Immanuel Reformed Presbyterian Church’s former pastor, Jared Olivetti, had his ordination and elder status officially revoked by the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America (RPCNA) last week after an investigation determined he mishandled child sex abuse allegations within the church.
Immanuel recorded an attendance of 137 members in 2018, making it the fifth-largest reformed Presbyterian congregation in the state.
In addition to Olivetti’s defrocking (the removal of a clergy’s rights to exercise their functions in the ordained ministry), his church membership privileges were also suspended, meaning that the former pastor will not be allowed to partake in the sacraments, such as communion.
According to the announcement sent to the IndyStar regarding the investigation, Olivetti’s church membership privileges will not be reinstated until “penitence and new obedience on his part has shown him worthy of the exercise of those privileges, and until this Court restores his ordination.”
The West Lafayette, Indiana pastor resigned along with three other church elders in January after he was suspended by the denomination.
Last December, the IndyStar released a report accusing the now defrocked Olivetti of protecting an underaged relative from an investigation relating to the sexual abuse of multiple children, within the church and outside the church.
An order by a Tippecanoe County juvenile court revealed at least eight of the fifteen children abused by the pastor’s relative belonged to families within the church. The sexual abuse, which occurred both on and off the church’s property, took place between the spring of 2019 and March 2020.
The young victims reported that their abuser inappropriately touched them both over and under their clothing and additionally made oral-to-genital contact and penetration.
The IndyStar reported that a juvenile judge found the underaged abuser to be “delinquent on what would be multiple felony counts of child molesting and was remanded to a residential facility.”
The Synod commission (a Presbyterian ecclesiastical court above the presbyteries that is subject to the General Assembly) was prepared to tell Olivetti, “May God have mercy upon you, not only because your sin is real, but because Christ’s mercy is great,” but the pastor did not attend the trial or the verdict reading.
They found Olivetti guilty of failing to conduct himself “in a way that was above reproach…resulting in distrust and disunity within the church, threatening dishonor in the name of Jesus Christ, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, Immanuel Reformed Presbyterian Church, and himself,” as well as other counts.
