By Sarah White

Jim turned to me as we watched a TV news bit about an Episcopalian priest being charged or exonerated or I didn’t catch what, by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

“Was there a priest abuse crisis in the Anglican church as well as the Catholic church?” he asked. I’d never thought about it in terms like that, but I had to say, “Yes, there was. There was an abusive priest at St. Christopher’s.”

“You’ve never told me that story!” he said.

And so I did.

I think it was probably 1971 or 1972—I was maybe 13 or 14. The Jesus Movement had gripped the Midwest. I’d started going to Bible Study meetings. A friend who attended our church—our parents had both been among the founders—joined me. I can’t remember her name—let’s call her Joanne.

The youth priest at St. Christopher’s who ran the Bible Study group said that Joanne and I might benefit from additional meetings with him. He suggested his apartment. We arranged to do this biweekly, alternating with the weeks the Bible Study group met.

Neither of us was old enough to drive yet, so after school one of our mothers dropped us off there, and the other mother picked us up an hour or so later.

We would sit in his living room with our Bibles on our laps and choose a passage to study. But Joanne often got headaches. When this happened, the youth priest would suggest she go to his bedroom and lie down. Later he would go and check on her. Tender man, so sweet of him to look after our spiritual development and bodily well-being with such care! I would sit quietly in the living room studying my Bible passage and waiting for the youth priest to help Joanne feel better.

I can’t tell you how long the extra Bible study sessions continued.

One Sunday after church, our two mothers called me into the senior priest’s office. They asked me what happened at these Bible study sessions. I explained about the living room, the scripture passages, Joanne’s headaches, the youth priest’s tender care.

Silence vacuumed up the air in that office after that. I remember my mother putting her head in her hands and saying, “And you sat there reading your Bible.” Not a question, a hushed statement, a sigh of incomprehension. Could her daughter still be as innocent as all that?

The extra meetings stopped, the Bible Study group stopped, and the youth priest left for a new post somewhere. Joanne and I ceased to be in each other’s lives. No one ever said a word about it again.

©2025 Sarah White

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