A former bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania sexually abused at least four girls while he was leader of the Erie-based diocese.
The abuse by the Rev. Donald Davis was made public today by the diocese’s current bishop, the Right Rev. Sean Rowe, who learned of the abuse earlier this year from one of the victims.
“Our first goal is to tell the truth,” Rowe told the Erie Times-News today.
Davis, who was bishop of the diocese from 1974 to 1991, died in 2007.
In a pastoral letter read today after services in each of the 13-county diocese’s 34 churches, Rowe apologized for what Davis did.
[url=http://www.dionwpa.org/newspage.htm]letter from Bishop Rowe regarding Bishop Davis[/url]
Does anyone else find the sequence of events peculiar? The offending bishop resigned and was removed from exercise of ministry but did no one tell the new bishop the whole story either before he was made bishop or at least shortly after? What does that failure to communicate accurate history say about institutional memory in the diocese and in the national church? Or did the new bishop know what his predecessor’s predecessor did and only acted when he was confronted by one of the victims?
It wasn’t what I’d consider an ideal transition between Bishop’s Rowely and Rowe. Sean Rowe was on the Standing Committee in NWPA that “offered” Bishop Rowley a “terminal sabbatical.” The search process was begun. When the list of Bishop candidates came out Rowe was one of the three on the list (one of those three withdrew before the election). Within days of Rowe’s election as bishop three of the four diocesan house staff were fired by the Standing Committee. It was announced soon after that then Bishop-elect Rowe had chosen Martha Ishman as his Canon. She was the head of the bishop search committee and on the Standing Committee during this whole process. To me, it isn’t surprising that the information wasn’t passed along considering how the transition took place. Bishop Rowely did move out of the area following the “terminal sabbatical” offer. (I was a parishioner in NWPA during the Bishop Rowely – Bishop Rowe transition.)
I appreciate Michele’s comments which help me understand how the “secret” of the previous bishop’s misconduct was not revealed during the transition. Her comments are a reminder of the importance of an “exit interview” when people – particularly clergy – leave positions. It may be that this information about the previous bishop was not shared in the transition of Presiding Bishops from Browning to Griswold to Jefferts Schori. Tinker, Everts, and Chance did better.
All in all, I think that this is an excellent letter for which the present bishop should be commended. It is tragic that the problem was not dealt with properly in the beginning, but he seems to be doing as much as is humanly possible to counter the damage caused by this grievous evil.