What I Learned at Virtus Training -- II

Let's take a moment to review some of the main points covered in the Catholic Church's Virtus materials. I would call Virtus a very good standard for the 21st century for ordinary prudence in protecting children in a church environment. I would also stress that if ordinary prudence is not followed, there are clearly people everywhere who will do all they can to gain unsupervised access to children, and without ordinary care, they will gain it. Robert Bowman is one example.

Under "Tools for Controlling Access to Children", we find in part:

• Communicate the Church's commitment to keeping children safe.
• Use written, standard employment and volunteer applications.
• Require fingerprinting with subsequent arrest reports of all clergy and staff and those volunteers that supervise children.
• Complete face-to-face interviews.
• Check all references.

The ACA clearly does not follow anything like these guidelines. Parents need to be aware of this. ACA clergy, bishops, standing committee, and vestry members need to be aware of this and insist that all dioceses and parishes follow guidelines like these. Will this happen? I doubt it.

I sent the following e-mail to Presiding Bishop Grundorf of the APA:

Bishop Grundorf, I’m forwarding this to you [an e-mail to Marsh regarding Robert W Bowman] after prayerful reflection so that you might be aware of a problem in the ACA that could reflect on your intercommunion. It appears that the ACA either does not do the most basic background checks on its priests, or if it is aware of things like child pornography arrests, it ignores them. Naturally, if the APA recognizes the ordinations or licenses of ACA priests, it simply takes over this problem for itself. You have no assurance that any ACA priest has had an adequate background check.

I hope you will assist Presiding Bishop Marsh in recognizing the very serious nature of this problem. I would stress that I have contacted both Marsh and the Vicar General of the diocese to notify them of this issue several months ago and received no reply.