(RNS) — On Monday (July 14) — six years after a 9-year-old child came forward with sexual abuse allegations against a lay minister in an Illinois church — a long-awaited church trial will begin for Bishop Stewart Ruch, leader of the Anglican Church in North America’s Upper Midwest Diocese. Open only to those directly involved and the seven-member Court of a Trial of a Bishop, the proceeding will determine whether Ruch, an influential and charismatic figure, responded appropriately.
Ruch has admitted to making “regrettable errors” in the case. After learning of the allegations in 2019, Ruch took two years to initiate an investigation or even share the news with members of his diocese. By that time, at least nine others had told abuse survivors’ advocates that they had been abused or groomed by Mark Rivera, a lay leader at Christ Our Light Anglican Church in Big Rock, Illinois, who had previously been a volunteer leader at Church of the Resurrection in Wheaton, Illinois, which is the diocesan headquarters.
Rivera has since been convicted of felony sexual assault and felony child sexual assault, while more than 10 clergy and other lay leaders in the Upper Midwest diocese have been accused of misconduct, a pattern that abuse advocates say results from Ruch’s failure to take timely action and to properly supervise those under his purview.
Monday’s trial is only the second time a bishop has been tried in the Anglican Church in North America, which was formed in 2009 by Anglicans who withdrew from the Anglican Canadian a …