Episcopal Church officials ignore growing Title IV problem with intake officer Barb Kempf

Anglican Watch recently forwarded our concerns about national Title IV intake officer for bishops Barb Kempf to senior church officials. The result was all too predictable: We got the big brush-off from Chief Legal Officer Kent Anker and HR Director Michael Walsh.

Our position is clear: No Episcopal Church employee should be exempt from supervision or accountability. This is particularly true when the issues involve clergy discipline for bishops, a matter central to mission integrity.

At the highest level, our concerns about Kempf center on the fact that she appears to be following the same Title IV model as corrupt Todd Ousley followed. This model, absolutely unethical, includes:

• Making up extra-canonical rules that she uses to deep-six legitimate Title IV complaints and to interfere with potential appeals. For example, Kempf tells complainants that any appeal must come from their advisor—a claim that is entirely unsupported by the canons. Similarly, in another case, Kempf dismissed a case involving allegations of criminal conduct by clergy on the basis that the priest in question wasn’t convicted of a crime—a requirement unsupported by the canons and involving unauthorized findings of fact, discussed below.
• Slow-walking complaints, many of which have sat for more than a year without any action.
• Declining to interview complainants while interviewing respondents, which results in inaccurate and incomplete intake reports biased in favor of respondents. This, in turn, results in inappropriate dismissals of legitimate Title IV complaints.
• Ignoring canonical provisions based on her whims. For example, Title IV expressly states that a pastoral response (not the same as pastoral care) is a “vital,” canonically mandated component in all Title IV cases. Yet, when bishops knowingly refuse to provide a pastoral response, Kempf states in writing that this is not a Title IV offense. That begs the question: Why have church canons when bishops may ignore the canons without consequence?
• Dismissing Title IV cases based on unauthorized “investigative” findings of fact. To be clear, neither the intake officer nor the preference panel has ANY fact-finding authority. Indeed, Title IV training materials expressly state: “It is essential that this information be documented without judging it to be true or not.”
• Dismissing Title IV complaints on fabricated bases. For example, Kempf dismissed a complaint against Dallas bishop George Sumner on the basis that one of the victims had never responded to her email. Yet it is indisputable that she did not contact the victim, who is an Episcopal priest.
• Brushing off egregious misconduct by bishops, including failing to address child rape and the sexual harassment of adult women. Indeed, church canons expressly require a pastoral response in every case in which a complaint is made, yet Kempf dismisses cases based on the notion that the bishop in question didn’t have jurisdiction. Yet there is no requirement in the canons that victims of abuse figure out the correct bishop; the notion they would be required to do so is particularly appalling when the victim is not a member of the church.

As to the response from Anker, it’s a total bunch of bull crud.

When, as here, a church employee abuses their office, knowingly violates church canons, and betrays the trust of church members, the issue is an HR matter. Kicking the can down the road by referring the matter to a commission with no supervisory authority over the employee is misconduct in itself, and Anker needs to resign and take Kempf with him.

Ditto for HR director Walsh.

Potential solutions:

We are now at a point where the Title IV process involving bishops has de facto collapsed, thanks to corruption at the intake officer level. Moreover, we believe corruption is precisely the right term, since we have shared our concerns directly with the Disciplinary Committee for Bishops, multiple senior church officials, and Kempf herself. Moreover, we are deeply troubled by the various fabrications we see coming from Kempf, as well as the ethical indifference when issues like child sex abuse and sexual harassment of women are involved.

In every case, our concerns have been ignored, even though we have cited specific examples and the applicable church canons or Title IV training materials.

Thus, we see several possible solutions:

1. Moving to an independent, outside entity, like a law firm, to handle intake. When Kempf took over as the Title IV intake officer for bishops, we had hoped that her legal experience, including having previously served as an administrative law judge, would improve the caliber and timeliness of intake for bishops. But now, almost two years later, the only improvement we are seeing is that complainants eventually get a written dismissal, instead of Todd Ousley’s silence. And again—Kempf appears to have serious integrity issues, while making no effort to be a compassionate listener to complainants. Thus, as things now stand, Kempf is certainly not a solution to the church’s clergy disciplinary woes.
2. Providing Kempf with Title IV training. While this initially might sound like the most compassionate and effective approach, it overlooks the fact that Kempf can read Title IV and the relevant training materials without formal training. Moreover, the issue at hand is less one of knowledge and more one of worldview. Specifically, Title IV attempts to address the disparity in perceived power between complainants and respondents by making it easy to put a complaint in front of the disciplinary committee. But in practice, Kempf throws multiple stumbling blocks into the path of complainants—and as part of the reference panel, she is the key player, even if a case moves to a reference panel. In other words, as long as Kempf is there, even per se violations of the canons stand no chance of resolution. Moreover, by providing an illusory “safety valve” to address misconduct, the church only causes further trauma to victims of abuse.
3. Firing Kempf and hiring a replacement. At first blush, this one sounds tempting. But past outcomes are a good indicator of future results, and Clay Mathews, Todd Ousley, and Barb Kempf have all been debacles. So we’re not sure that this would do much beyond kicking the can down the road.
4. Rewriting Title IV. This may be the best result over time, but given how slowly the church moves, and the messy outcomes the come out of church committees, it’s not clear to us that the Episcopal Church has enough years left to make this one happen.
5. A hybrid approach. This may be the best near-term approach. Replacing Kempf with an outside resource that actually is unbiased and follows church canons would address the worst of the immediate mess, while allowing time to streamline and augment Title IV. Specifically, Title IV’s conference panel stage accomplishes little, but costs a lot. Relatedly, the church lacks any sort of mechanism to address problems from an HR perspective—as underscored by Ankers’ lame effort to kick the the can down the road on Kempf’s ongoing violation of church canons. Thus, setting up HR mechanisms to establish accountability outside of the Title IV process is a pressing need that could be addressed via efforts at the Executive Committee level.

Recommendations:

We reiterate our belief that Kempf needs to resign her position, effective immediately.

While it is not clear to us whether the underlying problem is a lack of independence or an indifference to the language of the canons, things are fast going from bad to worse, and the church is burning its bridges at every turn.

Further, we are mindful of the previous findings of the Standing Commission on Constitution and Canons (SCCC), which noted that a badly handled Title IV case often results in unnecessary and irreparable harm to the reputations of all parties involved.

From there, we recommend outsourcing Title IV intake for bishops with a reputable attorney who is proficient in Title IV. Several candidates come to mind — as well as several persons whose track records suggest they should be avoided.

From there, a one-year contract period would be appropriate, including a request for stakeholders to comment on the Title IV intake process. That’s important, because as things stand, the process is broken, and we see no signs of improvement.

Folks, time is running out for the Episcopal Church to get its act together. And many of us have given up—after decades of trying, we refuse to keep trying to teach the proverbial pig to sing.

In the meantime, we have forwarded our concerns directly to the SCCC.

Documentation:

Screencaps of our complaint and Anker’s response are below.