one of their own bishops, more than 150 members of the Anglican Church in North America attended a virtual town hall Tuesday (July 29) where a plan was unveiled for overhauling the denomination’s clergy misconduct policies.
“I think it is a good thing that the proposal has come out at this time, while the challenges of the Ruch trial are fresh in our memories, our impressions,” said the Rev. William Barto, referring to the court considering four charges against Bishop Stewart Ruch, who heads ACNA’s Upper Midwest Diocese.
“If you look at the challenges that the trial process has encountered in the Ruch case, almost every one of them is addressed in this proposal,” said Barto, a priest in the Reformed Episcopal Church, a subjurisdiction of ACNA, who served on a subcommittee that proposed changes to Title IV. “So, I think it’s actually fortunate that we have the Ruch trial ongoing so that we can see just how significant a reform this proposal is.”
Ruch has been accused of failing to prioritize the needs of alleged victims of abuse and of knowingly welcoming individuals with predatory behavior into churches without alerting church members. The church trial, which has been rocked by controversy since it began two weeks ago, will determine if Ruch neglected his duties as bishop and if he violated church bylaws.
Archbishop Steve Wood. (Photo courtesy of ACNA)
At Tuesday’s town hall, ACNA’s primate, Archbishop Steve Wood, asked those in attendance to refrain from making judgments about the trial until it is over. “The lessons we may learn from this trial, when it concludes, may inform us as we examine how to improve Title IV for the benefit of fairness and to protect the principles of justice and accountability,” he said.
The proposal put to the members recommends a complete rewriting of Title IV, the section of ACNA’s canons, or church laws, governing the response to clergy misconduct and abuse. Canon Andrew Rowell, a priest who chairs the Governance Task Force — a committee that reviews and proposes amendments to church laws — framed the changes as a move from brevity to clarity.
When ACNA was formed in 2009 from churches breaking away from the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church in Canada over LGBTQ acceptance and women’s ordination, many of its founding members wanted to avoid what they saw as the Episcopal Church’s rigid, slow-moving governance structures. “When we built the ACNA, we really did want canons to be as discreet and as minimalistic as they could be,” Rowell told RNS in a June interview.
But as ACNA’s streamlined policies were put to the test, the lack of specificity frequently caused confusion. The proposal presented Tuesday would replace the existing 11-page Title IV document with a 48-page version with 13 subsections.
The bulk of the revisions are related to complaints involving bishops, significantly lowering the bar for submitting complaints against bishops and allowing anyone to make a complaint. But it would also introduce additional “off-ramps,” so not every complaint taken up becomes an investigation.
It establishes a “reports administrator” who serves at the denominational level and receives complaints against bishops, and a reports investigation committee, a nine-person standing body made of both appointed and elected clergy and laypeople that determines whether and how a case should advance. The hope is that a standing body, which would replace ad hoc groups that form and disband with each case, will gain needed expertise, according to Rowell.
In general, the new Title IV would move from an adversarial model, in which opposing parties and their lawyers present their cases, to an inquiry model, where a tribunal leads the process by determining core issues and focusing on fact-finding. The changes would also allow more than one bishop to be tried at a time.
The proposal lays out a similar model for addressing complaints against lower-ranking clergy but allows dioceses to decide whether to adopt that model or an equivalent one.
The Rev. William Barto. Image courtesy of ACNA
Barto said the proposed revisions would make it easier for people to navigate the Title IV process without having to consult a lawyer. He also said the guidelines around recordkeeping and giving public notice are noteworthy.
“There’s going to be a presumption that the proceedings are public, and much more transparency, very much more like an ordinary trial in civil or criminal court, where the public, any stakeholders, can have access to the disciplinary process,” said Barto. “This isn’t only about efficiency; this is about legitimacy. And I think that the proposal does a very good job on that.”
Notably, the current proceedings involving Ruch are not open to the public, and many of the abuse survivors whose cases are at issue have reportedly not been invited to attend or participate. A series of public letters about the trial from former prosecutors and court members have exposed differing accounts of events, in turn leading to calls for recordings and transcripts to be released. To date, the court has declined.
At the town hall, Rowell noted that some bishops have expressed worries that the new system might cause bishops to be “battling (their) entire life dealing with presentments,” as formal complaints against bishops are termed. Rowell countered that the new process is designed to ensure only credible complaints proceed.
Others have wondered, on the other hand, whether the proposal grants bishops too much power. For instance, the revisions establish a three-member review board composed of senior bishops who would confirm or adjust bishop sentences after a tribunal, entrusting bishops with the last word on sentencing their peers.
ACNA members were invited to offer ideas via a new Title IV landing page on the ACNA website as the church undergoes three cycles of public review and revision of the proposal over the next year. There will also be focused feedback sessions for different stakeholder groups, such as church lawyers, abuse survivors/victim advocacy groups and bishops.
“Once these revisions come to a final draft before the Provincial Council next summer, I hope that people can say, ‘I had a chance to speak into this, and I can see a little bit of myself in them,’” Tiffany Butler, ACNA’s director of safeguarding and canonical affairs, told Religion News Service.
The proposed changes are intended to be voted on next year, and if adopted the revisions would go into effect in January 2027. The Title IV overhaul would dovetail with measures passed in June 2024 that established minimum requirements for ACNA dioceses’ own protocols for abuse and misconduct allegations. Butler said she has already begun partnering with dioceses to coordinate safeguarding efforts.
“Discipline in the church is one of the most important things that we can give our attention to, our minds to. We’re undertaking, as you’ve heard several times, perhaps one of the most comprehensive canonical reforms we’ve had,” Wood told the town hall. “And I also hope that you have seen through the diagrams, and have heard repeatedly … our desire to have your participation in this. This is meant to be a body-wide endeavor.”