The Most Rev. Steve Wood, Archbishop and Primate of the Anglican Church in North America, has been inhibited from ministry. The Most Rev. Ray Sutton, the denomination’s second bishop in the line of succession, has resigned from his positions as dean of the province and as acting archbishop in Wood’s absence.
Wood’s inhibition comes one month after ecclesiastical charges were filed against him for alleged sexual, financial, and behavioral misconduct. The inhibition replaces the voluntary leave of absence that Wood initially took on November 3, and may last up to 60 days, with possible extension thereafter.
“This action does not determine guilt or innocence, nor does it pre-judge any allegation or future proceeding,” the November 16 inhibition document said.
The ACNA announced Wood’s inhibition in a November 17 press release, which also detailed Bishop Sutton’s stepping down as dean. Sutton, who had been exercising archiepiscopal duties since Wood’s voluntary leave began, appointed the Rt. Rev. Julian Dobbs of the Diocese of the Living Word to succeed him as dean and, by extension, as acting archbishop.
In the ACNA, inhibitions of the archbishop require the consent of the dean and four of the church’s five senior-most diocesan bishops. Dobbs, acting as the new dean, inhibited Wood with the consent of all five: the Rt. Rev. Alberto Morales (Quincy), the Rt. Rev. Eric Menees (San Joaquin), the Rt. Rev. Kenneth Ross (Rocky Mountains), the Rt. Rev. Clark Lowenfield (Western Gulf Coast), and the Rt. Rev. Foley Beach (South), Wood’s predecessor as archbishop.
Different groups had called for the inhibition in recent weeks. Most recently, a November 13 open letter initiated by four prominent ACNA clergy gathered over 150 ACNA clergy signatures and asked the church’s College of Bishops to “meet in council with those tasked to make this decision and inform them of your opinion on the matter to aid in their discernment.”
Before the open letter, the complainants against Wood had asserted the necessity of his inhibition in an updated cover letter to their charges, issued on November 6. The ACNA’s Diocese of South Carolina echoed their assertion a week later through two letters: one from its standing committee and one from its bishop, the Rt. Rev. Chip Edgar. (The Diocese of South Carolina overlaps with Wood’s Diocese of the Carolinas, and some complainants have been active in both dioceses.)
Procedural difficulty in formally charging a bishop with misconduct under the ACNA’s canons, and disagreements over the role of the media in reporting on those charges, persist as contentious twin issues for the denomination. A series of high-profile Washington Post articles on the Wood matter has spurred provincial communications that the complainants have contested, including a statement by Archbishop Wood claiming that the complainants had gone “first to The Washington Post and, subsequently, through the Church’s established channels for reporting misconduct.”
The complainants say that they attempted for nearly a year before speaking with the Post to gather three bishops to sponsor their complaint, the ACNA’s simplest canonical route to charging a bishop. But of the bishops they approached, two declined to read their complaint, and two read it but declined to sign it. Bishop Edgar identified himself as one of these bishops in his letter and said that Wood’s claim, though repeated “from the highest levels in the ACNA,” was “not true.”
“I’ve written to the College of Bishops explaining to them that, for over six months the complainants sought a way forward, following the canonical structures,” Edgar wrote. “Throughout their efforts, they were stymied by a system that appeared unable to do what it is designed to do … I’ve asked the College for a unified, public apology for these disparaging statements.”
He added: “I support [the complainants] in their efforts. I acknowledge it didn’t always seem like I did—I’ve apologized to them and sought their forgiveness, which they have generously given—but I do.”
On November 17, the Rt. Rev. Chris Warner of the Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic told his diocesan synod that he was among the bishops who declined to read the charges against Wood. Warner said he suggested the complainants either wait for Title IV disciplinary reform, which is expected to come before the church’s legislative bodies for a vote next year, or use the provincial reporting portal managed by Dr. Tiffany Butler, the ACNA’s director of safeguarding and canonical affairs.
