TEC Sidebar: The Title IV Intake Officer
Does the Intake Officer have discretion to choose a "pastoral way"?
Let’s talk about Intake Officers in the Episcopal Church.
If you need to report potential misconduct by an Episcopal cleric, the first step in that process is getting your complaint on the desk of an Intake Officer. Each diocese has at least one, to handle complaints about priests and deacons of that diocese; and there is one at the TEC level as well to handle complaints about bishops. You can inform the Intake Officer of your complaint “in any manner and in any form”1 — call, text, email, whisper, carrier pigeon — and any cleric who receives an allegation is mandated to report it to the Intake Officer as well.2 The Intake Officer is the top of the funnel of the Title IV process that TEC uses to deal with clergy misconduct.
So what does the Intake Officer do once a complaint lands on their desk? What should the Intake Officer do once a complaint lands on their desk?
That’s the subject today.
A pastoral way?
This topic has passed into discussion recently because of Bp. Todd Ousley, who has been nominated by the diocese of Wyoming to be their provisional bishop in the aftermath of their own bishop being defrocked following misconduct. Bp. Ousley, who used to be the bishop for the Office of Pastoral Development as well as the Intake Officer for bishop complaints, has faced sustained questioning by Wyoming about his own previous handling of Title IV matters. Most recently, Bp. Ousley was mandated to retake Title IV training and apologize to complainants harmed by his handling, as Intake Officer, of allegations regarding Bp. Prince Singh.
Complaints had come to former Presiding Bishop Michael Curry about Bp. Singh in December 2022. Bp. Curry informed Bp. Ousley of the allegations, but from December 2022 to June 2023, Bp. Ousley did not initiate Title IV proceedings. Bp. Curry failed to press Bp. Ousley to do so, resulting in the complaint against them both.
In a video published by the Standing Committee of Wyoming on January 29, Bp. Ousley described the events this way (transcript here, emphasis mine):
My assessment, and Bishop Curry's assessment at the time that the complaints came in, was that this was a family matter … [but] as time went on, it became apparent that trying to handle this pastorally and trying to deal with it as an internal family matter was not acceptable to the Singh family, and so Title IV charges were filed against me and against Bishop Curry for failure to respond appropriately, pastorally, and to follow a very narrow reading of the Intake Officer's role: to always write a report. I would contend that, and will continue to contend, that the Intake Officer must have pastoral discretion to to deal with these matters early on in a pastoral manner, or go straight to the report and a judicial handling.
Wyoming picked up on the dichotomy Bp. Ousley laid down between “pastoral” and “judicial” solutions to misconduct complaints. At their second Q&A session on February 8, Wyoming asked, and Bp. Ousley answered (transcript here):
Q: … please explain what you meant by the "pastoral way" or the "judicial path" in relation to Title IV guidelines. Does the Intake Officer and the bishop have discretion to decide which path to take? And can this process be better defined in Title IV?
A: … What I found in Title IV is that most situations that come in are of a nature that, just listening to people and getting some folks into conversation with one another can can affect the healing and the reconciliation, or at least get it along that pathway. So I — that's the "pastoral approach." The "judicial approach" is taking it, not thinking anything about it beyond "these are just the facts that have been presented, or the assertions that have been presented;" write up an intake report, and send it to the Reference Panel. That kind of approach does need to happen with some kinds of situations because the facts are so clear and, in particular in situations that are highly volatile and highly inflammatory, or where people and groups may be in danger, you've got to go that kind of route in the beginning while also keeping a pastoral mind on it. But most things are situations that — where people have just gotten crossways; there's been a misunderstanding, and if they're given an opportunity to bring those misunderstandings together, and some assistance to work through it, most of the time they can be resolved without having to resort to the judicial processes.
For Bp. Ousley, the Intake Officer has and must continue to have discretion, at the moment of receiving a complaint, to either proceed with the report in a “judicial” manner or to decide it needs a “pastoral” solution outside of the Title IV process.
Is that true? Has it been true?
The canons in black and white
Title IV itself is always a good place to start. Everyday people can and should read the canons. What do they seem to say regarding what the Intake Officer must do when they receive a complaint? Before the 2024 General Convention, these canons read:
Sec. 2. Information concerning Offenses may be submitted to the Intake Officer in any manner and in any form.
…
Sec. 4. Upon receipt of such information, the Intake Officer may undertake such initial inquiry as he or she deems necessary, and shall incorporate the information into a written intake report, including as much specificity as possible. The Intake Officer shall provide copies of the intake report to the other members of the Reference Panel and to the Church Attorney.
Sec. 5. If the Intake Officer determines that the information, if true, would not constitute an Offense, the Intake Officer shall inform the Bishop Diocesan of an intention to dismiss the matter. … [here follows procedure for dismissal and appeal.]
