Rector Resigns After Admitting to Sexual Misconduct

The Rev. Robert Boyer, rector of St. Clement’s by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in San Clemente, resigned this week and agreed to undergo therapy after admitting to sexual misconduct with female parishioners, diocese officials said Thursday.

Boyer was also suspended from the church’s ministry for four years Monday following a diocese investigation into complaints from six women, said Robert Williams, communications director for the Los Angeles Episcopal Diocese, which includes Orange County.

Boyer, 51, who is married, “admitted to sexual misconduct and misuse of the pastoral office,” according to a letter released Thursday by Frederick Borsch, bishop of the Los Angeles diocese.

The women made the accusations within the last month. The alleged incidents occurred as far back as eight years ago, Williams said.

Church officials would not provide details of the misconduct that Boyer admitted to, but referred to a diocese policy that defines sexual exploitation as “the development or attempt to develop a sexual relationship between a cleric, employee or volunteer and a person with whom he or she has a pastoral relationship.”

Diocese officials will monitor Boyer’s progress in therapy and rehabilitation during the course of his four-year suspension from the ministry, said the Rev. Canon Anne Sutherland Howard, chief administrative officer of the diocese.

Borsch will ultimately decide whether Boyer, who has already started therapy, will be allowed to lead a congregation again, she said.

“It’s a very sad time for the diocese and the priest and the parish,” she said. “But the church must be a safe place for all who come expecting it to be that.”

Boyer could not be reached for comment, but he outlined the reasons behind his resignation in a letter to the congregation Sunday.

“I have been confronting some very painful issues in my past,” he wrote. “I have learned that most of them deal with my childhood years and the kinds of survival patterns I have constructed in my lifetime. The most prevalent of these issues involves the setting of appropriate boundaries with women. It is this issue that is causing me to write this letter.”

On Friday, Borsch addressed the topic of sexual misconduct in the church during a diocese convention in Riverside.

“In the past it has been dealt with in secrecy and offenders have gone on to repeat their offenses,” he said. “That cannot be tolerated if we are to have a healthy and safe church. . . . Too much damage is done and has been done.”