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CHARLESTON, SC: Breaking Faith
The Episcopal diocese protects one parishioner who preyed on its flock
and excommunicates another
who tried to protect it.
By Adam Ferrell
Charleston City Paper
November 3, 2005
It's not just Catholic churches that harbor pedophiles and sex
offenders. Churches of any kind can unwittingly provide predators
access to children in trusting environments, as a controversial case
with a Folly Road Episcopal church parishioner shows.
On Oct. 11, Mack Swafford, 65, a former lay leader at Holy Trinity
Episcopal Church on Folly Road, became a registered sex offender.
Swafford pled guilty to charges in connection with his arrest about a
year ago after three men accused him of sexual improprieties dating
back to 1983 and ending in 1990. The men, two of them brothers, told
police Swafford fondled and kissed one, 11 years old in the beginning,
and performed oral sex on the other two, ages 16 and 17, during the
alleged incidents.
Police did not learn of Swafford's crimes until 2004, ten years after
he admitted to church leaders that he molested two boys in their flock
Because of Swafford's position and relationship with Holy Trinity,
where some of the incidents occurred, this case shines a critical light
on how the church, its leaders, and the Episcopal Diocese of South
Carolina responded to allegations of child sexual abuse, which were
reported in 1994 and handled internally, as no law required the church
to report the incidents to the police. Law enforcement entered the
picture years later, when the victims finally decided to come forward.
At least two former parishioners have accused the church and the
diocese of protecting a pedophile, a charge the clergy adamantly
denies.
Holy Trinity interim rector the Rev. Frank Seignious, in 2001,
excommunicated one of those parishioners, Beverly Moore, after she
accused Swafford of inappropriately hugging a teen boy, later refused
to accept communion from Swafford, and stirred up animosity towards
Swafford among her fellow parishioners. Moore says she was forbidden
from receiving the sacraments and from attending Episcopal churches.
The Rt. Rev. Edward Salmon, bishop of the diocese, maintains that Moore
was excommunicated because her behavior was destroying the church,
saying her excommunication had nothing to do with Swafford. Salmon
believes she merely latched on to the Swafford issue to get attention,
but Moore and other parishioners say she was punished for trying to
protect children from a pedophile.
A week before Swafford's guilty plea, Moore filed a pro se civil suit
in state court claiming the church slandered her, infringed on her
right to freedom of religion, and intentionally inflicted emotional
distress upon her. The suit names as defendants the national Episcopal
church, known as the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, the S.C.
Diocese, Holy Trinity, and about a dozen clergy and lay leaders
mentioned in an attached complaint.
Moore filed that complaint about a month earlier to the national church
against Salmon and Seignious. The national church is investigating the
complaint, in which Moore claims that Salmon is guilty of conduct
unbecoming a member of clergy. Salmon says he believes the
investigation is a waste of time and money and that he and the church
have done nothing wrong, legally or ethically. Seignious, who has left
the diocese for undisclosed reasons, did not return phone calls for
this story. Salmon declined to comment on the pending civil suit.
The national church representative who received the complaint is the
Rt. Rev. F. Clayton Matthews, executive director of the Office of
Pastoral Development. He declined to comment on the complaint and the
civil suit, saying church law forbids him from talking publicly about
pending complaints. For his crimes of assault and battery of a high and
aggravated nature and committing a lewd act on a minor, Swafford was
sentenced to 10 years probation, which will be suspended after he
serves three years probation. The West Ashley resident was also
required to register as a sex offender.
THE CHURCH HANDLED IT The Rt. Rev. Edward Salmon has a manila folder
about an inch thick with records pertaining to Mack Swafford that date
back to 1994. The Charleston County Sheriff's office subpoenaed the
file a year ago after detectives roped off Holy Trinity as a crime
scene and questioned church leaders. Salmon handed over all the
documents, but police never questioned him directly, he says.
One set of papers in the file is a dated account written by the retired
Rev. Bert Hatch, who was rector at Holy Trinity in 1994 when, according
to Salmon, the first allegations against Swafford emerged. The
document, dated May 1994, begins with a January 1994 entry describing a
conversation with a church secretary, who told the Rev. Hatch that
she'd heard from parishioners that Swafford had molested at least one
boy, and that the boy's mother was upset. Hatch chronicled other
events, including when church leaders confronted Swafford, who admitted
to molesting two boys.