“My goal was not to delay or obstruct justice, but to help secure a process that would be more effective, efficient, and trustworthy for all involved,” Warner wrote. “I feared we might otherwise find ourselves in another slow, confusing, or harmful legal matter that could drag on for years.”
Sutton’s decision to step down as dean and acting archbishop also came in the aftermath of newly public disputes concerning his handling of allegations of episcopal misconduct. In early November, a group of chaplains challenged his interim archiepiscopal role and claimed that he had quashed complaints against the Rt. Rev. Derek Jones, telling one chaplain that “no such category” as whistleblower “appears in Scripture or our canons.”
A few days later, The Washington Post reported an allegation by the Rev. Andrew Gross, the ACNA’s former communications director, that Sutton and Wood had discussed forming a “bishop-friendly” Board of Inquiry—the body that decides whether an episcopal misconduct complaint should go to trial—in the event of charges coming against Wood.
Sutton told the Post he “firmly den[ied] that any such conversation ever occurred,” but he revised his statement in the church’s November 17 announcement of his resignation as dean. “My intent was to express that I could not recall such a conversation ever taking place,” Sutton said, “and I apologize for stating that incorrectly.”
Sutton also attributed his need to resign from the “weighty responsibilities” of service as Dean to “serious recurrence of the back issues that had led to [his] needing spinal fusion surgery” in late 2023. One chaplain told The Living Church that Sutton cited forgetfulness associated with the surgery when explaining why he had not acted on a complaint against Jones.
Though he resigned as dean, Sutton, who is 75 years old, remains the Presiding Bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church (a subjurisdiction of the ACNA) and the Bishop of the Diocese of Mid-America. In September, the Reformed Episcopal Church’s synod held a special meeting to eliminate a canonical age cap of 75 on its Presiding Bishop position for the purpose of retaining Sutton, its bishops calling him “the only man present among us suitable” to serve in the role.
Even with changes in personnel, the Wood matter is unlikely to be resolved quickly. Kate Harris, an ACNA spokeswoman, confirmed to TLC that Dobbs has assumed archiepiscopal duties for the duration of the Wood matter, but the complainants have expressed concern about its next procedural steps, which involve a Board of Inquiry that Sutton had appointed before stepping down.
One complainant told TLC that Sutton’s revised statement of not recalling discussions about making the board “bishop-friendly,” combined with continued involvement of provincial staff serving at Archbishop Wood’s pleasure, has eroded the complainant’s confidence in the board’s steps for determining whether the charges merit trial.
“The timeline of the [Board of Inquiry] historically has been about six to eight weeks, but it can sometimes take longer depending on scheduling and coordinating calendars, [and the] members cannot be shared to protect them from emails and lobbying of favor or bias,” Butler said in email to the complainants reviewed by TLC. Denominational canons specify that five priests and five adult ACNA members sit on a Board of Inquiry.
Some have praised the ACNA’s bishops for inhibiting Wood, including the Rt. Rev. Felix Orji, Bishop of the Diocese of All Nations, who called it “indicative of the fact that the [ACNA] takes the holiness and discipline of the Church seriously as it should” in a now-unavailable Facebook status.
Others see it as late in coming. The Rev. Canon Kendall Harmon, a longtime leader of the Anglican realignment in South Carolina, told Jeff Walton of the Institute on Religion and Democracy that the College of Bishops is “starting to do the right thing,” adding that “communication and transparency need to be vastly improved, and quickly.”
“Apologies have only come from bishops after significant public pressure has been applied. These are the right actions, but they’ve only come under duress,” a Wood complainant told TLC. “That does not give us much hope in our bishops.”
“There has to be more than apologies,” the complainant said. “They have to bear fruit in keeping with repentance.”
Arlie Coles is a lay Anglican from the Diocese of Dallas who writes about modern Episcopal history and polity. She is also a machine-learning researcher serving on General Convention’s Task Force on Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property.