…
Sec. 7. If the Intake Officer determines that the information, if true, would constitute an Offense, the Intake Officer shall promptly forward the intake report to the Reference Panel.3
From a facial read, the canon appears to set up a fork in the road for the Intake Officer when they receive a complaint. First, they write a report concerning the substance of the allegations. Then, they must answer this question: “supposing that this information is true, does it constitute an Offense under Title IV?” If so, they forward the report to the Reference Panel for referral to next steps. If not, they formally begin to dismiss the matter. There is no third option for pastoral discretion or other attempts by the Intake Officer at a solution.
Bp. Ousley states that it is a “a very narrow reading of the Intake Officer's role” to suggest that the Intake Officer must always write and forward their intake report for any complaint that comes in, but in this layperson’s opinion, this is the plain interpretation of the canon.
But is this “narrow” interpretation justifiable?
A historically narrow role
Evidence for a narrow intention for the Intake Officer’s role is well justified and strongly historically grounded.
It’s a little funny to talk about “history” of Title IV’s Intake Officer, since this role was only formally adopted by TEC in 2011. In fact, TEC has only ever had three Intake Officers for bishops:
2011-2017: Bp. F. Clayton Matthews, who retired from the Office of Pastoral development after 20 years;
2017-2023: Bp. Todd Ousley, who was removed from the Intake Officer role when it was structurally separated from the role of the head of the OPD in the aftermath of bishop Title IV public scandal;
2023-present: the Rev. Barbara Kempf, who came to the role vacated by Bp. Ousley.
But to the extent we can speak about history, it is reasonable to say that the “narrow” view of the Intake Officer’s duties at intake is the intended one.
Doctors and lawyers and such
Why is there an Intake Officer at all? There wasn’t one before the large Title IV revisions of 2009. Before that, TEC discipline was largely “adversarial” — like the civil or criminal secular court system, you have two parties who must argue some case in front of a court, and someone is right and someone is wrong; and from that trial process, some sentence would issue.
While the disciplinary process had improved leaps and bounds after major revisions in 1994 and 1997, becoming standardized across dioceses for the first time ever, by 2000 there was already concern that the adversarial trial model was not the right one. A General Convention resolution passed that year that directed a task force to
study and explore other models for addressing misconduct, such as the disciplinary models used by physicians, professors, lawyers and other professionals, and the policies and procedures of other Christian communions;4
and with this, the idea that complaining about clergy should be more like complaining to the bar or to the medical board, and less like getting dragged through the legal system, was born.
Bar associations and medical boards and the like have to have a way of receiving complaints. There is some need for triage of intake, and people to conduct that triage. When a complaint arises, the receivers have to make a decision about whether or not the complaint is in scope for them to deal with. If it is, they pass it forward; if it isn’t, they begin to dismiss or direct it elsewhere. Using the associations in my home state of Texas as examples:
Under the professional misconduct model, the role of the Intake Officer is at home; and under the professional misconduct model, this role does not have discretion to assess the truth of the allegations or whether it is best for the allegation to go through this process at all. Intake is functional: it gets the complaint in the door, and more measured examination will follow.
“But wait,” I hear some objecting. “Doctors and lawyers and such are different from clergy and hurting people in the church. It’s very possible that dragging everyone through even a professional misconduct process is not the pastorally wisest thing to do. Doesn’t there have to be discretion in a Christian context before opening this can of worms?”
To this I say: yes, each situation that reaches Title IV must be considered with pastoral thought and well-being of all parties in mind. The framers of modern Title IV wrote unbelievably effusively about the importance of healing, repentance, forgiveness, restitution, justice, reconciliation, amendment of life, etc. as values that undergirded their Christian disciplinary system. But nowhere did the framers give this power of discretion to the Intake Officer alone. Instead, they vest the power to choose potentially (and properly) pastoral methods of conflict resolution, including mediation, in the Reference Panel — to whom the Intake Officer owes a dispassionate report of the allegations, so they can make a sensible decision.
What did TEC teach about this role in the past?
So that’s an argument from form. Modern Title IV is like other professional misconduct systems; therefore we should be able to draw conceptual conclusions about Title IV intake by comparing to those systems’ intake. Those systems don’t have third options for their equivalents of Intake Officers: it is either “decide the allegation is in scope and move it forward” or “decide the allegation is not in scope and do not move it forward;” so with the Title IV Intake Officer.
But it’s also helpful to look at what TEC explicitly taught when the role of Intake Officer was first imposed on the world, in the aftermath of the revisions coming into effect in 2011.