Sitting behind a shiny wooden desk in his Coming Street office, his
lumbering old dog, Bailey, resting on the floor nearby, Salmon claims
that Hatch's signed statements in the file show that the church and the
diocese did everything required of them, including counseling the
victims and their families and urging them to go the police. He says
the families refused to press charges. Before state law changed in
2002, churches were not required to report child sexual abuse claims to
police. Police did not learn about the incidents until 2004.
The mother of one of the alleged victims, Betty Hayes, who lives in
Newport News, Va., said in a phone interview that the vestry and clergy
at Holy Trinity asked her and her son, Charlie Wilson, to let the
church handle Swafford. She says she felt pressured not to go the
police. Salmon denies that claim, saying the church urged the victims
and their families to press charges.
The church forced Swafford to seek psychiatric counseling in 1994. A
copy of Swafford's mental evaluation is in the file, and Salmon says it
proves Swafford received help and was rehabilitated. The church did not
stop there. Church officials removed Swafford from several leadership
positions and established rules to prohibit his contact with children.
If Swafford moved to another parish, he had to brief the new church's
leaders about his past.
The way the church handled the situation is typical, according to
Atlanta attorney Joy Melton, author of Safe Sanctuaries: Reducing the
Risk of Child Abuse in Churches.
"Christian people want to say 'he's changed, we've forgiven him, he's
reformed,'" she says. "Sometimes they put rules in place. But who is
involved enough to police those rules?"
Melton, a United Methodist clergy person, has helped hundreds of
Protestant and Catholic churches across the country create and enforce
policies aimed at keeping children safe. Churches need common-sense
policies to protect children, she says. Safety measures include having
two unrelated adults in rooms with children at all times and having a
window in every door. Everyone who works with children should have a
background check, and those who do not pass muster should be excluded
from working with children.
The Episcopal Diocese is updating its training program and policies for
protecting children from sexual abuse. Created in 1995, this program
includes Melton's suggestions and aims to equip parishes with the tools
to train new employees and volunteers, according to Deborah Barker, a
diocese administrator coordinating the program. Historically, employees
had to come to Charleston for training, she says.
Melton prefers her work with churches to be proactive, but sometimes it
takes civil litigation against churches to make them wake up and do
something, and she adds that she's not opposed to representing victims
in suits against churches.
COMING FORWARD Charlie Wilson was the first, in the summer of 2004. He
told sheriff's office detectives that, from 1986 to 1990, Swafford
grabbed his butt while sitting behind him in choir and cornered him and
kissed him on the mouth, threatening to do the same to his brother if
Wilson told anyone, according to the affidavit. Wilson was 11 years old
when this started and waited until he was 18 and a freshman at The
Citadel, according to his mother, before coming forward to her and to
the church about his abuse in 1994. It took him another decade to go to
the authorities.
Soon after Wilson pressed charges last year, James Clark told
detectives that when he was 16, in 1987, Swafford allowed him to drive
his car to Edisto Island, where Holy Trinity then-rector the Rev. Bill
Skilton's house was being built. At this secluded construction site,
Swafford asked Clark to fool around, the affidavit states, and after
giving Clark beer, Swafford talked him into oral sex. Skilton, now
Bishop Suffragan of South Carolina, says that he was serving as a
missionary in the Dominican Republic when the incident occurred and
that he did not learn it happened at his house until years later, when
Swafford's activities were exposed. Skilton declined to comment further
for this story.
In August 2004, detectives arrested Swafford and charged him with
committing a lewd act on a minor, based on Wilson's accusations, and
with third degree criminal sexual conduct, based on Clark's claims.
Swafford appeared in bond court Aug. 31, 2004, and posted the $180,000
bail to be released and await his day in court.
Two weeks later, Clark's older brother, Kinney Clark, reported to
detectives that Swafford abused him in 1983 and 1984, when he was 17.
Clark stated in an affidavit that Swafford gave him alcohol and
pornography and performed oral sex on him while they were in Swafford's
home in the Orange Grove subdivision.
Detectives charged Swafford a second time with third degree criminal
sexual conduct and with contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Swafford posted the $500,000 bail and was released after a Sept. 16,
2004, bond hearing.
None of the victims could be reached for comment for this story. Wilson
is an Army helicopter pilot serving in Iraq for the second time. James
Clark lives near Greenville, and Kinney Clark lives in New Jersey,
according to police reports.
