This warning was summarily ignored. A single accusation of child molestation was not going to gum up the gears of the fund-raising machine.
But about ten years later, another accusation surfaced. And another. And then another, this one from the Episcopal church and school in Houston where Tucker worked after St. Stephen’s.
That’s when the Episcopal Diocese of Texas went back and looked at Woodruff’s notes from his 1993 talk with Haslanger. And that’s when diocesan officials figured they had a problem on their hands: It looked like, for the past 40 years, a series of diocesan and school authorities had conspired to cover up allegations of sexual abuse. Now the school and diocese are facing a $45 million lawsuit for that cover-up. And now, say Haslanger and the other two plaintiffs, the diocese is abusing them all over again.
Well, since the Diocese owns all the real and other property, it should have a real deep pocket to pay any resulting judgment. I don’t imagine thet they would argue that the individual parishes are owned by the parish/congregation.
What a sad story.
Aye, there’s the rub with the “hierarchical church” line. If the Dioceses and the National Church indeed own all the real estate, they also own the liability. Goodbye, endowments.
This story should be included in “the Listening Process”.
Sad, indeed. But it is noteworthy that Bishops Wimberley and Doyle did not participate in any cover up, and seem sincere in wanting to right the wrongs of the past.
Jerod — that is not the way the other side sees it:
[blockquote]
“We have heard, ‘We want to do the right thing’ repeatedly out of the mouth of…Bishop Wimberly and out of Doyle’s mouth,” Haslanger says. “…And then what they do is, they tell us they’re going to depose our wives [and] they sent deposition requests to my pastor for my conversations with her. They’re going at this in a very, very nasty way, and they’re pretending on the surface to be such sweet and moral people. I don’t see much morality in what they’re doing….They’re not acting in the way that we were taught at St. Stephen’s to be moral. They have hidden this for 40 years, and right now they’re doing everything they can do to confuse, obfuscate and to use the legal technicalities to avoid their responsibility.” [/blockquote]
In the wake of the Irish disaster and the American scandal seven years ago, so much for the Episcopal temptation to look down on Roman Catholics. I agree with the victim who doesn’t blame Mr Tucker – he’s sick – but Dr Becker the headmaster whose pride drove him to let this go on. That was the central thing at work here 40 years ago not a liberal-conservative issue.
[url=http://sergesblog.blogspot.com/]High-church libertarian curmudgeon[/url]
I feel deeply for these men and view Becker and Tucker without much more than contempt.
Pity the plaintiffs can’t sue Becker and Tucker; well, actually, they could but it’s the diocese with deeper pockets.
The diocese now is not the diocese of before but a cash settlement for therapy might have shown good will and put a stop to this legal train wreck.
This case, too, shows a pattern of multiple allegations and offenses.
Another problem is that priests like Tucker are ruining things for good priests out there. Lots of congregations, especially in small towns, fully realize that one of the most effective ways to get rid of a clergyman is to make even a false allegation.
One of my friends attended a church where, several years ago, two teenage boys made an allegation against their rector. The rector later killed himself. Two years after the suicide, one of the boys came forward saying “he couldn’t live with the guilt” and admitted that he and his friend made the whole thing up because they were annoyed with the rector regarding something to do with a youth activity.
When these things are true, people should come forward. But to use it as a weapon against innocent clergy is truly sick as well, and I’ve seen that done, in spades.
It seems to me that Tucker and Becker, though, in these cases, are anything but innocent.
Pass the buck up to the Presiding Bishop, if TEC is all that hierarchal.
Jersey Girl, post 7 :
It seems to me that you falsley accuse “lots of congregations, especially in small towns,” when you say the following:
“Lots of congregations, especially in small towns, fully realize that one of the most effective ways to get rid of a clergyman is to make even a false allegation.”
The teenage boys you speak of possibly did make false allegations and that is regrettable but there were no false allegations made against Tucker (the subject of this thread). The allegations were kept quiet even though they proved to be true later and after much damage had been done.
Parents certainly have a right to expect that their children will be protected from this type of harrassment when they send their children to religious schools, we should listen to young people who have been harrassed in this way with an open mind because they may be telling the truth.