In this era, a variety of training materials and increasingly complicated flowcharts proliferated — it was necessary to somehow educate the entire church about these major disciplinary changes. An instructional document posted on General Convention’s website in 2011 provided some relevant figures:
How about the following, from the promisingly titled presentation “Introducing the New Title IV”:
“Title IV Training Material”, too, while offered to the whole church as onboarding, lacks any concept of pastoral discretion to be implemented by the Intake Officer:
What happens after the IO receives the information?
There are two things that the IO must do; write an intake report and determine whether the information in the report, if true, would constitute an Offense. The intake report should include “as much specificity as possible.” If the IO thinks that it is necessary, he/she may conduct a preliminary investigation. The IO provides copies of the intake report to the other two members of the Reference Panel (the Bishop and the President of the Disciplinary Board) as well as the Church Attorney (CA). (6.4)
…
What decision making authority does the IO have?
The IO determines whether the reported information might constitute an Offense. For the purpose of this initial determination, the IO assumes that the reported information is true. (6.5) The assumption that the allegations are true is made only at the intake stage of the Title IV process. There are many opportunities in the process for a Respondent to contest the truthfulness of allegations. And, at a hearing before a Hearing Panel the Respondent is presumed not to have committed the Offense. The burden is on the CA to prove the allegations. (19.6)
What happens if the IO determines that information might constitute an Offense?
The IO promptly forwards the written intake report to the Reference Panel (composed of the IO, Bishop and President of the Disciplinary Board.)
According to these teaching materials, the Intake Officer cannot decline to either move the complaint on to the Reference Panel or formally dismiss, instead choosing to attempt an internal, unofficial, or “pastoral” solution. There is no room for that.
What has TEC taught about this role recently?
While 2011 is hardly ancient history, it is conceivable that consensus canonical interpretation could shift over time. And while TEC has only ever had three (3) Intake Officers for bishop complaints, it has had innumerably more diocesan Intake Officers for complaints about priests and deacons. What has TEC been telling them, and what is the general understanding they may have of their role?
In 2015, General Convention, hearing that Title IV was confusing and that problematic disciplinary cases stemmed more from people ignoring it than from people applying it and hitting a canonical problem,5 resolved to create new training material.6 A 2018 product of this resolution was the Title IV website, a first-of-its-kind effort that, while sometimes itself confusing to navigate, provides good information on how the church sees its own Title IV provisions and what best practices it recommends.
The website’s section on Intake Process and Intake Officers features several talking-head interviews with Canon Robin Hammeal-Urban, who has had longtime involvement with Title IV in the Diocese of Connecticut. She says this:
… the intake officer’s job is to listen, receive what the person is sharing. They may ask some qualifying questions of the person; however, it is not the intake officer’s job to conduct an investigation. The canons are clear: if an investigation’s needed, somebody else does that later on. The canons say the intake officer could do a preliminary investigation, and I believe best practices for that preliminary investigation is to make that very narrow.
… one of the things that can be hard for Intake Officers and for the person who’s called is, to understand that the role of the Intake Officer is fairly limited and well-defined, well-boundaried. So the role is to receive information, conduct a preliminary investigation, designate whether or not the person’s going to be a Complainant, and produce that intake report. The intake report, as you probably know, goes to the Reference Panel, and the Intake Officer will have a vote on that Reference Panel.
It is not the intake officer’s job to be the companion to somebody who’s contacted them. That would be the role of an Advisor, or, if they’re not entitled to an Advisor, some other kind of pastoral response and support. So the Intake Officer’s role is somewhat limited, and it is a key piece that is somebody’s first introduction into the disciplinary process.
Pastoral discretion for the Intake Officer to not write an intake report and begin Title IV proceedings seems categorically excluded. In fact, she says, it is neither wise nor in the spirit of the canon to be overly pastoral as the Intake Officer, since it creates conflicts of interest and the appearance of impropriety:
… when the Title IV that’s in effect now came to effect July 1, 2011, I agreed to be the intake officer. I’m a canon on the bishop’s staff in the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, and I served as intake officer for the first couple of years. It’s an incredibly confusing role to be in, to be an on-staff intake officer, because sometimes people just call the bishop’s staff to complain. And sometimes I wasn’t sure if they were calling just to blow off steam and complain, or if they were calling for the intake officer. So there were some challenges in that.
Also, from — the appearance from the outside is, if I am on the bishop’s staff and I’m an intake officer, I’m one of three votes at the Reference Panel meeting. There’s the bishop, the intake officer, and the President of the Disciplinary Board. If it appears that — because the bishop’s my supervisor, I’m on staff — that my vote’s going to be with the bishop, it kind of defeats the purpose of having this somewhat independent board. So, we now actually have, in Connecticut, we have two people who are not on staff who serve as our intake officers. We have a male and female, we have an ordained person and a lay person, so there are some — there’s some element of choice for who somebody might be comfortable going to.