The criminal sexual conduct charges were later reduced to assault and
battery of a high and aggravated nature, because police could not prove
that alcohol constituted force.
"At 16, is it plying them with alcohol, or is it offering it and having
them take it?" asks Charleston County Assistant Solicitor Debbie
Herring-Lash.
If the boys were too intoxicated to defend themselves, they would not
be able to recount the details years later, she points out.
South Carolina is one of a few states in which any of these charges can
be prosecuted, because the state has no statute of limitations on
criminal charges.
The assault charges are felonies that carry sentences of up to 10 years
in jail apiece. The lewd act charge, at the time a misdemeanor, carries
a jail sentence of up to 10 years, and the contributing charge carries
a sentence of up to three. But, as Herring-Lash predicted, Swafford
will serve no jail time. His only punishment is probation and
registering as a sex offender.
"I think that was best, for what he did," Herring-Lash says, adding
that he might have received a stronger sentence if the incidents
involved force, had happened more recently, and, especially, if more
victims had come forward to press charges.
Bishop Salmon says that if other victims exist, they are outside the
church. He knows of no other victims in the church because of the rules
placed on Swafford.
"Obviously, we don't know about anything that went on in secret," he
says.
Attorney Melton says it's unbelievable that someone like Swafford would
molest just three victims. Statistics from the Justice Department and
from the Health and Human Services Department say a typical pedophile
molests more than a hundred children before being caught. Many victims
never reveal they have been sexually abused, even when they are asked,
so it's not surprising that just three victims have pressed charges,
Melton says.
Neither Swafford nor his attorneys, Glenn Churchill and Jack Sinclair,
would return telephone calls regarding this story. The detective who
began leading the investigation, Clair Morana, declined to be
interviewed about the case. She is no longer a detective, according to
sheriff's office spokesman Capt. John Clark.
A UNIQUE SITUATION Searching for more victims to press charges against
Swafford is driving Beverly Moore crazy. She is obsessed with seeing
him behind bars and seeing the church and the diocese accept blame for
allowing him to molest children, she says. Her admission understates
the obvious.
Stacks of notebooks and folders, fat with hand-scrawled notes, lists,
and photocopies, clutter the tiny West Ashley apartment she shares with
her feisty cat, Blackjack. Moore suffers from a spinal injury and other
health problems and manages to get around with crutches. She spends
most of her time with her bare feet elevated in her recliner, her
telephone perched right beside her, and her computer a few steps away
on a desk in front of an easy chair. At 55, Moore squeaks by on a
disability check and depends on friends and generous strangers to help
her through tough spots, like recently, when someone smashed out the
rear door window of her car, and later when her car needed a new
transmission.
The formal complaint against Bishop Salmon that Moore recently
submitted to the national church in New York is 27 pages long. Full of
details, it is well-written and nearly spotless grammatically. She
spent countless hours on it, she says, because the first two times she
submitted the complaint, it was returned to her. She learned by trial
and error all the hoops she would have to clear to have it accepted.
She sent the first complaint in July 2004 only to learn she addressed
it to the wrong office, the Department of Pastoral Development in
Virginia, and that her complaint had to be "verified" by a notary
public. She tried again this past March, and that letter was returned,
followed by a letter outlining instructions for exactly how her letter
should be filed. Her third attempt was accepted, and she received a
letter from Bishop Clayton Matthews stating that her complaint would be
heard. Matthews was away on business and was unable to be reached for
comment for this story.
Moore says her mission started in May 2000, when she filed a complaint
at Holy Trinity with her then-rector, the Rev. Woodleigh Volland. She
had become concerned about the safety of children at the church, she
says, after seeing Swafford walk up behind a teenage boy and hug him,
placing his face against the boy's face. When Swafford made eye contact
with her, she says, he jumped away, leading her to believe he realized
he had acted inappropriately.
A few weeks after Moore reported this, Volland resigned and soon left
the church. Moore believes this was related to the Swafford complaint,
but Salmon and Volland both say it was completely coincidental, that
his resignation was over political strife between Volland and some
older church members.
Church leaders counseled the teen and his family, who decided not to
press charges, according to Salmon.
