That’s a question a lot of people are asking.

But the Episcopal Church is now defending the bishop at the center of this storm.

The Episcopal Church is rejecting charges that its top leader, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, mishandled the ordination of a former priest who is now accused of sexual abuse.

Jefferts Schori has remained silent on the matter, which surfaced after an alleged victim filed suit last month against a Benedictine monastery in Missouri where the priest, the Rev. Bede Parry, once lived.

Parry, a former Catholic monk, was ordained 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, said Tuesday (July 5) that a thorough review of church records shows that Jefferts Schori "handled the situation perfectly appropriately."

"The spin on this, that Bishop Katharine failed to follow the rules to protect children, is highly ironic," said Edwards, who noted that the Diocese of Nevada has wrestled with problems of clergy misconduct. "She has done more to clean up this diocese than anybody."

While the Roman Catholic Church has weathered years of allegations from victims and lawyers of mishandling abuse cases, the issue has not similarly roiled the 2.4 million-member Episcopal Church, or Jefferts Schori's leadership.

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.

Episcopal leaders found that there had been no other incidents involving Parry, and subjected Parry to their own, routine psychological testing, Edwards said. They concluded that he did not fit the profile of a pedophile.

"Nonetheless, Bishop Katharine directed that Bede Parry would not be allowed to have contact with minors in the ministry," Edwards told Religion News Service. "She gave that directive to people who oversaw him in the ministry."

A statement issued by the Nevada diocese after the lawsuit was filed raised more questions than it answered, according to victims' advocates, and said nothing of Jefferts Schori's role in the matter.

"Parishioners deserve the whole truth about why (she) kept silent about Parry's crimes and why she ordained him," said David Clohessy, national director the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

"Many church officials, not just Catholic bishops, fixate on self-preservation rather than on preventing abuse and healing victims and exposing the truth," he said.

Requests for comment from Episcopal Church headquarters in New York were referred to the Nevada diocese, which Bishop Paul Marshall of Bethlehem, Pa., called "obfuscation" and a failure of leadership.

"On paper, we are a one-strike church, but in reality, too many people have walked," Marshall wrote on Episcopal Cafe, an independent liberal-leaning website.

The lawsuit does not name Parry, the Episcopal Church or the Diocese of Nevada but instead targets the Conception Abbey, a Roman Catholic monastery and seminary in northwestern Missouri where the alleged abuse occurred.

The civil suit also contends that the results of psychological testing in 2000 showed that Parry was a serial abuser who was likely to offend again, and that this information was shared with the Episcopal Church prior to his ordination.

"I'm really skeptical that the report ever existed. But if it did, we've never seen it," said Edwards.

After the suit was filed last month, Parry resigned from the priesthood, Edwards said. He had worked as an organist at All Saints' Church in Las Vegas and his pastoral care mostly involved senior citizens.

"My children, you will recognize the signs of your times. The evil has accelerated. Satan has poisoned many minds, even in the clergy. It is now the full responsibility of parents to be the leaders, the teachers of their children. Satan has poisoned the minds of many in the clergy and doctrines of demons are being introduced into My House.

     "My children, it is with great sorrow that We look upon the abominations being committed in My houses upon earth. Know now, O bishops, shepherds of My flock, that We look upon you and find you wanting.  You bring about a change, and for what? You were not satisfied with the rules, so now you make rules to suit your own basic carnal nature of man. And what are you doing, but you are reforming My House, and for what?

     "In arrogance and pride you have placed yourself above your God. Believe, and do you believe, O clergy? Shall you stand before Me and say that your teaching has been pure in My sight? I say unto you: I shall spit you out as vermin into the flames! Vipers upon earth you have become. I say unto you: Your days shall be counted in the few.
     "Many of My clergy are on the road to perdition and taking many trusting souls with them." - Jesus, July 25, 1977

The amazing Bayside Prophecies...  https://www.tldm.org/Bayside/default.htm  
These messages came from Jesus, Mary, and the saints to Veronica Lueken at Bayside, NY, from 1968 to 1995.

