Texas megachurch pastor Robert Morris, who Donald Trump once named as a spiritual adviser to his administration, announced he was stepping down from Gateway Church amid allegations he molested a 12-year-old girl in the 1980s.
The resignation comes days after Morris, 62, seemingly admitted to molesting the girl in a statement to The Christian Post. In that statement, he conceded that he engaged in “inappropriate sexual behavior” with a “young lady” when he was already married with a child in his early 20s.
Morris didn’t mention the girl’s age—but his alleged victim, Cindy Clemishire, told the religious watchdog blog The Wartburg Watch on Friday that she was only 12 when she was first sexually abused by Morris on Christmas Day in 1982. She claimed that he invited her into the room he was staying in at her family home during a visit, and touched her inappropriately on her breasts and “under her panties.”
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Morris ordered her to keep quiet about the molestation “because it will ruin everything,” Clemishire told the publication.
The abuse allegedly continued for four years before the teenager confided in a close friend, which prompted Morris’ wife to learn of what took place. That forced Morris to briefly stepped down from the ministry, but the nitty-gritty details of what took place were never made public until now.
“It was kissing and petting and not intercourse, but it was wrong,” Morris said of the relationship to the Christian Post.
Upon returning to the pulpit, Morris gained a large following as a preacher and, apparently, caught the eye of Trump, who named him to a spiritual advisory board in 2016.
Morris’ now-former church, located just outside Fort Worth, has over 100,000 attendees each weekend, it claims on its website.
