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Bishop says sex guilt would cost credentials

Thursday, June 05, 2003

By Ann Rodgers-Melnick, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

If the sexual assault charges against the Rev. David Valencia hold up, the former assistant pastor of Christ Church at Grove Farm in Ohio Township will be stripped of his credentials as a priest of the Anglican Diocese of Bunyoro-Kitara, Uganda, his bishop said.

"I would like everyone to know that in the Diocese of Bunyoro-Kitara, in the Church of Uganda, we do not tolerate such behavior among our clergy; and whenever such behavior turns out to be true, then we are left with no option but defrocking," Bishop Nathan Kyamanywa wrote to the Post-Gazette.

"I am personally extremely concerned about this issue and I will offer whatever help is needed."

Valencia, 47, was arraigned Monday on charges of rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent assault, unlawful contact or communication with a minor, endangering the welfare of children and corruption of minors. He is free on $2,000 bond and a preliminary hearing is scheduled for Tuesday before Bellevue District Justice Donald H. Presutti.

The Ugandan diocese ordained Valencia in 1998 after Bishop Robert Duncan of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh refused because Valencia was no longer a practicing Episcopalian.

The ordination raised eyebrows in the worldwide Anglican Communion, to which the Episcopal Church belongs, because it was seen as part of a larger effort to keep unhappy conservative Episcopalians in the Anglican fold by placing them under the jurisdiction of conservative African bishops.

Christ Church at Grove Farm, where Valencia worked from 1998 until May 2002, is an unaffiliated congregation that split in the mid-1990s from St. Stephen Episcopal Church in Sewickley. The senior pastor of Christ Church, the Rev. John Guest, is a former rector of St. Stephen and is still a priest of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.

Although Duncan refused to ordain Valencia in 1998, he gave his blessing to Bishop Wilson Turumanya of Bunyoro-Kitara to do so, saying at the time he believed it would bring Christ Church into the Anglican fold and perhaps later into the Diocese of Pittsburgh. But Christ Church remains independent.

Duncan, who returned Tuesday from a sabbatical in France, said he heard just yesterday of problems regarding Valencia.

"I did not know the circumstances under which David Valencia had left [Christ Church]," he said. "John Guest is under me but the congregation isn't."

"We have really moved to make our congregations [in the diocese] safe. I'm very sorry to hear that this has happened to a young girl and to her family, but secondly to a congregation."

According to Guest, an employee discovered in June 2001 that Valencia was viewing sexually explicit Internet sites on a computer in his office. Guest said he ordered Valencia to get counseling and stop viewing such material, but told no one else.

The 17-year-old girl later told police that Valencia pressured her to engage in "sexual therapy" during counseling sessions between May and August 2001. But she spoke to no one until she blurted it out to her sister earlier this year, her father told the Post-Gazette.

In December 2001, an employee told the parish council about Valencia's inappropriate Internet use, according to both Guest and the girl's father, who was on the parish council. Guest then barred Valencia from public ministry and directed him to find a new job. In May 2002 he left for a Presbyterian church in Tucson.

The bishop who ordained Valencia retired in 2002. Kyamanywa, his successor, said he was unable to reach Valencia even before the molestation accusation surfaced.

"I want very much to get in touch with David Valencia, but his contact has eluded me for a long time, even before the current saga came to light," he wrote.

He is awaiting more information from the girl's family, he said.

"Normally when a serious situation such as this arises, we suspend the accused and await further investigations, which will determine either dismissal/defrocking or reinstatement in the event the accused is proved innocent," he wrote.

The girl's father expressed confidence in Kyamanywa.

His daughter is struggling emotionally, but has great courage, he said.

"This is a credit to my daughter. It would be easy for her to say, 'Hey Dad, I want this to go away. I don't want to testify and relive this thing three or four times.' It would be easy for me and my wife to say let's just forget it," he said.

"But what my daughter has said, and what we believe as a family, is that if we don't do this, somebody else could get hurt."

Ann Rodgers-Melnick can be reached at arodgersmelnick @post-gazette.com or 412-263-1416.