The BBC has two articles tonight reporting on this:
East Sussex council: Children ‘unsafe in Chichester diocese’
Social care chiefs do not believe children’s safety is assured within services provided by the Diocese of Chichester, letters have revealed.
BBC South East Today obtained copies of the letters from East Sussex County Council to the Archbishop of Canterbury under the Freedom of Information Act.
The correspondence called for the immediate suspension of the Bishop of Lewes, the Right Reverend Wallace Benn.
Neither the Church of England or Bishop Benn have commented…
And Letters to archbishop raise Chichester diocese child safety fears has a video report with considerably more detail about the extensive correspondence with Lambeth Palace staff.
According to the report, the Council wrote of Benn: ‘His position as bishop is plainly untenable until these matters are fully investigated.’ Lambeth Palace replied: ‘Any process of suspension involves us jumping through several hoops and we are by no means certain that the evidence for such a step will be sufficient. ‘I would add that the Church is not like other organisations in terms of employment arrangements.’ No-one is advocating haste, but we arrest citizens before trying them. We suspend teachers and doctors pending further investigation. It halts any possibility of recurrence and facilitates evidence gathering. If the Bishop’s… Read more »
Bp Benn is still in post, even though his retirement was due on 31st August and his name is still on the diocesan website.
I totally agree with David. Whatever cloth-eared bubble-inhabitant in Lambeth wrote “the Church is not like other organisations in terms of employment arrangements” is going the fastest way to ensure that the church will be treated like other organisations, and that soon: by UK or European courts if not by Parliament. This may be good or bad but it is presumably not what the C of E wants. It should have supported, not opposed, the “ministerial exemption” it was offered in the Equality Bill 2010. by defeating that, it is open to court rulings on what posts must be subject… Read more »
I too am puzzled. A suffragan bishop in London was asked to withdraw from public duties until further notice after making tactless remarks on Facebook about the royal family, though he was later allowed to resume his work. Why can a suffragan bishop in Chichester not be suspended after far more serious allegations?
Savi – The suffragan bishop you refer to agreed to take a leave of absence – in technical, legal terms he was not suspended. There appear to be no legal grounds to suspend a clergyman other than under the statutory processes contained within the relevant legislation (Clergy Discipline Measure 2003) which do require a particular process to be followed. Without knowing the EXACT particulars of the complaints made against the Bishop, one cannot know whether a pre-determination suspension can be applied. Of course, Parliament (through the Joint Ecclesiastical Committee) will have deemed the CDM 2003 “expedient” – ie approved this… Read more »
Also, since Wallace Benn had agreed to retire by the end of August, why has an acting suffragan for Lewes not been appointed to help clean up the mess, support survivors of abuse and restore the church’s credibility?
In any case, as far as I am aware, clergy can be suspended while disciplinary proceedings are taking place(http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1191059/code%20of%20practice%20issued%20feb%202011.pdf sections 216-230). But maybe I have misunderstood.
Beyond disgraceful. What the heck were Lambeth staff thinking to respond like this? Honestly it beggars belief.Time for a total changing of the guard.
Tommiaquinas,
are you saying that even if the Diocese had wanted to be firmer, it would have had its hands tied behind its back?
Is there really nothing a Diocese can do in a situation like this?
Erika, I’ve looked again at the Code of Practice, helpfully provided by Savi. Immediate suspension only seems possible if the person has been arrested, having been suspected of committing a criminal offence. Otherwise you have to await the Registrar’s report – which is a stage in the process a few weeks further down the track. I also note that the section of the CoP referred to be Savi is stated to apply to Priests and Deacons only, not (apparently) to Bishops. I’m not saying that the Diocese (or Lambeth) could not have acted more firmly. I’m just pointing out that… Read more »
Tommiaquinas,
thank you.
It seems that the Clergy Discipline Measure simply does not apply to Bishops. There seems to be an assumption that Bishops do not require discipline.
But if it is a blank canvass or a grey area, could not a case be made for saying that every Bishop is first and foremost a priest and that he therefore comes under the stipulations of the CoP?
