Questions remain for Nevada on abuse case

July 14, 2011
by George Conger

The Bishop of Nevada has issued a statement asserting that his predecessor did not violate canon law by receiving the Rev. Bede Parry into the priesthood of the Episcopal Church. However, anti-abuse activists have lambasted Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s continued silence in the affair, and have warned the Church that silence will not end questions on what she knew, and when she knew it.

In a strongly worded statement released on July 5, Bishop Dan Edwards stated the decision to receive Fr. Parry was not taken alone by Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori in 2004, but was “a multi-level decision which meticulously followed the applicable canons.”

However, some of the facts laid out by Bishop Edwards conflict with statements given by other participants in the Parry affair. The bishop, who has declined to respond to questions from The Church of England Newspaper, has also sidestepped the issue of what his predecessor knew about Fr. Parry, as well as why the bishop and diocese felt free to ignore its own guidelines on sexual misconduct when it received the former Roman Catholic priest.

Bishop Edwards stated the diocese’s clergy selection board, the Commission on Ministry, knew of the “incident of ‘inappropriate touching’ that allegedly occurred with a young man in his late teens. That incident was not covered up.” the rest