(RNS) — When Cherin Marie joined Christ Our Gentle Anglican Church in 2013, she couldn’t think about submitting a lawsuit in opposition to the close-knit Anglican church plant in Huge Rock, Illinois, the place lots of her family members attended. However three years after her then 9-year-old daughter first stated she was sexually abused by Mark Rivera, a lay minister on the church, Cherin feels she has no different possibility.
Cherin, who declined to make use of her final title to guard her daughter’s privateness, filed a lawsuit Wednesday (Might 18) in Kane County, Illinois, in opposition to Christ Our Gentle Anglican Church. The lawsuit argues that Cherin’s daughter, who’s known as Jane Doe, has skilled psychological anguish and emotional and bodily ache due to the church’s negligence, and it requests over $50,000 in damages. The case shall be co-counseled by longtime sexual abuse legal professional Boz Tchividjian and native counsel Evan Smola.
“My greatest hope is that by elevating public consciousness by way of this go well with, any survivors that haven’t been reached may be made conscious of protected avenues to achieve out to and get assist,” Cherin informed Faith Information Service. She hopes the lawsuit will maintain the church accountable, including, “I don’t see another means to try this at this level.”
The Anglican Church in North America’s Higher Midwest Diocese, the place the Christ Our Gentle Anglican church plant was situated, has been publicly grappling with accusations of mishandling abuse allegations since final summer time. The diocese is present process two parallel exterior investigations — one into the accusations in opposition to Rivera and the diocese’s response and one other into allegations of abuse of church energy.
Rivera has been charged with felony sexual assault and predatory abuse of a sufferer beneath 13 years of age in connection along with his alleged crimes in opposition to Cherin’s daughter, and in December he was charged with two felony counts of felony sexual assault in reference to a number of alleged rapes of his former neighbor, Joanna Rudenborg.
Kane County, Illinois, reserving data for Mark Rivera. Display seize
In line with the lawsuit, Cherin’s daughter disclosed Rivera had been “sexually victimizing her for months” on Might 17, 2019. That day, Rivera had volunteered to look at Cherin’s daughter whereas she attended a “church-related prayer assembly” on the dwelling of Rivera’s neighbor. The lawsuit states that not less than one particular person reported issues to the church rector about “inappropriate bodily affection” between Rivera and youngsters within the church group. The rector, the Rev. Rand York — who can also be Cherin’s great-uncle — dismissed the complaints, in response to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit additionally claims that Christopher Lapeyre, one other lay chief on the church, didn’t disclose information that Rivera had sexually assaulted Rudenborg in 2018. It argues that church leaders’ silence and failure to behave allowed Rivera to groom and abuse numerous youngsters, together with Cherin’s daughter. To this point, not less than 10 people have stated they had been victims of Rivera.
“As a direct and proximate results of Defendant CHRIST OUR LIGHT ANGLICAN CHURCH, INC.’s acts and omissions, Mark Rivera was in a position to sexually abuse a number of minors, together with JANE DOE,” the lawsuit says. York, Lapeyre and ACNA spokespeople didn’t reply to requests for remark in time for publication.
RELATED: In ACNA abuse case, mom of an alleged sufferer says she paid a worth for coming ahead
Within the wake of her daughter’s disclosure, Cherin pushed to carry Rivera accountable however stated she didn’t really feel supported by her church group. It wasn’t till Rudenborg got here ahead in November 2020 together with her allegations that Cherin stated she discovered allies prepared to advocate for change inside the church. “We wished to encourage them to do the best factor and to set protected measures in place so extra survivors may come ahead, and so anybody who had been abused by Mark had a protected place to go,” stated Cherin.
Between January and Might 2021, Cherin spent “hours of emotionally exhaustive labor” corresponding with church leaders — together with Bishop Stewart Ruch of the Higher Midwest Diocese — advocating for processes that might enable different survivors to come back ahead “so the entire church may heal from and study from this,” she informed RNS. However after the diocese selected Grand River Options to steer an investigation into the allegations in opposition to Rivera, Cherin stated she personally spoke with the agency to ask about its strategy. She left the dialog feeling that it could not be protected for her daughter to be a part of their investigative course of, Cherin informed RNS.
“It was solely after exhausting all of my assets for a second time making an attempt to get church leaders to pay attention and to care and to take acceptable motion, that I even began contemplating what accountability by way of different channels would possibly appear to be,” Cherin stated.
Although Christ Our Gentle Anglican is now defunct — on-line data present that it dissolved in July 2021 — Tchividjian informed RNS this doesn’t forestall the church from being a part of the case. The lawsuit additionally names a number of different Anglican entities as respondents in discovery, together with the Diocese of the Higher Midwest, Church of the Resurrection (the diocesan headquarters the place Rivera beforehand attended and volunteered), the Greenhouse Motion (the church planting group that oversaw Christ Our Gentle Anglican) and the denomination itself.
“We consider that the proof will set up that every of those entities performed a task in creating the atmosphere and offering the alternatives for Mark Rivera to sexually victimize our shopper’s baby,” Tchividjian stated in an e-mail.
As Cherin seeks to carry the church accountable, she says a very powerful factor is making certain one thing like this by no means occurs once more.
“My objective on this has at all times been to forestall different households from going by way of what we went by way of,” she stated.
RELATED: ACNA bishop, alleging ‘non secular assault,’ makes attraction for his return