Local church members plan to protest outside Boston’s Church of the Advent on February 22, 2024. The protestors object to Dallas Bishop George Sumner’s presence at the church, where he will be delivering a presentation, “A Distant Mirror: Anglo-Catholics in Mission” at 6:30 P.M. on the 22nd.
Protesters tell Anglican Watch that they object to Sumner for “dumping” outgoing rector Douglas Anderson on the Church. Anderson has been the subject of two Title IV clergy disciplinary complaints involving allegations of sexual harassment of women. The second complaint also alleged that Anderson lied to church officials in the prior Title IV case.
Additionally, local church members object to Sumner’s anti-LGBTQIA+ stance.
Anglican Watch has repeatedly covered up Sumner’s misconduct while in office, including his:
- Cover-up the sexual harassment of women in the Diocese of Dallas.
- Bullying of LatinX church members.
- Violation of church prohibitions of retaliation for opposing the sexual harassment of women.
Most recently, Sumner sandbagged an anonymous Title IV complaint against David Halt, rector of St. James, Texarkana, for his role in retaliating against clergy who object to sexual harassment. He did so in violation of Title IV, for the standard at intake is to assume all matters complained of to be true. So his BS, and that of the chancellor in the notice of dismissal about the timing of the complaint and their personal knowledge of the matter is BS, world without end, amen.
We encourage readers who believe that sexual harassment is wrong to join the protests outside the Church of the Advent.
Disclosure: Anglican Watch editor Eric Bonetti was previously a member of a parish where Bob Malm, who previously worked at Advent, was the rector.
Thanks for posting this. Kindly correct the name of Advent’s outgoing rector: It’s Douglas Anderson, not George. George is Bishop Sumner’s given name.
A thousand pardons; we’ll fix it immediately. Life in Volunteer Land.