The UUA's Clergy Misconduct Reporting System Needs MUCH Improvement

But don't take my word for it U*Us. . .

Take the word of Rev. Dr. María Cristina Vlassidis Burgoa who, in addition to being the minister of East Shore Unitarian Church in Bellevue Washington, is also a Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association (UUMA) Representative on the UUA's ever so aptly named Ministerial Fellowship Committee.

 

 "I also believe that the system for reporting such misconduct and/or unprofessional behavior unbecoming a minister needs much improvement. Ultimately, Furrer was allowed to remain for
almost four years by the previous Boards, despite reports of his incompetence. It is important that we understand the need for healing between our congregation and the UUA as well."

 

The above words of Rev. Dr. María Cristina Vlassidis Burgoa are found in her Minister’s Report for October-November 2023 that was delivered to the Board of the East Shore Unitarian Church just over a year ago. What I find quite telling about Rev. Dr. Vlassidis Burgoa's words is that the Unitarian Universalist Association aka UUA, and the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association aka UUMA, and the UUA's Ministerial Fellowship Committee which is a sub-committee of the UUA Board of Trustees have been publicly claiming for years that they are working on improving the system for reporting clergy misconduct, yet here we are in 2025 with a prominent UUA minister asserting that the system "needs MUCH improvement", EMPHASIS mine. . .

I could be mistaken, but I expect that little or nothing has been done by the Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt led UUA to improve the UUA's seriously flawed system for reporting clergy misconduct since Rev. Dr. María Cristina Vlassidis Burgoa wrote those words in late 2023. I therefore call upon Rev. Dr. María Cristina Vlassidis Burgoa to share her legitimate and quite serious concerns about past, and apparently ongoing. . . UUA mishandling of clergy misconduct complaints towards the end of persuading the current UUA administration to actually DO the work that still needs to be done to MUCH improve how the UUA deals with clergy misconduct complaints, to say nothing of complaints arising out of misconduct and-or otherwise UNprofessional behavior on the part of Unitarian Universalist lay leaders of various kinds.

 

I think it is long past time for the UUA to begin that National Conversation on Clergy Misconduct that was supposed to open more than a decade ago. If that National Conversation has actually opened in 2013 or 2014, instead of never truly opening, some of the Unitarian Universalist clergy misconduct that has occurred in the last decade may not have happened, and "historic" UUA clergy misconduct, including the "historic" clergy sexual misconduct of Rev. Dr. Stephen Hempstead Furrer. . . might have come to light a decade ago, instead of in 2022-2023.