The report comes from a review panel that has worked for years to investigate and document reports of abuse at Presbyterian-run boarding schools serving the children of missionaries serving overseas in decades past – from Cameroon to Egypt to Thailand.
It is possible that the incidents under investigation could involve, as victims, the now-grown children of former Presbyterian mission workers and, as perpetrators, some former missionaries or other employees of the predecessor denominations of what is now the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
In 2002, an Independent Committee of Inquiry issued a report involving allegations of physical and sexual abuse at schools in the Democratic Republic of Congo. That report found “overwhelming” evidence that a former Presbyterian mission worker had sexually abused at least 22 girls and women over nearly a 40-year period, both in Africa and in the United States, from 1946 through 1985.
That report did not name a perpetrator, but eight women filed accusations of abuse in Grace Presbytery in Texas against William Pruitt, a former missionary in the Congo who went on to work as an associate minister for Highland Park Church in Dallas. Pruitt denied the charges and died in 1999.
The report states that the abuse by the mission worker continued even after he returned to the United States and began working at Highland Park Church. The investigating report found that some incidents occurred in a Highland Park Church building or as the perpetrator made pastoral calls. His victims included adult women and adolescent girls, some his own relatives, the report stated.
Girls who were students in the Congo boarding school – now adults – reported they had been terrified of the man, who used the power of his position and both physical force and threats to keep them quiet, telling them their parents would never believe them and that “God punishes liars.”
That report found that the abuse occurred at two schools in the Congo – at Central School in Lubondai, and later in Kinshasa, at a hostel established in the late 1960s as a joint venture by Methodist and Presbyterian missionaries so their children could attend a nearby school.
Some of the girls tried to tell others about the abuse at the time.
But adults they turned to for help responded that “nice girls don’t talk about such things” or told them “don’t talk about it again,” the report states. In some cases, allegations of the abuse involving the missionary also were brought directly to the attention of Presbyterian officials, but the report describes those officials’ response as “minimal.”
One of the survivors of that abuse – Ruth Reinhold, who became a
Presbyterian minister herself – said during a news conference as that report was released that “we did not need this report in order to know we were telling the truth. We have known that all along. But we know that it is our courage and persistence which brings this truth out into the open. It’s incredibly sad that little girls had to wait 30 years to grow up to do that – that which adults around them should have done on our behalf.”
As a result of the Independent Committee of Inquiry’s work, the General Assembly Mission Council established an ombudsperson’s office to deal with reports of sexual abuse, and approved a series of policy changes related to sexual abuse. Another outcome of that investigation was the creation of the Independent Abuse Review Panel to investigate possible cases of abuse at other church-related boarding schools.
The PC(USA) has allocated more than $500,000 to fund the independent review panel’s work, according to a report made to the council earlier this year.
