Judge rules to continue civil sex abuse case against Rev. Bede Parry now an Episcopal Priest
New evidence points to Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori knowing about Parry’s sexual proclivities

“I also request that you end all speculation regarding your conversations with [PB] Katharine Jefferts Schori and [Bishop] Dan Edwards. They ignored your warnings and are rewriting history to serve their own agendas.” Patrick J. Marker

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
October 26, 2011

A request to dismiss a civil child sex abuse lawsuit against Conception Abbey, the former spiritual home of the Rev. Bede Parry who later was admitted into the Episcopal Church by Bishop Jefferts Schori, was denied by Nodaway county judge this week who ruled that the civil case should proceed.

Officials at the monastery petitioned to dismiss the suit, filed in June 2011, on the grounds that it was beyond the statute of limitations.

The suit claimed the Rev. Bede Parry, who at the time was a priest at the monastery, allegedly had sexual contact with a minor child while serving as director of a residential choir camp in 1987. The lawsuit also alleges that officials at Conception Abbey knew of sex crimes committed by the Rev. Parry as far back as 1973.

Parry, a former Catholic monk and priest, was received as an Episcopal priest in Nevada in 2004, when Jefferts Schori was the local bishop before her 2006 election as presiding bishop.

Her successor in Nevada, Bishop Dan Edwards, took the fall for his Presiding Bishop when these charges came to light.

Edwards said on July 5 that a thorough review of church records showed that Jefferts Schori “handled the situation perfectly appropriately.”

Edwards said the process that accepted Parry as an Episcopal priest was careful and long, stretching from 2002 until 2004. Parry told church leaders, including Jefferts Schori, that in 1987 he had inappropriately touched an adolescent in Missouri, and that the police had been called but charges had not been filed. He also disclosed that he had gone to counseling.

The implication is that Jefferts Schori was simply the victim of bad advice and was not aware of the results of tests (she has been completely silent on this). However, it is clear from the following conversation that took place between a victim and the abbot of the monastery that she was informed and therefore failed to uphold the church’s child protection responsibilities.

In a website http://www.conceptionabbeyabuse.com/letter-to-abbot-gregory-polan-2/ is an account from Sept. 11 of this year, which refutes the statement released by the Bishop of Nevada. The following exchange of emails backs this up. This statement is from a survivor.

View Marker’s Statement/Letter Here

View the full VOL article and comments Here

Marker told VOL in an e-mail that in response to the letter he sent Polan, he received letter from Polan requesting that he direct all future correspondence to the abbey’s attorney.