Of course, it would have to be decided who hears the complaint, as in the CDM the Bishop is the highest arbiter, but that does not seem to be an insurmountable problem.
Erika, No, the CDM does apply to Bishops. The complaint is made to the Archbishop of the relevant province. There IS provision for suspension of Bishops in the Clergy Discipline Rules (rules 85-87 for those playing along at home), on the same basis as for Priests. So unless he was arrested, there was no legal basis for immediate suspension, though there may subsequently have been a basis for suspension once the Registrar’s report had been received by +Rowan. What’s now clear in my mind is that all such decisions had to be made at Provincial level. There was not legal… Read more »
The CDM certainly applies to bishops, but I am not enough of an expert to know how it applies and when.
With regard to ‘Proceedings against bishops and archbishops’ in the Clergy Discipline Rules 2005 (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2005/2022/pdfs/uksi_20052022_en.pdf, sections 85-88), section 81 states that ‘Subject to rules 82 to 90 these rules apply to proceedings against bishops and archbishops under the Measure as they apply to priests and deacons’. As with priests, two sets of circumstances are covered: ‘suspension of a bishop or archbishop during proceedings’ (85) and ‘suspension of a bishop or archbishop following arrest’ (86). While a Registrar’s report is required for the former, given that the diocesan independent Safeguarding Advisory Group had made a complaint against Wallace Benn by November… Read more »
Erika, The Clergy Discipline Measure does apply to bishops. The Vicar-General’s Court has jurisdiction (6.2). In the case of a bishop, the registrar of tribunals would still conduct the preliminary scrutiny of the complaint (11.2). After the registrar has completed the preliminary report, the Archbishop has 5 options (12.1): a) he may take no further action or, b) he may, if the respondent consents, direct that the matter remain on the record conditionally or, c) he may direct that an attempt to bring about conciliation or, d) he may impose a penalty by consent or, e) he may direct that… Read more »
Note that the interim report on the visitation of Chichester does suggest that the criteria for suspension do need to be revisited. In many cases, as apparently in this one, this is only possible with the consent of the person being investigated unless a high threshold is reached.
Thank you everyone.
So the one question that remains for me is why the Bishop would not offer to stand aside until the investigations had been concluded.
It would be the honourable thing to do and one of the few things that could inspire at least some confidence.
As I recall from earlier days, the Bishops tended to presume the power to suspend in suitable cases, but took care never to use the word; ‘Revd X has been required to take time away from [his] duties …’
The priests concerned never quibbled, since a challenge to that authority was not going to be in their interests. And by the time that the situation had gotten that far, they needed the time.
It is, I believe, highly unusual for a director of children’s services and head of safeguarding in any area to write to an organisation advising that removing responsibility from a particular person is necessary to protect children from abuse. This does not appear to have been taken as seriously as it should. Of course, someone who is suspended may later be cleared: it is a precautionary measure not a punishment. Even if the institutional church were mainly concerned with its own protection, I wonder whether Lambeth Palace has properly considered the C of E’s legal position if a child were… Read more »
What about the procedure that was used to suspend Thomas Wood as Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry? Has that been abolished? Or does it involve just as much hoop-jumping as the procedure in the Clergy Discipline Rules 2005?
To answer one of my own questions: I asked Google’s online translation service to translate the Instrument of Suspension for Bishop Wood from Latin to English, and got enough of the gist to find out that Bishop Wood was suspended only _after_ a trial in the Arches Court. That’s even more hoop-jumping than the procedure in the Clergy Discipline Rules 2005.
What is it about Bishop Benn that the Church authorities seem reluctant to deal with his seeming lack of vigilance as a bishop? Not long ago, he was reported to have described the advocates of Women as Bishops in the Church of England as ‘Nazis’ – described here: “A Church of England bishop caused outrage last night by linking those who support the ordination of women bishops to the Nazis. The Right Rev Wallace Benn, Bishop of Lewes, said church traditionalists were in a similar situation to those who faced the Nazis in January 1939.’ (Mail on line – 3… Read more »