THE  MAJOR  OFFENSE
"The major offense being committed in your world is an offense far above any sin committed in such majority in the past. You have committed the great sin of heresy. You have opened the doors of your Eternal City, the home of your Vicar, to all manner of heretics and non-believers." - St. Michael, February 1, 1977 

EXCOMMUNICATE
"Pastors in the houses of your God, you must return from your wanderings and gather your straying sheep. Discipline must be returned. Holiness and piety must be returned. Heresy and heretics must be taken out of Rome! The power of excommunication must be used. You will cleanse the Eternal City now, or you will accept the sword!" - St. Michael, December 27, 1975 

INDOCTRINATED  IN  HERESY
"Your children must be protected from the evils that abound in your school systems in your country and most nations throughout the world. They are being taught immorality and a loss of faith in the supernatural and the knowledge of their God. All manner of heresy has been indoctrinated into their youthful minds. It is a diabolical plan of Lucifer." - Our Lady, June 18, 1979 

SPEAK  OUT
"Many homes shall be torn asunder by the fall of the children. Parents shall shed tears of anguish. Therefore, prevent this now while your children are at a young age. Give them a firm foundation of their faith. Be not afraid to speak out against heresy and abominations, even if you have to do this against your clergy. For many now have fallen in with the modernists, the socialists, the communists, and some the satanists. Therefore, My children, I make known to you the crisis that lies ahead." - Our Lady, June 18, 1979 

HERESY,  APOSTASY  ABOUND
"Because of the arrogance and pride of My clergy, many of Our sheep, Our children, are lost to the Kingdom of Heaven. Many mitres are destined for the abyss. Heresy and apostasy abounds upon earth." - Jesus, June 18, 1979 

MOURNFUL  HERESY
"Heresy, O mournful heresy! Pastors, this shall not be tolerated. You must not destroy Our young flowers, the children. You must nurture them with pure waters of faith. This faith must not be tainted by modernism and humanism. You have set upon the world a confusion of mind and a darkening of spirit." - Our Lady, November 20, 1975 

MUST  NOT  COMPROMISE
"You must not compromise your Faith. You cannot lower your standards and bring others into My Son's Church, for you bring in all manner of heresy and abominations. By your example did you gather Our sheep, and by your example now do you scatter them. I say, as your Mother: Turn back from your road, for you are on the way to perdition." - Our Lady, June 5, 1976 

HERESY  PREVAILS
"Each man shall be accountable for his own soul. You shall not allow heresy to prevail in My House! You shall not permit the corruption and destruction of the young souls with error, fallacy, and heresy! You shall not, in the name of technology and science, corrupt the teachings given to you by those who came before you, sent by the Eternal Father to enlighten you on the path and the way to your Kingdom, the Kingdom of your God in Heaven!" - Jesus, February 10, 1976 

HELL-HOLES  OF  HERESY
"Can you, O bishops, not spare but the little time to look into your seminaries? I say but one expression to you: they have become hell-holes of error and heresy! Clean out your seminaries, My bishops! My Son will lay upon you a heavy hand in penance! Is this what you want? Do you not have the courage of your convictions to stand by the truth of your Faith? Have you given yourselves to such foul sin, O bishops, in your personal lives that you do no longer recognize sin as being a way of life? Are you also condoning sin to become a way of life?" - Our Lady, October 2, 1976 

HERESY  IN  THE  CLASSROOMS
"And what are they teaching in the classrooms? Oh,  my sister, you must tell the world—all the children of earth, of the Eternal Father—that they are teaching heresy! Oh, that's untruth. Satan is deluding many and poisoning their minds. Heresy, O mournful heresy!" - St. Theresa, May 17, 1975 

LEGACY  OF  TRUTH
"I recognized, my child, the evils that were to fall upon the world. Search for the knowledge I have left to you. I, too, was enlightened by the Holy Spirit. Read well the legacy of truth* that I left to you. Modernism must be erased from your world!" - Pope St. Pius X, September 7, 1974

* Read especially the famous encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis (The Doctrine of the Modernists) by Pope St. Pius X.

MANY  REBEL
"Many clergy have given themselves over to pleasures of the flesh. Many have fallen into sin and heresy, and have cast aside the truth of their vocations. Many now rebel against their leader, their God-given leader, your Vicar. In matters of faith and morals, man must not change the God-given laws, coming from the Seat of Peter, and established through tradition upon earth through My Son's Church." - Our Lady, October 6, 1979

Directives from Heaven...

D1 - The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass  PDF
D85 - Tradition  PDF
D161 - The Great Apostasy PDF
D164 - Heresy PDF
D184 - Church of Man,  Part 1    PDF
D185 - Church of Man,  Part 2   PDF
D186 - Excommunication   PDF 

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