On November 7, SNAP held a press conference in front of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph to bring attention to a case involving an Episcopal priest, Bede Parry, who is being charged with molesting young boys while he was studying to be a Catholic priest. Parry was thrown out of the Benedictines of Conception Abbey in Missouri back in 1990; then he left for Las Vegas; eventually he became an Episcopal priest there. The person who knew about his record of abuse and still allowed him to join the clergy of the Episcopal Church was the Episcopal Bishop of Nevada, Katharine Jefferts Schori; today she is the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the U.S., located in New York City.
On November 8, the Kansas City Star, which has been relentless in its pursuit of clergy abuse by Catholic priests, said nothing about this case. Is this because it involves another religion? Or is it because it implicates a woman clergyperson, thus getting in the way of the narrative that Catholic bishops have some kind of special “old boy” network that inhibits them from being forthcoming? No matter, to think that the person who is the head of the Episcopal Church in the U.S. is named in a cover-up involving the sexual abuse of minors—and isn’t even mentioned in the Star—speaks volumes about its politically driven agenda against Bishop Finn.
It is important to note that at no time was Bede Parry a priest in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph. Nor is it true that the Diocese is named in the lawsuit.
