Southern Baptist Convention leaders announced Tuesday that they are preparing to publish a secret list of hundreds of ministers and church workers who say they are credibly accused of sexual abuse.
The existence of the list was revealed on Sunday in a bomb report on the handling of the denomination of sexual abuse for the past two decades. The report, compiled by an external researcher and totaling nearly 300 pages, alleged that top denomination leaders had suppressed allegations of sexual abuse, opposed reform proposals and denigrated and discouraged victims of abuse who had approached him for help.
One of the most shocking revelations in the report was the existence of an internal list of 703 people suspected of abuse, compiled by an employee of the executive committee of the denomination, its national leadership body.
According to the report, a staff member of the executive committee compiled and maintained the list over a decade and shared it with Mr. August Boto, former vice chairman and general counsel of the committee. Mr. Boto and the staff member retired in 2019. It was not possible to contact Mr. I click to comment.
Survivors of sexual abuse in Southern Baptist churches and seminaries had pressured the denomination for years to compile and publicize a list of known criminals. Leaders insisted that due to their decentralized structure they had no capacity to act.
Convulsion at the Southern Baptist Convention
Internal and external crises have affected the country’s largest Protestant denomination.
The new report revealed that the most recent list contained the names of 703 suspected abusers, with hundreds believed to be affiliated with the denomination at some point. Investigators found that nine people on the list appeared to have remained in active ministry, with two in southern Baptist settings.
The decision to disclose the names is the first definitive step that the denomination’s leadership has taken since the publication of the report sparked shockwaves at all levels of Southern Baptist society. The committee expects the list to be made public on Thursday, according to a statement from interim President and CEO Willie McLaurin.
“Releasing this list quickly is in our best interest, it’s important, it’s an immediate concern for the public and the survivor community, and we need to do it immediately,” Gene Besen, interim executive committee member, told committee members. in a sometimes tense meeting on Tuesday. He said he was moving forward to publish the list “as soon as we can.”
Mr. Besen said his team was in the process of drafting the names of the survivors and sources, if any, and drafting any claims that cannot be corroborated through news and other sources.
Mr. Besen also announced at the meeting that the management of the committee is investigating whether it has the authority to revoke the retirement benefits of Mr. Boto. The committee is also working with Guidepost Solutions, the company that drafted the report, to provide a hotline for receiving new allegations of abuse of the denomination.
The creation of a “Criminal Information System” was one of the main recommendations of the new report. Southern Baptists will meet for their annual meeting in mid-June in Anaheim, California, where they will consider other actions based on the findings and recommendations of the report.
For many church members, the decision to publish the list was an encouraging step after what they saw as years of inaction in a crisis that has persisted publicly since 2019. That year, an investigation by The Houston Chronicle and The San Antonio Express-News revealed that nearly 400 Southern Baptist leaders, from young pastors to prime ministers, had pleaded guilty or convicted of sex crimes against more than 700 victims since 1998.
Christa Brown, who has pushed for changes in the way the denomination handles cases of abuse, maintained her own public list of some 170 Southern Baptist ministers “credibly accused.” He watched the online executive committee meeting on Tuesday and said he was pleased with the announcement.
But she said she was “stupid” for the time it took.
“All these years, when I was doing advocacy work, constantly asking them to create a database of credibly accused clergy sexual abusers, and over and over again, non-stop and constantly, the response was: “We can’t do that,” he said. . “Look, they’re keeping a list and just keeping it a secret.”
Ms Brown says she was sexually abused when she was 16 by a youth minister at her southern Baptist church. She repeatedly tried to alert the confessional leadership of her abuse, but was ignored and rejected in the correspondence included in the report published this week. Meanwhile, the alleged abuser of Mrs. Brown moved to another church of the denomination.
Committee members also voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to issue a statement repudiating a letter that Mr. Boto sent Mrs. Brown and other advocates in 2006, in which he said that “continued speech” “would not be positive or fruitful.”
In its statement today, the committee said it “rejects this sentiment in its entirety and considers it to relate to survivors” as a critical step in curing our Convention of the Scourge of Sexual Abuse and working to avoid its continued impact on our loved ones. people, their families and our network of churches. ”