…
The other challenge with having a staff person be the intake officer is if that staff person’s also responsible for providing the pastoral response for everybody impacted. It can be a dual relationship. So when I go to a congregation, and I’m sharing the disclosure that there’s been a Title IV pending, it’s one thing to be there and care for the congregation; it’s another thing if I’m also a person who voted what should happen on that Title IV matter. So, being in the dual role of providing the pastoral response and being the voting member intake officer was a conflict of interest for me in many situations.
There are numerous diocesan Title IV documents around on the internet that demonstrate Canon Hammeal-Urban’s understanding — the one that is held up for the whole church as one that flows directly from the canons and that is a best practice — that the Intake Officer has a limited role that, while it may need to be duly sensitive, does not feature “pastoral” discretion to simply not act or attempt other solutions. I encourage interested readers to seek these out and, if you are an Episcopalian, to look for your own diocese’s.
A future narrow role?
Back to Bp. Ousley’s statement to Wyoming:
I would contend that, and will continue to contend, that the Intake Officer must have pastoral discretion to to deal with these matters early on in a pastoral manner, or go straight to the report and a judicial handling.
He expresses an intention to “continue to contend” for the notion that Intake Officers already have, and should continue to have, discretion to not execute either of the two options outlined above for Intake Officers. For Bp. Ousley, the Intake Officer’s role is naturally pastoral and needs room for pastoral discretion.
Is this in line with the overall will of the church?
We can find a clear expression of this will in several resolutions that issued from last year’s General Convention, where Title IV issues, especially concerning bishops, were near the forefront of the public mind due to recent shame and scandal. Here are a few from that flurry:
Bp. Ousley is the nominee for the provisional bishop of Wyoming. (The diocesan convention scheduled to vote for him or not is on March 2.) That diocese has suffered from the shocking and difficult need to defrock their previous bishop for misconduct, and is asking painful and sincere questions about their own healing when they ask questions like:
Why did you apply for this position? Why now? And why this position for you?
Why do you believe that you are a good fit as Wyoming's provisional bishop, given the nature and resolution of the Title IV complaint against you, which required an apology and further Title IV training?
[C]ould [you] please explain what you meant by the "pastoral way" or the "judicial path" in relation to Title IV guidelines… Does the Intake Officer and the bishop have discretion to decide which path to take? And can this process be better defined in Title IV?
If a "pastoral way" is chosen, at what point do you involve all members of the diocese or an Episcopal Church congregation to join in prayer, at a level of understanding which is appropriate for each individual case?
Many have felt a lack of transparency and clarity throughout the Title IV process in the Wyoming diocese. Do you believe clarifying roles and duties within Title IV regarding the options available to the Intake Officer and the Bishops to choose a "pastoral way" or a "judicial path" could be one way to build a bridge for healing and reconciliation between leadership and the numerous congregations?
And the last, most poignant question in this vein:
Will you have Title IV oversight in the diocese in your role as bishop provisional?
(Yes.)
Everyone in the church should be thinking about these questions and where they would like TEC to go on disciplinary issues. These are real issues with real consequences for large numbers of vulnerable people in the several dioceses. For this reason, the Wyoming provisional bishop affirmation is important for everyone, and deserves your prayers. Wyoming, being both numerically small and remote, may have little choice, but the larger question is much bigger than Bp. Ousley; a larger choice is being made by all in the background as we look on.
Can the church can respect the will for serious disciplinary issues, the desire to close loopholes and provide clear processes, as expressed by clergy and laity together in General Convention? Or will it permit, condone, and celebrate, despite clear expressions and many watching eyes, the arrogated choice in any number of disciplinary matters of a “pastoral” — which here is nothing more than, I am sorry to say, a clericalist — way?
2024 IV.6.3
2000-A028. General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of...The Episcopal Church, Denver, 2000 (New York: General Convention, 2001), p. 300.
“The general complaints from those who have worked in the system were that the Title IV process often takes too long and costs too much money; that church officials are often uncertain of their authority and duties; and that Respondents are often permitted to disrupt and delay the process, causing significant additional pastoral harm to Complainants, Injured Parties, and entire congregations that are held in limbo without effective resolution and closure.
“After a careful review of each issue raised, The Commission determined that in most cases, the problems described were the result of inadequate training in the Title IV process, not in the canonical process itself. As a result, for 2015-2018, the Commission seeks funding and proposes a plan to develop and implement a church-wide training program composed of online modules and offline written materials for all members of the clergy and for all persons holding Title IV offices, as well as for all others in the Church community who have Title IV questions.”
Standing Commission on Constitution and Canons, Reports to the 73rd General Convention, 2000, p. 317.
This is so good, Arlie. Thank you!