Anglican archbishop accused of sexual misconduct

United States.- A 42-year-old woman, mother of three and former director of children’s programs in a parish in South Carolina, reported the alleged inappropriate conduct of the now archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America, Stephen Wood. The incident allegedly took place in the reverend’s office in April of last year, when the man, 60 years old at the time, grabbed her by the neck and tried to kiss her without her consent, reported The Washington Post. A disturbing fact, both for the Church and the complainant herself, is that this attempt was preceded by three surprise payments: with a check, through a bank, and in cash, totaling $3,500 since November 2022. Since she had financial problems as a single mother, the woman had accepted the bonuses, including one that supposedly came “from an anonymous admirer who thought she was doing an incredible job”, but she asked to formalize those payments. Finally, the woman decided to quit her job at the parish. That happened in June 2024, two months after the incident and just before Stephen Wood was elected archbishop, that is, the supreme leader of that Christian congregation in the USA and Canada.

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“I was devastated when he became archbishop. It was the bishops’ responsibility to investigate him, and they failed miserably,” the woman confessed.

His accusations, formally presented within the congregation, may lead to an ecclesiastical trial. An internal investigation board will soon determine if the facts warrant it. A Church spokeswoman stressed that the alleged incident predated the archiepiscopal mandate of Wood, who is married and the father of four children.

The archbishop, for his part, assured that he does not believe “that these accusations have any basis” and expressed his confidence in the ways of clarifying the facts provided for in the canons of the Church. The affected congregation is the result of a split in 2009 by Christians concerned about the doctrinal direction of the Episcopal Church of the USA and the Anglican Church of Canada. It has more than 1,000 parishes and at least 130,000 parishioners.