The Church Times reports: New working group to look at issues raised by Soul Survivor scandal
AFTER the exposure of “appalling practices and a shocking abuse of power” at Soul Survivor, in reviews by the National Safeguarding Team (NST) and Fiona Scolding KC, a group is being formed to carry out further work, the Bishop of Stepney, Dr Joanne Grenfell, the lead bishop for safeguarding, said this week.
The working group will look at ordination processes, clergy training and supervision, and safeguarding and governance in church-plants, bishop’s mission orders (BMOs), and mission charities that have an Anglican focus to their work…
The article refers to recent correspondence between a group of General Synod members and the Bishop of Stepney.
See letter to the Bishop of Stepney. And her reply.
Some background. At General Synod in July a motion was proposed by Robert Thompson but this was substantially amended by Bishop Joanne. See here and then here for the briefings prepared at that time, and over here for the Order Paper containing the motions. The outcome is recorded in the Business Done report.
Today on X (formerly Twitter) Robert Thompson has written this.
Many people refused to get involved with the Scolding Review because of the obvious lack of independence, and the ToR drawn up by SSW. Many were very surprised that Fiona felt able to accept those ToR. Certainly her treatment of victims showed none of the understanding or appropriateness demonstrated by Sarah Wilkinson. A real test of this new initiative will be whether those who refused to take part in the Scolding Review believe that any future process will be independent, fair and trustworthy. Obviously if the Working Group is stacked full of the same Church insiders, whose own very reputations… Read more »
Simon the bishops are in the midst of an existential crisis about almost everything: queer people; LLF; the CofE’s entropy; the collapse in vocations; dioceses financially on the bones of their backsides; clergy bailing out quicker than you can say “early retirement”. Survivors sadly won’t get anything more than warm words from the hierarchy. It’s a shameful state of affairs but no less true for that.
One thing I have noticed now I am retired is how many retired clergy aren’t taking up PTO’s
Include me in that. Once I retire I will have nothing to do with this rancid organisation.
David when we’re ordained we become part of the institution and so we tend to evaluate our role with institutional matters in mind. The flock we were called to shepherd are just as delightful as they ever were in my experience.
I have a PtO because I love that part of the CofE – the common all garden country parish. The local suffragan bishop whilst from a very different tradition is utterly genuine and I like her. As to the rest of the CofE …
If they were forced to retire courtesy of one of the CofE’s various exemptions from the Equality Act is it that surprising?
This old chestnut keeps cropping up. The C of E isn’t mentioned once in the Equality Act. The provisions about religious belief and religious organisations apply equally to all Christian denominations and to other faiths.
Thanks for your reply but I was not aware that I had suggested otherwise. I had assumed that the clergy in question were retired from the CofE, which is allowed to discriminate against people with certain characteristics otherwise protected under the Equality Act; as I understand it these include religion & belief, and sexual orientation. As you rightly say, this is common to other religious organisations, although I believe it is the case that the Church of England is unique in that it is positively *illegal* for its clergy to marry people of the same sex, whereas other religious officials… Read more »
The Equality Act and the C of E Measure to which you refer are two entirely separate pieces of legislation. You only mentioned the Equality Act and I responded accordingly – it contains no exemption specific to the C of E.
Once again I am not arguing your point, and I would gladly amend my previous statement to refer to the CofE’s *effective* exemptions from the Equality Act. The issue I was responding to was the numbers of retired clergy taking up PTO, and the point I was making was that this may be affected by the fact that their retirement is forced; ie the CofE is legally allowed to discriminate against them on the grounds of age. Other employers are not allowed to do this, due to the Equality Act, but even if they were, would it be surprising if… Read more »
If the Church of England had owned the Titanic: A Statement by Bishop Jonah Whitestar on the recent loss of the Titanic I and my fellow Board members would like to express our deep regret on the recent sinking of the Titanic. We do intend to make sure that lessons are learned although none of us feel that any blame can be laid at any particular person’s door, and no one will be offering their resignation over this. We have announced that Captain Fiona Scolding, who has an outstanding record of investigating incidents of this kind arising from her association… Read more »
Shirley – Brute Ismay, the original Coward of the Titanic, would be proud of your stepping into his shoes. Say no more!
As the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry has shown in all its grisly detail, hapless, incompetent captains of the faithful band can easily coast through high-profile organisations, collect handsome salaries and perks on the way, and leave with their pensions intact, while hoping nobody spots the leaks below deck that they have seen with their own eyes and had a hand in causing. In contrast, the CEOs of the Church of England are doubly secure in that they are, in effect, shareholders of a £10bn central endowment fund (unlike rank-and-file parish clergy) – as well as being office-holders rather than… Read more »
Brillian, Shirley. Please may I reproduce this freely.
Of course you may
It is good to see Robert continuing to openly communicate about this on social media. As he points out repeatedly, without that platform this may well have stayed hidden from view. Therefore sad to see, yet again, complaints from other clergy that he should not be discussing this on Twitter. The church has a long way to go here, a long, long way. As someone who was put in deliberate danger of abuse as a young person by the church, I believe we need to fully and openly explore, atone for and learn from all instances of abuse regardless of… Read more »