Over the next several months, Moore says she was intimidated by Salmon,
as well as by church clergy, church vestry, and Swafford himself,
regarding her outspoken objections to Swafford's behavior. In September
2000, interim rector Seignious told Moore and another parishioner,
Peter Rowe, who had allied himself with her, they could no longer sing
in the praise band or choir during services. Moore says she and Rowe
both hesitantly agreed to attend prayer counseling sessions regarding
their attitudes. Moore was also removed from her position as a
volunteer in the church office.
This went on for months, and by the summer of 2001, according to
Salmon, Moore's behavior was unacceptable. She was doing everything she
could to turn parishioners against the church, he says. So, in June the
vestry gave Moore an ultimatum. She could forgive, reconcile, and come
under authority of the church or be exiled. She gave the vestry a
letter reiterating that she felt Swafford was endangering children, she
says. In October, the vestry voted to have Moore excommunicated.
Seignious carried out the order, and Salmon supported the decision.
Moore immediately appealed.
"It's a unique situation," Salmon says. "In my 45 years as a priest, I
have never excommunicated anyone."
Moore's strongest supporter, Rowe, says he believes the reason he was
not excommunicated along with Moore is because the church saw her as
the ringleader and him as a follower. He stopped attending Holy Trinity
soon after Moore was excommunicated.
Rowe, 79, has filed a separate civil suit against the church. Along
with mirroring Moore's claim, that his religious freedom was infringed,
Rowe's suit has a peculiar second claim. He is seeking damages for
destruction of personal property. He says Seignious came to his house
and talked him out of two antiques, a Buddha statue and a sculpture of
a Chinese warrior on horseback.
"He took them away and had them smashed - the Buddha took longer
because it was made of cast iron," Rowe says, half-joking in his thick
British accent.
Seignious told him those relics were anti-Christian and were
influencing his position against the church, Rowe said. This happened
not long after Moore's excommunication and just before Rowe left the
church.
About a month after Moore's excommunication, she received a letter from
Salmon dated Nov. 27, 2001, saying that her excommunication would be
lifted Dec. 20, so she could receive communion during Christmas and
thereafter, but that she should not return to Holy Trinity. The letter
said she could attend another parish as long as she stopped her
"destructive talk against the rector and vestry of Holy Trinity."
Moore never returned to Holy Trinity, and for a long time, did not
attend any Episcopal churches. About two weeks after Swafford was
arrested last year, Moore was refused communion at St. James Episcopal
on James Island, she said.
Later, she began attending St. Peter and St. John's Episcopal Church in
West Ashley, where she was allowed to receive communion. Then on Sept.
9, 2005, just days after the national church accepted her complaint
against Salmon, Moore received an e-mail from the Rev. John Burwell,
rector of both St. Peter and St. John's and The Church of the Holy
Cross on Sullivan's Island. Burwell wrote: "I am grieved to have to say
this, but according to our Bishop you are still under an inhibition
instituted last year, and thus I cannot allow you to receive Communion
at any of our services."
The latest twist was a letter she received in late September from
Matthews, with the national church's Office of Pastoral Development,
saying that her excommunication was lifted because the diocese did not
follow proper procedures when it was instituted. Moore never received
written instructions regarding how she might be readmitted to the
church, according to Matthews.
Salmon says that in late September he had agreed with Pastoral
Development to lift Moore's excommunication and that he hopes that
grace will help her reconcile.
"If grace does not, I will excommunicate her again, and that one will
not be lifted," Salmon says. Moore says that she is still unclear about
exactly where her complaint stands with the national church and that
she feels the church owes her an apology for how she was treated.
TWISTED FAITH Observers of the story, including Atlanta attorney
Melton, child abuse prevention advocates, and former parishioners who
asked not to be named, question why the church would counsel an
admitted pedophile and keep him in the fold, then banish a woman for
her efforts to expose this predator.
Salmon maintains that Moore's actions were destructive, and because she
refused to change her ways, the church's only recourse was to force her
to leave. On the other hand, Swafford admitted his wrongdoing and
reconciled his behavior. So the church forgave him.
While this story is a far cry from the network of clergy abuse exposed
in the Catholic church, there are connections between the two. The most
obvious is that child molesting tends to happen right under the noses
of parents and other adults, and there may be no better veil of
protection for this abuse than the false sense of safety that churches
exude.
And just as the Catholic abuse story started small, so could this one.
Time will tell.
On the bright side, one also could argue that this case and the
Catholic abuse exposure show a positive trend - that Americans are
becoming harder to fool when it comes to one of the oldest and foulest
forms of social deviancy.
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