(CP) Nearly three months after he confessed to sexual misconduct and resigned as the primary teaching pastor of one of Canada's largest megachurches, police arrested and charged Bruxy Cavey with sexual assault.
Police in Hamilton, Ontario, announced in a statement Monday that they arrested the 57-year-old on May 31 after an investigation into reports of a sexual assault that occurred while he served as primary teaching pastor at The Meeting House Church from 1996 to 2021.
The church is headquartered in Oakville and has multiple campuses in the Greater Toronto area.
"Hamilton Police believe that there may be more victims and encourage anyone with information to come forward," the Hamilton Police Service stated.
Potential victims are urged to contact Detective Constable Jeremy Miller at 905-540-5050 or Detective Sergeant Jennifer Currie at 905-546-4962.
"Hamilton Police want all survivors of sexual violence to know that we believe them and we will respect their choice when and how they report an incident," the police added.
Before Cavey's resignation in March, an independent investigation launched in December concluded he had abused his power at the church.
"The investigator determined that Bruxy had maintained a sexual relationship with the victim, an adult woman, in violation of The Meeting House policy and the Handbook of Faith & Life of Be in Christ Church of Canada," Maggie John, chair of the church's overseers board, announced in a March update.
In the aftermath of Cavey's arrest, The Meeting House scheduled a community gathering at the church from 7:00 – 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday to enable the congregation to "worship and pray, take stock of where we are as a church, and share where we sense God is calling us together in this season."
"While we plan to review a summary of the ongoing investigations and host a brief Q & A, our time will be focused on prayerfully committing to the difficult work of understanding and learning from our history as a church (the pain and the beauty), and charting our next steps together," the event announcement reads.
Cavey, who authored popular books like The End of Religion: Encountering the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus, helped fuel The Meeting House's rise to megachurch status.
According to the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, the church claimed more than 5,000 members across 21 campuses in the larger Toronto metropolitan area. The former megachurch pastor has been released with conditions and is scheduled to appear in court on Monday, June 27.
In his confession of his sexual misconduct posted on his blog in March, Cavey apologized for keeping his sin, which he characterized as an affair, secret. He noted that as soon as he was asked about his actions by church leadership, he owned up to it.
"When our church leadership first talked to me about this I confessed. I was asked not to talk about it publicly until an official and external, third-party investigation could be completed, and our overseers could communicate the findings," he wrote.
Former Meeting House Pastor Danielle Strickland, who resigned in solidarity with Cavey's alleged victim, read aloud a statement from the unidentified woman involved with Cavey on social media in March.
"This began during a pastoral-counseling relationship when I was 23 and he was 46," the woman recalled. "I was in crisis and trusted him. And I did not, nor could I, consent to a sexual relationship with him."
"This, for me, was not an extramarital relationship or affair," she said. "It was a devastating twisting of pastoral care into sexual abuse."
