Unitarian Universalist Clergy Sexual Misconduct And George Orwell - What's The Connection?

How about the fact that the Unitarian Universalist Association aka UUA "memory holed" the UUA's first "official apology" for clergy sexual misconduct committed by "certain Unitarian Universalist ministers" some years ago, and that it is quite difficult to find that UUA apology using regular search engines just for starters?

As it happens. . . I was able to find the original UUA apology minutes ago, and thought I would make it publicly available again so that Unitarian Universalists, or anyone else for that matter. . . can engage in a free and responsible search for the Truth and meaning, or dearth thereof. . . of the UUA's first "official apology" for clergy sexual misconduct that UUA Executive *Vice* President Kathleen "Kay" Montgomery delivered during the 2000 UUA GA in Nashville, less than two months after I protested against Unitarian Universalist clergy misconduct of all kinds outside UUA headquarters outside 25 Beacon Street in Boston in early May 2000, and just over 12 years aka a "dirty dozen" years before "Kay" Montgomery authorized the UUA's Canadian attorney, Stikeman Elliott Barristurds & Bulshitters defamation lawyer Maître Marc-André Coulombe, to falsely accuse me of violating Canada's blasphemy law aka falsely accuse The Emerson Avenge of committing the archaic criminal act of "blasphemous libel" against the tiny, declining, fringe religion known as The U*U Movement in May 2012. . .

For the Unitarian Universalist Association's General Assembly
Nashville, Tennessee, June 2000

"There is only us," was the line in the reading Marilyn Sewell used as an introduction to her eloquent Service of the Living Tradition sermon this morning. "There is only us."

Only we can make justice, only we can transform our faith.

In 1995, in Spokane, in response to my General Assembly report, a resolution was passed, "Toward Safe Congregations and Right Relations." A lot has happened since 1995. The Ministerial Fellowship Committee has struggled with finding justice in dealing with complaints of ministerial misconduct. The Board of Review, the Department of Ministry, the Unitarian Universalist Ministers' Association, the field staff, congregational leaders, have all made suggestions, made changes, moved toward justice. A handbook was published on creating safe congregations. Task forces and study groups have convened and moved the work forward. Trainings have been held. A lot has happened.

But let me say this, some things have not happened. Not through bad intentions or lack of trying. But still, some work remains undone.

A Panel on Safe Congregations has been meeting for almost two years. They will present their final report this fall. I read a draft of the report yesterday. It is smart and eloquent and calls us all toward a more religious approach to this work. Their charge was this, "to recommend to the Association a UUA response and ministry to victims/survivors of clergy sexual misconduct." They offer hope, a theology of restorative rather than retributive justice. Hope, but sorrow too. Let me quote, "The painful challenge is this: for victims/survivors, the mission of service never reached them; the commitment of trust and support was elusive and often missing; fulfilling our promise was a dream unfulfilled."

Let me say this as simply and unequivocally as I know how: the Association has largely failed the people most hurt by sexual misconduct, the victims and survivors. Other denominations have done better. These brave and bruised people have, more often than not I suspect, been left lonely, confused, afraid, angry and betrayed. Un-ministered to. What I feel about this is not so much guilt, I guess, as great sorrow and regret. I am profoundly sorry. And I pledge that this gap, this failure, will be remedied. This past year we experimented with a nascent advocacy program. Inspired by the Panel's report, we will change and learn and in this untended area, we will bend toward justice. "There is only us."

Kathleen Montgomery

Executive Vice President

Unitarian Universalist Association